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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
NOVEMBER, 1874.
appear to have been so extensive a persecution of any other Christian sect till the Nestorians got power, in the 6th century. As the naviga- tion by the Red Sea to India ceased in the 4th century, on the growth of the Sassanian kingdom,* Christian Missions must have come, up to the 16th century, from or through Persia and vill Mosene, and this is proved by facts also. The next historical mention that I know of is in the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, a Byzantine monk of the 6th century. He says: + "In the island Taprobane (i.c. Ceylon) there . . is a church of Christians, and clerks, and faithfal. . . . . . . Likewise at Male where the pepper grows; and in the town called Kalliena there is also a Bishop, consecrated in Persia." "Malo where the pepper grows' is Malabar and Travancore beyond doubt, but it is not so easy to identify Kalliena. In the sixth century there were two, if not three, places of this name. One was then the capital of the Chalukya kingdom of the Dekhan, the other a seaport on the west coast of India. At present there are two seaports which answer to the description of the last-one near Bombay, and the other near Udupi, and about 32 miles north of Mangalore. This last is now a mere village, but it seems most probable that it is the one intended by Cosmas.
About the middle of the 6th century we find the Indian Panchatantra known by name in Persia, and a learned Persian named Barzů
weh or Burzweh came to India to get a copy of it He is said to have been a Christians; but Prof. Benfey doubts it. This circumstance shows a considerable intercourse between the two countries. The next proofs of Persian settlements in S. W. India are the attestations to the Syrian grant B. T which is an endowment to the Tarissa Church at Cranganore by one Marvin Sapir Iso; the church is said in the document to have been built by one Iltavirai.
There can be no question that this deed is of the early part of the 9th century A.D., the date assigned by Dr. Hang; and though it was attested by Indians, Arabs, and Persians, there is not the least trace of Syrians anywhere to be found in it. The Israelite colony is associated in trusteeship of the endowment; a strange rebuke to tho fanaticism of modern times, and to the reckless attempts at proselytism which have long since destroyed all good feeling between the different sects in India. +
About the year 916 A.D. we find the Arab geographer Abu Zaid (who completed the accounts of a traveller and merchant named Sulai. man who was in Southern India about 850 A.D.) writing of Sarandib (ie. Ceylon): "There is a numerous colony of Jews in Sarandib, and people of other religions, especially Manichwans." As the connection between Ceylon and S. E. and S. W. India has always been very close, this notice is very important, and it is
• Reinaud, Relations politiques et commerciales de l'Empire Romain, pp. 265-9.
I am obliged to take P. Paulinus's extract from Montfaucon, as I am unable to consult the original work.
Kalliena is mentioned in the Periplus of the Red Sem (p. 295, ed. C. Müller, in vol. I. of the Geographi Græci Minores, 1855), as a decayed port. The editor of this fine edition quotes a passage from Cosmas by which it appears that in the Gth century the articles of export froin this place
chief steel (for hy v e this must be intended) and cotton cloth. This fact makes me think that the southern Kalyana must be intended, as steel appears to have been made only in the southern parts of the Dekhan, in Maisur and Salem.
& Wüstenfeld, Geschichte der Arabischen Aertate, p. 6, says: "Er hatte ein frommes Gemüth, und es ist nicht un. wahrscheinlich, dass er ein Christ war. Aus eigenem Antrieb oder im Auftrage des König's, reiste er nach Indien, um sich das berühmt gewordene Buch, die Fabeln Bid pai's, zu verschaffen: er war so glücklich, dasselbe mit mehreren anderen abschreiben zu können und übersetzte es bei seiner Rückkehr in die Pehlevi Sprache." This is based on Ibn Abu Oseibia's Lives of Physicians.
|| Conf. Benfey's Pantschatantra, vol. I. p. 76.
FI place the three very important documents in possession of the Israelites and Syrians of Cochin and Travancore in the order given to them by Dr. Gundert (Madras Journal, vol. XIII.), and call them A, B, and C.
* The pression in the original Tamil Malayalam is
Tarisd-or(asit occurs again in the same document) Tarussipulli. Tarist or Tarussd is obviously the modern Persian Tars, and also the same as Terzai, by which some sect of Christians was called in Tartary in the Middle Ages. It appears not to have been explained as yet. That the last part of the woru represents some form of the name Jesus or 1 sa is impossible. The concurrent use (in B) of i and u for the second vowel can leave no doubt that it was short, and it is most unlikely that the longiof Isa should have been shortened and then lost in modern Persian. I am inclined to think that it is a corrupt form of a Semitic word darus (as it actually occurs in Arabic study), which in the Stat. einple would bo dars, and as palli a Malayalam word) room for assembling, darsúpalli will thus be exactly translated by meeting-house (i.e. for study or prayer), and would equal the Jewish-German Schul. Tarsů in Modern Persian has the sense of prayer (according to Richardson). Drast occurs in a title of a Mandaan book with apparently much the same sense; Euting translates it by forschung.
There is a strong reason for believing that the Persian colony at Cranganore was Manichwan, in the name of their little principality-Janigraman. It is not likely that the natives would ever give a village such a name, for Mani in Sanskrit - jewel or amulet, and we never meet with the word used in this way. It is therefore in all probability a foreign word, and if Persian, can only refer to the followers of Mani. This explanation already suggested itself to that profound Dravidian philologist Dr. Gundert in 1813.
Sir H. M. Elliot's History of India.vol. 1. p. 10.
