Indian Antiquary Vol 57

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

Page 16

10
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ JANUARY, 1928
The letter is regarded as having been written in 1601, but the date of the former cannot be accurately ascertained. The present song or part of it may be of later origin than 1600, but it is certain that a similar song existed before 1600, since the contemporary historian, Gouvea, (Jornada, Bk. II, p. 87) has recorded that the Thomas Christians of Angamale amused the Archbishop during his sojourn there in 1599 by singing and playing the songs relating to St. Thomas. This unmistakably refers to Margam Kali.
Did no ancient treatises exist? Are none extant ? It is difficult to answer those ques. tions. Thêmå Ramban claims that larger works containing accounts of St. Thomas' doings were removed by the Portuguese in 1599 and that this rendered necessary some short work dealing with the same subject, and hence his attempt. This may possibly be true. Was it a translation of this work that the Jesuit Father Roth took with him to Rome in 1662 ! It was claimed that it was a translation from Syriac MSS. into Latin. If such a large work existed at all, it must have been in Syriac, and not in Malayalam. Kircher in his China Illustrata (Amsterdam 1667) has quoted from the Latin translation. The Tamil manuscript attributed to Nanapracasam Pillai (Mackenzie collection) must be a vetsion of it, for it contains traditions which are found only in Malabar. Pillai's claim that he had translated from Latin might as well be true since the Latin version alone was accessible to him. Another South Indian version has been given in my paper in the Report of the Indian Historical Records Commission. These are all independent of the Acta Thomce, for their versions are at variance with that work in many respects. And this fact cannot be so easily explained away by those who appeal to the Acta as the fountain-head of all information concerning St. Thomas' doings.
6. The New Theory. Finally, I come to the theory expounded by Mr. Joseph himself as affording a better explanation of the origin of South Indian Christianity. According to him, an unknown "saintly missionary" must have come to South India from Edessa in the second century, who must have died and been buried in Mylapore, and a grand feast must have been instituted to commemorate his memory and this must have engendered the notion that the saint lying buried at Mylapore was St. Thomas himself. While reading this, I was led to doubt if we are still in the age of legend. Ingenious men have in every age embellished and interpreted (and thereby often made ludicrous) the valuable traditions existing before them. Here is one such attempt.
This theory is not worth serious examination as every step of it is a bare supposition unsupported by evidence. Yet one or two observations might be made here. The whole thing seems to turn on the verbal resemblance between the words, "Thomas" and "Tômmus" (the name of the month in which the Apostle's feast is kept). This verbal analogy looks hollow to those who read Syriac. The name of the Apostle in Syriac is “Thômâ," and the month is called "Th'mooz" or "Themooz." These two words have independent origins and have no discoverable relation. Besides feasts are not called by the name of the month in which they are kept. It is also difficult to believe that the enlightened Christians of Western Asia were foolish enough to be deluded into believing that they were keeping the feast of the Apostle instead of the unnamed missionary, who cannot have been unknown to them. Indeed the author of the new theory admits that it is his " speculation," but it is too much to expect that such speculation is more valuable than a well-established tradition.
From the rather brief examination I have attempted above, it seems clear that the Malabar tradition has not been demolished by the searching analysis to which Mr. Joseph has subjected it. Nor do I think that Dr. Minjana's able paper on the Early Spread of Christianity in India, to which he refers, has brought out anything to discredit that tradition. It is now necessary for me to analyse the evidence so far brought forward for and against the South Indian apostolate of St. Thomas, and I propose to do so in the sequel. . See Fr. Hosten's forthcoming work. The Antiquities from San Thome and Mylapore, for such versions and legends