Father Gaspar De Aguilar: A Banished Genius

Abstract

The Portuguese Jesuit Gaspar de Aguilar was born in 1588 in Castelo Rodrigo (Portugal) and joined the Society of Jesus in 1610. After working in Goa and in Cardiva Residence in Jaffna, he was dismissed from the order because of immoral behavior. But his contributions to the study of Tamil language and grammar were considerable. He was a very well read man and his grammar (Arte Tamul) was the most exhaustive and useful source for teaching Tamil. It was constantly used and referred to by other missionaries. The aim of the present article is to reconstruct the life of Father Aguilar and to present his work, which has never been studied before. I shall discuss the linguistic and cultural features of Aguilar’s grammar in order to show how he was able to point out many peculiarities of the Tamil language, although these differ greatly both from his mother tongue and from Latin. The linguistic considerations will be made taking into due consideration the historical setting and the socio-cultural context Aguilar experienced.