When At This Place, A Heathen, Who Had Struck St Thomas In The
King's Presence, Going To Fetch Water Had
His hand bitten off by a
tiger; and running to the palace to tell his misfortune, a dog followed
him
With the hand in his mouth, on which the saint set on his hand
again, so that no mark remained. He went afterwards to Calicut, where he
converted king Perimal. There is an account that he went to the Moguls
country, where Chesitrigal then reigned, whence going into China, he
returned through Thibet into India, and went to Meliapour, where he
ended his days.
In the year 800, a rich Armenian Christian, named Thomas Cananeus,
arrived at Mogodover or Patana. Having acquired the favour of the king
by his presents, he received a grant of Cranganor and the city of
Patana, in which there were scarcely any vestiges remaining of the
church there established by St Thomas. On these foundations the Armenian
built a new church, and another at Cranganor, which he dedicated to St
Thomas, and which is still standing on the outside of the Portuguese
fort. He likewise built two other churches, one dedicated to the Holy
Virgin, and the other to St Cyriacus. All of these have been erroneously
ascribed to St Thomas, when in fact they were the works of Thomas
Cananeus, the Armenian. It may reasonably be believed that the temple or
pagoda, into which Vasco de Gama entered, as he went from Calicut to the
palace of the zamorin, may have been one of these churches, because the
image of the Virgin was there called Mary by the heathens.
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