--- In IndiaArchaeology@yahoogroups.com, "S. Kalyanaraman"
<kalyan97@...> wrote:

Interesting point.

One neglected field of study however is definitely the trade
connections between South India and the Persian Empire. It is
reasonable to expect that the Thomas Christians are also a result of
the Islamic conquest of Persia, as are the Parsees. The Christians of
Kerala also resemble the Parsees in their small number, their
restricted distribution.

There could be Persian sources actually recording when a mission took
off from some part of Persia. Just as in later years we have, in
Portuguese annals, the departure of trade and religious missions to
various countries.

In any case, do we have any Persian inscription older than Sassanian
inscription(s) in Tamilnadu or Kerala?

It would also help to evaluate the extent of Christian settlements in
Kerala, the Coromandel Coast (if any) and the population of
Christians before the coming of Vasco da Gama. Possibly there were
very small in number for a long time. This is borne out by the fact
that, until well after the arrival of the Portuguese, the Christian
churches of Kerala imported their head priests routinely from Edessa,
Antioch and other places in the Persian empire. The number of Indian
Christians could have swollen considerably after the Portuguese
started their aggressive conduct toward the coastal kingdoms and more
importantly, toward the indigenous non-Roman churches, especially
with the establishment of a Roman diocese in Cochin by the 1550's.

It is also strange that for such an important mythic and common
christian term such as the Cross, Malayalam commonly employs a word
derived from the Portuguese (kurissu) whereas Tamil commonly uses the
one derived from Aramaic or Syriac (ciluvai).

Hope this helps,

Lakshmi Srinivas


>
> St Thomas, the myth
>
> http://hindutva97.blogspot.com/2008/07/st-thomas-myth.html
>
> St. Thomas' two skeletons (Mylapore, India; Ortona, Italy)
>
> Can you name the only Saint who left behind his two skeletions?:
One was the
> skeleton as a youth (Found in Mylapore, Chennai), and the second
skeleton as
> an old man (Found in Ortona, Italy). St. Thomas deserves a
Bollywood movie
> to celebrate creationism.
>
> Kalyanaraman
>
> Read more� http://www.scribd.com/doc/3826832/St-Thomas
>