Translation, transformation and genre in the Kristapurana

Thomas Stephens, in his Kristapurana (1616), attempted to negotiate the intercultural spaces between Christianity and Hinduism through the creative processes of translation. In this study, we take his translation of the term Vaicunttha as a place/space defining these intercultural encounters. Vaicunttha is a place in Indian mythology where the Hindu God Vishnu resides. Stephens translates “heaven” as Vaicunttha, while Christ is depicted as Vaicunttha-swami (Lord of Vaicunttha). Stephens’ translation of words such as Vaicunttha makes it clear that he had studied the hierarchical structure of the “Hindu heavens” well enough to place Christ in Vaicunttha, the highest abode of Vishnu, rather than in any lower tier of the heavens. It intrigues the reader as to why Stephens would place Christ in Vaicunttha instead of suarga (heaven). This metaphoric image of Christ within the sanctuary of a Hindu temple evokes anxiety in the native audience of experiencing a “foreign” message entering into a genre sacred to them. The present study foregrounds one “microcosm” of Christianity in Goa in seventeenth-century India.