From That Country I Travelled Ten Days Journey To Another Kingdom Called Moabar[3], In Which There Are Many Cities;

And in a certain church of that country, the body of St Thomas the apostle lies buried; which church is

Full of idols, and round about it there are fifteen houses inhabited by Nestorian priests, who are bad Christians, and false schismatics.

[1] The names of these cities or towns, in the pepper country of Malabar, which is called Minibar in the text, are so thoroughly corrupted, that no conjectural criticism can discover them in our modern maps. Hakluyt on the margin, corrects Flandrina, by an equally unknown, Alandrina. They may possibly refer to places now fallen into ruin, in the kingdom or province of Travancore, which has always been a great mart of pepper. - E.

[2] Friar Oderic appears only to have observed the superstitions in the southern part of India very superficially, if at all; and as many opportunities will occur in the course of this collection, for explaining the strange beliefs, customs, and ceremonies of the braminical worship, it has not been thought necessary to discuss these in notes on the present occasion. - E.

[3] Hakluyt has explained Moabar on the margin by Maliassour or Meliassour. The country here indicated is obviously the Carnatic, or kingdom of Arcot of modern times, from the circumstance of containing the shrine of St Thomas. The idols mentioned by Oderic, as filling the church of St Thomas, were probably Nestorian images; not sanctioned by the Roman ritual.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 643 of 810
Words from 176084 to 176339 of 222093