This Gives Great
Interest To A Votive Inscription Found Near Peshawar, And Now In The
Lahore Museum, Which Appears To Bear The Name Of The Same King.
This
Professor Dowson has partially read:
"In the 26th year of the great King
Guna ... pharasa, on the seventh day of the month Vaisakha." ...
General Cunningham has read the date with more claim to precision: "In
the 26th year of King Guduphara, in the Samvat year 103, in the month of
Vaisakh, the 4th day." ... But Professor Dowson now comes much closer to
General Cunningham, and reads: "26th year of the King, the year 100 of
Samvat, 3rd day of Vaisakha." (See Rep. of R. As. Soc., 18th January,
1875.) In ordinary application of Samvat (to era of Vikramaditya) A.D.
100 - A.D. 43; but the era meant here is as yet doubtful. Lassen put
Yndoferres about 90 B.C., as Cunningham did formerly about 26 B.C. The
chronology is very doubtful, but the evidence does not appear to be strong
against the synchronism of the King and the legend. (See Prinsep's
Essays, II. 176, 177, and Mr. Thomas's remarks at p. 214; Truebner's
Record, 30th June, 187; Cunningham's Desc. List of Buddhist Sculptures
in Lahore Central Museum; Reinaud, Inde, p. 95.)
Here then may be a faint trace of a true apostolic history. But in the 16th
and 17th centuries Roman Catholic ecclesiastical story-tellers seem to have
striven in rivalry who should most recklessly expand the travels of St.
Thomas. According to an abstract given by P. Vincenzo Maria, his preaching
began in Mesopotamia, and extended through Bactria, etc., to China, "the
States of the Great Mogul" (!) and Siam; he then revisited his first
converts, and passed into Germany, thence to Brazil, "as relates P. Emanuel
Nobriga," and from that to Ethiopia. After thus carrying light to the four
quarters of the World, the indefatigable Traveller and Missionary retook
his way to India, converting Socotra as he passed, and then preached in
Malabar, and on the Coromandel Coast, where he died, as already stated.
Some parts of this strange rhapsody, besides the Indian mission, were no
doubt of old date; for the Chaldaean breviary of the Malabar Church in its
office of St. Thomas contains such passages as this: "By St. Thomas were
the Chinese and the Ethiopians converted to the Truth;" and in an Anthem:
"The Hindus, the Chinese, the Persians, and all the people of the Isles of
the Sea, they who dwell in Syria and Armenia, in Javan and Romania, call
Thomas to remembrance, and adore Thy Name, O Thou our Redeemer!"
The Roman Martyrology calls the city of Martyrdom Calamina, but there is
(I think) a fair presumption that the spot alluded to by Gregory of Tours
was Mailapur, and that the Shrine visited by King Alfred's envoy, Sighelm,
may have been the same.
Marco, as we see, speaks of certain houses belonging to the church, and of
certain Christians who kept it. Odoric, some thirty years later, found
beside the church, "some 15 houses of Nestorians," but the Church itself
filled with idols. Conti, in the following century, speaks of the church in
which St. Thomas lay buried, as large and beautiful, and says there were
1000 Nestorians in the city. Joseph of Cranganore, the Malabar Christian
who came to Europe in 1501, speaks like our traveller of the worship paid
to the Saint, even by the heathen, and compares the church to that of St.
John and St. Paul at Venice. Certain Syrian bishops sent to India in 1504,
whose report is given by Assemani, heard that the church had begun to be
occupied by some Christian people. But Barbosa, a few years later, found it
half in ruins and in the charge of a Mahomedan Fakir, who kept a lamp
burning.
There are two St. Thomas's Mounts in the same vicinity, the Great and the
Little Mount. A church was built upon the former by the Portuguese and
some sanctity attributed to it, especially in connection with the cross
mentioned below, but I believe there is no doubt that the Little Mount
was the site of the ancient church.
The Portuguese ignored the ancient translation of the Saint's remains to
Edessa, and in 1522, under the Viceroyalty of Duarte Menezes, a commission
was sent to Mailapur, or San Tome as they called it, to search for the
body. The narrative states circumstantially that the Apostle's bones were
found, besides those of the king whom he had converted, etc. The supposed
relics were transferred to Goa, where they are still preserved in the
Church of St. Thomas in that city. The question appears to have become a
party one among Romanists in India, in connection with other differences,
and I see that the authorities now ruling the Catholics at Madras are
strong in disparagement of the special sanctity of the localities, and of
the whole story connecting St. Thomas with Mailapur. (Greg. Turon. Lib.
Mirac. I. p. 85; Tr.R.A.S. I. 761; Assemani, III. Pt. II. pp. 32,
450; Novus Orbis (ed. 1555), p. 210; Maffei, Bk. VIII.; Cathay, pp.
81, 197, 374-377, etc.)
The account of the Saint's death was no doubt that current among the
native Christians, for it is told in much the same way by Marignolli and
by Barbosa, and was related also in the same manner by one Diogo
Fernandes, who gave evidence before the commission of Duarte Menezes, and
who claimed to have been the first Portuguese visitor of the site. (See
De Couto, Dec. V. Liv. vi. cap. 2, and Dec. VII. Liv. x. cap. 5.)
[Illustration: St. Thomas Localities at Madras.]
As Diogo de Couto relates the story of the localities, in the shape which
it had taken by the middle of the 16th century, both Little and Great
Mounts were the sites of Oratories which the Apostle had frequented;
during prayer on the Little Mount he was attacked and wounded, but fled to
the Great Mount, where he expired.
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