The second necessity for the Christians is that your Majesty establish the Holy Inquisition, because there are many who live according to the Jewish … - Francis Xavier

Later on, he mounted the same iconoclastic campaign on the Malabar Coast. According to the same History, “When the whole village was baptised, Xavier would get them to pull down their village temple and break into small pieces the idols it contained.” He did this at a time the Tiruvadi Raja of Quilon had given him 2000 fanams to build churches. The poor fishermen were in no position to resist him because the Portuguese pirates were always at hand to assist the missionary. Xavier took great delight in what he had done in Malabar. On February 8, 1545, he wrote to the Society of Jesus: “Following the baptisms, the new Christians return to their homes and come back with their wives and families to be in their turn prepared for baptism. After all had been baptised, I order that the temples of the false Gods be pulled down and idols broken. I know not how to describe in words the joy I feel before the spectacle of pulling down and destroying the idols by the very people who formerly worshipped them.”

One of Xavier's colleagues in this mission of christianising the Hindus was Miguel Vaz, the Vicar General of India appointed by Rome. In consultation with Xavier he wrote a long letter to the King of Portugal in November 1545. The letter outlined a forty­one point plan for spreading the “light of Christianity.” Point No. 3 reads as follows: “Since idolatry is so great an offence against God, as is manifest to all, it is just that your Majesty should not permit it within your territories and an order should be promulgated in Goa to the effect that in the whole island there should not be any temple public or secret; contravention thereof should entail grave penalties; that no official should make idols in any form, neither of stone, nor of wood, nor of copper, nor of any other metal; ... and that persons who are in charge of St. Paul's should have the power to search the houses of the Brahmins and other Hindus, in case there exists a presumption or suspicion of the existence of idols there.” On March 8, 1547 the King ordered his Viceroy at Goa that all Hindu temples should be destroyed forthwith.

We have is in these parts a class of men among the pagans who are called Brahmins. They keep up the worship of the gods, the superstitious rites of religion, frequenting the temples and taking care of the idols. They are as perverse and wicked a set as can anywhere be found, and I always apply to them the words of the holy David, “From an unholy race and a wicked and crafty man deliver me, O Lord.” They are liars and cheats to the very backbone. Their whole study is how to deceive most cunningly the simplicity and ignorance of the people…All the time I have been here in this country I have only converted one Brahmin…