The early disciples of Jesus Christ were wandering missionaries.
After the resurrection of Christ, the disciples went to different
parts of the world to proclaim the Gospel. There was the possibility
of an apostle visiting more than one country or more than one
apostle preaching in the same country. The expansion of Christianity
in the East was not the work of Hellenistic Christian missionaries
from Antioch, nor a linear progression from Antioch. It was the work
of Jewish Christian missionaries such as Addai in Edessa, Aggai and
Mari in Persia and Thomas in India. In the East Syrian tradition,
St. Thomas is the great apostle of the East. The Christian churches
thus formed were ecclesiastically independent of Antioch or any
other centre in the West.
It is difficult to present the early history of St. Thomas
Christians in India as a connected story due to lack of sufficient
historical records. But we get certain glimpses of the life of the
community in the writings of foreign visitors, sometimes in the
traditions preserved in India and East Syria, occasionally in casual
references by Indian writers, and in a few monuments and
inscriptions. No serious archeological work has been undertaken in
India in this area.
The Visit of Pantaneus in the Second Century
Pantaneus visited India about AD 180 and there he found a Gospel
of Matthew written in Hebrew language, left with the Christians
there by St. Barthlomew. This is mentioned by Eusebius, and by
Jerome in one of his letters. Born a Jew, thoroughly trained in
Greek philosophy, and converted to Christianity, Pantaneus was a
remarkable person and the most outstanding Christian scholar of his
time. He is reported to be the first principal of the catechetical
school in Alexandria and was the teacher of Clement. Clement paid
great tribute to his teacher when he wrote, "A truly Sicilian
bee, he drew honey from the flowers of the meadow of apostles and
prophets and imparted in the souls of his pupils pure
knowledge." (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol.1. p. 301.)
According to Jerome a deputation from India came to Alexandria.
Impressed with the scholarship of Pantaneus, they asked Demetrius,
the bishop of Alexandria, to send Clement to India "to preach
Christ to the Brahmans and philosophers there." (St. Jerome,
Letter LXX, The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers (second
series), vol.vi, p.150.) About his visit, Eusebius writes:
Now at that time there was a man of great renown for learning
named Pantaneus, who had charge of the school of the faithful at
Alexandria, where it has been a primitive custom that a school
for sacred studies should exist. This school has continued even
to our day, and although we understand that it was filled with
men of great learning and zeal for divinity, it is recorded that
the said person was especially distinguished at that time, in as
much as he had come from that sect of philosophers who are
called Stoics. Now, it is said that he displayed such an ardent
love and zeal for the divine word that he was appointed as a
herald of the Gospel of Christ to the nations of the East, and
that he journeyed even as far as the land of the Indians. For
there were, yes, even still at that time, many evangelists of
the word, desirous to contribute an inspired zeal, after the
manner of the apostles, for the increase and building up of the
divine word. Pantaneus also was one of these, and is mentioned
as having gone to India; and the story goes that there he found,
in the hands of some persons who had come to know Christ in that
land, the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his
arrival; for that Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached
to them and left behind the writing of Matthew in the actual
Hebrew characters, and that it was preserved up to the said
time. But to resume, Pantaneus after many good deeds ended by
becoming the head of the school at Alexandria, where he
expounded the treasures of the divine doctrines, both orally and
by means of treatises. (Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History, 5:10.)
There are people who argue that the country which Pantaneus
visited was not India and the India of Eusebius was in fact Ethiopia
or Arabia Felix. It is difficult to accept such an argument. As
Stephen Neill points out, "But there is little to be said in
favour of this view. When ships in hundreds were going from Egypt to
South India. it is unlikely that any one in Alexandria would be the
victim of such a confusion." (Stephen Neill, History
of Christianity in India, p. 39. Mingana is one of those who
deny that Pantaneus went to India. John Stewart observes, ‘
Notwithstanding the high reputation of Dr. Mingana and his well
known erudition, one ventures to differ from him in the conclusion
to which he has come." (Stewart, op.cit.,. p.106) While
we acknowledge the contribution made by Mingana to the study of
Eastern Christianity, some of his inferences and interpretations are
to be treated with caution.) Jerome is very specific that Pantaneus
was invited to preach to the Brahmans and philosophers of India.
Moreover, Pantaneus’s pupils Clement and Origen wrote about India
as if they knew more of that land than passing myths and in no way
confused it with Arabia or Ethiopia. (S. H. Moffett, op.cit.,
p. 38.)
Pantaneus’s visit to India is historically authentic and there
is general agreement among the historians today that he went to
South India. The story of Pantaneus’s visit to India is of great
importance for an Indian historian. In the first place it tells us
that there was in existence at that time a Christian community in
South India and that those Christians were fully aware of their
Christian responsibility to preach the Gospel to Brahmans and
philosophers in India. Further, the finding of a Gospel of
Matthew left with the Christians by Bartholomew is very strong
evidence to the existence of a Christian community in India in the
first century at the time of the visit of St. Bartholomew. It traces
the history of the Church in India to the first century. In fact it
is an independent confirmation of the Indian church’s ancient and
apostolic origin. Secondly the discovery of the Gospel of Matthew
in Hebrew character suggests that the earliest Christians in
India were Jewish converts. We have pointed out earlier that the
Jewish Christians had a gospel written in Aramaic (Hebrew) known as
the Gospel of the Nazarenes as the Jewish Christians were
called Nazarenes and this gospel had some relation to the New
Testament Matthew. The Jews were all over the Mediterranean world,
and in Persia and Arabia even before the destruction of the temple
in AD. 70. It seems that the Jews were in India even before the
beginning of the first century AD. The Bene-Israel at Kalyan near
Bombay traces its beginnings back to the second century BC.
(According to Black-Well Dictionary of Judaica (Black-Well, 1992. p.
51), Bene-Israel, the Jewish community in India claim that their
ancestors left Galilee because of the persecution under Antiochus IV
Epiphanes in the second century BC. Stephen Neill says that Bene-Israel
at Kalyan near Bombay traces its beginnings back to the period of
the second Temple about the time of Christ. G.M. Moraes, an Indian
historian is also of the opinion that the Bene-Israel came to India
before the destruction of the second Temple.) The arrival of Jews in
Cochin might have been little later. It was the apostolic missionary
tradition to preach the Gospel first to the Jews. Moreover, it was
Judeo-Christianity which came to Asia and in the case of Edessa, and
Adiabene, the first converts were Jews. The fact that Pantaneus was
a Jewish convert also paints to the possibility that the first
Christians in India were Jewish converts. We need to note that
according to the Acts of Thomas, the first converts made by
Thomas in the kingdom of Gondaphorus in north west India was a
Jewish flute girl who knew Hebrew.
Thus the story of Pantaneus’s visit is a strong and independent
witness to the fact that the history of the Christian community in
India goes back to the first century and the earliest converts were
Jews and they were in possession of the Gospel of Nazarenes written
in Aramaic, left to them by St. Bartholomew. Just as the Christians
in Palestine and Syria were called Nazarenes, the first Christians
in India might have been known by that name. (This name is not of
later origin as Mundadan suggests. [History of Christianity, p.
174]. Nazarenes or Nazranis was the earliest name applied to
Christians.) This community from the very beginning was
conscious of its missionary responsibility to the people among whom
they lived and late in the second century they secured the services
of Pantaneus a famous Alexandrian theologian, for discussion with
philosophers and Brahmans in India. The visit of Pantaneus also
tells us of the frequent travels of people between India and
Alexandria at that time and the mutual awareness of the Alexandrian
church and the Indian church of the existence of each other. It also
raises the probability of previous contacts between the two
churches.
The Indian Church and the Church of the East
When we take into consideration the vigorous trade that was going
on between Alexandria and the Indian ports in the first few
centuries of the Christian era, it is only reasonable to take
seriously the probability of the Indian Christians coming into
contact with the Alexandrian church even before the visit of
Pantaneus towards the end of the second century. The visit of
Pantaneus might have been a consequence of earlier contacts between
the two churches. It is also true that the Mesopotamian merchants
were in India from a very early date and it is probable that there
were Christians among them. L.W. Brown remarks, "it is not
unlikely that there would be Persian Christians settling on the
Malabar coast for trade throughout the early centuries." (L.W.
Brown, op.cit., p.65.) Though small in number, the Christians
in India in the first two centuries were not completely an isolated
group from fellow Christians in Alexandria or Persia. But we have no
evidence of any ecclesiastical relationship which the Indian church
entered into with the church in Alexandria, except the visit of
Pantaneus. But in the case of the East Syrian (Persian) church,
there came into existence some sort of ecclesiastical relationship
between it and the Indian church from a very early date, though it
is difficult to say when this relationship was established.
We may wonder why the Indian church came to establish a
relationship with the Persian church and not with the church in
Alexandria. A possible explanation would be that while Alexandria
claimed St. Mark as its apostle, both East Syria and India claimed
St. Thomas as their apostle. The Indian church claimed St. Thomas as
its founder and the East Syrians had a special relationship with St.
Thomas as it was he who sent Addai to Edessa and Aggai and Mari who
evangelized Persia were the disciples of Addai. Edessa and Persia
always unquestionably upheld St. Thomas as the Apostle of India.
However, we also need to note here that according to certain
traditions existing in India, St. Thomas, on his way to India,
embarked at Basra, (William Yong, Handbook of Source Materials
for Students of Church History Madras, The Senate of Serampore
College and C.L.S, 1969, pp 26-27.) in the Persian Gulf. In all
probability, St.Thomas might have preached in Basra and its
neighbourhood; and thus they also claimed him as the founder of
their church. This would explain the statement of Bar-Hebraeus (Abu’l
Faraj) the great Jacobite scholar and writer of the 13th century
about a dispute between Catholicos Timothy I (779-823) with the
clergy of Fais (Basra) in about AD. 795. Bar-Hebraeus writes:
It is said that down to the time of this Timothy, the bishops
of the province of Ears were wearing garments like secular
priests, were eating meat, and marrying, and were not under the
jurisdiction of the Catholicos of Seleucia. They used to say:
"We have been evangelized by the Apostle Thomas, and we
have no share with the see of Mad." timothy however, united
them and joined them to him. He ordained for them as
Metropolitan a man named Shim’un, and he ordered him not to
eat meat, nor marry, and wear white garments made only of wool.
He further permitted him to confirm bishops whom he would
ordain, without coming for such confirmation to the Catholicos.
(Ibid. pp. 326-327.)
There is no local tradition or historical evidence connecting
Thomas with the Parthian empire proper; but it is very probable that
Thomas worked in Basra and its neighbourhood on his way to India and
the first contact of the Indian church was with the church in Basra
(Fais), the name of Thomas linking them together. The available
evidence indicates that this relationship of the Indian church with
the church in Basra existed at least from the third century. The
Chronicle of Seert, an important East Syrian document of the
seventh century, mentions that Dudi (David), bishop of Basra in the
Persian Gulf, an eminent doctor, left his See between AD. 295-300
and went to India where he evangelized many people. (Ibid.,
p. 27.)
Eusebius of Caesarea mentions the presence of a bishop from
Persia at the Council of Nicea in AD. 325. In another account he is
mentioned as bishop of Fais. In the list of bishops who signed the
decrees of the Council as mentioned by Gelasius, there is one,
"John the Persian, on behalf of the churches in the whole of
Persia and the great India." A.M. Mundadan accepts the Gelasian
list as genuine and authentic’. (A. M. Mundadan, History of
Christianity in India, vol. 1, Bangalore, Theological
Publications in India, 1984, p. 79.) The Council of Nicea was
called together by emperor Constantine and it was a council of
bishops in the Roman Empire. It was very unlikely that a bishop from
Persia had attended the Council of Greek bishops, officially
representing the whole of Persia and great India. We need to
remember that it was only in the Synod of Isaac in AD 410, almost a
century later, that the Persian church, with some modifications,
accepted the decrees of the Council of Nicea. Moreover, it is very
doubtful that the various Christian congregations in Persia became a
nation wide community by the time of Nicea so that one bishop could
represent the whole of Persia. In all probability the inclusion of
‘John of Persia and Great India’ was a later interpolation to
convey the truly ecumenical character of the Nicene Council.
However, it shows that when this interpolation was made, the
interpolator was aware of the connection between the Indian church
and the Persian church (more specifically with the Christians in
Fars as Persia was changed to Fars in another document).
When the episcopal hierarchy of the East Syrian Church was fully
organized by the beginning of the fifth century (410), the bishopric
of Rewardastir was elevated to a metropolitanate and given
jurisdiction over relations with India. Rewardastir was
strategically located on the direct sea route to India near the head
of the Persian gulf on its eastern side and the province included
Basra. This arrangement continued till the seventh century when
Patriarch Isho-Yahb II(628-643) appointed a metropolitan for India
separately. The reason might have been the increase of Christians in
India. Mingana mentions that between six and twelve suffragan
bishops were also consecrated for India and that the metropolitan of
India outranked that of China and that China outranked that of
Central Asia. Metropolitans of distant seas such as India, China and
Samarkhand were exempted from attending the General Synod of the
Church because of the great distance. Instead they had to write a
letter to the Patriarch declaring their allegiance to him and
informing him of the state of their province.
We get a glimpse of the relationship between the two churches in
the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes (the Indian
navigator) which was written about A.D. 547. Cosmas was probably a
native of Persia and a Nestorian. His commercial interests carried
him into seas and countries far removed from his home. "I
myself made voyages of commercial purposes in three of these gulfs
-- the Roman, Arabian, and the Persian, while from the natives or
from sea-faring men I have obtained accurate information regarding
different places", he wrote. His book, Christian Topography is
essentially controversial, his purpose being to refute from
scripture the pagan cosmography. His arguments are absurd in the
extreme. According to him, the figure of the universe can best be
learned from a study of the structure and furniture of the
Tabernacle which Moses prepared in the wilderness. In dealing with
the fulfillment of the prophecy and the expansion of the church
throughout the world, he speaks of Christians in Ceylon and India
thus:
Even in Taprobane [Ceylon] an island in further India, where
the Indian sea is, there is a Church of Christians, with clergy
and a body of believers, but I know not whether there be any
Christians in the parts beyond it. In the country called Male [Malabar],
where the pepper grows, there is also a church, and at another
place called Calliana [a place near Bombayl, there is moreover a
bishop, who is appointed from Persia. In the island, again,
called the island of Dioscorides [Socotora], which is situated
in the same Indian sea, and where the inhabitants speak Greek,
having been originally colonists sent thither by the Ptolemies
who succeeded Alexander the Macedonian, there are clergy who
receive their orders in Persia and are sent on to the island,
and there is also a multitude of Christians. (J. W.
McCrindle (ed), Christian Topography of Cosmas An Egyptian
Monk. Burt, Franklin Publisher, 1967, Book III, 64.)
In Book XI, Cosmas specifically speaks of Ceylon thus:
It is a great mart of the people in these parts. The island
has also a church of Persian Christians who have settled there,
and a Presbyter who is appointed from Persia and a Deacon and a
complete ecclesiastical ritual. But the natives and the kings
are heathen. In this island they have many temples. (Ibid., Book
XI.)
The account of Cosmas speaks of Christian communities in Ceylon,
Malabar, Calliana, and Socotora with bishops appointed from Persia.
In the case of Ceylon there was a church of Persian Christians. The
account attests to the fact that by the middle of the sixth century
the churches in the above places had maintained a connection with
the church in Persia, which by this time had become Nestonan and
that there were Persian Christians residing in Ceylon and they had a
church of their own. Though Cosmas did not mention it, there were
Persian Christians residing in India also.
Because of this Persian connection, some historians such as LW.
Brown and some other western historians have drawn the wrong
conclusion that the Indian church was a daughter church of the
Persian church and the early churches of Malabar were connected with
colonies of foreign traders. In this connection, the observation
made by S.H. Moffett is significant. After noting that by the middle
of the sixth century, the Indian church was organized and well
established with bishops, clergy and believers, and that it was
strongly related to and dependent upon the Persian church, he says:
But two other important facts must be recognized as modifying
that general picture. For one thing, it was not a daughter
Church of the Persian hierarchy. It already had a long history
of its own. Ever since the ancient, third century Acts of
Thomas, Persians and Syrians had been unanimous in
recognizing the apostolic, independent origins of Indian
Christianity. Moreover, however dependent the Indian Church
structure later became on the Syrian Persia, the fourth-century
report of Theophilus the Indian is evidence that at least two
hundred years before Cosmas it had already begun the
indispensable process of accommodating Christian practice to
Indian ways. (S. H. Moffett, op.cit., p. 269. The visit
of Theophilus the Indian will be discussed later.)
Migration of Persian Christians to Kerala
Apart from the ecclesiastical relationship that had been
established with the Persian church, there were at least two
important waves of immigration of Persian Christians to India, one
in the fourth century and the other in the ninth century, which
strengthened the already existing communities in India. (Mingana
writes, "We do not deny that the persecution of Sapar gave a
stimulus to the emigration of more Christians from southern Persia
to India; and indeed there is every possibility that such an
emigration did actually take place: but we do make that there is
also every possibility that a Christian community of comparatively
important size existed before that time in India, and it was more
the existence of this community that attracted co-religionists from
Persia in the time of persecution than the bare sword of Sapar."
pp. 439-440.)
Different versions of the traditions about these immigrations
exist both in East Syria and India which are of a later origin and
are clouded with discrepancies. Yet we might be able to discover in
these versions certain historical facts.
The fourth century was a time of severe persecution of Christians
in Persia under Shapur II. The first immigration of Christians from
Persia to Malabar is believed to have taken place during this
period. The tradition speaks of one Thomas of Cana, a Nestorian
merchant reached Kodungallur (Cranganore) on the Malabar coast in
south west India in A. D. 345, bringing with him a group of about
400 Christian families including deacons, priests and a bishop. The
Indian Christians received them with great joy and all proceeded to
Cheraman Perumal, the king of Malabar, and were favourably received
by him. The king granted the Syrian Christians seventy-two marks of
distinction enjoyed by high caste Hindus and they received land at
Cranganore to build for them a settlement and a church. In some
traditions it is also mentioned that the king invested the
Christians with royal honours inscribed on copper plates which were
in existence till the 16th century but after that the whereabouts of
the plates are not known. (Some suggest that the plates were taken
to Portugal by the Portuguese.) But the content of the grant is
available in various reports. A report based on a version of the
plate kept in the British Museum says:
The king not only gave Thomas [of Cana] this town [Mahadevappatanam]
but also ‘seven kinds of musical instruments’ and all the
honours, and to travel in a palanquin and that at weddings the
women should whistle with the finger in the mouth as do the
women of the kings and he conferred on him the duty and
privilege of spreading carpets on the ground and to use sandals
and to erect a pandal and to ride on elephants. And besides this
he granted five taxes to Thomas and his posterity and to his
associates both men and women, and for all his relatives and to
the followers of his faith for ever. (LW. Brown. op.cit., p.
86.)
The St. Thomas Christians have kept many of their traditional
privileges in practice, and the songs sung at weddings recount the
Syrian history and the royal grants. The town built by the migrants
is supposed to be the Christian quarter of Kodungallur which is
called Mahadevapattanam. To this day there is among the Syrian
Christians a social distinction which is said to have originated in
the settlement between those who intermarried with the Indians and
those who did not. Those who intermarried were called Vadakkumbagar
(Northists) and those who did not were called Thekkumbagar (Southists).
About this C B. Firth comments:
It would be rash to insist upon all the details of the story
of Thomas the merchant as history. Nevertheless the main point,
-- the settlement in Malabar a considerable colony of Syrians-
may well be true; and granted this, it is not unnatural that
there should have been a difference of practice among the
settlers in the matter of inter-marriage with Indians, leading
to a permanent social distinction. (C. B. Firth, An
Introduction to Indian Church History. Madras C.L.S. First
published in 1961. p. 30. For a detailed discussion of the
Northist-Southist division. see Mundadan op.cit., pp.
95-98.)
Though the ecclesiastical relation between the two churches
existed at least from the end of third century, the immigration of
Persian Christians to Kerala not only strengthened the existing
community, but also influenced its liturgical life. AM. Mundadan
refers to Jesuit Dionsio as saying that "it was consequent on
the arrival of Thomas of Cana that the Christians of Malabar
accepted the rites and ceremonies of the Syrian Church." (A.M.
Mundadan, op.cit.. p. 106.) This was not a complete
acceptance of the Syrian rites and ceremonies. As we shall see
later, there was a growth of indigenous traditions in the Indian
Church. However, it is most likely that the arrival of the Persian
immigrants in the fourth century was the beginning of Syrian
influence on the liturgical life and practice of the Indian Church.
The second immigration is dated in the year AD 823 and the
tradition claims that the Christian immigrants rebuilt the town of
Quilon in AD. 825, from which date the Malayalam era is reckoned. A
Syrian account of the 18th century recounts the tradition thus:
In those days and in the days that followed, Syrian Fathers
used to come to that town by the order of the Catholicos of the
East, and govern the diocese of India and Malabar, because it
was from it that the Syrians used to go to other parts until
they were dispersed. Then in the year 823. the Syrian Fathers,
Mar Sapor and Mar Parut (Peruz) with the illustrious Sabrisho,
came to India and reached Kullam. They went to the king
Shakirbirti, and asked from him a piece of land in which they
could build a Church for themselves and erect a town. lie gave
them the amount of the land they desired, and they built a
church and erected a town in the district of Kullam, to which
Syrian bishops and Metropolitans used to come by the order of
the Catholicos who sent them. (Mingana, Early Spread of
Christianity p.45.)
The contemporary evidence of this event is available in five
copper plates which are still in existence -- three in the Orthodox
seminary at Kottayam and two with the Mar Thoma Church at Thiruvalla.
These copper plates contain records of grants made to the Christians
in Quilon by the king. Among these grants, certain rights are
reserved in perpetuity to the Christians in Quilon. Most important
of these is the guardianship of steel yard, the weights and the
royal stamp. The church is given land let out under certain
conditions and also certain families of lower caste are assigned for
the maintenance of the church. The Christians have the sole
responsibility of administering justice in their territory. The
Christians are to enjoy protection from the Venat Militia called six
hundred and from the Jewish and Manigrammam leaders. (There is
considerable differences of opinion about the identity of
Manigrammam. Probably it refers to the indigenous trade guild in
Quilon when the immigrants arrived.) In the light of the royal
grants, Stephen Neill comments, "The picture which emerges is
important. The Christians are clearly a well-established community,
accepted and highly respected. The granting of responsibility for
the weights and measures is an unusual sign of confidence; it may
indicate that the immigrants had a higher level of mathematical and
commercial competence than the Indians among whom they had
settled." (Stephen Neill, A History of Christianity in
India, p.46.)
There are also certain inscriptions and monuments surviving from
this period which speak of the connection between the Indian Church
and the Persian Church. The monuments consist of five carved stone
crosses (known as St. Thomas crosses ), which have been
discovered in South India, the first at St. Thomas Mount near Madras
and others at Kottayam and some other places in Kerala. They are
Persian crosses and are dated 7th or 8th century.
The Extent of Christianity in India Before AD. 1500
The Gospel was first proclaimed in the kingdom of Gundaphorus in
north west India and in the neighbouring places and then in Malabar
and on the Coromandel coasts. Bartholomew was in Kalyan near Bombay.
The first Christians were Jewish converts and later the Gospel was
preached to other communities in India. South Indian tradition
speaks of Namboothiri Brahmans becoming Christians. There were
Persian merchants, probably including Christians among them,
residing in the chief commercial centres in India. There were
several immigrations of Persian Christians, the two important ones
being in the fourth and ninth centuries, to Kerala in south India.
According to Mingana, the fifth century opens with an Indian
Christianity which was in such a state of development that she was
able to send her priests to be educated in the best schools of the
East Syrian church, and to assist the doctors of that church in the
revision of the ancient Syriac translations of the Pauline epistles.
He says, "In a precious Colophon to his commentary on the
Epistle to the Romans, Isshodad writes as follows: This epistle has
been translated from Greek into Syriac by Mar Komai, with the help
of Daniel the priest, the Indian." (Mingana, Christianity in
India. p. 459.)
Cosmas in the sixth century, in his Topography, speaks of
Christians in Bombay, Malabar and Ceylon.
And so likewise among the Bactrians and Huns and Persians,
and the rest of the Indians, and among Persarmenians and Greeks
and Elamites, and throughout the whole land of Persia, there is
an infinite number of Churches with bishops, and a vast
multitude of Christian people, and they have many martyrs and
recluses leading a monastic life. So also in Ethiopia, and in
Axum, and in all the country round about, among the Happy
Arabians who are nowadays called Homeritae, and all through
Arabia. (I.W. McCrindle, op.cit.. pp. 118-121; Mingana, Ibid.,
p. 462.)
Mingana points out that Cosmas’ text is important not only as
regards the existence of Christian communities in Bombay, Malabar
and Ceylon, but also and ‘especially by the addition of the
significant sentence: among the rest of the Indians.’ (Mingana, Ibid.,
p. 462.) According to Mingana the statement of Cosmas
"proves the existence of numerous Christian communities among
many Central Asian people and in India." (Mingana, ibid., p.
462.) By the time of Cosmas, Christianity seems to have been
widespread not only in Persia, Arabia, Ethiopia and Central Asia,
but also in India. In India it was not confined to North West India,
or Malabar or Coromandal coast. When Cosmas wrote, ‘the rest of
the Indians,’ there is no doubt that he was aware of the vast
extent of the country. By this time the East Asian writers were
familiar with the geography of India. In the seventh century, when
the Nestorian Patriarch Isho-Yahb III (650-660) wrote to Simemon,
the Metropolitan of Riwardashir, admonishing him for "closing
the door of the episcopal ordination in the face of the many peoples
of India", he speaks of India as a country ‘that extends from
the borders of the Persian Empire, to the country which is called
Kalah, which is a distance of one thousand and two hundred
parasangas.’ (Ibid., p. 464.) Referring to the above
correspondence between the Patriarch and the Metropolitan, Mingana
observes that we can infer from the correspondence that "there
was a considerable number of bishops and priests in India, whose
sees and parishes were apparently scattered in the vast country to
the distance of one thousand and two hundred parasangas." (Ibid.,
p. 465.)
According to John Stewart there were strong Christian communities
all over the continent. Mingana gives a list of no less than thirty
six bishoprics, some of them metropolitan sees either on the routes
to or in the proximity of India including Afghanistan and
Baluchistan. (Ibid., pp. 489-90.) Stewart observes that,
"with so many centres of influence it would have been strange
if Christian merchants and missionaries from those different centres
had not penetrated the passes leading into India from the north and
northwest, bringing their faith with them." (John
Stewart, op.cit., p.85.) According to him there is a solid
ground for believing that a fairly large Christian community existed
in north India also from very early times. "The majority of
these were undoubtedly Indians by blood and ancestry who had
embraced the new faith for its own sake, as proselytes of Christian
missionaries from Persia and Mesopotamia." (Ibid., p.
86.) Stewart writes:
Whether their beginnings were due to the teachings of Thomas
as tradition strongly asserts, or some one else whose name is
unknown, it can be asserted that the missionary activity of the
Nestorian merchants, artisans and clergy in the subsequent
centuries must have contributed considerably to their
development and growth. The fact stated by Prof. Herzfeld in a
recent lecture that ‘the whole of north west India was a vast
province of the Persian Empire in the third century governed by
Persian officials’ must also have been a contributing factor
in the spread of Christianity in these regions. (Ibid., p.
86.)
Stewart further points out that if the Persian refugees during
the persecutions under Sapor II in the 4th century and Yezdegard and
Bharan V in the 5th century and bands of earnest missionaries from
the monastery of Beth-Abhe and other centres carried the Gospel to
other provinces of the Persian Empire, it is inconceivable that the
province of India would be left untouched. Assemani, Osorius and
Jarricus who -- wrote a century after Cosmas speak of numerous
Nestorian communities in the regions along the river Ganges and also
in central and eastern India. (Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library vol. 2, p. 486. See also John Stewart, op.cit..
p. 89.)
We do not have detailed and in some cases reliable accounts of
the various Christian communities in India. Yet the available
evidences indicate that there were Christian communities scattered
throughout the country in the early period. It will be a great
mistake to think that Christianity in the early period was only
found in south India. Some of these Christian communities continued
to exist in North India in the medieval period. John Stewart points
out that in Wiltsch’s Geography and Statistics of the Church,
Patna is mentioned as a seat of a metropolitan in AD. 1222. Marco
Polo who visited India at the end of the 13th century states that
there were in Central India, six great kings and kingdoms, and three
of these were Christians and three Saracens. (Yule, Book
of Ser Marco Polo [revised by Cordier], vol. ii, p.427.)
According to Polo, St. Thomas preached in this region and, after he
had converted the people, went to the province of Malabar. John
Stewart says that Abder-Razzak, who visited India in AD 1442,
mentioned that the Vizier of Vijayanagar in Deccan was a Christian,
his name being Nimeh-Pezier. (John Stewart, op.cit., p.
192.) Nicolo Conti, a Venetian Merchant from Italy who visited India
in the 15th century wrote that he visited Mylapore where he found
thousand Nestorians and these Nestorians are "scattered all
over India as the Jews among them." (Medlycolt. op.cit., p.
95.)
It is very difficult to verify the truth of the above statements
coming from various sources. It is also difficult to get a clear and
precise state of Christianity in India up to AD. 1500. However, all
these pieces of information from various sources, though very
scanty, point to the fact that there were scattered communities of
St. Thomas Christians (Nestorians as they were referred to in some
of the documents) in different parts of the continent. Marco Polo
speaks of St. Thomas preaching in Central India, a tradition which
might have existed in Central India at the time of his visit.
Church historians are in general agreement that there was a
concentration of Christians in South India. Speaking-of the
diffusion of Christianity in medieval India, E.R. Hambye, a Roman
Catholic historian writes:
The majority of its faithful was concentrated in Kerala, more
precisely between Cranganore in the north and Quilon in the
south. Syrian Christian communities were also found scattered
along the west coast, in Goa, Saimur (Chaul), Thana, Sopara,
Gujerat and Sind. The east coast of Mylapore had also such a
Christian community close to the St. Thomas’ shrine. It should
also be noted that scores of stones marked with a cross have
been found on the southern slopes of Nilgiris. This relatively
wide, though sparse, diffusion extended up to Kashmir where near
Tenkse, on the eastern side of Leh, rock inscriptions still bear
witness today to a settlement of Syrian Christians, which
existed there around AD. 800. (H. C. Perumalil & E. R.
Hambye (ed), Christianity in India, Prakasam
Publications. Alleppey, 1972. p. 32.)
St. Thomas Christians and Missionary Activities
How did the Gospel spread in India? The early stages of the
growth of Christianity in India did not seem to be spectacular. Yet
we know that in the medieval period, Christianity was diffused
throughout the country. There are a number of instances where the
East Syrian missionaries came to India for evangelistic purposes.
David, Bishop of Basra left his see in AD 295-300 to go to India
where he evangelized many people. According to John Stewart the
spread of the Gospel in north India was due greatly to the efforts
of the missionary activities of Nestorian merchants, artisans,
clergy and the monks of the Beth-Abe from Persia. There is no doubt
that at least from the beginning of the fourth century, the Persian
church had a missionary relationship with India. However, the
Persian missionaries were not the only people who spread the Gospel
in India.
Several western and some Indian writers have stated that the
Indian church had no missionary zeal and it was only later through
the contact with European missionaries that evangelistic spirit was
awakened in the church. Stephen Neill writes, "There is no
clear evidence of attempts by the Indian Christian community to
propogate its faith in the non-Christian society in the midst of
which it had its existence." (Stephen Neill, A History of
Christianity in India (1984), p. 47.) According to L.W. Brown,
The result of the honourable place given by the rajas to the
Christians, and of their assimilation in social custom to their
Hindu neighbours, was that they were accepted as a caste, and
often thought of their community in this way. They ranked after
the Brabmans and as equals of the Nayars. Many Christians would
claim that there was Brahman convert blood in the community and
that for this reason they were superior to Nayars.
It was in consequence of this position that the St. Thomas
Christians. so far as our evidence goes, never attempted to
bring their non-Christian neighbours to a knowledge of Christ,
and so into the Christian church. The Portuguese Archbishop
Menzes did his best to create a sense of evangelistic
responsibility among the Indian Christians by preaching to the
Hindus whenever he could, and the eighteenth-century Carmelites
had a number of baptisms from the heathen every year, so much so
that they had to defend their actions before the Raja of
Travancore, but the Indian Church itself was not (L. W. Brown, op.cit.,
p. 173.) aroused to share this work.
George Moracs, an Indian historian, after pointing out that St.
Thomas Christians became a closed corporation, like the fire temp1es
of our times in Bombay, where there is no admission except for
Parsis, says:
The result was that the Christians had only added one more
caste to the multiplicity of the Indian caste system. It is
because Christianity became a caste that it could offer no
challenge to the Hindu mind, which would have otherwise tried to
steal its thunder by first trying to understand its principles
and then incorporate them into itself. (George M. Moraes, A
History of Christianity in India from Early times to St. Francis
Xavier: AD. 52-152. Bombay, 1964, p. 293. [see also Mundadan
op.cit.. p. 496.])
Did the St. Thomas Christian community become a caste among the
other castes and thus had no encounter with Indian society and
culture? Was it true that St. Thomas Christians had no sense of
responsibility of Christian witness ? The conclusions of Stephen
Neill, L.W. Brown and George Moraes are sweeping generalizations and
cannot be accepted as such. The Portuguese sources coming from the
16th century speak of Thomas Christians practicing
‘untouchability’ like caste Hindus. This might be true but it
did not mean that the St. Thomas Christian community from the very
beginning was a caste community and had not felt any missionary
responsibility till the coming of the Portuguese. The majority of
the St. Thomas Christians before the 16th century were found in
Kerala and in all likelihood they were mostly Dravidians who had not
yet developed the rigid caste structure which came to exist in South
India in the medieval period. Though Aryans began to come to South
India even before the Christian era, Aryanization of the south was a
slow process. Before the thirteenth century there was much social
mobility.
The St. Thomas Christian community was conscious of its
missionary responsibility from an early date and they did not wait
for the Portuguese Archbishop Menzes to teach them their
evangelistic responsibility. In the second century they invited
Pantaneus from Alexandria to preach the Gospel to Hindu philosophers
and scholars. The Nestorian church with which the Indian church
established ecclesiastical relationships since the fourth century
was a great missionary church. It was a church on fire with great
missionary zeal. One can only expect that the Indian church has
caught something of the missionary spirit of the church. About the
evangelistic efforts of the Indian church, E.R. Hambye observes:
For centuries, the Thomas Christians expanded, thanks to
their zeal, though inspired also by the apostolic spirit of
their East Syrian brethren. We know that some monks from India
went to the Far East, if not to China and central Asia. Thomas
Christians during the 10th-11th centuries tried to spread their
faith in the Maladive Islands, and as late as the 15th century,
Nairs in Kerala were joining their ranks.
There even existed among those Christians four prominent
families of very ancient origin, whose own duty was to foster
the integration of new members into the community. (H. C.
Perumalil and E. R. Hambye, [ed] op.cit., p.37.)
H. Hosten mentions that in AD. 780 a ‘Nestorian missionary from
India received an award from the Chinese superior. (Ibid., p.
321.)
Because St. Thomas Christians were socially integrated with the
Indian society, one important way the Christian influence was
exerted might have been through their daily social intercourse with
caste Hindus. Several scholars of History of Religions have pointed
out the probability of a significant missionary encounter that took
place between Hinduism and Christianity in the early centuries of
the medieval period. One important development in Hinduism in South
India from the 7th century onwards was the development of the Bhakti
Movement (theistic movement characterized by ecstatic piety)
especially in Vaishnavism and Saivism.
George A. Grierson mentions the possibility of a Christian
encounter with Hindu Bhakti tradition in North India in the sixth
century. In his article on ‘Bhakti Marga,’ in Hastings’ Encyclopedia
of Religion and Ethics he mentions that "in the year AD 639
the famous Indian king Siladitya of Kanauj, a patron of the
Bhagavatas, received a party of Syrian Christians, headed by the
missionary Alopen, at his court." Grierson is very emphatic
about Christian Influence on Bhakti tradition in South India in the
medieval period.
It was in south India that Christianity as a doctrine,
exercised the greatest influence on Hinduism generally. Although
the conceptions of the fatherhood of God and of bhakti were
indigenous to India, they received an immense impetus owing to
the belief of Christian communities reacting upon the medieval
Bhagavata reformers of the South. With this leven their teaching
swept over Hinduism, bringing balm and healing to a nation
gasping in its death throes under the horrors of an alien
invasion. It is not over stating the case to say that in this
reformation India rediscovered faith and love; and the fact of
this discovery accounts for the passionate enthusiasm of the
contemporary religious writings. (George Grierson in
James Hastings’ (ed), Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Edinburgh,
T&T Clark, l909, pp. 539-551.)
Grierson sees some influence of Islam (Sufism) also in Bhakti
revival. Bhakti doctrine is pre-Christian in origin and not a
product of Christian influence. But its development in South India
in the early middle ages was qualitatively different from the Bhakti
of earlier Hindu tradition. The chief emphasis of the new movement
is on a relationship with a God who is personal, full of love and
grace for his creation, and on the grace of God as the means of
salvation. Salvation is achieved through Bhakti and Bhakti leads to
union with the divine. But this unity is not to be conceived as an
onthological unity in which all distinctions between the soul and
the deity are done away. The new movement is often spoken of as a
religion of Grace.
The two chief theologians of the movement were Ramanuja (11th
century) and Madhva (13th century). There is no doubt that there is
a close resemblance between Christianity and the new movement in
Hinduism. Some, like Grierson, have seen Christian influence in this
development, while others have not. For example, speaking of
development of Bhakti in Saivism in Tamil Nadu, Stephen Neill says,
"The sober verdict of historical judgement must be that any
such Christian influence in Tamil literature is unlikely."
(Stephen Neil. op.cit., p. 62.) However, there is much
in the teaching of Madhva which is very similar to Christian
teaching, so that a western historian of Indian culture, A.L. Basham
observes, "The resemblance of Madhva’s system to Christianity
is so striking that influence, perhaps, through the Syrian churches
of Malabar, is almost certain." (A. L. Basham, The Wonder
That was India, p. 333.) If this new development in Hinduism was
influenced by Christianity then it shows that the Christian impact
was being felt in Indian society through the witness of Indian
Christians long before the arrival of western missionaries. In the
missionary encounter, Christian witness cannot be measured only in
terms of the number of converts made. A similar encounter took place
between Christianity and Hinduism in the 19th century. Though it
also did not result in many conversions of caste Hindus, it partly
resulted in encouraging new religious and social movements within
Hinduism itself.
The inherent missionary dynamism of the St. Thomas Christian
community seemed to have diminished by the end of the 15th century
due to several reasons. After the 13th century, south Indian social
life was marked by a rigid caste system. Because of the social
integration of St. Thomas Christians with the upper social group,
caste consciousness also crept into the church. That might be the
reason that the Portuguese sources coming from the 16th century
speak of the St. Thomas Christians practicing ‘untouchability’
like the caste Hindus. It was this which prevented them from
undertaking any missionary work among the ‘depressed classes’.
But the more important reason for the diminishing of missionary
dynamism was the coming of the Muslims into political power. In the
territories under Muslim rule, conversion became difficult.
Moreover, Hinduism under Muslim rule became self-defensive in the
late Middle Ages, the consequence of which was that Hindu rulers
prevented the conversion of Hindus to any other religion. Thomas
Christians who were living in the territories of these Hindu rulers
had to respect the wishes of these rulers. Even the Roman Catholic
missionaries, with Portuguese political power behind them, had to
confine themselves to work among the low caste people in Cochin and
Travancore area. About this A. Meersman writes:
When the Portuguese first arrived in Cochin, its king
welcomed them. With their aid he hoped at least to neutralize
the preponderance of Calicut in Malabar affairs and enrich his
kingdom through trade. However, as far as the spreading of the
Gospel in his realm was concerned, he was not enthusiastic and
he forbade the missionaries to approach the members of certain
castes for the sake of conversion. They were permitted to seek
catechuments from other castes or sections of the population,
which they did. (A. Meersman, ‘Development of the Church under
Padroado’, H. C. Perumalil and Hambye (ed), Christianity in
India. p. 69.)
Moreover, due to the interference of the Portuguese missionaries
in the life of the church, St. Thomas Christians were involved in
internal dissentions and attempts at self-preservation. All these
factors contributed to a loss of missionary dynamism in the church
from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 19th century.
In the second half of the 19th century, their missionary zeal was
again awakened by the contact with western missionaries and this
time they also evangelized the depressed classes. (The
statement of L. W. Brown that Archbishop Menzes tried to encourage a
spirit of missionary responsibility among the Syrians to which they
did not respond, is rather misleading. It was difficult even for
western missionaries to evangelize the caste Hindus in the 16th
century.)
Social Life of the Christian Community During the Early Period
The Gospel was first preached to the Jews and then to the Hindus.
At first, the Jewish Christians might have been very small in
number; but as time went on, the majority of the Christians were
Hindu converts. The Indian tradition speaks of Christian converts
from high caste Hindus. They continued the social organization and
life they lived before conversion and thus there was no social
dislocation between the Christians and the Hindu community.
Christians shared with the Hindus very many of the social customs
and practices. There were instances of intermarriage between
Christians and the Nairs in Kerala. The coming of Christian
immigrants from Persia did not seriously affect the social life of
the Indian Christians, as the immigrants (except the Thomas of Cana
group) intermarried with the Indians. From the very beginning, the
Indian Christians were an indigenous community, having social and
community life with the Indians. (It was not a question
of adaptation as Mundadan suggests, but not rejecting the social
milieu in which the Christian converts were born. They were not the
product of foreign missionary enterprise. A. M. Mundadan, op.cit.,
vol.i, p. 154.)
Some trial excavations were done in Cranganore in AD 1945-46,
though much more has yet to be done. From the result of those
excavations, Nathan Katz and Ellen S. Goldberg conclude "From
such scant remains, it is clear that religious harmony was the rule
of the land." (Nathan and Ellen Goldberg, The Last Jews of
Cochin, Columbia, University of South Carolina, 1993, p. 53.)
There were Christian communities to either side of the palace, one
the ‘Vadakkumbhagam’, or ‘Northists,’ and the other the ‘Thekkumbhagam,’
or ‘Southists’. Both claimed Jewish ancestory. (Nathan Katz and
Ellen Goldberg, The last Jews of Cochin, Columbia, University
of South Carolina, 1993, p. 53.)
The religious harmony and toleration that existed in South India
was remarkable till the Middle Ages. The Church in north Parur near
Cranganore is called Kottakavu which was built in 1308 on the site
of another old church which was originally a temple converted into a
church. It is said to be the site where St. Thomas converted several
Nambudiri Brahmins. There is a Hindu temple just across the lane and
to this day Christian processions make their first stop at that
temple to pay respect to Hindus, and Hindu processions make a
similar stop at the church. This interreligious aspect of procession
rituals in South India is not confined to North Parur. (Achan P.
Anujan, "A Trial Excavation at Cranganur", Bulletin of
Rama Varma Research Institute, 13 [July 1946] pp. 40-42 quoted by
Katz and Goldberg. Ibid.. p. 53.) Susan Bayly in her study of
Christians and Muslims in South India also speaks of the inter
religious co-operation and harmony that existed in South India.
In many parts of Malabar, Nayars accepted Syrians as
participants and donors in local temple rites and took part in
turn in Syrian church festivals. The acknowledgement of the
Syrians’ right to share Hindu sacred space’ was expressed in
some centres by the construction of Syrian churches on sites
virtually adjoining Hindu temples... Christians used Hindu-style
torches, umbrellas and banners in their Cattam festivals, and in
some localities actually had a single collection of processional
regalia which was shared between both Church and Hindu temple.
At least one Hindu temple regularly lent Out its temple
elephants to Syrian worshippers for use in their festival
processions. (Susan Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings.
Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society 1700-1900. Cambridge
University Press. 1989, p. 253. see also Katz and Goldberg, op.cit.,
p. 54)
From the grants given by the local Rajas to the immigrant
Christians, we can infer that the Christians had a position of
privilege in society and shared certain honorific titles (most of
which they shared with the Nayars) such as Tharakan, Muthalali,
Menon and Panickar. The commonest name of the Christians was Nasrani
Mappila. L.W. Brown observes:
The Christians shared many other things beside names with the
Nayars. They occasionally took wives from the community, and
their children often went to school with Nayar children. They
joined in many of the ordinary celebrations of the country such
as Onam and Vishu or New Year’s Day. (L. W. Brown, op.cit..
p. 171.)
Christians observed many of the ceremonies connected with birth,
adolescence and marriage and death like Hindus. In their day to day
life the Christians differed very little from the higher castes of
the Hindu society.
According to Monserrate:
In their dress they do not much differ from the nairs except
for this that they do not cut their hair around the head as the
nairs do, but grow it fully and tie up and arrange it in such
manner that it is very beautiful and serves for a hat or a cap.
The old people, however, shave their heads and use hats. Another
matter in which the men differed from the nairs was that when
they come to battlefield, they do not smear their heads nor do
they paint their bodies with the ashes of cow-dung blessed by
the cursed jogues.ie, the yogis or the Hindu priests, which the
nairs make very much of. (Quoted in A. M. Mundadan, op.cit.,
vol.1. p.158.)
Monserrate says that the Christian women were much more modestly
dressed than the Nayar women. On the streets and when they went to
Church, they covered themselves with some white cloth which made
them look very modest.
St. Thomas Christians were employed in agriculture and trade and
military service. From the Portuguese sources we gather that the
Christians were predominantly agriculturists and pepper-growing was
their sole monopoly. The St. Thomas Christians were also engaged in
trade. But by the 16th century, they had lost most of their trade to
the Muslims who controlled the main trade between the countries of
west Asia and the East. But still some Christians were engaged in
overseas trade. Vasco da Gama, on his first voyage to India is
reported to have met on the East African coast some ships of the
Christians of Malabar. (Ibid., p. 156.) Just like the Nayars,
St. Thomas Christians were good soldiers and the local rulers highly
valued their service in the army.
The Christians in South India lived under many local rulers,
chief among them being the Cochin Raja. There is a tradition of a
Christian king of the Villar Vattam family as the temporal ruler of
St. Thomas Christians. When the family ceased to exist, the
Christians came under the protection of the king of Cochin.
Ecclesiastical Life of St. Thomas Christians
The growth of the ecclesiastical organization -- the clerical
order as well as other institutional structures and practices of the
church was a slow process in the early period of Christian history.
To begin with, the Christian church did not uphold a particular form
of structure, ministry and liturgy. We do not find any one
particular ecclesiology and ministry developed in the New Testament.
Jesus did not teach any model of the church or ministry to be
followed by those who believed in Him. St. Paul used a number of
different metaphors and images to denote the Christian community
life. The primary responsibility of the apostles was to be
evangelists and missionaries, travelling through the countries and
not to govern a community. They lived as those who expected the end
of the world in their own life time. Therefore, the setting up of a
permanent and uniform pattern of ministry or church structure would
hardly have seemed a high priority for them. As the church
approached the second century, there was no uniform development in
structure, theology and practice among different Christian groups.
This was true with regard to Christian ministry also. The Christians
have often tended to read back into the past the later development
that took place in the church. According to the first Vatican
Council of the Roman Catholic Church, a permanent constitution of
the church had been conferred upon it by the Lord Himself. (T. V.
Philip, Ecumenism in Asia, ISPCK & CSS, 1994, pp. 73-74.)
In the case of the Persian Church there is little evidence to show
that there were bishops much before AD 300. (S. H. Moffett, op.cit..
p.118.) The Christian congregations there, to begin with, were
independent of one another and only in the fifth century a national
ecclesiastical body was established.
Because of the lack of documentary evidence, it is very difficult
to speak about the ecclesiastical organization of the St. Thomas
Christian community in the first few centuries. What we know of the
community came from a later period, some from the writings of the
Portuguese as they saw them in the 16th century.
Where did the earliest Christians meet for worship? Did they meet
in Christian homes; or as the first Christians were converts from
Judaism, did they organize themselves into synagogues led by elders?
We do not know for sure when the threefold ministry of bishop,
presbyters and deacons came to be accepted in India. There was a
Persian bishop among the immigrants who came with Thomas of Cana in
AD 345. It is probable that this immigration of a large
number of Christians. from Persia was the beginning of East Syrian
influence on the ecclesiastical and liturgical life of the church in
India. Was it also the beginning of the threefold ministry in the
Indian church? In the fifth century when the Indian church came
under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan of Riwardashir, were
there bishops stationed in India? Where there any Indians among
them? When, in the seventh century a metropolitan was appointed for
India, was he an Indian and where was he placed? According to
Mingana, with the appointment of a metropolitan, between six and
twelve suffragan bishops were also consecrated for India. "We
infer that there was a considerable number of bishops and priests in
India, whose sees and parishes were apparently scattered in that
vast country to the distance of one thousand and two hundred
parsangas." (Mingana, op cit., p. 464) Were there some
Indians among these bishops and priests? In the absence of adequate
answers to such questions, it is difficult to accept the statement
of A.M. Mundadan that " tradition is unanimous in asserting
that the prelates of St. Thomas Christians came from Babylon
(Persia) for many centuries before the arrival of the Portuguese in
India." (Mundadan, op.cit.. p. 174.)
While the arrival of immigrants was the beginning of Persian
influence on the life of the Indian Church, it was not a wholesale
acceptance of Persian traditions. From the very beginning, the
church was taking roots in India and there was the growth of
indigenous traditions, practices and leadership. Western church
historians mention that Emperor Constantine sent a Christian embassy
in AD 354 to certain countries bordering the Red Sea and the Arabian
Sea under the leadership of an Asian Christian Theophilus, the
Indian, who appears to have been a native of Maladive Islands.
During this journey, he visited India also where, it is reported, he
"reformed many things which were not rightly done among them;
for they heard the reading of the Gospel in a sitting posture, and
did other things which were repugnant to the divine law; and having
reformed everything according to holy usage, as was not acceptable
to God, he also confirmed the dogma of the Church." (Mingana, Early
Spread of Christianity in India. pp. 26-28. A.E. Medlycott
points out that the value of the report of Theophilus is its
evidence that by the middle of the fourth century India or its
adjacent territories had indigenous, worshipping congregations
ministered to by local clergy, with customs such as sitting for the
Gospel, that were well adapted to the Indian culture though
divergent from accepted western practice. (A. E.
Medlycott, India and the Apostle Thomas (1905). pp. 188-202.)
Both in western and Syrian traditions, the congregation stood for
the reading of the Gospel during the Eucharist. He writes "if
there be any doubt as to whether the congregation be indigenous or
foreign, such doubts ought to be set aside by the peculiar customs
found among them." In the Didascalia Apostolorum.
(Margaret Dunlop Gibson [tra], The Didascalia Apostolorum in
English. London: C. J. Cloy & Sons, 1903, p.19.) of the
Syrian Church, it is said "The Apostles have also decreed that
at the end of all the scriptures, the Gospel shall be read as the
seal of all the scriptures, the people rising to their feet to hear
it; because it is the salvation of all men." It is important to
note Medlycott’s observation that Lie worshipping congregation at
this time were ministered to by local clergy. It seems very unlikely
that there were no Indian bishops among the clergy by this time. All
this shows that the Indian Church was not simply a copy of the
Syrian or Persian church and that there was the growth of air
independent indigenous Christian tradition in India.
In the controversy between the clergy of Fars and Timothy I in
the 8th century, we have seen that the bishops of the province of
Fars, contrary to the practice in the rest of Persia, were wearing
white garments like secular priests, were eating meat and marrying.
Was the Indian Church following the practice in Fars when it was
under the jurisdiction of Riwardashir from the 5th to the 7th
century? However, as time went on the Persian influence was felt
more and more in matters of ministry and liturgical practices. In
addition to the three fold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons,
there also came Choreepiscopas and archdeacons. Mundadan writes
"It is beyond any doubt that from very early times the St.
Thomas Christians had an arch deacon to serve their church and
community. The documents which are available today, though not many,
are clear about it." (Mundadan. op.cit., p.
180.) This office was received from the East Syrian Church and there
is a tradition that the first archdeacon in India was from the
family of Pakolomattam. He was the chief assistant to the bishop in
the administration of the diocese.
There were monks and monasteries in India. It is very difficult
to say when exactly the monastic tradition came into existence in
the Indian church. Did the Hindu and the Buddhist ascetic and
monastic traditions influence Indian Christianity? If so, monastic
tradition began to develop in the Indian church much earlier than
the Persian connection in the fourth century. We have noted earlier
that even the asceticism in Persia was affected by Indian ascetic
tradition. If it were a borrowing from the Persian church, it began
to develop only after the 4th century. In a passage in Jerome (late
4th century or early 5th) he tells that he was visited in Palestine
every day by monks from India, Persia and Ethiopia. Mingana could
not think of daily crowds of monks from India visiting Jerome and he
interprets India to mean South Arabia. It is surprising that
wherever India is mentioned, Mingana sees it referring to some other
place and we can hardly accept his views in this matter. We have
seen that monasteries were a great missionary and educational
instrument in the life of the Persian church and wherever the
Persian influence spread, the monasteries sprang up. This was so in
China and in Arabia, and Mingana points Out that in the fourth
century "the way to India was not only strewn with bishoprics,
but also with monasteries." (Mingana, op.cit.. p. 438.)
Naturally, one could expect a rapid development of the monastic
movement in India after the Persian connection. Monks from Persia
also used to come to India. In one of his letters Patriarch Timothy
(9th c) mentions that "many monks voyage to India and China
with only a stick and a purse." (See Mundadan, op.cit,., p.
101.)
Mingana mentions the biography of hermit Yonan, the archimandrite
of the Monastery of St. Thomas in India written by the end of the
fourth century. The monastery was situated on the borders of an
island called ‘the black Island’, south of the coast of Baith
Katraye. The island was in the vicinity of a town called ‘Milon’,
the inhabitants of which fished for pearls. Mingana comments
"The existence in about AD 390 in the shores of the Arabian sea
of a monastery under the name of Thomas is highly interesting, and
constitutes the weightiest proof of all those which have so far been
addressed to bolster up the historicity of the mission of Thomas.
Interesting also in the story is the narrative dealing with the
inner life of the two hundred monks of the monastery in that far off
period. Some of the proper names of the monks of the monastery imply
a country like Baith Katraye, because they have an undoubted Arabian
origin." (Mingana, op.cit., p. 307.) There is
considerable difference of opinion about the location of the island.
Some have identified the ‘black island’ with Ceylon, some others
locate it on the Coromandel coast. while Mingana thinks that the
island is on the Arabian side of the Persian gulf and is between
Oman and Baharin. However, Mingana admits that the tradition about
the existence of a monastery of St. Thomas in India, is very old.
Mingana himself asks: Would it be possible to assume that there
were, in the fourth century two monasteries of St. Thomas, one on
the coast of Oman, and the other on the Coromandel coast? Gregory of
Tours who died in AD 594 speaks of a monastery of St. Thomas in
India. In AD 883, King Alfred of England sent to the Pope the alms
which the king had vowed to send to Rome and also to India to St.
Thomas and Bartholomew. (Ibid. p. 307.) As in other
instances, in this case also Mingana says that the mention of
Bartholomew renders almost certain that King Alfred’s India was
not India at all, but south Arabia and Abyssinia. On the contrary,
we have pointed out earlier that St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew were
missionaries to India and that it confirms that King Alfred’s
India was our India and a monastery of St. Thomas existed in India
from ancient times. The existence of a St. Thomas shrine and church
is also attested by medieval visitors to India, such as Marco Polo
(1223), John of Monte Corvino (1293), Friar Odoric (1325). John de
Marignolli (1349) and Nicolo Conti (1440). Early in the 16th
century, writing to the Patriarch, three Nestorian bishops in India
mention in their letters a monastery of St. Thomas. They wrote
"As to the monastery of St. Thomas the Apostle, some Christian
men have gone into it, have inhabited it, and are now busy restoring
it; it is distant about twenty-five days from the above mentioned
Christians; it is on the shores of the sea in a town called
Mailapore, in the country of Silan, one of the Indian countries. (Mingana,
op.cit., p.471.)
With a very close relationship established between the Indian
Church and the East Syrian Church from the fourth century onwards,
East Syrian influence was strongly felt in the liturgical practice.
It was as a result of this relationship that in due course of time,
Syriac came to be used as the liturgical language. Also St. Thomas
Christians came to be referred to as Syrian Christians. It is very
puzzling for the historian that the Nestorian missionaries who were
eager to create alphabets for Central Asian people and who helped
the growth of indigenous theology among the Chinese Christians did
not encourage translation of the Bible into Arabic or the Syriac
liturgy into the language of the people in India. It is not very
easy to find an adequate answer to this problem.
Mingana mentions that the Indian Church never had a definite
ecclesiastical language except Syriac till the arrival of western
missionaries. He says "The fact proves first of all, that not
one of the scores of dialects spoken by India in the first century
has been found fit to be raised to the dignity of a sacred language
in which the message of the Gospel could be expressed with dignity
and aptitude; it proves also that the Indian Christians were
satisfied for the upkeep of their spiritual life with the use of a
language which their esteemed migrants had made familiar to
them." (Mingana, op.cit., p. 295.) Mingana’s
suggestion that any of the Indian languages was not fit to convey
the Christian gospel is made out of his ignorance of the Indian
languages. Moreover, Christianity in India before the 16th century
was very widespread and our knowledge of different Christian groups
is very scanty. It is very difficult to say that the worship of the
Christians was not held in their native tongues. But as we have
noted earlier, from the fourth century onwards the Persian influence
was felt more and more in the liturgical life of St. Thomas
Christians.
The East Syrians had a love for Aramaic or Syriac. Aramaic was
the language spoken in Palestine around the first century, and the
Jews wrote it in Hebrew characters. The Assyrians wrote it in
cuneiform, from which developed the Kharishti script of India and
the Pehlavi script of Iran. According to Arthur Christensen, Aramaic
was the lingua franca from eastern Persia to western India until the
seventh century. "Aramaic with a christianized vocabulary is
known as Syriac. (See Katz and Goldberg, op.cit., pp.
301-302.) Their love for Syriac was not because of nationalism or
cultural insensitivity to other cultures. If it were because of
nationalism, the Persian Christians would have insisted on the use
of Persian or Pehlavi. In China, at the request of the Nestorian
Christians the Chinese government in AD 745 changed their name
Persian to Syrian religion. No official reason was given except that
"the Persian scriptural religion began in Syria." For the
Nestorian Christians, Syrian Christianity meant one which is nearer
to the source of Christianity. Jesus Christ spoke and taught in
Aramaic. The Nestorian Christians had a special love for the Syriac
(Aramaic) because it was the language of Jesus Christ and Syrian
Christianity meant original Christianity. Among the Jews there was a
prejudice against committing the Scriptures to writing in any other
than the sacred tongue. The day on which the Old Testament was
translated into Greek was said to be as evil as that on which the
golden calf was made. The early Syrian Christians, being converts
from Jews, might also have had a similar love for Aramaic (Syriac).
This could also be said of the St. Thomas Christians in India.
Moreover, Syriac was not an unknown language in India in the early
centuries. As has been stated, Aramaic was the lingua franca for
eastern Persia to western India till the seventh century. Katz and
Goldberg point out that according to Cochin Jewish tradition, the
Jews in Cranganore spoke Aramaic. (Ibid., p. 302.)
Christian Theology in India
We know very little about the theology in the Indian Church
during the early period. As to the times of Nestorian contact, Robin
Boyd writes "We shall leave aside the question of the theology
of the Indian Church in Nestorian times, as no recordings are
available, noting merely that there is still a small Nestorian
church in South India and that India has never ceased to be
conscious of the ancient Nestorian associations." (R.
H. S. Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology Madras,
CLS, 1969, p. 9.) Whatever records were available were destroyed by
the Roman Catholic missionaries during the Portuguese period. About
this Mundadan says:
Today there is no written pre-16th century record of the
doctrinal theological position of St. Thomas Christians prior to
their contact with the West in the 16th century. Even those
books which the Portuguese writers of the 16th century examined
and used for drawing their conclusions are not available today.
Since the Portuguese suspected the presence of errors in the
books, they all became casualties in the auto-da-fe programme
launched by the Portuguese padroado authorities at the close of
the 16th century and later. This leaves us without sufficient
data to verify whether the Indian Christians had evolved a
theology of their own. Recourse then has to be made to other
sources of information, namely, ‘ the life, experience and
tradition’, to form some idea of the pre-16th century views on
Christianity in India. In other words, we have to find out what
theology is reflected in the general outlook and religious
mentality of the community, in their life, customs and
traditions. (A. M. Mundadan, op.cit., pp. 492-93.)
According to Antony Mookenthottam, it is probable that the
ancient church in India had developed some theology of its own and
this theology is not written down in books but it is implicit in the
life, experience and traditions of the community. (Ibid.,
p. 492.) Though no written records are available, yet, we might
be able to infer something of the theological thinking in the Indian
Church from other sources and circumstantial evidences.
The first Christian converts in India were Jews and it was with
the Jewish Christian community in East Syria that the Indian church
entered into an ecclesiastical relationship in the subsequent
period. So it is not wrong for us to assume that the church in India
in the first few centuries shared in the general characteristics of
Judeo-Christianity. The first Gospel they possessed was the Gospel
of the Nazarenes believed to have been brought to India by St.
Bartholomew. The language of Judeo Christians in Jerusalem was
Aramaic (Syriac) and wherever Judeo Christianity spread, Syriac had
a permanent place in the liturgy of the church.
The Indian church because of its ecclesiastical relationship with
the East Syrian church was also influenced by the theology of that
church. Ephrem and Aphrahat were great theologians of that church in
the fifth century. From the fifth century onwards, the writings of
the Antiochene theologians, especially that of Theodore of
Mopsuestia (392-428) became the chief resources for the study of
theology in the East Syrian church. Narsai, the great teacher of
Nisibis was a follower of Theodore. Theodore, for the East Syrian
church, was the doctor of doctors and the great exegete and
interpreter of the Bible, whose sober and literal interpretation was
always the Nestorian model. The works of Antiochene theologians were
translated into Syriac. It is only logical for us to infer that the
theological thinking in the East Syriac church, namely of Ephrem and
Aphrahat and later Theodore of Mopsuestia, had some influence on the
Indian church. After noting that the epistle to the Romans was
translated from Greek into Syriac by Mar Komai with the help of
Daniel the priest, the Indian, Mingana says:
This union of the Church of India with that of Mesopotamia
and Persia is rendered more evident by another scholar of the
school of Edessa, Ma’na, bishop of Riwardhashir, who, in about
AD 470, wrote in Persian (i.e., Pahlawi) religious discourses,
cantacles and hymns, and translated from Greek into Syriac the
works of Diodore and Theodore of Mopsuestia, and sent them all
to India. And he dispatched to the islands of the sea (Baharin),
and to India, all the books he had translated. (Mingana, op.cit.,
p. 314.)
This is a very strong evidence to show that from the fifth
century onwards, the works of Antiochene theologians, especially
those of Diodore and Theodore were known in India and had some
influence on the theological thinking of the Indian church. By AD
470, the Indian church was under the episcopal supervision of the
bishop of Riwardashir and it was only natural on the part of the
bishop to feel strongly about his episcopal responsibility for the
theological education of the Indian church. Not only the theology of
Diodore and Theodore, but also of Ephrem and Aphrahat might have had
some influence on the Indian church. As we stated earlier, Theodore
and his colleagues had a real appreciation for the human life of
Jesus without minimizing his divinity. Jesus Christ represented
humanity at its highest and fullest. Salvation is not divinization
but the life of a community with God. The Christian life for them is
the imitation of Christ and to be in the service of Christ. That
means leading the life of unrelenting warfare against the forces of
evil. The doctrine of free will of human beings, by which he or she
controls all passions and guides his/her actions, is an essential
aspect of the East Syrian theology. The East Syrian theologians did
not locate sin in human nature. In their theology they preserved the
freedom of the human being to make choices and a certain degree of
self-reliance, though they accepted the need for Grace. Theirs was a
theology which was a strong critic of the Augustinian position on
Sin and Grace, and on human nature, which was imposed on the Indian
Church later by the Latin missionaries. Arising out of their
Christology and anthropology was also the East Syrian Church’s
theology of universal mission.
There are Indian writers who maintain that the Indian church was
not aware of the theological developments in the Persian church and
was thus not influenced by it. They point out that the Indian church
had a relationship with the Persian church before it became
Nestorian and maintained that relationship ever after the Persian
church became Nestorian without really realizing the difference.
Such a view cannot be accepted as it implies that the Indian church
in the early centuries was theologically ignorant or indifferent. in
fact, the church was fully aware of its theological position as it
came to realize the sharp distinction between the Law of Peter and
the Law of Thomas. The conflict at the Udayamperoor Synod in AD 1599
was between the Church of St. Thomas and the Church of St. Peter.
Act III, Decree 7 of the synod reads:
The Synod is painfully aware of the heresy and perverse error
which is being disseminated in this diocese by the schismatics
to the great detriment of souls: There is one Law of St. Thomas
and another of St. Peter; the Church founded by the one is
distinct and different from the Church founded by the other;
each is immediately from Christ; one has nothing to do with the
other; neither the prelate of one owes obedience to the prelate
of the other; those who belong to the law of Peter endeavoured
to destroy the law of St. Thomas; for this they had been
punished by him…( Quoted in Mundadan op.cit.. pp. 494-495.
Mundadan says that the words used by the synodical decree are
too sharp to be taken literally. He seems to suggest that the
conflict was only on the ‘form of Christianity’ and on
different forms and customs. It was much more than that. It was
about the identity and independence of the Indian church. The
Indian church repudiated the juridical claims of the Roman
Catholic church.)
This is a very valuable evidence. It shows that the pre-16th
century Indian church was fully aware of its identity and
independence. It is founded by St. Thomas and they follow the Law of
Thomas. For the Indian Christians the church founded by Peter and
the Law of Peter are distinct and different from theirs. They have
nothing to do with the Roman Church and their bishops do not owe
obedience to Roman bishops. They strongly repudiated the papal
claims to universal supremacy as the authority of each bishop is
immediately from Christ. They vehemently protested against the
interference of the Roman church in their affairs and the attempts
of the Roman church to destroy the law of Thomas. The Indian
Christians knew the distinction and difference between the Church of
St. Thomas and the Church of St. Peter, both ecclesiastically and
theologically. The St. Thomas Christians used to stage a drama in
their churches telling the story of a fight between St. Peter and
St. Thomas where Thomas defeated Peter at the end of the fight.
While the Indian church was aware of and influenced by the
theological developments in the East Syrian church, it was not a
whole sale acceptance. There were also indigenous theological
developments within the Indian church. The Nestorian church wherever
it went encouraged the growth of indigenous theology. In the case of
China, the Nestorian church there took seriously the Chinese
classics. As we said earlier about Adam, a Nestorian missionary in
China, that he knew Chinese classics and had studied the writings of
Taoist mystics, and he was skilful in choosing illustrations from
them. He was able to talk with the Buddhists in terms of their
philosophy and was accustomed to borrow from them both background
and terms to expound his Christian themes. Not only he endeavoured
to make China Christian but also tried to make Christianity, in a
worthy sense, ‘Chinese’. Buddhists regarded Adam as a dangerous
man, not because he was making Christianity too Buddhist but he was
trying to make Buddhism too Christian. There existed a Christian
literature in Chinese.
In India, the Christian community, from the beginning, was an
indigenous community with social and cultural roots in Indian
tradition, sharing a social and community life with the Hindus.
Anthony Mookenthottam is right when he writes "their
identification with their socio-cultural milieu was so thorough ...
This oneness with their socio-cultural milieu implies an
implicit incarnational theology lived, an awareness that Christ in
becoming man assumed everything human and redeemed all social and
cultural values." (A. Mookenthottam, "Indian
Theological Tendencies", 1978. p. 23 quoted by Mundadan, op.cit.,
p. 493.)
In the second century. when the Indian Christians invited
Pantaneus to preach to the Hindu philosophers and religious leaders,
they were aware of their missionary responsibility to Indian culture
as a whole. The Alexandrian theologians, especially Clement and
Origen in the second and third centuries, had a positive attitude to
Greek culture. Clement, a distinguished student and successor of
Pantaneus believed that the idea of God is implanted in all people
at creation. There is a spark of nobility in every soul, an upward
inclination which is kindled by the divine logos. Philosophy is of
divine origin. For Clement, all wisdom is summed up in Christ. All
history is one, because all truth is one. ‘There is one river of
truth, but many streams fall into it from this side and that."
(Stromata. 1:5) Perhaps the Indian church had developed a
positive attitude to Indian philosophy and culture through their
contacts with Pantaneus and other Alexandrian Christians.
In the Synod of Udayamperoor in AD 1599, the Latin missionaries
condemned the Indian Church’s opinion that each one can be saved
in one’s own law and all laws are right and forbade a number of
customs and practices to continue in the Indian church because they
were pagan (Hindu). In Act III, Decree 4 of the Synod it reads:
Each one can be saved in his own law, all laws are right:
This is fully erroneous and a most shameful heresy: There is no
law in which we may be saved except the law of Christ our
Saviour.... [ and the footnote says]: This is a perverse dogma
of politicians and those tolerant...Consequently being
indifferent they wander very far away from the truth". (Mundadan,
op.cit., p. 493.)
Commenting on the decisions of the Synod, Mundadan observes,
"These prohibitions and restrictions imposed by the Synod are a
witness to the communal harmony and cordial relations that existed
between the Christians and the Hindus. This communal harmony and
spirit of tolerance should be considered a typical Indian
contribution to the Christian vision." (Ibid.)
The Hindus and the Christians lived as one community for many
centuries in South India. They accepted each other and there was
co-operation between the two communities not only in social matters
but also in religious. This communal harmony was undergirded by a
theological perception which the Udayamperoor Synod condemned as
heresy. According to Mundadan, the Latin missionaries had no life
experience of non-Christian religions and they narrowly interpreted
the dictum, "Outside the Church there is no salvation".
It is to be noted that the synod attributes this ‘error’
to contact with pagans. What is really involved here is the
understanding of the doctrine ‘extra ecclesiam nulla salus’
(outside the Church there is no salvation) by the Portuguese and
St. Thomas Christians, respectively. The Portuguese came from
the West where a rigid interpretation of the dictum had
prevailed for a long time and had become acute in the 16th
century in the context of the anti-Protestant Counter
Reformation spirit. They sensed danger in the more liberal
attitude of the Indian Christians towards Hindus and Hindu
religion.... It would be centuries before the Europeans would
acquire a life-experience of non-Christian religions, before a
theology of the religions of the world would emerge which would
give due respect to the positive elements in those religions and
their providential salvific role for millions of people. But the
Indian Christians had already been living for centuries in a
positive encounter with the high caste Hindus and had developed
a theological vision of Hindu religion which was more positive
and liberal. (Mundadan. op.cit., pp. 493-494.)
The Latin church had a very narrow view of the church, and the
Latins interpreted Christ and salvation in Christ, in the light of
their doctrine of the church; so much so that pope Bonifice VIII in
the Middle Ages could assert that outside the church there is no
salvation nor remission of sins and that submission to the Roman
pontiff, for every human being is an utter necessity for salvation.
This was the law of Peter which the Latin missionaries tried to
propagate in India. It was contrary to the law of Thomas and hence
the clash at Udayamperoor Synod. St. Thomas Christians were able to
have a positive view of Hinduism not only because of their
life-experience of living among the Hindus, but also because of
their theology. At the heart of Antiochene theology which influenced
the St. Thomas Christians in the pre-sixteenth century period was
the emphasis on the full humanity of Jesus Christ. The reality of
Jesus’ humanity and its kinship with the rest of humankind is of
utmost importance in their theology. Contrary to the Augustinian
teaching on original sin, and human nature, they emphasized human
freedom and the responsibilities and obligations of Christian faith.
They did not locate sin in human nature and thus preserved human
freedom and a certain degree of self-reliance. It is possible for
such a theology to develop a positive attitude to other religions
and cultures. An emphasis on the full humanity of Jesus Christ, an
appreciation of human freedom and responsibility, a positive
attitude to other religions and cultures and a strong affirmation of
the independence and freedom of the Indian church were some of the
salient features of the Indian Christian theology and ecclesiology
in the early period. This is what the Latin missionaries found to be
heretical and what the present day historians of Indian Christian
theology failed to notice.
Christianity in India at the End of the Fifteenth Century
Christianity which came to India with the apostolic activity of
St. Thomas had established contacts with the churches in Alexandria
and Persia. When Pantaneus from Alexandria came to India by about AD
180, he found a Gospel of the Nazarenes with the Christians
there, brought to them by St. Bartholomew. The Indian church entered
into an ecclesiastical relationship with the church in Basra
probably by the beginning of the fourth century. There were at least
two immigrations of Persian Christians to India, one in the fourth
and the other in the ninth century which influenced the liturgical
and religious life of the Christians.
The Indian Christians were socially and culturally very much
integrated into the wider Hindu community; and they kept on many of
the Hindu social customs and practices. From the grants given by the
local rulers to the immigrant Christians, we can infer that the
Christians in South India had a position of privilege in Indian
society.
The St. Thomas Christians were engaged in missionary work both
inside and outside the country and there were communities of
Christians scattered throughout the country.
We have very little information about the state of affairs of
Christians from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. From the
thirteenth century onwards, there were European travelers --
especially Marco Polo and a number of Roman Catholic missionaries --
who visited India and wrote of their visits. One thing which came to
be known from the writings of these medieval travelers is that there
was a considerable Nestorian dispersion all over India in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The rise of Muslim political power in north India seems to have
been the beginning of the decline of Christianity in the north. The
Christians suffered several disadvantages under the Muslim rule and
many of them were converted to Islam.
The medieval Roman Catholic travelers in India were a source of
tension within the Indian Christian community and some of them tried
to latinize the St. Thomas Christians. It was only the beginning of
what was to come later under the Portuguese Padroado.
The majority of the St. Thomas Christians were in South India.
The Christians in the south were living in the territory of Hindu
rulers and were not very much affected by the rise of Muslim
political power in the north. From the Syriac sources mentioned by
Mingana, we learn that during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, the Indian church did not have enough bishops and priests
for the spiritual ministrations in the church. We do not know the
reason for the development of such situations. In AD 1490, a
deputation of two Indian Christians, George and Joseph, came to the
Patriarch of the East asking him to send bishops to India, which had
been without bishops for a long time." (Mingana, op.cit., p.
469.) The Patriarch ordained George and Joseph as priests and
consecrated two monks from the monastery of St. Eugenius as bishops
and sent them to India. In AD 1503, Patriarch Elias consecrated
three more bishops -- Mar Yahb Alaha, Mar Jacob and Mar Dinha, --
for India.
All Christians of this side were greatly pleased with us. ...
There are here about thirty thousand families of Christians,
our co-religionists, and they implore the Lord to grant thee a
long life. They have begun to build churches, and are prosperous
in every respect, and living in peace and security As to the
monastery of the St. Thomas the Apostle, some Christian men have
gone into it, and are now busy restoring it. ... The
countries of India are very numerous and powerful, and their
distance is about six months journey. Each country has a special
name by which it is known, and our country in which Christians
are found is called Malabar. It has about twenty towns out of
which three are renowned and powerful: Karangol, Pallur and
Kullam, with others which are near them. They contain Christians
and churches, and are in the vicinity of the large and powerful
city of Calicut, the inhabitants of which are idol-worshipping
pagans. (Mingana, op.cit., pp. 470-71.)
As to the general state of St. Thomas Christians at the close of
the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century as the
Portuguese found it, we have the following description.
The authority of the Syrian bishop extends to all temporal
and spiritual matters. They are natural judges of all civil and
ecclesiastical cases within their diocese. The pagan princes and
judges have no concern with them, excepting only in criminal
cases. ... Men walk armed, some with fusees of which they know
perfectly the use, others with spears; but the greatest numbers
carry only a naked sword in the right hand and a shield in the
left. They are carefully instructed in the use of arms from
their eighth to their twenty-fifth years, and are excellent
hunters and warriors. The more Christians a pagan prince has in
his dominion, the more he is feared and esteemed. It is on this
account as well as on that of their fidelity and strict
attachment to truth in everything, that the princes cherish and
countenance them so much. They are second in rank only to
Brahmins. The Christians, pursuant to the laws of the country,
are the protectors of silversmiths, brassfounders, carpenters
and smiths. The pagans who cultivate the palm trees form a
militia under the Christians. If a pagan of any of these classes
should receive an insult, he has immediate recourse to the
Christians, who procure a suitable satisfaction. The Christians
depend directly on the prince or his minister and not on the
provincial governors. If anything is demanded from them contrary
to their privileges, the whole unite immediately for general
defense. If a pagan strikes one of the Christians, he is put to
death on the spot or forced himself to bear to the church of the
place an offering of a gold or silver hand according to the
quality of the person affronted. In order to preserve their
nobility, the Christians never touch a person of inferior caste,
not even a Nair. ..... They are authorized to ride and
travel on elephants. They sit in the presence of the king and
his ministers, even on the same carpet -- a privilege granted to
ambassadors only. The king of Paroor having wished during the
last century to extend this privilege to the Nairs, the
Christians declared war against him and obliged him to restore
affairs to their former state. (C. B. Firth comments that this
is a remarkable picture quoted from E. M. Philip, The Indian
Church of St. Thomas,. Nagercoil, L.M.S. Press, 1950, pp
421-23, by C. B. Firth, op. cit., p. 47.)
C.B. Firth comments that this is a remarkable picture of a strong
and well organized community, commanding respect among its Hindu
neighbours, managing its own affairs and able to assert its rights.
