Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 263

DECEMBER, 1931
ST. THOMAS IN OTHABIS
233
knowledge of many ecclesiastical writers of the West concerning India was very limited, .... To some of them India seemed to represent a generic name for all the dark peoples of the East, or like Gog and Magog, to represent any Far Eastern country of which little was known."-(Ibid., p. 13.)
And "Spiegel has clearly shown (in Die arische Periode, p. 118) by sufficient references that, at least in Sassanian times and doubtless earlier, there prevailed an idea of an India in the west as well as an India in the east." ...." the territory of Arachosia which corresponds to the modern province of Kandahar, was known, at least in later Parthian times, as White India' ('Ivduki) Acuan). This we have on the authority of the geographer Isidor of Charax (first century A.D.), who, when mentioning Arachosia as the last in his list of Parthian provinces, adds (Mans. Parth. 19) the Parthians call it "White India." "-(Cambridge History of India, vol. I, 1922, pp. 325, 326.) Regarding the realms of Kabul and Sistân, the French savant James Darmesteter says (S.B.E., 2nd ed., IV, 2) that "Hindu civilization prevailed in those parts, which in fact in the two centuries before and after Christ were known as White India, and remained more Indian than Iranian till the Musulman conquest."
Now, when in 883 A.D, King Alfred vowed to send alms to Rome and to India, to St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew (Thorpe, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, II, 66), neither the king nor Sighelm and Aethalstan who conveyed the alms to Rome, nor even Rome must have had any idea about the actual locality of St. Thomas to which it was to be directed. Nor is it clear whether King Alfred meant the alms for the original tomb of St. Thomas in India. To offer it at any of the localities where portions of the Apostle's bones were treasured would have satisfied the king and the embassy, and the Pope, whom they visited and must have consulted. And we know that after 22nd August 394 A.D., when the casket containing the bones of St. Thomas in Edessa was taken from the old church to the new basilica in the same town, Bishop Paulinus of Nola (died 431 A.D.), Bishop Gaudentius of Brescia (died between 410 and 427), and Bishop Ambrose of Milan (died 4th April 397) had in their possession bones of St. Thomas in the places mentioned, all in upper Italy.-(Medlycott's India and Thomas, p. 45, note 1.) We see also from a sermon preached in 402 A.D. at Edessa on the occasion of an annual festival of St. Thomas, that “The relics of the just have gone round the world... Every corner of the earth holds a part of St. Thomas; he has filled every place, and in each place he subsists entire... The barbarians honour Thomas, all people celebrate his feast this day" (very probably 3rd July)" and make an offering of his words as a gift to the Lord, "My Lord and my God!"-Op. cit., pp. 106-108.)
From this it is not unreasonable to infer that St. Thomas's bones were enshrined also in many localities east of Edessa after 394 A.D. as they were in Nola, Brescia, and Milan to the west of it. One may infer also that Mylapore was one of those eastern localities treasuring some bones of St. Thomas after 394 A.D., the relics having been obtained perhaps from the casket in Edessa before its removal in that year to the new basilica of St. Thomas.
King Alfred's messengers perhaps offered his alms at one of such St. Thomas shrines in the East much nearer Rome than modern India. The "exotic gems and aromatic liquors," which William of Malmesbury says (about 1120 A.D.) the messenger Sigelinus brought back to England, could vory well have been obtained in Arabia or Persia.
5. The church and cross, on St. Thomas' Mount do constitute a real, conspicuous landmark in the early history of Christianity in South India. The Pahlavi inscription around the cross is most probably of the ninth century A.D., while the cross (without the inscription) may date from some earlier century, say after 435 A.D., when Nestorianism was established in Persia. (See my Malabar Christians and their Ancient Documents, Trivandrum, 1929, pp. 11-32, and Kerala Society Papers, Series 5, Trivandrum, 1930, pp. 267-269.) The