Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 72

58
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(MARCH, 1931
Our nomad Gujars are supposed to be responsible for the Christian traces in the story of Krishna, or for having spread the story over India. Why not, and why might the Krishna story not be regarded as a perversion of the Gospel of the Infancy of Christ? It is not, any. how, more remarkable that Christos should have become Krishna than that Krishna should be pronounced and written in the form Kristo in Bengal.
The Gujars were not all nomads. They were a settled community in Gujarat, Gujrat and Gujranwala, and, if they are the Guzr or Gurz of Persia, i.e., the Georgians, a most warlike race scattered in many parts in the North-East of Asia from early times, we expect them to have had a smattering of Christianity from the first centuries. In fact, they must have been among the White Huns or Ephthalite Huns who invaded India in the sixth century. Else, how did they give their name to various parts of India ? The Bollandists postulate a Georgian original for the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat. Now, scholars will be surprised to hear that in 1713 Fr. Ippolyto Desideri, S.J., reports that at Ahmadabad, the ancient capital of Gujarat, the tomb of Barlaam and Josaphat was visited in pilgrimage by Christians and non-Christians. Fr. Manoel de Figueiredo, S.J., says the same about 1735. Both Fathers had passed through Ahmadabad on their way to Agra. They do not connect the tomb with any Christian Church; and, though we know there was an Armenian and an Abyssinian Church at Ahmadabad in the time of Tavernier, we cannot be sure that the tomb of Barlaam and Josaphat was shown in one of those two churches. The tomb may very well have been in the possession of people once Christians, but no longer Christians in 1713. We are told by Friar Jordanus (before 1330) that in Lesser India (which comprised Gujarat) there were to be found here and there people calling themselves Christians, but not baptized, and knowing nothing of Christianity, who said that Thomas the Great was Christ. Were they perhaps Krishnaites? Or people who attributed to Christ (Krishna) one of the many versions of the death of Thomas, and instead placed Christ's (Krishna's) birthplace at Mylapore ?
It is said that the story of Josaphat is a Christianized version of the legends of Buddha, as even the name Josaphat (Joasaph, Budasif, Budsaif, Boddhi-sattva) would show. On the other hand, previous scholars did not know of the tomb of Barlaam and Josaphat claimed by Ahmadabad in 1713. They ought to be able to explain bow that tomb came there, or a claim to having it there. The legend of Barlaam and Josaphat states that years after their death their bodies were brought to India and that their grave became renowned for miracles. That legend also speaks of St. Thomas' death in India, of the many inhabitants of India con. verted by the Apostle who were living Christian lives, and of the many anchorets and monks living in India, who had been formed on the pattern of those of Egypt. Now, if the legend is laid in the reign of King Abenner in the third or fourth century, we find that indeed there were many Christian monks in India in the fourth century, as is shown by the Indian monastery of St. Thomas and its 200 monks between 350 and 400 A.D., and by texts in St. Jerome's writings. At the beginning of the seventh century we get the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat in & Greek text. Can we still be so sure that the priority for the stories in the legend of Barlaam and Josephat belongs to the legend of Gautama Buddha ? Or that, if an earlier legend of Gautama Buddha was utilized for the story of Barlaam and Josaphat, the entire story with the names Barlaam, Josaphat and Abenner, is fanciful ? Might the story of Joseph and his father Braudyn, which I referred to above, be only a version of the legend of Josaphat kept in olose confinement by his father Abenner ?
I do not see how we can explain the tattoo-marks of Christian crosses in Malwa and Bundelkhand without bringing in the Gujars or the Ephthalite Huns, who in the sixth century settled in Malwa.