It is said to have been the first place of worship he erected, and when it was completed he went to Madras and asked the Bishop of Mylapore to procure for him a statue from Manila, an image of the virgin, in native dress of Tamil Nadu and bearing the child Jesus in her arms, fashioned after a model he had made.
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In honour of it and of the Church, Beschi composed his Tamil poem Thembavani, which vying in length with the Iliad itself is by for the most celebrated and most voluminous of his works.