Discourses of Incorruptibility: Of Blood, Smell and Skin in Portuguese India

In 1553, the corpse of Jesuit missionary Francisco Xavier was declared miraculously preserved and shipped to Goa. How did the idea of his material incorruptness (through signifiers of blood, smell, and skin) get sustained over the long durée of the Estado da Índia? This paper examines a series of medical examinations (1554, 1614, 1782, 1859, 1952) that were issued to sanction this saint’s public displays or Exposições as colonial officials eventually called them. That these autopsy reports discursively lie between Catholic hagiography and Western medicine makes them compelling for understanding the changing anatomy of church and state relations in Portuguese India