Indian Antiquary Vol 57

SR No.: 032549
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1986
Total Pages: 290
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 13 MB

Page 138

118
THE INDIAN AXTIQUARY
(JULY, 1928
her veil. This implies that Southist women in those days used veils. But I have found no mention of a veil in the contemporary Portnguese accounts that I have seen. The term mutfak is used in Tamil for that portion of a Brahman widow's cloth covering her shaven head. It is a Tamil word meaning literally covering cloth'. The present song mentions both mutlak and cloth for covering the load.-T.K.J.]
This song contains 10 reference to the coming of a bishop with Thomas Cana. The fact is that our Portuguese historians are silent about the bishop who came with Thomas Cana, a point which requires further examination.
But the majority of the Malabar accounts agree in bringing a bishop along with Thomas Cana and in calling him Mr Joseph.-T.K.J.]
On Document No. 4. Lines 1-4. It is difficult to believe that, if Mylapore had a bishop, Malabar had none or was neglected, or that John, Bishop of All-Persia and Great India, who was present at the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325), would have neglected Malabar and Coromandel, if they were in need, or again that the Parsio of St. Thomas is wrong when it states that the see of St. Thomas still flourished at Andranopolis (Cranganore). It requires more study before we can explain the coming of a bishop of Edessa or some other part of Mesopotamia in A.D. 345. Were some of the Christians of Malabar at loggerheads with the bishops of Mylapore, Andranopolis or Persia? [But to judge from The Acts of Thomas (c. 200 A.D.) the earliest St. Thomas documont, Andirapolis was outside modern India altogethor.-T.K.J.)
Line 4. The mention of Baghdad offers a clue to the antiquity of the song. Baghdad was built in 4.1). 762 or 764 near Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The Abassid Khalifs reigned there till 1258, when the place was sacked by Hulagu Khan. Marco Polo (c. 1293) says that the Bishop of the Isle of Males and the Isle of Females (Maldives ?) is subject to the Archbishop of Sokotra and the latter to the great Archbishop of Baudas (Baghdad). Cf. Yule, Marco Polo, II (1875), 396; 399. According to Bar-Hebraeus (Chronicon Eccles., ed. Lamy, II. 236), Elias, the Greek Patriarch of Antioch, in 910 re-established at Baghdad the ancient residence of the Orthodox Catholicos which had been unoccupied since the Nestorian schism (A.D. 432). or. Cath. Encycl., New York, I, 2020. At what time did Baghdad becoine the seat of the Catholicos who sent bishops to Malabar?
Line 6. As Malabar was not part of Påniya, we must conclude that there were Christians, not only in Malabar and Coromandel, but also in Påndya, for instance along the Påndyan seacoast, in particular at Kâvêripattanam, whence Christians took refuge in Malabar, according to tradition, during the persecution of Manikka Vâsakar (A.D. 293-315). Arnobius already mentions Christians in China (A.D. 303-305).
Lines 12 & 13. If 'twin-born 'is singular, I understand that one of the Christians of St. Thomas, who is surnamed Didymtis, or the twin, was to be sent to Malabar, also that the Ciri tian3 of Malabar, as well as the Christians of Mesopotamia who were to help the former, are here represented as the sons and nephews of the same St. Thomas the Apostle. In tho time of Timothy I. (A.D. 779-823) the bishops of Fars in Persin used to say: "We there been evangelised by the Apostle Thomas, and we have no share with the sce of Jari." CJ. Mlingana, The Early Spread of Christianity in Iwlia, reprint), 1926, p. 33. May not the Christians of Mesopotamia also have considered themselves the children of St. Thomas, who had sent Addai to Edessa as its first apostle? Did they not think they had the body or at least relics of St. Thomas at Edesen? "One of the twin-born" may refer to the bishop to be sent, and Thomas Cana may be understood to decide going in his company. (See footnotes 59 and 60.-T.KJ.]
If'twin-born' were plural, I do not know what to suggest. In his translation of part of these songs, Zaleski (The Saints of India, Mangalore, Codialbail Press, 1915, p. 215), has :
One of you two brothers must go to Malabar." Zaleski refers this to Frumentius and