II.

Mission to India

Xavier began his work in Portuguese India in 1542. After preaching with great success in Goa for five months, he extended his labors to southern India and Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), in which places he is credited with having made tens of thousands of converts. In 1545 Xavier left India for Malacca and the next year began to travel through the islands of the Malay Archipelago, where he founded many Christian communities. Returning to Malacca in 1547, he received information from a Japanese exile that encouraged him to attempt to introduce Christianity into Japan. After a trip to Goa he sailed for Japan with the exile, a Jesuit priest, and a lay brother and landed at Kagoshima in 1549. He studied the Japanese language for a year and then preached in many of the principal cities. By 1551, when he left Japan, he had established a vigorous Christian community.