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Fraudulent myth of the tomb of St Thomas - III
V SUNDARAM Fri, 04 Jul, 2008 , 07:49 PM
Very recently Pope Benedict XVI shocked the Christians of South India in general and Syrian Christians of Kerala in particular by making a statement to this effect: `St. Thomas preached Christianity in `Western' India from where it spread to other parts of the country. He was not the apostle who ever came to Southern India'.
This statement of the Pope has been viewed by Christians of South India as having the effect of taking away from St. Thomas, the traditional title of `Apostle of India'. Though the Pope referred to St. Thomas having preached Christianity in Western India, yet he did not actually use the expression `Apostle of Pakistan'. According to George Nedungatt, a faculty member of the Oriental Pontifical Institute, Rome, who wrote an article in Satya Deepam, a mouthpiece of the Syro-Malabar church, the Pope's recent statement may indirectly imply that St. Thomas is an `Apostle of Pakistan' and not India! In the same article, it has been stated that perhaps the Pope Benedict XVI feels that the area St Thomas evangelized was not south India, but what he called `western India' corresponding roughly to today's Pakistan.
As the Pope sees it, South India was not evangelized by St Thomas, but by Christians from north-western India, seemingly at a later period. Ishwar Sharan in his pioneering work of research has clearly brought out the fact that the myth of St. Thomas is a prototype of today's popular Jesus-In-India story. The first story was invented by the Syrian Christians of Malabar and later taken over by the Portuguese. The second was promoted around the beginning of the 20 century by Western spiritualists who also paraded as historians of the arcane. To quote the words of Ishwar Sharan `Both fictions are attractive to foreign spiritual seekers and to convent-educated Hindus who fancy their idea that an apostle of Jesus, or Jesus himself may have visited India. The Hindus do not notice that in these legends neither St Thomas nor Jesus are presented as seekers of Truth or admirers of Hindu religion and culture. They are presented as teachers of a superior faith or as enlightened social reformers who are persecuted by avaricious and degenerate Pagan Brahmin Priests'.
The St. Thomas story was invented to give the Syrian Immigrants Indian ancestry and the patronage of a local martyr-saint —Christianity is the religion of martyrs — and it was resurrected and embellished in the 16 century by Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries who needed a pious story of persecution to cover up their own persecution of the Hindus. There is another reason for the Catholic Church to promote the story in Madras, for during that period (16 century) she and her imperial Portuguese `secular arm' destroyed many Hindu Temples in Mylapore and its environs.
The original Kapaleeshwar Temple was destroyed in 1561 and on its sight the present St Thomas Cathedral was built. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has never investigated the origins of early Christian Churches in India in the same way it has studied old mosques and other Muslim monuments. Proper study of ancient Churches has been done by German Scholars and awaits translation and publication in English. The work done by the German Scholars shows that most 16 and 17 century Churches in India contain temple rubble and are built on temple sites.
The story relating to the martyrdom of St Thomas in St.Thomas Mount in Madras is fictitious. This will be clear from the physical fact that there are six (6) tombs for St. Thomas in South India. Two (2) are in San Thome Cathedral at Mylapore, a third (3) on an island of South-West of Cochin, a fourth (4) in a Syrian Church at Thruvancode in Tranvancore, a fifth (5) in a Shiva Temple at Malayattur in Tranvancore and a sixth (6) at Kalayamuthur, West of Madurai, near the Palani Hills. Likewise, there are six (6) tombs for St. Thomas abroad. One is in Brazil, a second in Germany, a third in Japan, a fourth in Malacca, a fifth in Tibet and the sixth in China.
The most exciting part of the fraud is that, this is not the end of the matter of tombs. Marco Polo (1254-1324) was the first story teller to place the tomb of St. Thomas in South India and a village on the Coromandel Coast. According to the apocryphal ACTS OF THOMAS {Bardesanes (154 AD to 233 AD) of Edessa in Syria was the author}, St. Thomas was buried in a royal tomb on a mountain in King Mazdai's desert country and the Ethiopian version of the same ACTS OF THOMAS has the tomb located in Quantaria, with some say is ancient Gandhara in Afganisthan.
The Alexandrian Doctors say that the tomb is in Parthia i.e., Persia, but Antipope Hippolytus of Potus says it is in Calamina, a city much discussed and never found, and which, today remains as elusive a place as the Elioforum of the Passio Thomae. Still others say the tomb is in Betumah, which the Syrians identify with Mylapore but which the Arabs say is east of Cape Camorin. Col. Gerini in his Researchers on Ptolemy's Geography of Eastern Asia, says Bethuma is to the East of Singapore.
T K Joseph, author of Six St. Thomases of South India accepts Marco Polo's story but believes that the identification of the tomb in Mylapore as a Christian tomb is a case of wrong identification, of the Syrian Christians identifying the tomb of a Muslim Thomas with their Christian Thomas. T K Joseph is unwilling to conceal that the Mylapore tomb is a Portuguese fake. He seems to treat the problem of St. Thomas as an internal matter of the Christian community rather than as a problem of Indian History. He refuses to consider the Hindu side of the story or to admit that Temples were destroyed in Mylapore in the 16 century by Franciscan monks and Jesuit Priests.
As Ishwar Sharan hilariously concludes `T K Joseph rejects the Malabar and Mylapore legends of St. Thomas as inventions, but seems to be unaware that Marco Polo's `Tall Tale' is also that _ a Tall Tale of St. Thomas picked up in a Ceylonese Port Bazaar and retold with additions to an Italian public. His acceptance of the geographical designation `India' in the ACTS OF THOMAS, as the field of the apostle's work, is unreasonable, as the internal cultural evidence of the ACTS points to West Asia and not North-West India. T K Joseph admits that he is forced to accept the testimony of the ACTS as it is the only ancient document that says St. Thomas came to India — and he believes that St. Thomas did come to North-West India and may have been buried near ancient Taxila'.
T K Joseph and other Christian Scholars who depend on the ACTS OF THOMAS to fulfill their St. Thomas's desires — seem to be unaware of Thomas Paine's famous dictum concerning another collection of acts and gospels — the Bible. Thomas Paine (1737-1809) said: `It has often been said that anything may be proved from the Bible; but before anything can be admitted as proved by the Bible, the Bible itself must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or the truth of it doubtful, it ceases to have authority and cannot be admitted as proof of anything'.
Against this background it can be asked, where then is the tomb of St. Thomas, if the two in Mylapore are Portuguese fakes? Where did he experience his passion and seal his mission with blood if not in India? We do not know the answer to these questions, but there is a verse in ancient St. Thomas hymn which reveals more than it conceals (?!): Thou despist error; Thou destroyest unbelievers: For, in the city where thou truly liest, There never lives any of the heretics, Jews, or Pagans. The unlimited capacity of the Catholic Archdiocese in Madras to manufacture fraudulent fables was brought to full public view in open court on February 6, 1986 when P.Aruvudayappan, II Metropolitan Magistrate, Madras delivered his judgment in criminal case no.100087/82.
I am quoting below the operative portion of this judgment: `Taking advantage of the soft attitudes of public witnesses 2 and 3 (Father Mariadoss and Father Arullappa), the Defendant Ganesh Iyer had taken from them about Rs.13.5 lakhs between 1975 and 1980. This has been clearly established'. How and why did Archbishop Arullappa hand over a whopping amount of Rs.13,49,250/- to Ganesh Iyer for a spurious research project? Why had the Archbishop not bothered to verify the authenticity of the criminally fake `documents' produced by Ganesh Iyer in support of his research thesis (which was originally proposed to him by Archbishop Arullappa himself!) Why did Archbishop Arullappa not deem it necessary to accompany Ganesh Iyer to the various sites of his `research' in India when he had found adequate time to accompany him to Rome, the Vatican, Germany, France, Spain and United States?
The story of the intimate intellectual relationship between Archbishop Arullappa and Ganesh Iyer (given the title of Achraya Paul by Archbishop Arullappa himself!) indeed constitutes a glorious landmark in the intellectual history of Christianity in India! Archbishop Arullappa had directed Achraya Paul to establish a nexus between St. Thomas and Thiruvalluvar, regardless of the concerns for exact chronology or authentic history. `Scrupulous' Acharya Paul extended his full cooperation to the equally `Scrupulous' Archbishop! The whole story relating to this gigantic hoax was exposed in an article in the Illustrated Weekly of India in its issue dated April 26-May 2, 1987. This article, titled `Hoax!' was authored by K.P.Sunil. This very article was incorporated by Ishwar Sharan in his book on St. Thomas under the title `Archbishop Arullappa Makes History'.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Madras seems to be drawing its inspiration today from Archbishop Arullappa and Achraya Paul for establishing the spiritual relationship between St. Thomas and Thiruvalluvar in its proposed mega-film project on St. Thomas.
(To be contd...)
(The writer is a retired IAS officer) e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com
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