There is a legend about the Ancient Syrian
Christians in Kerala. I have noted that
most of the historians have mentioned that in A.D. 52 St. Thomas, an apostle of
Jesus Christ arrived at Muzuris (Kodungallur.) The apostle professed and
propagated the Way of Christianity; the Apostle convinced, and converted those
who had the conviction, and baptized gradually some of the Jews and the
Brahmins, the wise men, into Christianity. The apostle established seven and a
half churches in Malabar. They are: Maliankara in Kodungallur, Palayur (near
Guruvayur), Kottakavu in North Paravur, Kokkamangalam near thanneermukkam,
Nilackal (Chayal), Niranam, Kollam and Thiruvithancode – the last one is called a half church or a
church made on land donated by the local king or arajan (Arapally in
Malayalam.) The Apostle preached in other parts of India also. In A.D. 72 he was martyred at
Little Mount a small distance away from St. Thomas Mount. He was buried at San Thome, near the modern City
of Chennai.
There are reasonable criticisms about the
arrival of St. Thomas in Malabar Coast. Apart from the ipsi-dixit of various historians, I too have not yet found any
documentary proof or evidence to substantiate or authenticate or support this
contention in history. The details about the activities of St. Thomas in Kerala are shrouded in mystery. The
historians have failed to explain why the self-confident and contended Nambuthiris, who stood at the upper
social scale, should convert to Christianity. Why St. Thomas discriminated the
Adivasis (present Scheduled Tribes) of that time remains a debatable question?
It is pertinent to note that his mentor, Jesus Christ, never discriminated
people based on race, caste, colour, class, sex, wealth and social status.
Moreover the historians have failed to point out whether there were sufferings
and privation for those Brahmin immigrants who came at a later period. Wasn’t
there any curse attached to the name of Chavakkad, a place where a lot of
Brahmins were supposed to have been converted to Christianity? A few historians
say apostle, St. Thomas, even if he existed, never came to India. The Christian
community in South India was founded by a Syrian merchant Thomas Canna in 345
A.D. He led 72 families comprising 400 refugees including priests, who fled
persecution in Persia and were given asylum by the Hindu authorities. Sthanu Ravi Guptan Perumal, the Chera King of
that period, (Kerala) assigned (Attiperu),
absolute sale of jenmom property, and executed a ‘Thamrasasanam’, a deed inscribed in a copper plate, with the
permission of the landlords, to St. Teresa Church, whereby they were given
special rights and privileges. This story was too commonplace to attract
converts. So Christian leaders identified the merchant Thomas with Apostle
Thomas and created the dramatic story of the Apostle’s persecution and death at
the hands of the Brahmins of South India. This became current in the 16th century when the Portuguese gained
control of the west coast of India and forced the Syrian
Christians to follow the Catholic faith. The Portuguese also destroyed the
Kapaleeswara Temple that originally stood on the site now occupied by the San
Thome Cathedral on
the beach. The creation of this myth and the history is told in detail
by the Canadian scholar Ishwar Sharan in his famous book “The Myth of St. Thomas and the
Mylapore Shiva Temple.” The purpose of the myth was to create a local
martyr. Christianity depends heavily on the appeal of
martyrs who are projected as victims like Jesus Christ. Then as now, Church
leaders liked to pose as victims to generate sympathy and propaganda. But no matter how much they tried,
the Hindus of India refused to supply the Portuguese with martyrs. So they were
forced to create their own. So they turned the merchant Thomas into the Apostle
Thomas killed by the Hindus. In his foreword to Ishwar Sharan’s book the Belgian
scholar Koenraad Elst wrote: “In Catholic universities in
Europe, the myth of the apostle Thomas going to India is no longer taught as
history, but in India it is still considered useful. Targeting Brahmins to
undermine Hinduism was a favorite tactic among missionaries. Another motivation
for the myth was to erase the unsavory record of the Catholic Church’s close
association with the Portuguese pirates and even worse, the Goa Inquisition
inspired by St Xavier. There is even a Mount of St. Thomas in Mylapore in
Chennai with a tomb that is supposed to contain his martyred remains. But the
problem is there are several such memorials spread across Persia, Acre (Turkey)
and a few other places dating to different times, all laying claim to be the
place where Apostle Thomas was martyred and buried!” After examining all the
evidence, Fr. Heras, former Director of the Historical Research Institute, St.
Xavier’s College, Bombay, said in 1953 that he was convinced that the tomb of
St. Thomas was not in Mylapore. Heras was himself a Jesuit friar but also an
eminent historian. On September 27, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech at
St. Peter’s in Rome in which he recalled an ancient tradition claiming that
Thomas first evangelized Syria and Persia, then went on to Western India, from
where Christianity also reached South India. In reality the Pope’s original statement at St.
Peter’s, reflected the geography of the Acts of Thomas, i.e.
Syria, Parthia (Persia / Iran) and Gandhara (Afghanistan / north-west Pakistan)
all far removed from Kerala in the southernmost tip of India. This is not the
end to the contradictions. If Thomas landed in Kerala in 52 AD, he could not
have taught from the Christian Bible. The “New Testament” books as we know them today with its four gospels
which are composite works edited and rewritten a number
of times and came into existence only after the 4th century Council of Nicaea. In fact Christianity
did not exist at the time because there was no Christian scripture! As if this
were not confusing enough, Fr. Francis Clooney, a theologian with the Harvard
Divinity School has stated that St Thomas had preached in Brazil, no matter
that Brazil as we understand today was unknown in his time. According to
Clooney, one Ruiz de Montoya, writing in Peru in the mid-seventeenth century,
thought that since God would not have overlooked the Americas for fifteen
hundred years, and since among the twelve apostles St. Thomas was known for his
mission to the “most abject people in the world, blacks and Indians,” it was
only reasonable to conclude that St. Thomas had preached throughout the
Americas, “He began in Brazil – either reaching it by natural means on Roman
ships, which some maintain were in communication with America from the coast of
Africa, or else, as may be thought closer to the truth, being transported there
by God miraculously. He passed to Paraguay and from there to the Peruvians.”
Finally, the myth was created by Portuguese missionaries in the 16thcentury
with the help of pirates. They destroyed the Kapaleeswara Temple and a Jain
temple building and erected the church known as San Thome in 1504. It acquired
its present status and recognition as a cathedral under British patronage in
1893. It was also the Portuguese who converted the Syrian Christians to the
Catholic faith. So, all these contradictions have to be reconciled before the
myth of St Thomas can be taken seriously. (Raju Rajan on “St. Thomas in India:
Myth or Truth?”) However, more research is
necessary to unfold the myth of St. Thomas.
Due to political turmoil in West Asia, Jews
landed at Muziris (Kodungallur) for domicile and business and the then Chera
King (Kerala), Bhaskara Ravivarman assigned (Attiperu,) absolute sale of jenmom property, and he also granted
special rights and privileges to them including the right to use Pavada, cloth spread in the streets as
at a king’s coronation; ‘Nada’, procession
and the shout of it that is offered in a church; ‘Pallakku’, palanquin or
ledge; ‘Kuda’, ornamental umbrella; ‘Kottum’,
beating or thumping on percussion instruments like snare drum,
cymbal and bass drum and ‘Kuzhalum’, musical
wind instruments like clarinet, bugle; which
can be seen inscribed in a ‘Thamrasasanam’,
a deed written on a Copper Plate in Pali, the
canonical language of Buddhists. The Jews settled in Cranganore. Later, the
king issued an order that these rights and privileges can be availed by
landlords as well. There was a steady
influx of Middle Eastern immigrants, Arabs, Persians, Syrians and others from
Central Asia, due to political chaos and confusions, war and other natural
calamities.
Excerpts from
MEMOIRS
An autobiography
by
Joseph J. Thayamkeril
Lawyer, Kochi, Kerala, India.
josephjthayamkeril.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment