HistoriCity | The pre-colonial roots of Christianity in India

EReally decennary sees a young explore that revives stake in the shroud of Turin or what much of Christendom believes to be the burial cloth of Jesus. On Easter, Jesus was resurrected marking the end of Lent (a 40-day Christian liturgical season of prayer and fasting). The new study analyses DNA from the shroud which lies preserved in an inert gas chamber in Turin’s Church of John the Baptiste has suggested that the linen for the cloth could have come from the Indian sub-continent. However, Carbon-14 dating of the shroud in the late 1970s concluded that the earliest date for it cannot be before the 1300s.Aside 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 takes the association back 1500 years to the 5th-6th centuries of the common era.The Mention of India in the New TestamentAny account of Christianity’s arrival in India begins with the opening chapters of the Acts of Thomas, a text within the New Testament. Likely written in Syriac around the third century CE, this extensive text also survives in Greek, two later and interpolated Latin versions, Armenian, and in parts in Ethiopic. “And as he was thus speaking and growing angry, there happened to be there a certain merchant come from India, by name Abbanes, sent from the king Gundaphoros, and having received an order from him to buy a carpenter and bring him to him.”Also Read: HistoriCity | Transgender identities always a part of India’s cultural discourseThe account of Thomas’s journey to India describes the apostles in Jerusalem dividing the world among themselves, with India assigned to Judas Thomas in Syriac sources. He refuses, saying, “I am a Hebrew man; how can I go among the Indians and preach the truth?” Despite this, the Lord sets in motion a plan that ultimately compels Thomas to go to India.On his arrival, Thomas is brought before King Gundaphorus and asked about his skills. He lists crafts in wood and stone, including building temples and palaces. The king commissions him to build a palace, but Thomas instead gives the money to the poor. When the king discovers this, he is angered, but Thomas insists the palace exists in heaven and will be seen after death. Imprisoned, Thomas is eventually freed when the king’s brother Gad returns from death to testify that he has seen the heavenly palace. The story ends with Thomas’s release and the baptism of the king and his brother.As Stephen Neill points out in ‘A History of Christianity in India’, coins have enabled historians to reconstruct much about the “king of India” mentioned in the Acts of Thomas. Gondopharnes, who styled himself “Great King, Supreme King of Kings,” likely came to power around 16 CE and was still ruling by 45 CE over parts of present-day Iran, Afghanistan, and north-western India. By 78 CE, however, the Parthian line had ended, replaced by Central Asian rulers known in India as the Kushans, including the notable king Kanishka. How the memory of Gondopharnes survived in Syriac-speaking regions more than a century after his death remains unclear, but it suggests greater contact between north-west India and regions such as Iran and Iraq than previously assumed.Heleen Murre-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 region now covered by Syria, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. These are the Maronite Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Church. The members of these churches today are dispersed all over the world, but have their homelands in the Middle East and south-western India (Kerala).”Also Read: HistoriCity | Mamata’s constituency Bhowanipore is as old as it is fascinatingChristians form the the third largest religion in India with around 3 % of the population officially recorded as followers of one or another sect, school or branch of Christianity. In the two election- bound states, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Christian voters matter substantially.Interestingly, the links were forged through traders.“At least from about the 4th-5th century we do have documented evidence of Christians in South India… Romans were trading with South India, many finds have been made in Egypt in the Middle East with the Indian Corals, pearls, and also we know that there was a Roman colony and archaeological evidence for a trading post”, writes, Dr Ken Parry in Art, Architecture and Religion along the Silk Road. The trading post (Muziris) was located at Pattanam near present day Kochi, Pliny the Elder refers to it as the ‘first emporium of India’.The St. Thomas ChristiansIn Mylapore in Chennai, devotees throng daily at the St. Thomas’s Church to pray at what they believe are the remains of the apostle. At this church a curious cross has been the object of veneration. Combining an eastern symbol, the lotus with the Christian ‘cross’, these bas-relief crosses have been excavated at several places in present day Kerala and Tamil Nadu.Another even more interesting aspect of some of these crosses is that they are inscribed using a Pahlavi script which adds another layer of Persian-Syrian connection of Christianity and India. As Pahlavi fell into disuse after the fall of the mighty Sassanian empire in CE 650s it has been suggested by scholars that these crosses could date back to the 7th century or earlier.Besides Myloapore, similar crosses were found at Valiyapally Church in Kottayam, Kerala.Known popularly as St Thomas Crosses or Mar Thoma Sleeva, they symbolise both the apostle and his Indian adherents who are known as Nasranis (derived from Nazrene, which is Syrian for Christians), Malankara Nasrani, Syrian Christians, and simply Syrian Christians of India. Though this community began with being under the Church of the East over the centuries they have dispersed, and follow several other liturgical traditions such as Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox and Protestants among others.The arrival of the PortugueseThe Malankara Christian community amalgamated Indian and Syrian Christian traditions as is shown in their customs be it burning lamps and candles not to mention the lotus-cross as described above. When the staunchly catholic Portuguese arrived on the western coast of India they recorded the presence of the Syrian Christian community and their churches with unusually high crosses in Malabar.Intolerant of these deviant practices, the Jesuits resorted to repression and persecution of local Christian communities and their practices. This was immediately resisted by the Malankaras. In fact, the Mar Thoma Church was officially created as an opposition to Portuguese religious policies. Peter Galadza writes in Eastern Catholic Christianity, “as a reaction against Portuguese religious oppression in 1653 at Mattancherry (the ‘Coonan Cross Oath’) where Saint Thomas Christians vowed to reject Jesuit directives, and thus created the Mar Thoma Church”.Also Read:HistoriCity: Evolution of labour rights in India through historyIn 1510, the Portuguese took over Goa and surrounding regions and are remembered for the infamous inquisition, burning of books, and the forced conversions, as well as a strict policy of adherence to the Catholic church. The earliest extant churches outside Kerala and Tamil Nadu region are therefore found in Goa and Maharashtra. In Mumbai (earlier Bombay) alone, there are three churches that were built in the 16th century predating even the iconic Taj Mahal which was commissioned in 1631. These three churches are St Michael’s in Mahim (1534), St Andrews in Bandra (1575), and St Bonaventure in Madh Island (1575).The arrival of the British East India Company in the 1700s was marked by a policy of no conversions, however, this changed as the Company’s rule consolidated itself, and since 1810 Christian missionaries were allowed to proselytise, build schools, hospitals and orphanages among other institutions. Following the transfer of power from the Company to the British Crown under the Government of India Act 1858, the missionaries were given institutional backing and were able to draw to the fold of Jesus Christ millions of people across the country.Author Valay Singh’s HistoriCity is a column about a city in the news based on its documented history, mythology, and archaeological digs. The views expressed are personal.