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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ SEPTEMBER, 1928
THOMAS CANA. BY T. K. JOSEPH, B.A., LT.
(Continued from page 124.) I shall end these remarks with a note on an Italian play about Travancore and the Deccan, which Mgr. A. M. Benziger, the Bishop of Quilon, showed me during my all too short stay at Quilon in 1924. The play appears to be founded purely on imagination. I had no time to do more than write down the title and the dramatis personae. It must be exceedingly rare now.
La conversionesdisTravancor, e Dacen/regni dell' Indie. Opera Scenica del Sig. Michel Stanchi dedicata All' Illustriss. Signore Monache della Concettione di S. Maria in Campo Marzo. | In Roma, Per il Dragondelli, 1668. Con licenza de' Superiori. Si vendono in Piazza Nauona nella Bot-stega di Bartolomeo Lupardi all' Inse-Igna della Pace. Pp. 3; 162; 4 blank pages. At p. 5:
INTERLOCUTORI. Tricanoro Re di Trauancor. Clarinda Principessa gua cugina. Damira Damigella. Fidalbo Re di Dacen. Grotilde sua Sorella sotto nome d'Araminta. Cornelia Matrona. D. Fernando Caualier Spagnuolo Christiano. Alonso suo seruo. Megrane Zio di Tricanoro. Aribenio suo seruo. Girello Paggio di Tricanoro. Oruante Ministro principale di Daoen.
La scena rappresenta il Palazzo Reale in Villa. The 1st Act contains 19 scenes ; the 2nd, 27 scenes ; the 3rd, 25 scenes.
At the fourth blank page these words in MS.: Se questo libro si perdesseled il Patrone non si trouasse legerete il quitto versole vedrete chì la perso|Jo. Pioan : Antonio di Luccal 1783. Of the contents I have not the slightest recollection.
Document No. 6 communicated by Fr. Hosten. From The South India Christian Repository, Vol. II (1838), Madras, American Mission Press, pp. 191-195.
The author of a Malayalam MS. account of Christianity in India, after describing the persecution of Manikka Vasakar, proceeds :
"It pleased divine providence at length to remove the calamity, and confirm their faith. by their receiving an authentic document, stating, that the bishop of Oruoy, or Antioch, had seen a vision by night, the appearance of a man saying to him: 'In the regions of Malayalam where I had successfully spread the truths of Christianity, and sacrificed my life in the discharge of my duty, I feel much concern that Christianity should be so grievously defective, and the Christian name abused under the form of Hinduism! The bishop on awaking sent for several ministers of the gospel, and acquainted them with the dream, and he afterwards went to Jerusalem to the patriarch, whom the bishop consulted upon the subject, and inmediately an ecclesiastical council was held; and it was determined that a respectable merchant named Kanoy Thoma, or Thomas, should be deputed to the Malabar Coast, to ascertain whe. ther any of the converts of the apostle existed. Accordingly the merchant embarked on a vessel laden with rich commodities in prosecution of his voyage to the East Indies, and arrived on this coust, and visited the Christians, and his belief was confirmed by the crucifix he saw.
