The Origins of Christianity in Kerala: A Brief History
The Syrian Malabar Nasrani Mappila people are an ethnoreligious community in Kerala, South India. A superficial glance shows similarities to the hundreds of denominations established by fanatic European colonisers along profitable coastal trade routes over the last 500 years.
However, the Nasrani purport to be the benefactors of a Christian tradition deriving from the 1st century AD—a direct lineage to the original churches established by St. Thomas the Apostle, who they believe visited India as a preacher during this period and founded a Christian community along the Malabar coast among the natives and the Jewish diaspora in Kerala.
The St Thomas Christians’ culture is largely influenced by East Syriac, West Syriac, Hindu, Jewish, and Latin Rite traditions. It is a fascinating mix of local customs and elements derived from indigenous Indian and European colonial influences. While they use Syriac for prayer, their primary language is Malayalam, the language of Kerala. Their Hebrew-Syriac Christian tradition is a curious cocktail of ancient Jewish and Hindu customs, and their history tells of a mysteriously ancient connection to Christianity that blurs the lines of our Western historical landscape.
The term Syrian Christians originated with the Dutch colonial authority that distinguished the Saint Thomas Christians from newly evangelized Christians who followed the Roman Rite. Therefore, the words “Syrian” or “Syriac” are not related to their ethnicity but to their historical, religious, and liturgical connection to the Church of the East (East Syriac Church).
Nasrani seems to derive from the Syriac term for “Christian” that emerged from the Greek word Nazōraioi/Nazarene in English.[1] It is also presumed to derive from the Hebrew word Netzer or the Aramaic Nasraya. Mappila is an honorific title traditionally bestowed on members of non-Indian faiths and descendants of immigrants from The Middle East who had intermarried with the local population, including Muslims (Jonaka Mappila) and Jews (Yuda Mappila).[2]
Mainstream historical narratives espouse the arrival of Christianity in Southern India via missionaries sometime during the period of Portuguese colonization. However, Christians in Kerala hold an alternative narrative, placing the seed of Christianity in Southern India in 52 AD following the arrival of the Apostle St Thomas in the ancient port city of Miziris (Pattanam) on the Malabar coast.[3] However, if this is true, then the religion is as native to this country as it is to Rome or Israel—a mind-bending thought.
So, where are the Apostles said to have traveled to following the ascension of their master, and what are the origins of Kerala’s significant Christian population?
Western Christians and Theologians have often disregarded Thomas’s presence in India as mere folklore; however, it is wise to remember that “hard” evidence proving St Peter’s journey to Rome (the entire basis of the Roman Catholic Church)—in addition to the biblical narrative of Christ’s life—is also dubious. Our collective historical narrative is too often inflexible and prone to socio-cultural bias; therefore, for obvious reasons, certainties in His-story are often slight at best, and here I ask you to suspend your judgment and entertain possibilities interwoven with certain historical facts. At the very least, allow this to spur your curiosity for our collective human past—a humble reminder that perhaps we (and certainly not those who lead our religious and political institutions) don’t know everything.
Let’s begin.
The Acts of the Apostles suggest that those closest to Christ “divided the regions of the world by lot, and each going to his allotted place to preach the Gospel.”[4]
The Apostle known as Peter (Simon) is traditionally believed to have initially traveled to Antioch, where he is supposed to have established a community (Peter is generally considered the first bishop of Antioch). Subsequently, he wandered to Rome, where he founded the Christian community there that would eventually come to dominate global social, cultural, and economic history for millennia (insert the multi-national corporation that is the Roman Catholic Church: heard of it?). We are told that Peter was martyred here on an upside-down cross (at his request) in the circus of the psychopathic Nero in approximately 64 AD. Saint Peter’s Basilica within the Vatican is considered to have been constructed above St. Peter’s tomb.
Andrew is commonly believed to have journeyed through Georgia (Russia), Istanbul (Turkey), Macedonia, and finally Greece, where he relentlessly preached to Greek communities, rustling many feathers, before being famously martyred by the Governor Aegiatis at Patras tied to an X-shaped cross (the origin of the St Andrews cross; legend has it that he continued to preach while tied there!).
Matthew (one of the four evangelists of MMLJ fame) is said to have spent his days preaching the new faith in Mediterranean communities before ending them as a martyr in Ethiopia. Biblical scholars squabble endlessly over his death, with some insisting he was killed by the sword in Parthia. However, he is most commonly believed to have died a natural death in Ethiopia in approximately 60–70 AD.
The movements of James the Elder are altogether more heavily contested. It is generally agreed that he taught in the holy land following the dispersal of the Apostles, where he would certainly have encountered resistance from the authorities. However, curiously, legend posits that he then traveled to Spain preaching Christianity along the Iberian Peninsula. Given the trade routes of the period, this journey is entirely feasible; however, there is scant primary source evidence of this in the writings of early writers or the records of the early church councils.
However, according to the Acts of the Apostles, “Herod the King” (often identified with Herod Agrippa) had James executed by the sword [5], and he suffered martyrdom in Jerusalem[6] in AD 44. James is believed to have been the first of the Apostles to be Martyred, and the exact site of this is supposedly The Chapel of St. James the Great, located within the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral of St James in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem. Furthermore, his head is believed to be buried under the altar.
However, St. James remains the Patron Saint of Spain, and legend holds that his loyal followers carried his remains by sea to the coast of Galicia in Spain and then overland to Santiago de Compostela, where his remains still reside. Curiously, the name Santiago is the local evolution of the Latin genitive Sancti Iacobi—Church of Sanctuary of St James. It is believed that this evolved into “Tiago” and “Diego/Diogo” in Spanish and Portuguese. Furthermore, the pervasiveness of this belief is most evident by the fact that Western European Catholics have been walking the “Way of St James,” known to modern pilgrims as “the Camino de Santiago” for over millennia.
John is believed to have been the only Apostle to have died naturally. He is said to have been with Peter in Jerusalem until his execution. Subsequently, scholars typically agree that John escaped and preached throughout Asia Minor (Turkey) before journeying to Rome, where he is believed to have been thrown into a particularly unpleasant cauldron of boiling oil. Following his astonishing survival, Emperor Dominitian banished John to the island of Patmos (Greece). However, following the emperor's death, John returned to Ephesus (Turkey) where he lived out his days until dying as an old man.
But what of Thomas?
First, let’s briefly digress and discuss the figure known to the Christian world as St Thomas.
Having had his works canned as heretical trash at the council of Trent (1545–1563), the Bible contains limited information about Thomas, and he appears only three times in the Gospel of St. John [7]: the resurrection of Lazar, the Last Supper, and the resurrection of Christ. His full name is believed to have been Didymous Judas Thomas.[8]
The word “Didymous,” meaning “twin” in Greek has led to speculations that Thomas could have been Jesus’s own twin or, at the very least, had a very notably close relationship with Jesus. [9] Thomas is honoured throughout the Syrian tradition as being “an apostle par excellence.”[10] However, within the Christian mythos, Thomas is known for his infamous scepticism, as displayed in the New Testament tale in the Gospel of John. The scene, depicted countlessly as a Western motif, depicts a “Doubting Thomas,” upon disbelieving his master's resurrection, being asked by Jesus to prod the wound in his side as proof.
Those familiar with the biblical narrative will be aware that the Apostle Thomas seemed to draw the short straw shortly before Jesus’s ascension. Following the “drawing of lots,” Thomas is recorded as being assigned to India, “but he complained that a man with his Jewish background could not evangelize the Indians.”[11]
We can imagine that he resisted this assignment due in equal parts to laziness and the vast cultural and religious backgrounds shared by the two regions, finally relenting at Jesus’s insistence. Subsequently, according to the Acts of Thomas, Jesus, who had appeared in a dream to him the night before, sold Thomas as a slave to the Indian merchant Abban, who had been commissioned by the Indo-Parthian King Gundafor (Gondaphares) to find a carpenter. Astoundingly, discoveries of coins have confirmed that King Gondaphares reigned during the first century.[12]
An alternative legend posits that Thomas arrived in India in 52 AD on a “Roman trading vessel”[13] sent to purchase pepper, a commonly traded item during this period.[14] The Malabar coast’s geographic position facilitated such international trade during this period, and pepper was the primary commodity exported from Kerala by the Romans and Greeks.[15] In fact, in the Sangam texts Puranaooru and Akananooru, there are various references to Roman vessels filled with Roman gold that journeyed to the Kerala ports of the Chera Kings in exchange for pepper and other spices. These spices are said to have been highly coveted in the West.[16]
Therefore, either alternative can be considered a plausible historical possibility, and a voyage from Palestine to India would have been manageable and not uncommon.[17] Kerala was a coastline with foreign trade links well before the Christian period. The Phoenicians had reached the coast of Kerala by 2000 BCE; subsequently, Arabs, Persians, and Egyptians began establishing trade routes to ports in Kerala. In fact, for centuries before the arrival of the Judaeo-Christian messiah, Jews, Arabs, Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Chinese, and Romans all frequently traded along the Malabar coast.
These trade relationships existed even during the time of the Israeli ruler Solomon (977–937 BCE).[18] Furthermore, the Old Testament states that during this period, Hiram, the King of Tyre, sent ships to the East for trade, and these ships returned with gold, silver, ivory, sandalwood, precious stones, monkeys, and peacocks once every three years.[19]
Upon reaching Palestine, the text states that these luxuries made King Solomon the richest man in the world.[20] In the first-century annals of Pliny the Elder, and according to the author of Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, it was possible to reach Muziris in 40 days from the Egyptian coast, depending on the southwest monsoon winds.[21]
Arab traders maintained their trade supremacy with Kerala until the arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498. Therefore, “Since long-established trade routes connected southern India with the Mediterranean world, Christianity may have reached India as early as the second century, or perhaps even the first.”[22]
Interestingly, Thomas aside, one of the first widely held Western theories maintains that Christianity was brought to Kerala by merchants—supposedly “East Syrian traders from the Persian Gulf area” who arrived on the continent through the Greco-Bactrian-Persian bridge.[23]
Furthermore, given that Middle-Eastern traders continued to visit the Malabar coast until the end of the 4th century AD, it is very likely that transference of ideas and culture eventuated, just as American merchant navy men disseminated Jazz, Skiffle, and Blues records to curious young Liverpudlians in the years following WW2 inspiring a cultural revolution.
Therefore, given that historians widely accept that a thriving Jewish merchant population had existed in Cochin before the 1st century AD, the arrival of an Aramaic-speaking Jew in Kerala is not an outlandish possibility. In fact, using the references mentioned in The Acts of Thomas, the Scottish historian William Dalrymple followed the same course across the Arabian Sea to Kerala aboard a boat similar to those mentioned in Roman texts to highlight how traders had travelled from The Middle East to Kodungulloor (Kerala).
Having established the plausibility of a sea voyage between The Middle East and India during this period, let's return to the mythos of St Thomas in India.
Perhaps the most curious aspect of Thomas’s presence on the Indian subcontinent is the various references in the Acts of Thomas. The Acts of Thomas and the Gospel of Thomas are closely related. Both are Gnostic works written in Syrian Aramaic (Syriac), and both texts can be traced to the missionary activity of Thomas in Edessa.
In fact, a “Gospel of Thomas” is first mentioned and quoted by Hippolytus of Rome, one of the most important 2nd-3rd century Christian theologians, in his account of the “Naassenes” in approximately AD 230.[24] However, most likely written in the 3rd century AD, the Acts of Thomas represents the oldest known reference to Thomas in India.
In the Acts of Thomas, Thomas initially reaches India, following several romantic adventures, aboard a ship bound for the East with the trader Abbanes—Remember him? They’re said to have arrived at the capital of the Parthian King Gundaphar (Gondaphorus, Gondophares in Greek) of Takshasila (Taxila), who ruled modern-day Afghanistan and Punjab. Following their arrival, King Gundaphar provides Thomas with a substantial amount of “treasure” and instructs him—a carpenter by trade—to have a new royal palace constructed before his return from a pilgrimage. However, mortified by the social inequity in the kingdom, Thomas distributes the treasure among the poorest citizens, instead deciding to spend his days preaching and performing miracles.
On his return, Thomas tells the king that his palace is “waiting for him in the kingdom of heaven.”[25] Unsurprisingly, King Gundaphar, wild with rage, proclaims Thomas an enemy of the state and orders his execution. However, on the eve of the execution, Gundaphar’s brother Gad dies. On entering heaven, Gad is overcome by the magnificence of the royal palace that St Thomas had constructed for the King there and seeks a boon from god to return to life to recount the vision to his brother. When King Gundaphar sees his brother and hears his account, he dissolves the execution and converts to Christianity along with his entire court.
The Acts continues with various adventures had by Thomas as he gallivants across the Indian subcontinent; however, the text explicitly details the ending of his life as a preacher traveling around Mylapore/Maliapur (Modern-day Madras/Chennai) in Southern India. The narrative states that, having gained a large following and converted numerous prominent women within the court of King Misdaeus/Misdai, Thomas loses favor with the high-standing courtiers (whose wives now declare celibacy!) in the court.[26]
Consequently, the King orders four soldiers and an officer to murder him on a nearby mountain. The Acts conclude by stating that his body is buried on Thomas Mount; however, his remains are said to have been taken to Edessa at the beginning of the 4th century AD.[27]
Whilst The Acts of Thomas reads like an ancient Greek romance, complete with sexual innuendo, fantastic Cristoesque tales of adventure, and a romantic epic quality, the story stresses the importance of chastity and purity. Christine Thomas has suggested that the various Acts of this period and other similar novels are best categorized as historical fiction.[28]
However, it is known that the text contains references to verified historical figures such as Thomas, Gondophares, and Gad, and scholars such as Farquhar, Medlycott, Dahlmann, and Mingana assert that certain historical elements of the text are surprisingly possible.
Numismatic and archaeological discoveries have proved the existence of a king named Gundaphar, that he had a brother Gad, and that he presided over a large Indo-Parthian kingdom that lasted from approximately AD 19 to AD 55 before its destruction by northern Kushana forces.
There are numerous cross-cultural references to Thomas in Northern India, and even to Thomas and Jesus.[29] However, for brevity’s sake, in this article, I will focus on the evidence for his arrival in Kerala.
Whilst his presence in Northwest India has been equally as contested, many traditional accounts (aside from The Acts of Thomas), including those of the St Thomas Christians, maintain that Thomas left Northern India and traveled by vessel to the Malabar Coast, where he landed at the former flourishing port of Muziris in the company of a Jewish merchant Abbanes/Habban/Abban).[30] Certain legends maintain his departure followed the threat of attack. Readers will recall here that we have two curiously similar trajectories, both containing the mention of Thomas traveling to India in the company of a merchant named “Abban.”
The port of Muziris is known to have facilitated trade with the West via predictable monsoon winds that carried ships across the Arabian Ocean in certain months. According to the Acts of Thomas, Thomas’s first converts along the Malabar coast were the Malabari Jewish community who had supposedly arrived in Kerala during the time of King Solomon of Israel (Kodungalloor in 70 BCE) following the destruction of the second church in Palestine.[31]
Given the well-established trade links in this region mentioned earlier, this migration is historically viable [32] Therefore, it seems logical that a man of Jewish descent, finding himself preaching in foreign lands, would first attempt to form relationships with the diaspora of Kerala. Within this Jewish population emerged the first of Thomas’s initiates.
Beginning with these Jewish communities, Thomas is believed to have traveled along the Malabar coast, preaching the Gospel to similar communities and native Indians. It is during this period that the Nasrani Christians of Kerala derive their origins—to the churches he initially founded along this coast and the Periyar River and its tributaries.
Here, Thomas is said to have initially converted several Nambudiri Brahmin families to Christianity [33], and this number varies wildly from 7–75. However, according to the religious historian Robert Eric Frykenberg, “Whatever dubious historicity may be attached to such local traditions, there can be little doubt as to their great antiquity or to their great appeal in the popular imagination.”[34]
Curiously, certain families in Kerala still trace their lineage to these original churches, and texts such as the Veeradiyan Pattu, the Margam Kali Pattu, and the Ramban Pattu all reference the origins of the tradition beginning with St Thomas’s founding of these specific churches along the Malabar coast. In the Ramban Pattu, the stanza that begins with “Arul Margathil” mentions that St Thomas reached Maliyankara on a ship he had boarded in Arabia.
The Thomma Parvam (Songs of Thomas) is a text written in India in 1601 and is considered a summary of a larger and much older early Indian text written 48 generations earlier.[35] The song is still sung by St Thomas Christians at special occasions and events, and it details St Thomas’s arrival in Malankara on a lagoon near present-day Kodungallur (Cranganore; near ancient Muziris) in December AD 52 and his founding of the Ēḻarappaḷḷikaḷ (Seven great churches).
In the text, Thomas is described as converting 40 Jews, up to 3000 Hindus, local Brahmin families, and the local King at Kodungallur. The song recounts that St Thomas ordained the King's nephew as a “kattanar” (priest) before he traveled to Quilon and baptized 1,400 people and constructed a cross. Subsequently, he is said to have journeyed to Chola Rajas (Mylapore), where we curiously hear an almost identical story of the construction of the royal palace and the Miracle of raising the king's dead brother, as narrated in the Acts of Thomas.[36]
This leads us to perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the legend of St Thomas in South India: Thomas’s time on the continent is mentioned by numerous sources. Again, for brevity’s sake, I will briefly mention only notable early references to Thomas in Southern India here:
- One of the earliest references to Thomas in Kerala is within The Nagargarandhavaryola, a text written in 53BCE by a Brahmin family (named Kalathumana) that were supposedly contemporaries of St Thomas during his initial period in Kerala. The text states that “the foreigner Thomas Sanyasi came to our village, preached there, causing pollution. We, therefore, came away from that village.”[37]
- Next, In AD 190, Eusebius of Caesarea records that St. Clement of Alexandria’s teacher, Pantaenus from Alexandria, visited a Christian community in India that used the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew in the 2nd century AD.[37]
- Furthermore, the Tamil epic Manimekkalai, written between the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, refers to the Saint Thomas Christians as “Essanis,” a clear reference to one of the early Jewish-Christian sects within the Nasranis called the Essenes.
- In addition, several Roman writers in the 3rd and 4th century AD also mention Thomas’ trip to India: Gregory of Nazianzus, Jerome of Stridon, and Ephrem the Syrian.[39]
- In the Didascalia Apostolorum (Teaching of the Apostles), written in Edessa in approximately AD 250, Thomas is said to have ministered in India.
- During his ministry from AD 333–397, St Ambrose of Milan stated that St Thomas ministered in India.[40]
- In AD 325, one of the dignitaries at the Council of Nicaea was titled “the bishop of all Persia and Greater India.”[41]
- In AD 425, an Indian priest is said to have translated the Epistle of the Romans from Greek to Syriac.[42]
- Gregory of Tours (AD 538–594), a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, references the martyrdom of St Thomas in India in “In Gloria Martyrum.”[43]
- Cosmas Indicopleustes (also known as Cosmas the Monk) was a 6th-century Greek Merchant and traveler who wrote a record of one of his many voyages to India. His work Christian Topography details the geography of his travels with meticulous precision and mentions the presence of Christians on the island of Sri Lanka and the Malabar coast of India in approximately AD 525.[44]
Famously, following his return to Europe in 1295, Marco Polo’s record of his 25-year stay in the Far East was received as the first “news” of Christian communities living on the southern coast of India who worshipped the tomb of the Apostle Thomas.[45] The observation, well known to Greek, Roman, and Arabian seafarers for millennia, shocked the largely uneducated and untravelled European population and was considered a fiction alongside much of his other records.
In his The Travels, Marco Polo noted a prominent group called the “Thomas Christians” living on the Malabar coast whose form of Christianity “could be traced back a long way.” Furthermore, his records detail his visit to the tomb of St Thomas in Mylapore in 1292.
Finally, we will end our short history with the arrival of Vasco da Gama in Calicut, Kerala, on the 20th of May, 1498. Upon news of the foreigner's arrival, the King of Calicut, the Samudri (Zamorin) received Vasco da Gama hospitably. However, when pressed for a reason for their arrival, da Gama’s fleet supposedly replied, “in search of Christians and spices.”[46]
Whilst the mainstream narrative posits that da Gama and the armadas that followed in the subsequent decades converted the local population to Christianity, this response here suggests that for Vasco da Gama, his crew, and perhaps any well-traveled seafarer of the period, it was most likely common knowledge that Christians had already resided in South India for a very long time.
So, what are we to make of St Thomas’s presence in Southern India?
Western historians have, and remain, skeptical about St Thomas’s arrival and establishment of Christianity in Southern India. However, the narrative has not been discounted, and the Syrian Malabar Nasrani of Kerala remain certain of a historical apostolic origin to their church.
The mainstream Christian tradition has rejected the Acts of Thomas as pseudepigraphical and apocryphal. Whilst most of us are rightfully dubious about treating any Gospelic text with a morsel of historical truth, the references in the Acts of Thomas, the various individual references to his presence in India among merchants and non-Christian writers, the still-thriving Syrian Malabar Nasrani population in Kerala, and the Malabar and Mylapore traditions provides at the very least highly plausible evidence to suggest that St Thomas, or a similar figure, arrived in South India during this period, preached Christianity, and died in Mylapore.
As Paulinus da San Bartolomeo (John Philip Wesdin) exclaims: “All the Christians of the East, Catholics and … the Nestorians, Jacobites, Armenians, the Catholics of Bengal, Pegu, Siam, Ceylon, Malabar, and Hindustan, come to make their devotions, and this alone is sufficient to confirm the ancient and universal tradition that St Thomas died at Mylapore.”
Ultimately, religious zeal often muddies historical facts, and it will always be difficult to tease the mythos from the truth in such highly emotive cultural landscapes. When observing the current Christian population of Kerala and the modern-day Malabar coast at large, it is easy to perceive how the cross-pollination of cultures within an active trading area for the past 2000 years could have given rise to a multitude of social, religious, and cultural variations.
However, the proliferation of primary sources evidencing the presence of a Christian population in Kerala suggests that “whether or not the Apostle himself came to South India, it seems certain that other Christians from east Syria who claimed a connection with him did come to reinforce, if not found, the Malabar Church in the first three centuries.”[47]
The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that a Christian preacher named Thomas visited the Indian Subcontinent and influenced Christianity's founding in India. Whilst “proof” will always be heavily contested, what seems most important is the narrative still held by millions of people who use his story to frame their religiosity.
On this alone, the life of St Thomas has shaped the development of Christianity in India more than merchants, Jews, or colonial evangelists combined, and the reality of his existence feels secondary if it serves as a beacon of salvation to his modern-day followers.
If the shaky words of four potentially non-existent (and very dead) men (MMLJ)— "four contradictory texts," as Campbell said—could shape the entire narrative of the Christian world for two millennia, then Western history rests precariously on heavily censored linguistic narratives.
If even a single apostolic text or biblical story is to be believed, then the life of St Thomas in Southern India deserves serious consideration.
Notes
[1] Zupanov, Ines G, Missionary Tropics, p. 99.
[2] Malieckal, Muslims, Matriliny, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, p. 95.
[3] Fahlbusch, Erwin; Bromiley, Geoffrey William; Lochman; Jan Milic, The Encyclopedia of Christianity, p. 285.
[4] Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, p. 44.
[5] Acts 12:2 (New International Version)
[6] Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, VI; Apollonius, quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History V. xvii).
[7] St. John 11:16, 14:5, 20: 25–2 (NIV).
[8] Leloup, The Gospel of Thomas, p. 3.
[9] Ibid., 3.
[10] Kurikilamkatt, First Voyage of the Apostle Thomas to India, p. 18.
[11] Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, p. 44.
[12] A. E. Medlycott, India and The Apostle Thomas, pp.18–71.
[13] Thomas, Christians in Secular India, 98.
[14] Moraes, A History of Christianity in India, p. 37.
[15] Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, 16.
[16] Miller, J. Innes, Periplus Maris Erythraei The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
[17] Pothan, The Syrian Christians of Kerala, p. 6.
[18] Majumdar, The History and Culture of the Indian People.
[19] 1 Kings 10: 21–22 (NIV).
[20] Ibid., 10:11–13.
[21] Sarayu, India and Egypt, p. 45.
[22] Jenkins, The Next Christendom, p. 27.
[23] Wolpert, India, p. 38.
[24] Kersten, Jesus lived in India, p. 243.
[25] Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, p. 27–9; 73–9.
[26] Kersten, Jesus lived in India, p. 250.
[27] Ibid., 252.
[28] Thomas, The Acts of Peter, Gospel Literature, and the Ancient Novel.
[29] Kersten, Jesus lived in India, p. 259.
[30] Schonfield, The Essene Odyssey, p. 125
[31] Koder, Kerala and Her Jews.
[32] Davis, Cochin and British India.
[33] Mani, ThomaaSleehaayude Kerala ChristhavaSabha Onnaam Noottaandil, p. 14.
[34] Frykenberg, Christianity in India, pp.101–102
[35] Ibid, p. 92.
[36] Menachery, The Song of Thomas Ramban: The Indian Church History Classics.
[37] Moraes, A History of Christianity in India, p. 40.
[38] Kersten, Jesus lived in India, p. 254.
[39] Ibid., p. 252.
[40] Baum and Winkler, p. 52.
[41] Kersten, Jesus lived in India, p. 252.
[42] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, p. 66.
[43] Leclercq, St. Gregory of Tours.
[44] Kersten, Jesus lived in India, p. 254.
[45] Ibid., p. 250.
[46] Ames, Vasco de Gama, p. 50.
[47] Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, p. 65.
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