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 139

JULY, 1928)
THOMAS CANA
119
Edesius, his brother, and he concludes that Thomas Cana is the bishop Frumentius. We can. not accept this view. The weight of the Malabar tradition leans to the view that Thomas Cana was a merchant. He brings a bishop to Malabar, but is not himself a bishop a3 the songs here published show. [Zaleski's translation is not accurato. T.KJ.]
Line 19. The farewell is again described as taking place on the sea-shore. The Southists should have a tradition as regards the port from which they left for India.
Line 20. The term black sea' may be the equivalent of the modern lala paní (black water). What can red sea' mean here? Did Thomas and his party come through the Red Sea ? Is the Persian Gulf ever called Red Sea ? (Black and red indicate seas of various kinds.-T.K.J.]
Lines 24 & 25. Here again we have the proof that the author of the song thought there were Christians in India already. It would also appear that the new bishop made his see at Cranganore.
On Document No. 5. Lines 1-7. The Christians in Malabar had particular esteem for bishops and priests who came from Jerusalem or had visited it. May that explain why Mar Joseph of Urfa is made to go to Jerusalem? Or have we here the story more clearly narrated in Land's Anecdota Syriaca : the bishop of Edessa has a dream in which he sees the forlorn condition of the Christians of India ; the next day he goes to the Catholicos of the East, who calls a meeting of bishops and merchants ; Thomas of Jerusalem, a merchant, offers to go to Malabar which he has previously visited; he returns to the Catholicos, and the bishop who had seen the vision, i.e., the Metropolitan of Edessa, repairs to India with Thomas, priests, deacons, men and women and children from Jerusalem, Baghdad and Nineveh (Mosul), 472 families. In our songs, as far as here presented, there is no pilusioa to the dream of the bishop of dessa ; the author may have thought this required no mention, as being generally known. In that case, he takes the bishop of Urfa (Edessa) straight to Jerusalem, where he supposes the Catholicos of the East is residing. Possibly, our author takes the bishop of Edessa to an even higher authority, a Patriarch.
In Land's Anecdota Thomas Cana is of Jerusalem ; in another account from Malabar, he is of Canaan," which is Jerusalem." This too may have influenced the author of the song in making the bishop of Edessa go to Jerusalem.
Let us compare at this place several accounts about this expedition : (1) We have seen the version in Land.
(2) In a letter of Fr. A. Monserrate, written at Cochin, January 1, 1579, after a two years' residence among the St. Thomas Christians, we real? Quinay Thomas came from Ormuz to Paru (Parur) and Cranganore." (Parur . vi.
close to each other.-T.K.J.]
(3) Roz (1604) mentions the arrival in 345 of Thomus Cawaneo with 62 (in another place 72) families. Like Monserrate, he is silent about a bishop from Mesopotamia or anywhere else. 91 (4) The hiel
T.; TO "or Antioch " Jerusalem, w
. India with priests and deacons.92
(5) The Metropolitan of Edessa and King Abgar (t) orcler 336 familios to go to India in 345 with clerics and Thomas the Canaanite, from Canaan," which is Jerusalem."93
89 Mingana, Early Spread of Christianity in Dediu, reprint, 1926, PP. 43-44, or my translation in Ind. Ant. 1927, PP. BO From rotographs of a MS. in my possession.
91 Ibid. 02 From a Jacobito Malayalam Ms. in an English rolation, Trichur, 1820, in South India Christian Repository, Madras, II (1838), pp. 189-195.
03 Mingana, op. cit., 40 (paper by a Jacobito, 1721).