Indian Antiquary Vol 57

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

Page 39

FEBRUARY, 1928)
MALABAR MISCELLAXY
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Now the question is whether the merchants mentionod in this inscription were Christian or not. They are designated as vinikar in line 2, and again as våniyar in line 13 of the original. These words come from Sanskrit vanija,34 a merchant, and were applied in old Malayalam to traders in general and to members of a Hindu trader caste. In modern Malayalam the words signify only members of the Hindu caste of oilmen from the Tamil or Konkaņa country (the Konkan).
But the vaniyar of the present record must have been Christians. The following facts lend support to this view.
(1) The St. Thomas Christians of Irinjalakkula and other places close to Talékka! are still addressed or referred to by non-Christians as Chåkko (Jacob) Chetti, Varkki (=George) Chetti, Ayppu (=Joseph) Chetti, etc. And cheti, like viniyan formerly meant both a trader in general and a member of a Hindu trader caste, but now means only the latter, except when added to the names of Christians as above. The word viniyar of the inscription could very well be replaced by chetti without altering the sense of the two passages in which it occurs. For chetti and vaniyan were almost synonyms, and Chakkô Chetti is almost the same as Chåkko Våniyan.
(2) There was no indigenous trader caste in old Malabar, and it was the custom there in olden times for Hindu kings, chiefs and villagers to construct streets and sometimes churches also, and invite the St. Thomas Christians-cither indigenous or foreign or both--to go and settle down there for trade.
Some of these old Christian streets and their traditional history still survive, and one remarkable thing about them is that they are almost invariably very close to Hinrlu temples. The chief reason for this proximity is that the Hindu population for whose benefit the traders were brought, lived close to their temple.
Another reason is that for removing conventional or ceremonial pollution from oil, ghi, honey, molasses, and other provisions taken to a temple, it was enjoined by Malubar custom that a St. Thomas Christian should touch them. To European Christians this may sound strange or appear untrue. But the custom still prevails in some places in Malabar, and the present writer himself in his boyhood about thirty years ago, used to be asked by Hindu temple servants to touch conventionally polluted provisions intended for the Chattankulantara temple about a stone's throw from his house. It has to be remarked also that the present writer's was the only Christian house near that temple in the midst of a vast Hindu population.
A third reason why St. Thomas Christian streets were located very closo to temples is that these Christians were converts from non-polluting high caste Hindus, and differed little from them in manners and customs as well as in names and drese.
That there were even inter-marriages between the St. Thomas Christians and the Hindu Nairs, is evidenced by the following passages kindly supplied by Fr. H. Hosten, S.J., from two unpublished letters in Spanish written from Cochin very early in A.D. 1579 by Fr. A. Monserrate, S.J., who, to judge from his letters, was a keen observer of Malabar manners and customs.
(1) "And that both" (the wives of Thomas Cananeo) “were noble, at least Nayr, women is proved by the custom existing in this Malavar, that there is no pollution between the Christians of St. Thomas and the Nayres, nor penalty of death, if there are between them marriages [italics mine) or friendship, all of which arises, according to the custom of .the country, for castes higher or lower than these two."-(Cf. fol. 149r, MS. XIT of the Society of Jesus).
(2) Again in his letter dated Cocbin, 12th January 1579, the Father almost reiterates the same thing: "And that both were noble, at least Nayr, women is proved by the custom existing in this Malavar that there is no pollution between theso Christians and the Nayres,
34 This word appears as banian and banyan in English, banian in Tortugueso, and banydn in Arabia,