It was eventually set up over
an altar in the Church of the Madonna, which was afterwards erected on the
Great Mount, and there it still exists. A Brahman impostor professed to
give an interpretation of the inscription as relating to the death of St.
Thomas, etc., and this was long accepted. The cross seemed to have been
long forgotten, when lately Mr. Burnell turned his attention to these and
other like relics in Southern India. He has shown the inscription to be
Pehlvi, and probably of the 7th or 8th century. Mr. Fergusson considers
the architectural character to be of the 9th. The interpretations of the
Inscription as yet given are tentative and somewhat discrepant. Thus Mr.
Burnell reads: "In punishment (?) by the cross (was) the suffering to this
(one): (He) who is the true Christ and God above, and Guide for ever
pure." Professor Haug: "Whoever believes in the Messiah, and in God above,
and also in the Holy Ghost, is in the grace of Him who bore the pain of
the Cross." Mr. Thomas reads the central part, between two small crosses,
"+ In the Name of Messiah +." See Kircher, China Illustrata, p. 55
seqq.; De Couto, u.s. (both of these have inaccurate representations
of the cross); Academy, vol. v. (1874), p. 145, etc.; and Mr. Burnell's
pamphlet "On some Pahlavi Inscriptions in South India." To his kindness
I am indebted for the illustration (p. 351).
["E na quelle parte da tranqueira alem, do ryo de Malaca, em hum citio de
Raya Mudiliar, que depois possuyo Dona Helena Vessiva, entre os
Mangueiraes cavando ao fundo quasi 2 bracas, descobrirao hua + floreada de
cobre pouco carcomydo, da forma como de cavaleyro de Calatrava de 3 palmos
de largo, e comprido sobre hua pedra de marmor, quadrada de largura e
comprimento da ditta +, entra huas ruynas de hua caza sobterranea de
tijolos como Ermida, e parece ser a + de algum christao de Meliapor, que
veo em companhia de mercadores de Choromandel a Malaca." (Godinho de
Eredia, fol. 15.) - MS. Note. - H.Y.]
The etymology of the name Mayilappur, popular among the native
Christians, is "Peacock-Town," and the peafowl are prominent in the old
legend of St. Thomas. Polo gives it no name; Marignolli (circa 1350)
calls it Mirapolis, the Catalan Map (1375) Mirapor; Conti (circa
1440) Malepor; Joseph of Cranganore (1500) Milapar (or Milapor); De
Barros and Couto, Meliapor. Mr. Burnell thinks it was probably
Malai-ppuram, "Mount-Town"; and the same as the Malifatan of the
Mahomedan writers; the last point needs further enquiry.
NOTE 5. - Dr. Caldwell, speaking of the devil-worship of the Shanars of
Tinnevelly (an important part of Ma'bar), says: "Where they erect an image
in imitation of their Brahman neighbours, the devil is generally of
Brahmanical lineage. Such images generally accord with those monstrous
figures with which all over India orthodox Hindus depict the enemies of
their gods, or the terrific forms of Siva or Durga. They are generally
made of earthenware, and painted white to look horrible in Hindu eyes."
(The Tinnevelly Shanars, Madras, 1849, p. 18.)
NOTE 6. - The use of the Yak's tail as a military ornament had nothing to
do with the sanctity of the Brahmani ox, but is one of the Pan-Asiatic
usages, of which there are so many. A vivid account of the extravagant
profusion with which swaggering heroes in South India used those ornaments
will be found in P. della Valle, II. 662.
[1] Should be "year" no doubt.
CHAPTER XIX.
CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF MUTFILI.
When you leave Maabar and go about 1,000 miles in a northerly direction
you come to the kingdom of MUTFILI. This was formerly under the rule of a
King, and since his death, some forty years past, it has been under his
Queen, a lady of much discretion, who for the great love she bore him
never would marry another husband. And I can assure you that during all
that space of forty years she had administered her realm as well as ever
her husband did, or better; and as she was a lover of justice, of equity,
and of peace, she was more beloved by those of her kingdom than ever was
Lady or Lord of theirs before. The people are Idolaters, and are tributary
to nobody. They live on flesh, and rice, and milk.[NOTE 1]
It is in this kingdom that diamonds are got; and I will tell you how.
There are certain lofty mountains in those parts; and when the winter
rains fall, which are very heavy, the waters come roaring down the
mountains in great torrents. When the rains are over, and the waters from
the mountains have ceased to flow, they search the beds of the torrents
and find plenty of diamonds. In summer also there are plenty to be found
in the mountains, but the heat of the sun is so great that it is scarcely
possible to go thither, nor is there then a drop of water to be found.
Moreover in those mountains great serpents are rife to a marvellous
degree, besides other vermin, and this owing to the great heat. The
serpents are also the most venomous in existence, insomuch that any one
going to that region runs fearful peril; for many have been destroyed by
these evil reptiles.
Now among these mountains there are certain great and deep valleys, to the
bottom of which there is no access. Wherefore the men who go in search of
the diamonds take with them pieces of flesh, as lean as they can get, and
these they cast into the bottom of a valley. Now there are numbers of
white eagles that haunt those mountains and feed upon the serpents.
