Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 128

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JUNE, 1931
touch Malabar before they could proceed to any other place in India. Therefore the India of the early Fathers was first and foremost Southern India.
3. The Indian Tradition. There is an independent local tradition in India to support the patristic testimony above quoted. Three separate versions of it have been handed down, one held by the “Christians of St. Thomas" of Malabar, another by the Malabar Hindus, and a third by people around Mylapore. The first exists in ancient songs, whose antiquity cannot be accurately fixed; but the early European travellers (6.g., Marco Polo, 1292 A.D.) have recorded the Malabar tradition, and the songs about St. Thomas were known to the first Portuguese sojourners in India. The existing written versions of these traditions are not of great antiquity, but this hardly detracts from their value. Epigraphy is of little help in regard to Malabar history; for, owing to damp air and heavy monsoons, neither cadjan leaves nor paper will keep long in that country. All ancient traditions had therefore to be periodically rewritten, and naturally embellishments must have been made from time to time.
The substance of the Malabar tradition is that St. Thomas after preaching the Gospel elsewhere, sailed from Arabia to India and landed in Cranganore about the year 50 A.D., travelled and preached all over South India, established seven churches in Malabar and many outside, ordained priests to succeed him, and in 68 A.D. received the crown of martyrdom in Mylapore. He is also said to have converted certain kings, one of whom is called Chola. perumal' in some versions and 'Kandaparaser ' in others, besides many Brahman families of high position. Several miracles are also narrated. In some respects, the story resembles that contained in the Syriac work, the Ads of Thomas mentioned above; but the Malabar tradition cannot be a rendering of the Acts of Thomas, seeing that there are features in it which point to an independent origin; and this is confirmed by the existence of those features in certain early European writings about Thomas. Rather the probability is that the clever author of the Acts dramatized the simple story that came from India, spinning out many Indian names and incidents, and connecting the Apostle with an otherwise known IndoParthian King Gudapharasa. The Acts may be valuable or worthless, but the South Indian Tradition does not depend upon it, exoept that possibly it gave the theme for it.
4. The Apostle's Tomb at Mylapore. There is no doubt that the Malabar tradition has been embellished by later editors, but there is a substratum in it which is ancient and reliable. We shall here take only the story of the Apostle's death in Mylapore. At one time, this was regarded as a Portuguese fraud, but later research has considerably dispelled the doubts, and to-day it would be hazardous to question it, unless one could explain away the testimony of the numerous pre-Portuguese travellers who have written about St. Thomas' tomb there. To begin with the later ones, Barbosa (1518), Nicolo Conti(1440), John Marignoli (1350), Friar Odoric (1325) and Marco Polo (1292) visited and commented upon the tomb and the Church that stood near it and the many Syrian Christians that lived close by. Before them we have the testimony of the Muhammadan travellers of the ninth century who called it "Betuma" (House of Thomas). King Alfred is said to have sent offerings to St. Thomas in India (883 A.D.), and as no other place in India or anywhere else in the world ever claimed to possess St. Thomas' tomb, those offerings must have gone to Mylapore, if at all they went anywhere. Similarly references abound in Syriac writings about the tomb of St. Thomas in India. 'Amr, the Christian
6 Soe on this subject, Periplus (ed. Schoff); Ptolemy's Geography (ed. McCrindle): Warmington, Commerce between the Roman Empire and India and Charlesworth, Trade Routes of the Roman Empire. For & sum. mary, see P.J. Thomas, The India of the Early Christian Fathers (Young Men of India, January 1928).
The best account of the Malabar tradition is in the MalayAlam work, The Christians of St. Thomas by the Rev. Bernard, a Syrian priest. For the Mylapore tradition, see the writer's paper in the Report of the Indian Historical Records Commission (1924).