Paravar Christianity, with its own identity based on a mixture of Christian-Catholic religious belief and Hindu caste culture, remains a defining part of the Paravar life today, the early work of missionaries and in the 1540s having been reinforced by others who succeeded them and by the "jati thalavan", the latter also being known as the "little king". Kaufmann explains this Christianity as being "in effect a 'caste lifestyle' for the Paravas", whilst Zupanov gives an example of how the missionaries modified Catholic teaching to suit the Paravars by citing the example of Henrique Henriques, who told them that "in the beginning there were no Muslims, only Jews and Tamils".