And The Same Statement Is Made By The Clementine
Recognitions, The Original Of Which May Have Been Written About A.D. 210.
A Fuller Tradition Is Found In The Acts Of St. Thomas, Which Exist In
Syriac, Greek, Latin, Armenian, Ethiopic, And Arabic, And In A Fragmentary
Form In Coptic.
And this work connects with St. Thomas two eastern kings,
whose names appear in the Syriac version as Gudnaphar,
Gundaphar, and
Mazdai; and in the Greek version as Goundaphoros, Goundiaphoros,
Gountaphoros, and Misdaios, Misdeos; in the Latin version as Gundaforus,
Gundoforus, and Misdeus, Mesdeus, Migdeus; and in the remaining versions
in various forms, of the same kind, which need not be particularized
here." Mr. Fleet refers to several papers, and among them to one by Prof.
Sylvain Levi, Saint Thomas, Gondophares et Mazdeo (Journ., As.,
Janv.-Fev., 1897, pp. 27-42), who takes the name Mazdai as a transformation
of a Hindu name, made on Iranian soil and under Mazdean influences, and
arrived at through the forms Bazodeo, Bazdeo, or Bazodeo, Bazdeo, which
occur in Greek legends on coins, and to identify the person with the king
Vasudeva of Mathura, a successor of Kanishka. Mr. Fleet comes to the
conclusion that: "No name, save that of Guduphara - Gondophernes, in any way
resembling it, is met with in any period of Indian history, save in that of
the Takht-i-Bahi inscription of A.D. 46; nor, it may be added, any royal
name, save that of Vasudeva of Mathura, in any way resembling that of
Mazdai. So also, as far as we know or have any reason to suppose, no name
like that of Guduphara - Gondophernes is to be found anywhere outside India,
save in the tradition about St. Thomas."
XVIII., p. 357.
CALAMINA.
On this city of the martyrdom of St. Thomas, see Indian Antiquary,
XXXII., pp. 148 seq. in Mr. Philipps' paper, and XXXIII., Jan., 1904,
pp. 31-2, a note signed W.R.P.
XIX., p. 361. "In this kingdom [Mutfili] also are made the best and most
delicate buckrams, and those of highest price; in sooth they look like
tissue of spider's web!"
In Nan p'i (in Malabar) Chau Ju-kwa has (p. 88): "The native products
include pearls, foreign cotton-stuff of all colours (i.e. coloured
chintzes) and tou-lo mien (cotton-cloth)." Hirth and Rockhill remark
that this cotton-cloth is probably "the buckram which looks like tissue of
spider's web" of which Polo speaks, and which Yule says was the famous
muslin of Masulipatam. Speaking of Cotton, Chau Ju-kwa (pp. 217-8) writes:
"The ki pe tree resembles a small mulberry-tree, with a hibiscus-like
flower furnishing a floss half an inch and more in length, very much like
goose-down, and containing some dozens of seeds. In the south the people
remove the seed from the floss by means of iron chopsticks, upon which the
floss is taken in the hand and spun without troubling about twisting
together the thread.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 676 of 701
Words from 356797 to 357297
of 370046
