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NOVEMBER, 1874.]
PAHLAVI INSCRIPTIONS IN SOUTH INDIA.
311
probable, as I shall afterwards show, that the the Indo-Persians probably changed (like those Mount colony was established near Madras of all Indian converts) but little, whatever their about this time.
spiritual masters may have professed. ConsiThus all the trustworthy facts up to the 10th dering that, as far as we have any historical century that I have been able to find-Mani's records, they have been nearly always the
Epistle to the Indians'-the Indo-Syrian victims of priestly fanaticism and greed, it is legend of Saphor, the testimony of Cosmas in perhaps a matter for surprise that anything rethe 6th century, the tablets now described, the mains to show their history,wo need not Arab traveller Abû Zaid, and the Syrian grant wonder at the nakedness of the land. That the B, all go to show that the earliest Christian Pahlavi tablets have been preserved is the work settlements in India were Persian, and probably, of ignorance and superstition only, and is not therefore, Manichæan or Gnostic. It is not till to be attributed altogether to the Indo-Syrians. we como to the mediaval travellers that we
II. find Syrians mentioned as living in India.* The number of Pahlavi inscriptions which The causes which transformed the old Persian are known to have existed in Southern India, and church into adherents of Syrian sects seem the distance from one another of the places where to be that Christianity made but little progress they occur, is sufficient to prove the importance in Persia except in the directions of Gnosticism of the Persian settlements. At present I know and Manichæism; but these were much perse- of examples actually existing at Kottayam in cuted from the beginning, and, according to Al Travancore, and also at the Mount near Madras, Nadim (p. 77), barely existed in the beginning but it is probable that many more still exist, of the 10th century A.D., and were then much
not only in Travancore, but in other parts of disliked and persecuted by the Muhammadan India, for (as mentioned already) there are rulers of Persia. The more orthodox Syrian some Pahlavi scribblings in the caves near churches had meanwhile made immense pro- Bombay, which show that they were visited by gress in Babylonia, being patronized by the
Persians. Khalife, and were certainly not wanting in The bas-relief crosses with Pahlavi inscripmissionary fervour, and thus, both in Babyloniations early attracted the notice of the Catholic and elsewhere, took the place (with the excep- Missionaries, who took them to be relics of tho tion of the so-called Christians of St. John or mission of St. Thomas. The best general acMandeans, in reality Gnostics) of all the earlier count of them that I know is in the Viaggio Persian sects. No doubt it must have taken some all' Indie Orientali” of P. Vincenzo Maria di time for the Nestorians to get complete influence S. Caterina da Siena, an Italian Carmelite, and over the Indian churches, and thus it is difficult Papal Envoy to Travancore in the 17th century. to put the date of this event earlier than the He says (p. 135 of the Roman edition of 1672): eleventh or twelfth century A. D. The latest "La seconda (memoria) sono le molte Croci, Pahlavi inscriptions in existence are attributed formate dal medesimo, che in diuersi luoghi si by Dr. Haug to the beginning of that sentury,t trouano, tutte vniformi, benche diverse nella and as one of the tablets at Kottayam has, in grandezza, ripartito nelle pareti delle Chiese. addition to the usual Pahlavi inscription, one in doue sono venerate dal continuo bacio de' Fedeli Syriac also, I this may be taken as a confirma- Questo sono tagliate nelle lamine di marmo, per tion of that date. The practices and belief of il più bianco qualità di pietra, che hora più
• Prof. Weber has noticed in his Krishnajanmdshame Contury, published by the Haklayt Society, p. 7.) A Chris. a P AGE from a Byzantine author which refers to tian was Dewan) of Vijayanagara about 14-15.. (Abd-er. Syrian Bishop at Romaguri in India. It belongs to the Razzak in do. p. 40.). 12th century.
The Syrians (Nestorian and Jacobite) appear to have had The most important historical notices of Nestorians and very little influence over the Christians in the west coast Syrians in India which I can find are: (1) by Friar Odoricus, of Southern India before the 16th century; for the early who about the beginning of the 14th century was in 8. India, Catholic Missionaries speak generally of " Christians of St. and mentione 15 houses of Nestorians at St. Thomas's Thomas," and not of "Nestorian heretics." Varthema abrine; (2) by Nicolo Conti, who travelled in India in the (1603-8) states that a priest came to Malabar from 15th century. Speaking of Malepur (St. Thome) he Babylon once in three years only. says: "Here the body of St. Thomas lies honour. These are the scribblings of Persian visitors to the caves ably buried in a very large and beautiful church; it is near Bombay. Haug, Essay on Pallavi, pp. 79-80. worshipped by heretice who are called Nestorians and I See below. The Indo-Syrians do not appear to have inhabit this city to the number of a thousand. These Nes. the least notion that the inscriptions are Pahlavi, nor have torians are scattered over all India." (India in the 16th they (as far as I could find) any tradition at all about them
