By Chev. Prof. George Menachery –
What is astonishing is a clear picture that Ephraem provides of the extensive travel and trade that existed in Apostolic and sub-Apostolic times between India, especially South India, and the Western countries. Today we know a lot about this travel and trade, the Arabian Sea coastal route (as described in Periplus of the Erithraen Sea) and the monsoon route (e.g. as elaborated by Pliny the Elder) and as evidenced by the Muziris Vienna Papyrus and from a plethora of other sources, including the Tamil Sangam literature.
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What is amazing is the continuing clamour for more and more evidence for the trade and travel and the Apostle’s sojourn in India, in spite of the massive and unarguable body of evidence available from the fourth century hymns of St. Ephraem and from numerous other Syriac sources. The lack of understanding of Indian scholars of the wealth of Syriac sources and the lack of knowledge of the Syriac languages are serious impediments to a proper reading of ancient South Indian history and culture.
Pearl was a large part of the exports from Muziris and South India. Pliny the Elder’s writings talk about the drainage of Roman gold to purchase Indian goods, including pearls.
(8) In Hymn 2 we read: “Wise man, who to secure the great pearl, of thy riches all else thou givest (line 12)”.
“O Thrice- Blessed City! that hast acquired this pearl, none greater doth India yield (line 14).”
“Blessed art thou, worthy to possess the priceless gem! (line 15).”
Then there is Ezekiel’s lamentation about the tyre—about the number of countries and people who traded in tyre and the shipwreck described in these lines (Ez.27):
Like the many merchants who set sail from the Gulf of Aqaba a mere 1000 kilometres from Edessa via the Red Sea mouth, near the kingdom of the queen of Sheba, to India, our merchant also embarked on diverse trades, but “nothing so priceless did he acquire in his several journeys to India, And thence on his returns…”
A true and realistic description of the Indian Ocean trade of the first centuries (BCE/CE) is found in lines 9, 11, 12 of Hymn 3. “All riches, which there he found, Dirt in his eyes he did repute when to thy [sacred] bones compared.”
The ease with which Middle East merchants could come to India in the first centuries, especially to Mylapore and Arikamedu on the Coromandel Coast and to Muziris on the west coast, is evident from these lines. The diverse trade in pearls, ivory, spices and sandalwood in Malabar, as well as on the Maabar coasts (9) could have made our merchant quite rich, but he gave more importance to the Apostle’s bones.
Certain Indian customs, manners and religious practices
For those familiar with life in South India, the hymns of St. Ephraem will provide adequate evidence for the Apostle’s preaching, martyrdom and burial in Tamilakam or South India.
The customs, manners, and religious practices of the land and the people associated with Thomas’ mission, death and burial described in these hymns can apply to no other place or people in the world, other than Tamilakam, except perhaps for the reference in lines 7, 8, and 9 of the third hymn to the Gondaphares phase of the Apostle’s stay in India described in the Acts of Judas Thomas:(10)
“What dweller on earth was ever seen,
But Thomas, the Lord’s Apostle,
On earth designing and a dwelling in Heaven erecting?”
In these few lines of St. Ephraem, the word ‘India’ is used no less than eight times. Each time, it is used with no hesitation, doubt or confusion. All the talk about India Ulterior, India Citerior, India Felix and several other Indias of the hair-splitting pundits find no trace in Ephraem’s matter-of-fact description of India and her people.
For lack of time, let us examine just a few references.
Look at the devil’s predicament:
“… the Apostle I slew in India has overtaken me in Edessa; here and there he is all himself.
There went I, and there was he: here and there to my grief I find him.”
The India of Ephraem (and Thomas) is a land “darkened with sacrifices’ fumes,” “a land of people dark” and “a tainted land,” which needed to be purified.
“Thy grateful dawn India’s painful darkness doth dispel.” “With oil from the Cross replenished, India’s dark night floodest with light.” (By lighting the lampstands of India?) “Above snow and linen white, thou the dark bride didst make fair.”
“The bride, (India) whom from heathenism, from demons’ errors, and from enslavement to sacrifices thou didst rescue.”
“Her with saving bath thou cleansest, the sunburnt thou hast made fair, the Cross of Light her darkened shades effacing.”
“Under great bodily fatigue In one region only didst thou heal.” (That is, according to Ephraem and the Edessan Church, the region of India only.)
“Thomas, whom he sent to baptize peoples perverse, in darkness steeped.
A dark night then India’s land enveloped, like the sun’s ray Thomas did dart forth;
There he dawned, and her illumined.”
St. Ephraem emphatically asserts:
“The client of Thomas needs not men his praises to sing:
Great is the crowd of his martyred followers.
Lo, his Bones, his Passion, his Work proclaim;
His Miracles, him yet alive assert;
His Deeds the rough Indian convinced.
Who dares doubt the truth of his Relics?”
Indeed, who dares doubt the truth of his Indian Apostolate?
Photo caption: A group of pilgrims from Pollachi in neighbouring Tamil Nadu state after walking 220 kms leaves highway to the road to St. Thomas’ Malayattoorr Karukutty
Concluded.
Chev. Prof. George Menachery is a professor, anthropologist, indologist, historian of Syro Malabar Church and history of Kerala. He is the editor of the St. Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India and the Indian Church History Classics. Prof. Menachery is also the recipient of the ‘Order of Saint Gregory the Great’, known as the title of “Chevalier”.
Notes:
(1) A. E. Medlycott, India and the Apostle Thomas, London, 1905. Volume reprinted in G. Menachery, The Nazranies, Ollur, 1998 (pp. 187 – 264); Hymns of Ephraem quoted by Medlycott reprinted in The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India, Ed.G. Menachery, Vol.II, Trichur, 1973, p.18, lt. col.to p.23, lt. col. and in the Thomapedia, Ed. G. Menachery, Ollur, 2000, p.18, lt. col.to p.23, lt.col.
(2) British Museum Add. MS 14572. The MS consists of 117 folios and is assigned by Bickell to the sixth century; some folios of the text have been lost, but the deficiency is supplied from Add. MS 17141 and from MS 1457 (cf. Medleycott; Menachery1998. note (1) supra). The book by Medlycott is available at http://www.indianchristianity.com/html/chap4/chapter4a.htm
(3) This second hymn is from British Museum Add. MS 17141, folio 85; Wright (Catalogue of Syriac MSS in the British Museum, pp. 359-363) assigns the MS to the eighth or ninth century; it contains a large collection of hymns ascribed to Ephraem, Isaac of Antioch, and Jacob of Batnae (Sarug)(Medleycott; Menachery1998). The Breviary according to the Rite of the Church of Antioch of the Syrians, seven quarto volumes, published 1886-1896 at Mosul, at the press of the Dominican Fathers, also contains strophes 1-2, 6-7, 10 of this hymn in vol. vi. p. 631. (Medlycott)
(4) Ammianus Marcellinus, History, Bohn’s ed., 1862, bk.xxv.chap.viii.p.397 (Medlycott)
(5) In 232 the relics of the apostle Thomas were brought [to Edessa] from Mylapore India on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written (Wikipedia article “Edessa”, revisited September 8, 2014).
(6) For Pliny the Elder and many other first century writers, Muziris in Kerala is “Primum Emporium Indiae.” Also cf. the Muziris Vienna Papyrus. Other details in “Kodungallur…”, Chs. 1 & 2, George Menachery, 1987, reprinted in 2000 as “Kodungallur Cradle of Christianity in India” from Azhikode. (www.indianchristianity.com)
(7) The Thomas Christians, Placid J. Podipara, Darton, Longman, and Todd, London & St. Paul Publications, Bombay, 1970. The concerned chapter, ”The Indian Apostolate of St. Thomas“ is reproduced in The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India, Ed. George Menachery, Vol.II, 1973 and in the Thomapedia, 2000, pp. 7-12.
(8) Chapter I, Kodungallur City of St. Thomas, George Menachery, Azhikode, 1987; reprinted in 2000 as Kodungallur the Cradle of Christianity in India. Kautilya in his Arthasastra calls pearls «Churni» both because pearls were perhaps found in the river Periyar and because they were exported in large quantities from the Periyar port Muziris. Pliny’s description of Lollia Paulina wearing millions of gold coins worth of pearls may be noted.
(9) The Western and Eastern coasts of peninsular India
(10) cf. The Acts discussed by Medlycott in his “India and the Apostle Thomas,” London, 1905; reprinted in the Nazranies, ed. George Menachery, Ollur, 1998. Georgias Press also provides a reprint. A scholarly study of The Acts of Thomas with Introduction, Text, and Commentary by A. F. J. Klijn, Brill, 1962, 2003 discusses various aspects of the work. A summary of the Acts is given at pp. 24-26 of The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India, Vol. II, Trichur, 1973, Ed. G. Menachery (Reprinted as the Thomapedia, Ollur, 2000).