CALMETTE, JEAN. – Missionary and Indologist, b. at Rodez (Aveyron, France) on 5 May 1693, d. in February 1740. A Jesuit from 1709, he set out for India, arriving at Pondichéry in 1726. His entire apostolate was carried on among the Telugu people.
Fr. C. distinguished himself by his knowledge of Sanskrit: he was the first to obtain copies of the four Vedas, the sacred books which the Brahmins jealously concealed; the copies he had made are preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. These texts, however, have nothing to do with the Ezour Vedam, in which Voltaire thought he had found arguments against Christianity and which is a crude forgery: the names of Frs. de Nobili and C. have been wrongly associated with this affair.
Some of C.’s letters are printed in the Lettres édifiantes; Fr. P. Dahmen published: Extraits de lettres inédites du p. J. C. S. I., missionnaire dans l'Inde, in Revue d'histoire des missions, 2 (1934) pp. 109-25.