Indian Antiquary Vol 05

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 82

64
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1876.
O thou, of all the weary and heavy laden, Rest! The cow bestows upon its helpless offspring love ; Henceforth thy name by me for ever shall be blest, Show me, O gracious mother, thy pity from above, O Supremest Being !
o Supremest Being ! Grant, thirsty, I may plange in thy fresh stream However guilty I, whatever wrong I do, of bliss,
I ask thee, mother-like, thy pitying love to show, Or else o'erwhelmed I sink within the deep
O Supremest Being !" abyss,
0 3upremest Being ! Lastly, from the second part, we extract the folKnowing all my thoughts, for ever and again lowing :-“The bishop of the Thomas Christians, Thou comest to refresh me, thou grace-bestow. Mar Gabriel, gave to the Dutch, at the commenceing rain,
Supremest Being ! ment of the 18th century, a long account of their Thou nectar never cloying, thou stream of
circumstances, from which I will only extract the heavenly bliss,
following: Fifty-five years after the birth of the Othou the good that dwells in perfect loneliness, Messiah, the apostle Thomas came to Mylapur
O Supremest Being !
(near Madras), on the Coromandel coast, and
preached the Gospel. From thence he came to MalaAll things pervadest thou, O sweetest honey-dew!
bar, preached the Gospel, collected congregations in My inward self possessing thou sweet'nest through
several places, and fixed their pastors. He then and through,
0 Supremest Being !
returned to the Coromandel coast, where he was My coral thou, my pearl, my mine of purest gold,
stabbed by a heathen with a spear, and thus ended My beam of brightness, spirit light, my priceless
his life. After some time all the pastors whom wealth untold, O Supremest Being !
St Thomas had appointed died off, and a falso My eye, my thought, my tree, my heavenly doctrine arose which was followed by many. Only stream,
160 families remained true. But in 745 (A.D.) Thou art my ether-ray, my joy and wonder
there arrived from Bagdad Christians and Priests dream,
O Supremest Being ! who settled down in Malabar. King Peramal, to Lost in myself, my spirit lies here helpless, whom the new arrivals addressed themselves, re. Like dried-up wood--and thou wilt leave me ceived them kindly and gave them land in order sapless,
O Supremest Being ! to build shops and churches. Ho also bestowed O sea of bliss, may I not plunge in Thee,
upon them many marks of honour, and the right Nor quench the thirst which now destroyeth me,
to trade throughout the whole country as long O Supremest Being ?
as the sun and moon should shine, as may be reall
to this day on tablets of copper. Thus the ChrisWhen will my sorrow cease, my fountain spring,
tians lived happy and prosperous, and the Christian And flow again with joy, my Prince and King,
O Supremest Being!
Patriarch of the East sent them many shepherds
and teachers from Bagdad, Nineveh, and Jerusalem. Why turn thy face away P All that I knew,
After the Portuguese had come to Malabar, the To get a sloser view of Thee, away I threw,
Patriarch sent four more bishops, Mar Mardin,
O Supremest Being ! Mar Jacob, Mar Thoma, and Jere Allay, who ruleil My tears of grief my soul seem to destroy; the Christians and built many churches. After When wilt thou change them, Lord, to tpars of joy, their death there came to Malabar, about the year
O Supremest Being ? 1550, another, Mar Abraham. But the Portuguese, To thee in silent worship I ever cling and twine, resolved that no more teachers should be allowed to And, like an orphan child, I long and pine, come, and guarded all the roads by which the Sy.
O Supremest Being ! rian priests could come. When now the Christians Though free and joyful I myself may boast,
had no instructors, the Portuguese spent much I still must ever wander in a dreary waste,
trouble in endeavouring to draw them over,' &c. O Supremest Being !
We are surprised to find expressions in this Like to a stalk of straw in whirlwinds blown and
translation like "the Rev. Schwartz;" as also to
find on both covers a figure of that unsightly tossed,
abortion of a hideously diseased imagination, So is thy wretched slave within this desert lost,
Gaņeśa with the invocation Sri Ganeka nama!. O Supremest Being !
In what state of intellectual nightmare the mind Bat earthly powers and kings are nought of worth must have been that first used so ugly a vignette on to me
an English book, we can hardly conceive : by what If they not humbly raise their hand in prayer accident it has now got on the cover of a mission to thee,
O Supremest Being ! ary's work we may guess, but do not excuse. Conf. Ind. Ant. vol. I. p. 229, and vol. III. p. 834, where the date is given a A.D. 774-ED.