Devasahayam Pillai was an 18th century convert from Hinduism to Christianity in the southern part of India born in the erstwhile Travancore Kingdom. He was named Neelakanta Pillai at his birth. He was an official in the court of the Travancore king, Maharaja Marthanda Varma. Captain De Lannoy's Christian faith interested Devasahayam and De Lannoy enlightened him on the faith, leading to his conversion in 1745. He is believed by Roman Catholics to have been martyred. He is the first martyr in India.
On Devasahayam's acceptance of the Christian faith,he was baptised at the church at Vadakkankulam village (in the present Tirunelveli District of Tamilnadu}, where the Jesuits had a mission. Devasahayam's conversion to Christianity did not go down well with his larger family or with the officials in the palace of Marthanda Varma.
The Tamil Nadu branch of the Catholic Bishops' Council in India recommended Devasahayam Pillai for the process of beatification to the Vatican. This led to controversy as some believe he was executed for sedition, and deny that there is any evidence of religious persecution in Travancore during that period.
Devasahayam Pillai was born in an affluent Nair-caste family at Nattalam in the present-day Kanyakumari District, on 23 April 1712. His father’s name is Vasudevan Namboodiri, hailed from Kayamkulam, which is now in Kerala state. Vasudevan Namboodiri worked as a priest at Sri Adi Kesava Perumal temple in Thiruvattar which is now in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu. His mother Devaki Amma hailed from Thiruvattar in Kanyakumari district. In the Nair matriarchal traditions of the day, Devasahayam Pillai was raised-up by his maternal uncle, and was inculcated with Hindu beliefs and traditions early on.
Devasahayam’s family had much influence in the royal palace of Maharaja Marthanda Varma, king of Travancore, and Devasahayam went into the service of the royal palace as a young man at12. His capabilities and enthusiasm did not go unnoticed in the palace, as he was soon put in charge of state affairs as an official under Ramayyan Dalawa, the Dewan of Travancore.
In 1741, Dutch East India Company sent Captain Eustachius De Lannoy, a Dutch naval commander to capture Colachel, a port which was under the control of Travancore, and establish a trading post there. In the battle that followed between the Travancore forces and De Lannoy’s men, the Dutchmen were vanquished. Many Dutchmen, including De Lannoy and his assistant Donadi, were taken as prisoners, while the rest either ran away or were killed. That battle was called Battle of Colachel. De Lannoy and the Dutchmen were later pardoned by the king, on condition that they serve in the Travancore army. De Lannoy later earned the trust of the king and went on to become the commander of the Travancore armed forces, winning many battles and annexing various adjacent territories to Travancore.
It was during their influential roles under the King of Travancore that Devasahayam Pillai and De Lannoy became well acquainted. De Lannoy’s Christian faith interested Devasahayam and De Lannoy enlightened him on the faith, leading to his conversion in 1745.
On Devasahayam’s acceptance of the Christian faith, he was baptized at the church at Vadakkankulam village which is now in Tirunelveli District, where the Jesuits had a mission under Rev. Fr.R.Battari Italus S.J and his birth name was changed into Devasahayam (means God's help in Tamil/Malayalam for Lazarus) after receiving baptism.
Roman Catholic sources allege that the Brahmin chief priest of the kingdom and members of the royal household and the Nair community brought false charges on Devasahayam to the Dewan, Ramayyan Dalawa and that Devasahayam was divested of his portfolio in the administration and was later accused of treason and of divulging state secrets to rivals and Europeans. He was initially ordered to be taken on a buffalo to Kuzhumaikkad, where he would be executed and finished-off. But the original Royal order was altered later several times to finally to be taken on a buffalo back to Aralvaimozhy border for a meaningful punishment of banishment after carrying out a series of tortures by ten different karyakkars on the advice of ministers.
Devasahayam was marched all the way to Aralvaimozhy by soldiers, over the period of a few days. As per customary in those days for very cruel criminals, his body was painted with red and black spots and he was intentionally marched through populated areas, sitting backward on top of a water buffalo (the mythical vehicle or vahana of Yama, the lord of death in Hinduism) throughout South Travancore from Padmanabhapuram palace. On the way en-route, he was daily beaten with eighty stripes, pepper rubbed in his wounds and nostrils, exposed to the sun, and given only stagnant water to drink.
While halting at Puliyoorkurichi, not far away from the Padmanabhapuram Palace of the Travancore king, it is believed by Christians that God quenched his thirst by letting water gush through a small hole on a rock, the very place where he knelt to pray. The water hole is still to be found in the compound of a church at Puliyoorkurichi, about 15 km from Nagercoil.
It is also believed that the leaves of a neem (Margosa) tree in the village of Peruvilai, to which he had been tied while being marched to Aralvaimozhy, cured illnesses of sick people in the village and around. Many more miracles are attributed to Devasahayam Pillai.
In 1752, the original order of the King and his Dewan was to deport him from Travancore, into the Pandya country, at Aralvaimozhy. He was let off in the forested hills near Aralvaimozhy. There, he is believed to have begun deep meditations, and the people from the adjacent villages began visiting the holy man. Christian sources allege that at this time, high caste people plotted to do away with Devasahayam.
Some people believe that the soldiers went up the forested hills and tried to shoot Devasahayam, but were unable to fire; after which he took the gun in his hands, blessed it and gave it back to the soldiers to shoot him to death, if they wished to. The soldiers took the gun back and fired at him five times. His body was then carelessly thrown out near the foothills at Kattadimalai.
It was at Kattadimali in Kanyakumari district that Devasahayam Pillai died on 14 January 1752. His mortal remains were interred near the altar inside St. Xavier's church, Kottar, which is a Cathedral now in Nagercoil.
Devasahyam Pillai is believed to be buried in the Cathedral of St. Francis Xavier at Kottar in Nagercoil. Devasahyam Pillai’s clothes and other belongings are kept in a church in the small town of Vadakkankulam, in Tirunelveli District of Tamilnadu State, India. They are exposed at the church on 15 August every year, the feast of the Assumption of Mary. His wife was buried in the cemetery there. Puliyoorkurichi, location of the water fountain believed to have quenched Devasahayam’s thirst, is on the Nagercoil - Trivandrum highway. Aralvaimozhy, where Devasahayam was killed, is also on the Nagercoil - Tirunelveli highway. At that spot on the hillock (called Kaattadimalai), devotees believe that rocks fell and were broken at that moment. One rock at the place makes bell-like sounds when knocked with a stone.
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