The Travels Of Marco Polo - Volume 2 Of 2 By Marco Polo And Rustichello Of Pisa











































 -  In
the 26th year of King Guduphara, in the Samvat year 103, in the month of
Vaisakh, the 4th day - Page 356
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"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.

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