Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 71

MARCH. 1931]
IS S. THOME IN CIVITATE IOTHABIS?
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moon. I recollect he was in one of the two. Is a hare supposed to be in the sun and a dove in the moon, as is the case for North Asia? What does the hare and the dove symbolize in Malabar? In Egypt we find both as Christian symbols in the first centuries. The dove would naturally symbolize everywhere among Christians the Holy Spirit. Why should the hare not symbolize Christ? In the West the Easter hare lays the Easter eggs, and on Easter Day the sun is believed to take three leaps on rising. We read of a hare guiding Kanishka to the Shepherd's tower, and of Krishna, incarnated as a beggar, which event was commemorated on the moon, where Oriental eyes still see the hare stirring the elixir of immortality. The story of the hare in connection with Krishna only adds to the likelihood that the Krishna story is mostly copied from the story of Christ. One of the Bettiah books says that Krishna was born in the kingdom of Kans, and that the capital of Kans was at Mylapore. Replace Kamsa by Kaisar (Augustus), and you have a confusion between Thomas at Mylapore and Christ. The death of Krishna by a hunter shooting him with an arrow in mistake for a deer is the death of Thomas, shot by a hunter with an arrow in mistake for a peacock.
Does Malabar know the symbol of the anchor and the Twin Fish? What do the Twin Fish represent in Malabar, if the symbol is known there, say as a tattoo-mark? I believe that the Twin Fish, widely known in China, Japan and Korea, appears in tattoo-marks in Central India. It would not be difficult to connect with it St. Thomas, Christ's Twin.
Does Malabar know any legend representing St. Thomas as the conqueror of a dragon near the sea, as a Nâgârjuna? Or a legend in which St. Thomas or some other saint is locked up in an iron tower in the sea? Or a legend in which St. Thomas or some other saint opens the iron tower in the sea by casting against the door grains of mustard-seed? In the West there is a story of the boy Joseph locked up by his father Braudyn in a room or prison of stone and mortar; Jesus, coming to his help, found a little hole, and, bidding the boy to take hold of his finger, he drew the boy out, "ever to be with Jesus."
We have also in the Bettiah books the story of Vikramaditya, in whose reign Sahabani was born of a virgin. Sahabani's story is modelled on that of the Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus, and it is said that Vikramaditya offered to yield his empire to Sahabani. A contest arose between them. They agreed that of the two, he would reign who would issue alive from a stone room after six months. At the end of six months, during which each was shut up in a stone room, Sahabani was alone found alive, and he began to reign. Sahabani is Jesus, and the Vikramaditya of this legend can be no other than Emperor Augustus.
There is also a legend from the Coromandel Coast about a tree which rose from the ground with the sun in the morning, reached up to heaven at noon, and was again flush with the ground at sunset. Vikramaditya (this time not Augustus, but Jesus) resolved to take his seat on it one morning. At noon, having reached the sun, he asked as his been a thousand years of reign, and obtained his request. When back on the ground at sunset, his brother Betti (other texts have Bali) advised him to sit on his throne only six months every year, so as to reign two thousand years. This story appears to come from the Vikramaditya-charitra, but it is a Christian legend, well known in the days of Marco Polo, who says that what in the West was the Dry Tree (Arbre Sec) was in the East the Tree of the Sun (Arbre Sol). Marco Polo does not, however, tell us the story or legend connected with the tree of the Sun, but we find that the legend of the Arbre Sec and the legend of Vikramaditya about the tree of the Sun are both based on texts of the Old and the New Testament. What does Malabar know in this connection, and about the brother of Vikramaditya? I have some idea that he is St. Thomas, and that the Tree of the Sun with Vikramaditya is figured on undated coinage said to come from Avanti or Ujjain.
Let the Christian folklore of Malabar be questioned on these points. We may find in it the corroboration of our suspicions, that much which is regarded as Hinduism and Buddhism is embedded Christianity.
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