Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 13:32:54 +0300
Reply-To: Indology
Sender: Indology
From: Klaus Karttunen
Subject: Apostle Thomas again
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”iso-8859-1″

Dear Colleagues
Sorry that I am rather late wit h my reply. I had to switch my e-mail to a
new machine, and it took some time to have it running again.

As to the question of Ganesan, Cosmas mentions twice, in 3, 65 and 11, 14,
Christian communities in South India and Sri Lanka, with a Persian bishop,
but he does not mention Thomas’ death. In fact he does not mention Thomas
at all, in this I made a mistake. Sorry!

Of course the legend of Thomas’ death near Madras is not true, as I think I
made clear in my first message, but it was wise that Bal Prasad did not
vouch for the veracity of his “paraphrase”. Even the names of scholars were
wrong: instead of C-J De la Vallee-Poussin and Robert Garbe, Louis de La
Vallee-Poussin and Richard Garbe.

As to the Acts of Thomas, it is an apocryphal work, and no more history
than other such legends. This kind of literature is common in many
religions. As far as I know, no serious scholar is taking it as part of the
Bible or as a historical source, although it may contains some points
originating in history (such as the name of Gondophares-Gudhaphar). The
point is that it is a genuine work of the fourth century and can be used as
a source for ideas then current among Christians in the West. It is thus
among the earliest sources locating Thomas’ mission and its end in India.
But as I said, nothing here points to South India, rather to the Indus
country.

I do agree with Bal Prasad that there is no evidence of Thomas having
travelled to India (only the spurious tradition nevertheless much earlier
than the Portuguese), but I wonder, whether he visited Ethiopia and Arabia
either. The earliest tradition seems to restrict his travels to Edessa (now
Urfa in southeastern Turkey, then a principality under Parthian suzerainty).

Stephens quotes a few “Greek” (mostly Latin) Christian sources on India.
His second extract, Jerome (in Latin) about Pantaenus and Bartholomew hails
from the (Greek) Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius (early 4th century).
Many more passages can be found in the old collection by W. R. Phillipps in
Indian Antiquary 32, 1903, 1-15 and 145-160. It shows that it was common
belief in the West since the 4th century (but not earlier) that Thomas went
to India (though not to the South).

As to Mylapore, attempts to identify it with Calamina, the traditional
place given as Thomas’ burial “in India”, do not seem convincing. The first
to mention Thomas’ grave in Mylapore is thus Marco Polo (3, 18 in Yule -
Cordier) in the 13th century. John of Montecorvino visited a church of
Thomas on way to China in 1292, this probably was in the South. In 1345
John of Marignolli, another Catholic envoy to China, also visited Mylapore.
Thus the Mylapore tradition was earlier than the Portuguese, although they
certainly made much of it.

Michael Rabe asked about the stone cross found near Mylapore. See A. C.
Burnell, Indian Antiquary 3, 1874, 308-316. If anybody knows a more recent
source, please inform.

I was afraid that somebody will take up the story of Jesus visiting India.
There are two traditions, both quite recent. One is propagated by the
Ahmadiyyas, another by the Russian charlatan Notovich about hundred years
ago. I do not know the German book still defending it, but I think Günter
Grönbold, Jesus in Indien. Das Ende einer Legende (Munich 1985) has said
everything that is necessary.

There are at least 10 books and some 50-60 articles about Thomas
traditions, but I think my answer is long enough without listing them. I am
not theologian and not much interested in history of Christian missions, so
I would like to drop the subject now.

Regards

Klaus

Klaus Karttunen
Institute for Asian and African Studies
Box 59, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
tel. +358-9-191-22224, fax. +358-9-191-22094

The recent announcement that the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr.
Karunanidhi will patronise screening of the mega budget movie on Saint
Thomas and his fictitious missionary activities in the sixteenth century in
Tamil Nadu, read with the Union Government’s decision to cancel the
allotment of forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board intended for creating
facilities for housing and parking Hindu tirth yatris, are a part of the
pernicious and sinister attempt to put the Hindus under siege, about which I
have been warning the nation for the last three years [see my book: Hindus
Under Siege: The Way Out].

Around the mid sixteenth century, two anti-Hindu brutalities
were committed by foreigners. The first was the demolition of the Sri Rama
Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya by an agent of the invading plundering Babar
and the second was the destruction of the hoary Shiva temple by the invading
Portugese barbarians. The Hindu society was not prepared for these
uncivilised hordes, and hence remained mute witness to the destruction and
sacrilege.

But no more. The Hindu has now stood up. Hence there is now a
Ramjanmabhoomi movement in the country with a determination to re-build the
temple.. The Karunanidhi-Sonia duo to demolish the Rama Setu by implementing
the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project was challenged, and despite the duo
being in power in Chennai and Delhi, the duo were unable to marshall
arguments in the Supreme Court. The Hindus carried the day and the project
has gone back to the drawing board.

I therefore on behalf of Hindus and those others who proudly
acknowledge that their ancestors are Hindus, warn this duo to desist from
trying to patronise the falsification of history about the presence in Tamil
Nadu of Saint Thomas, to legitimise the Portugese .destruction of the Shiva
Temple to build the Santhome Church. The Church will have to go, and the
Kapaleeshwara Temple re-built on that site. Hindus will do it with the help
of sane and civilised Christians if possible, without them if necessary, and
despite them if forced. When 83 percent Hindus unite, let those who are
seeking to debase Hindu icons by bogus history realise that a religious
Tsunami will wash them away.

He has given the following details: http://www.christiansofkerala.com/22.htm

The St. Thomas legend.

The native Church’s claim of the story of Saint Thomas [one of the twelve direct Disciples of Christ] and the early origins of Indian Christianity is not a universally accepted one. In the year 1952 CE, the native Catholic Church approached the Papacy in Rome for Pontifical approval to celebrate 1900th year of proselytism of Kerala since the arrival of St. Thomas on its shores. The Papacy declined the request of the Kerala Catholics on the ground that the claim has no historicity. In spite of this denial, the Catholic Savarna, the Syrian descendants of those said to have received baptism from disciple Thomas, celebrated the 19th centenary of the arrival of his arrival with much pomp.

The only historical record pertaining to the arrival of St. Thomas is the book ‘The Acts of St. Thomas’, a historical romance written in Syriac towards the end of second or by the beginning of third century C.E1. However, there is no mention of the Malabar Coast in this book; the only relevant reference is that Thomas died at Mazda. The advocates of Saint Thomas tradition of the Christianity in Kerala believe that Mazda is Madai in Malabar [Kerala].

Before the arrival of the Portuguese, there was no Christian population in the north of Kodungalloor, i.e., the Malabar region of Kerala. According to Ward and Conner, even after two centuries of the birth of Christianity, the number of Christians on the Malabar Coast shrank to eight families2. Another church historian of Kerala, P. Cheriyan, remarks that, “ ………., there has existed on the Malabar Coast from the earliest centuries of our era a body of Christians, quite isolated from the rest of Christendom, as beacon of light, however dim, in the midst of a vast non-Christian population.” 3. “It was only when Portuguese came, conversion started in India”4.

In the year 1452 Pope Nicholas V issued a Bull/Bulla by which he granted to the king of Portugal the right to conquer the kingdoms of heathens and Mohammedans. The king of Portugal also obtained from the Pope Calixtus III [1455-58] the exclusive right of all kingdoms of Asia, America and Africa by which he styled himself as the temporal and spiritual leader of all Eastern countries [for further information see, D. Ferroli, The Jesuits in Malabar, Vol. II].

By ritual and custom, Kerala Christians were Hindus; by faith they slightly differed, but this difference was conspicuous5. In short, the Christian society of Kerala was not much different from their Hindu counterparts except for the upasan moorthy [deity of worship]. No doubt, the members of various upasana systems mutually respected each other’s upasana moorthy.

The Church believes that St. Thomas reached the shores of Kerala in the first century C.E. and established seven and a half churches – seven big and a small one. The debatable story of Saint Thomas’s direct mission activity in Kerala is a later addition is targeted at protecting the vested interests of the Church. The origin of this story goes back to the days of Portuguese. Their objectives were:

1. To establish Roman ecclesiastical authority over Kerala’s Christianity;

2. To destroy all its Hindu practices, rituals and traditions that were retained by the native Christians;

3. To extend the Latin Christendom to the soil of the Hindus.

Before the arrival of Europeans in Kerala, a nominal Christian presence was seen only in the Travancore and Cochin regions of Kerala. The antagonism between Christians and Muslims in the wake of Crusades of 11th, 12th and 13th centuries prevented Kerala proselytism enterprises from planting their roots in the Malabar region, where Islam had entered much earlier. [It is only during the British period the Christian society became significant in Malabar region]. That is why the Kerala legendary belief of seven and a half churches has not extended to Malabar. The fact that all the eight churches of the legend are located either in the Travancore or in the Cochin regions is an irony in the St. Thomas legend. From the arrival of Portuguese to the early decades of the nineteenth century, there were fewer than three hundred Christian churches of all denominations6.

Did St. Thomas convert Nambootiris?

The problem does not end here. There is a general belief amongst the contemporary Syrian Christians of Kerala that the Disciple Thomas converted certain Nambootiri [Native Brahmin jati] families into Christianity and parenthetically the Christian society came into being here. One has to examine the veracity of this conversion theory. Now, the Central Kerala is the abode of a major chunk of Syrian Christian population. Let us see their food habits: no doubt, they are no exception to the Christian practice of non-vegetarianism; large-scale cow slaughter takes place in Central Kerala, the chief consumers being the Syrian Christians. The ancient beef eating community, prior to the arrival of Christianity, was the Parayas [Candalas] of Kerala. Tradition says that the Parayas were a noble class of ancient Kerala and the sons of Saint Vasishtha; their craze for beef led to their ostracism by the rest of the jatis. Above all, because of their beef eating habit, the Nambootiri Brahmins who arrived in a later age did a lot to isolate them from the Hindu mainstream. Even though these stories bear no historicity, they can give some hints to the process of societal polarization.

Moreover, in the two thousand years of their fabled existence, Kerala’s Christians produced no literary piece of excellence and showed no dazzling talent in the cultural field, except in the colonial-missionary discourse and the post-colonial period. The two millenniums of Christian life in Kerala were only a passing episode in the artistic as well as the intellectual history of this land. The only prominent art form in the credit of the entire Christians of Kerala is Margamkali,7 a dance performance which, cannot compare with traditional art forms of Kerala like Kooth, Koodiyattom, Patakom, Kathakali, Kalarippayattu, etc. The songs of Margamkali, the only art form specific to the Syrian Christians, are composed in modern Malayalam; they are not an old art form as claimed, but date from after the Portuguese. In the Margamkali presentation, the influence of subaltern [minor] art forms of Kerala like Velakali, Pulikkali, etc, 8 can be seen, but none from the elite art forms of Kerala.

Therefore the Nambootiri conversion theory has no historicity; it is an imaginative exercise later years. Historians of Kerala swiftly rejected or accounted for it as a legend, but the Church hierarchy of all factions has retained it as an alternative history. Moreover in the history of social formations of ancient Kerala, up to the fourth century CE this land was occupied by the non-Vedic settlements only. So the Nambootiris as a Vedic Brahmin jati in Kerala were seen only after the fourth century C.E9. Prominent historiographers of Kerala like William Logan or Elamkulam Kunjanpillai are of the opinion that the Kerala Brahmins or Nambootiries reached this land in the seventh and eighth centuries of C.E10.

The question arises how a man called St. Thomas who never reached Kerala converted non-existent Nambootiries in the first century. Is this a proselytizing rationale? The theory of the Nambootiri origin of Syrian Christianity will be useful to the penetration of the Church into the jati oriented Hindu community.

A nonexistent copper plate.

Since the Portuguese days, the Church has laboured to enhance the frontiers of the Christendom in Kerala and produced some forged documents in support of the first- century origin of Kerala Christianity and its aristocratic foundation. No doubt all these will help the proselytism agenda of the Church in Kerala. One such document is known as the Kanaai Thomman Copper of 345 C.E, which was obtained from one of the Kerala kings of the days. The customary belief amongst the Kananaya11 Syrian Christian community is that in 345 C.E one Perumal or king (name is not known to them) 12, who ruled Kodungalloor, gave a Copper Plate Grant to Thomas of Canaan, by which the King bestowed a set of trading as well as socio-religious prerogatives [72 Prerogatives] to the Kananaya Syrian Christian community. But there is neither such original Copper Plate Grant nor any reliable evidence in their possession to prove this claim13. It was only a fabulous story orally transmitted through generations and has no historicity. Instead of the original document, they are keeping the copy of a forged document originally written in Portuguese14. But there is no probability of such a document being issued in a European language by a fourth-century Kerala ruler.

In a different context, king Bhaskara Ravi Varman I issued a Copper Plate Grant to the Jewish community in the vernacular (Malayalam) in the tenth century, which is still in the possession of the Jewish community. The Kananaya Syrian Christians’ excuse that their copper plate was misplaced in the deluge of time is therefore not justifiable. Details of the vanished copper-plate grant are amusing; it is highly paradoxical that all the dates in this Copper Plate Grant are in the months of Kollam Era [of the Malayalam Almanac], which was introduced much later year - in 825 C.E15. In addition, “till about 800 C.E. Kerala was almost a part of Tamilakaom and the language of the region was Tamil with its own peculiar local characterstics”16. But the language of the fourth century C.E Copper Plate Grant is the Malayalam of late medieval period and Malayalam became a transactional language only in the nineteenth century: before that, all documents of Kerala were prepared in the language of Tamil with Granthashram or Vettezhuthu script17.

One cannot but conclude that the story centred on the Copper Plate Grant is imaginary. It is the handiwork of the Portuguese missionaries [like of Robert de’ Nobili 1577-1656], who were notorious for fabricating stories and documents. The text of the so-called Copper Plate Grant of 345 C.E is therefore unreliable, both judiciously and in the eyes of history.
………………………….

Thus, as you have pointed out Karunanidhi is in the list of such historical frauds!

But Thank God!!!! This treachearous, two-tongued creature has not joined the Hindus to malign us more. “Inam Inathoda serum”. One fraud has now joined another bunch of World-Class Frauds.

Ayyo…. Ayyo……..

மானம் ரோஷம் இருக்கற ஹிண்டு எல்லாம், வர்ற எலக்ஷன்ல இவங்களுக்கு நல்ல ஆப்பு வெக்கணும்!!!

———————————̵ 2;—————————————&# 8212;—————–
The hopeless response of Hindus to “history-hoax movie on mythical Thomas”

At least some Hindus have been responsive enough to question the movie of “mythical Thomas”, when I posted, “History-hoax movie on mythical Thomas in India” in www.indiainteracts.com. See at for full text: http://vedaprakash.indiainteracts.com/2008/06/19/history-hoax-movie-on-mythical- thomas-in-india/

However, some Hindus think differently. One thing is clear that the Christians have money and power throughout the world that is beyond description. With these two, the poor, gullible, meek, mild and coward Hindus cannot do anything. Thus, some of them have become desperate also considering the helpless condition of the Hindus. One Hindu suggested that they could go to court preventing from shooting such unhistorical film. But, we know the condition of Courts in India, as the politicians, that too, posing as secular, have been controlling the courts, judiciary, judges, and advocates. That the present government headed by a puppet-Sikh PM totally controlled by a Catholic lady could go the extent of questioning the historicity of Rama abusing the officials of Archaeological survey of India proves the fact. Similarly, when a Hon’ble Supreme Court judge started asking series questions about the belief of Hindus, really the Hindus, even ordinary Hindus were totally taken aback as to how the Hon’ble judge could have asked questions instead of finding answers to the case come for hearing. There have been precedence in the country that Hindus cannot get any judicial solution for their problems of any nature.

Some pointed out the Christian contradiction of opposing certain movies viz., The Passion, Da Vinci Code, but indulging in such cheap propagandist activities. While the authors of those movies claim that they have brought out their work after research supported with evidences, as accepted by their societies ad countries, for these myths – Jesus coming to India, Thomas coming India have no whisper at all till the Portuguese stared planted forged relics and writing false tradition in their travelogues and missionary reports.

I have mentioned in the above posting concluding as following:

“My dream film: I have many times pointed out how they have been systematically working in spreading the myth by all means . If wishes are horses, even blinds would raid, so why not I. Just, I thought of film on the hoax itself. Just like Davinci code, it would be very thrilling and interesting, as it is connected with climaxes, that too, all facts happened in India: the planting of Thomas-relics in Tamilnadu by the Portuguese; destruction of coastal temples by them at Mylapore, Vedapureswarar, Tarangampadi, Velankanni etc.; creation of stone inscriptions and planting there at Mylapore; the spurious song of 1601; six-st.thomas in South India ; Arulappa frauds; Arulappa and Deivanayagam; Deivanayagam fraud ; Arulappa and Acharya Paul etc; resignation of Arulappa and his sudden death immediately; continuance of hoax, John Samuel , …………..Thus, all events if taken, it would be box-hit entertainment…….the movie…………”

Thus, the fact of destruction of the temples at these places can be pointed out, as they themselves have recorded in their records. It is not raking up of old historical issues or to what extent one can go back into the past etc., as the Christians have only now come out with such fraudulent activities provoking indifferent Hindus.