Every decade sees a new discovery that revives interest in the Shroud of Turin, or what most of Christendom believes to be the burial clothes of Jesus. On Easter, at the end of Lent (a 40-day Christian religious season of prayer and fasting), Jesus was resurrected. The new study analyzes DNA from the shroud, preserved in an inert gas chamber in the Church of John the Baptist in Turin, which suggests that the linen for the cloth may have come from the Indian subcontinent. However, carbon-14 dating of the shroud in the late 1970s concluded that its earliest date could not be earlier than the 1300s.
Apart from the legends that Jesus Christ visited Kashmir during his lifetime and that the Shroud was made of cloth manufactured in India, there is more concrete historical evidence about the arrival of Christianity in South Asia that dates this connection back 1500 years to the 5th–6th century of the Common Era.
Mention of India in the New Testament
Any account of the arrival of Christianity in India begins with the opening chapters of the Acts of Thomas, a text from the New Testament. Probably written in Syriac around the 3rd century AD, this extensive text also exists in Greek, two later and interpolated Latin versions, Armenian and, in parts, Ethiopic. “And while he was thus speaking and becoming angry, there came from India a certain merchant named Abbanes, sent by King Gundaphorus, and he had orders to buy a carpenter and bring him to himself.”
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The account of Thomas’s journey to India describes the apostles in Jerusalem dividing the world among themselves, with Syriac sources assigning India to Judas Thomas. He refused, saying, “I am a Hebrew man; how can I go and preach the truth among the Indians?” Despite this, God sets in motion a plan that ultimately forces Thomas to go to India.
Upon his arrival, Thomas was brought before King Gundaphorus and asked about his skills. They have documented wood and stone crafts, including the construction of temples and palaces. The king tasks him with building a palace, but Thomas gives the money to the poor instead. When the king learns of this, he becomes angry, but Thomas insists that the castle exists in heaven and will be seen after death. Imprisoned, Thomas is eventually freed when the king’s brother Gad returns from death and testifies that he has seen the heavenly palace. The story ends with the release of Thomas and the baptism of the king and his brother.
As Stephen Neill points out in ‘A History of Christianity in India’, the coins have enabled historians to reconstruct much about the “king of India” mentioned in the Acts of Thomas. Gondophernes, who styled himself “the Great King, the Supreme King of Kings”, probably came to power around 16 AD and was ruling over present-day Iran, Afghanistan, and parts of northwestern India by 45 AD. However, by 78 AD, the Parthian line had ended, replaced by Central Asian rulers, known as the Kushans in India, including the notable king Kanishka. How the memory of Gondophares survived in Syriac-speaking areas more than a century after his death is unclear, but it suggests greater contact between northwest India and areas such as Iran and Iraq than previously thought.
Helen Murray-van den Berg writes in Syriac Christianity, “Generally speaking, the Syriac churches are those that trace their origins to the Syriac-speaking and Syriac-writing Christian communities of the fourth to seventh centuries in the area covered by Syria, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. These include the Maronite Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, There are the Assyrian Church and the Chaldean Church. The members of these churches are spread all over the world, but their homeland is in the Middle East and South-Western India (Kerala).”
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Christianity is the third largest religion in India, with about 3% of the population officially recorded as followers of some sect, school or branch of Christianity. In two electoral states, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Christian voters matter significantly.
Interestingly, these links were created through merchants.
Dr. Ken Parry writes in Art, Architecture and Religion along the Silk Road, “We have documentary evidence of Christians in South India from at least the fourth-fifth century… The Romans were trading with South India, there have been many finds in Egypt in the Middle East with Indian corals, pearls, and we also know there was a Roman colony there and archaeological evidence of a trading post.” The trading post (Muziris) was located at Pattanam near present-day Kochi, Pliny the Elder calls it ‘the first emporium of India’.
St. Thomas Christian
In Mylapore, Chennai, devotees gather daily to pray at the St. Thomas Church, which they believe houses the remains of the apostle. A strange cross has been the subject of worship in this church. Combining an Eastern symbol, the lotus, with the Christian ‘cross’, these bas-relief crosses have been excavated at several locations in present-day Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Another interesting aspect of some of these crosses is that they are inscribed using the Pahlavi script which adds another layer of Christianity and India’s Perso-Syrian connection. Since 650 B.C. Pahlavi fell into disuse after the fall of the powerful Sasanian Empire in 165 BC, so it has been suggested by scholars that these crosses may date to the 7th century or earlier.
Apart from Mylopore, similar crosses were also found in Valiyapalli Church in Kottayam, Kerala.
Popularly known as the St. Thomas Cross or Mar Thoma Sliva, they symbolize both the apostle and his Indian followers, known as Nasrani (derived from Nazarene, which is Syrian for Christians), Malankara Nasrani, Syrian Christians and simply Syrian Christians of India. Although the community began with subordination to the Church of the East, over the centuries they have become separate, and follow many other religious traditions such as Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant.
arrival of the portuguese
As mentioned above, the Malankara Christian community has combined Indian and Syrian Christian traditions, as shown in their customs, be it the lighting of lamps and candles, not to mention the lotus-cross. When the staunchly Catholic Portuguese arrived on the west coast of India they noted the presence of the Syrian Christian community and their churches with unusually high crosses in Malabar.
Becoming intolerant of these distorted practices, the Jesuits resorted to repression and persecution of local Christian communities and their practices. The Malankars immediately protested against this. In fact, the Mar Thoma Church was officially built as a protest against Portuguese religious policies. Peter Galadza writes in Eastern Catholic Christianity, “As a reaction against Portuguese religious persecution in Mattancherry (‘Coonan Cross Oath’) in 1653, where St. Thomas Christians swore to reject Jesuit instructions, and thereby built the Mar Thoma Church”.
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In 1510, the Portuguese captured Goa and the surrounding areas and are remembered for the infamous Inquisition, book burnings and forced conversions, as well as a strict policy of adherence to the Catholic Church. The oldest extant churches outside the Kerala and Tamil Nadu region are found in Goa and Maharashtra. In Mumbai (earlier Bombay) alone, there are three churches that were built in the 16th century, even before the iconic Taj Mahal, which was built in 1631. These three churches are St. Michael’s in Mahim (1534), St. Andrew’s in Bandra (1575), and St. Bonaventure’s in Madh Island (1575).
The arrival of the British East India Company in the 1700s was marked by a policy of no proselytizing, however, this changed as company rule became stronger and from 1810 Christian missionaries were allowed to proselytize, build schools, hospitals, and orphanages, among other institutions. After the transfer of power from the Company to the British Crown under the Government of India Act 1858, missionaries were given institutional support and were able to attract millions of people to Christ across the country.
Author Valay Singh’s Historicity is a news column about a city based on its documented history, mythology and archaeological excavations. The views expressed are personal.
