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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY,
A JOURNAL OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH.
VOLUME XXXII. — 1903.
THE CONNECTION OF ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE WITH INDIA.
BY W. R. PHILIPPS. THE purpose of this note is to bring together the information contained in ancient writings
1 concerning the connection of St. Thomas the Apostle with India, and his alleged visit to the court of Gondophares.
I. - The Aots of St. Thomas. According to Christian tradition, St. Thomas the Apostle preached the gospel in India and ended his life there. And it may be mentioned here that from the end of the thirteenth century, if not before, tradition has placed “Calamina," or the scene of St. Thomas' martyrdom, at Mylapore (or Mayilappur) near Madras. This question will be dealt with further on.
For a brief statement of the tradition, we may take the Roman Martyrology, which, under the date 21st Dec., says: -“Calaminae natalis beati Thomae Apostoli, qui Parthis, Medis, Persis et “Hyreanis Evangelium praedicavit, ac demum in Indiam perveniens, cum eos populos in Christiana “ religione instituisset, Regis jussu lanceis transfixus occubuit : cujus reliquiae primo ad urben "Edessam, deinde Orthonam translatae sant."
For fuller details of the traditional story of St. Thomas, we have the Acts of St. Thomas, writings of a respectable antiquity, which exist in Syriac, Greek, Latin and Ethiopic. Their main point of interest to us is that, so far as is at present known, they are absolutely the only ancient books which make mention of an Indian king Gūdnaphar (Syriac) or rouvda opos (Greek) or Gundaforas (Latin), while coins bearing a similar name have been discovered in the Pañjab. This coincidence was first pointed out in 1848 by M. Reinand, who wrote: -"Au nombre des rois
Indo-Scythes qui régnèrent peu de temps après Kanerkės dans la vallée de l'Indus, les médailles “ nouvellement découvertes offrent le nom d'un prince appelé Gondophares. Des médailles de la "même catégorie se trouvent à Paris à la Bibliothèque Nationale .... Or les actes de la vie “ de Saint Thomas, qui nous sont parvenus à la fois en grec et en latin citent un roi de l'interieur “de la presque-fle, qui se nommait Gondaphorus .... Mais le nom de Gondaphorus ne se "rencontra, que sur une certaine classe de médailles, et les actes de Saint Thomas sont le seul “ dooument écrit qui en présent la reproduction. N'est-on pas autorisé à croire qu'il s'agit réellement “ici de l'apôtre Saint Thomas et d'un prince Indo-Scythe, son contemporain P" (Mémoire Géographique, Historique et Scientifique sur l'Inde, Paris, 1848, p. 94 seq.)
