Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 53
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications
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MALABAR MISCELLANY
MALABAR MISCELLANY,
BY T. K. JOSEPH, B.A., L.T. (Continued from Vol. LII, p. 357.)
III. Calamina. In a Syriac MS. in the British Museum (Add. Cod. 17193, folio 80, of the rear 874) an anonymous Syrian writer says: "The Apostle Thomas preached .... in India interior, and taught and baptized and conferred the imposition of hands for the priesthood. He also baptized the daughter of the king of the Indians. But the Brahmins killed him at Calamina. His body was brought to Edessa and there it reste."1 This is the earliest dated record vet discovered, in which Calamina in India is mentioned as the place of martyrdom of the Apostle Thomas. But it appears earlier in a group of undated, mostly anonymous, writings in Greek, which may be assigned to A.D. 650–750. Kalauim (Calamina), Calamene and Calamite are the several forms of this word as found in these latter writings. Several interpretations have been put upon this word by modern writers..
(1) Calamina means 'the port of Kalah.' "The word Calamina", says Bishop Medlycott, "is a composite term, consisting of the words kalah, the name of a place, and elmina, which in Syriac denotes a port. The two words joined together with a necessary elision gives the product Calamina, or Calamine, signifying originally the port of Kalah'” And Kalah, according to him is "a place in the Malay Peninsula ” (Op. cit., p. 156).
(2) Calamina means' upon a stone.' (a) "Father Kircher," says Renaudot, "pretends we must read Calarmina, instead of Calamina, and that the word signifies upon a stone; because in that country they still show a stone figured with some crosses, and other ensigns of Christianity, and upon this stone the Malabars tell you, he was pierced by a Brahmin."
(6) Baldous agrees with the above author (Kircher) in his interpretation of Calamina, that it is not the name of a place, but merely descriptive of the spot where the apostle is said to have been martyred upon a rock, or stone,
(c) Father Paulinus also interprets it in almost the same way. Calla Malabarice et Tamulice lapte, saxum rupes, mel supra, nina ex, Calla melnina ex rupe, et saxo.... Tunc ergo corpus ejus ex Callamelnina in Edessam translatum fuit, id est, ex rupe, ex monte, ex saxo sublatum, et translatum est .... Malanina ex monte, substitue litterae M. litteram C., arit Calanina, parum absonum a dictione Calamina.
The true forms of the compound words suggested above must have been, in old Tamil and old Malayalam, Kallinmel or Kallinmelé or Kallinmites, all meaning upon a stone, and Malayilninnu, from a mountain or hill..
1 India and the Apostle Thomas, by A. E. Medlycott, London, 1908, pp. 152 and 160. 3 Ibid., pp. 150, 160 and 161.
Ibid., pp. 161 and 152.
Ibid., p. 153. 8 Eusebius Ronaudot's Inquiry into the Origin of the Christian Religion in China, p. 80 (London ed. 1733), as quoted on p. 38 of The History of Christianity in India, by James Hough, Vol. I, (London, 1839.)
• Baldolus' Description, eto., ch. XX. Churchill's Voyages, etc., vol. III, p. 676. (80 in Hough's Ohristianity, I, 39, footnoto 3).
India Orientalis Christiana, by Paulino A. 8. Bartholomaeo, Romao, 1704, pp. 134, 138. • Boe the form Calamito, ante.
