Indian Antiquary Vol 56

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 151

JULY, 1927)
ANOTHER ENIGMATIC INSCRIPTION FROM TRAVANCORE
129
ANOTHER ENIGMATIC INSCRIPTION FROM TRAVANCORE.
By T. K. JOSEPH, B.A., L.T. In the Indian Antiguary, vol. LI, pp. 356-7, I published a rough copy of one line of a seemingly Greek inscription on stone, discovered in the Nilakkal forests in Travancore. There are two other lines above it, much less legible.
Here is another such inscription on the rim of a big bell, long kept unused in the Roman Catholic Church at Kuravalangâd in North Travancore. Though not one of the seven churches said to have been founded by St. Thomas the Apostle in the first century A.D., this church is very old, dating from 335 A.D. (if the Catholic Directory, Madras, 1924, can be believed). Fra. Paulinus says in his Voyage to the East Indies, 1776-89, that "the Nestorians had formerly a monastery here," (at Kuravalangad) "inhabitod by people of their order from Persia and Chaldea, who were the spiritual guides of the Christians of St. Thomas." (English edition, London, MDCCO, p. 123).
The epigraph is in embossed charccters and forms a single line of 19 or 20 symbols. The cross may stand for a full stop. It is earnestly hoped that the present facsimiles will be of use to scholars in publishing in this Journal a reading and interpretation of the inscription.
Several scholars have already expressed their opinion on the nature of this inscription. The following are some of the most authoritative.
(1) "All I can tell from the eye copy is that the inscription is not Greek." (Sir John Marshall's letter to me, dated 5th August, 1925).
(2) "So, the greatest probability is that the language might be old-fashioned Portuguese." (Prof. Ernst Herzfeld's letter to me, dated 15th September 1925).
(3) "It may well be that it represents nothing more than the barbario result of an attempt to reproduce something like TE DEUM LAUS. ANNO. MDL, in which the year number is the most unsatisfactory part." (Mr. John van Manen's letter to me, dated 17th June, 1926).
(4) Dr. J. J. Modí says it is not Pahlavi, and Dr. Zwemer, Cairo, says it is not Cufic, inscriptions in both of which characters have already been discovered in Malabar. Could it be Armenian or Himyaritic ?
1 I got a copy of it for decipherment three years ago on 14th December 1923.
3 Some of the Malabar Christians of St. Thomas entertain the notion that their church has never been under the influence of Nestorianism, and try to explain away the term Nestorian very frequently applied to the Malabar church in Portuguese and other records, by saying that to the writers of the Portuguese and Dutch periods a Nestorian church simply meant a church using the Syriac language and liturgy. But says Dr. Medlycott, some time Roman Catholic Bishop in Malabar : "By the year 130 the Christians in Male, Malabar, had been captured in the Nestorian net." (India and the Apostle Thomas, 1905, p. 199. notol). Again the Rev. Fr. H. Hosten, S.J., says in his letter to me dated 2nd October 1923 : "I know the tendoney of absolving the St. Thomas Christians of Nestorianism. It does not appeal to most of us."
Now let us hear Professor Dr. F. C. Burkitt, Cambridge. "If I may say 90, all the trustworthy evidence connecting the old Malabar Christians with earlier bodies in the West connecta them with the Neatorians, i.e., with the Christians moet numerous within the Sananian Empire."
" It cannot be too often reported tMut the Melaber Liturgy which the Jesuits revised and altered was Nestorian Liturgy, and substantially remains so. It simply is a form of tho Liturgy now best known to acholars as The Liturgy of Adai and Mari." (Letter to me, dated 4th January 1926.)
Further, "There can be little doubt that there was a time (say 9th or 10th century) when the Nestorian fully developed rite was observed by the Christians of 8. India." (Letter to me, dated 14th February 1927.)
* This is an onlargement of the facsimile opposite p. 333 of tho Young Men of India, Calcutta, for May 1926.
Seo my article on the present inscription in the Young Men of India, for June 1926.