“ASIATIC RESEARCHES. 
will show that their faith had in some 
degree assimilated itself to the supersti- 
tions of the country. 
The Apostle Thomas had been driven 
from Coilan to Maliapur, and from 
thence, being still persecuted by the 
Gentiles, retired mto the woods. A 
Gentile of Maliapur, who was hunting 
in the woods, saw one day a flock of 
peacocks on the ground, and one larger 
than the rest, standing on a stone in the 
midst of them. He let fly his arrow, 
the flock rose into the air, but.the large 
peacock was slain, and immediately 
transformed into a man. 
archer went into,the city to say what he 
had seen. The governor accompanied 
him back to the woods to see this won- 
der, and there he found the body of St. 
‘Thomas, and the print of his feet in the 
stone. He built a church there, his 
disciples buried him, and placed the 
stone by his grave. The church was 
built like a christian church, with crosses 
on the altar, and one larger one in the 
centre, with a peacock carved upon it. 
Tt is now, says Castanheda, in a ruinous 
state, and surrounded with thickets, for 
the place is much dispeopled.. A poor 
Moor takes care of it, there being no 
Christians near, and he asks alms of all 
who come there in pilgrimage, Christians 
or Gentiles, the Moors also giving to 
him. 
It is remarkable that the legend, which 
is related by the oldest and most honest 
of the Portugueze historians of -India, 
is omitted by their later writers, though 
they.retain all the other tales of St. 
Thomas. They were evidently dis- 
pleased at the ‘heathenish character of 
the fiction, at the peacock on the cross, 
and the Gentiles’ pilgrimage to a Chris- 
tian church. Mr. Wredé also mentions 
a conformity to Hindoo manners in these 
Christians of St.-Thomas. An, Ex-Je- 
suit, who had laboured a long time as 
missionary among them, informed him 
that many of them preserve till now the 
manners and mode of life of the Bra- 
mins, as to cleanliness and abstaining 
from animal food, and that even he him- 
self had been obliged to adopt the same 
regimen in order to gain credit. 
_ When India was discovered by the 
Portugueze, these native Christians were 
rich, numerous, and respected. Frey 
Aleixo de Menezes, the archbishop of 
Goa, united them to the Romish church, 
at the famous synod of Odiapmer. After 
this event, thirty-two churches returned 
to the Maronite or Nestorian com- 
Upon this the’ 
905 
munion ; about eighty-four remain ca- 
tholic, under the archbishop of Cran- 
ganor. These events no way affected 
the estimation in which they were held 
by the Malabar people and princes. 
«« The St. Thomé, or Syrian Christians, 
of both descriptions, never claimed the par- 
ticular protection of either the Portuguese or 
Dutch, as the new Christians do, but con- 
sidered themselves as subjects of the different 
rajahs, in whose districts they lived; and, as 
long as the old Hindoo system, and the 
former division of the country, under a va~- 
riety of petty rajahs, was preserved, they 
appear to have enjoyed the same degree of 
freedom, ease, and consideration, as the 
Nairs. But when the rajahs and chiefs of 
Travencore and Cochin had subjected to 
themselves all the petty rajahs and chiefs, 
whose respective territories were situated 
within the lines of Tyavancore, they also 
overturned the whole political system estab- 
lished by Cherumah Perumal; and, by set- 
ting aside the immunities and privileges of 
the higher casts, they cntallistied a most op- 
pressive despotim, in the room of the former 
mild, limited oligarchy: and we ought not 
to be much surprised to behold the present 
wretched situation of those formerly so flou- 
rishing Syrian villages, since we see the 
Bramins and Nairs stript of most of their old 
prerogatives, and subject to almost the same 
oppressions and extortions.” 
At this present time, after the mani- 
fold persecutions, oppressions, and suc- 
cessive revolutions, that have almost de- 
populated the whole coast, says the au- 
thor, they are computed to amount to 
no less than 150,000 souls. Yet every 
circumstance has taken place that could 
distress and diminish them. 
<< The great number of such sumptuous 
buildings as the St. Thomé Christians pos- 
sessed in the inland parts of the Travencore 
and Cochin dominions is really surprising; 
since some of them, upon.a moderate-calcu- 
lation, must have cost upwards of one lack 
of rupees, and few less than half that sum. 
How different must have ,been the situation 
of this people in former times, in comparison 
with the wretched condition in which we 
behold them at present! scarcely able to 
erect.a cadjan shed for their religious meetings 
over those splendid ruins, that attest at the 
same time their former wealth and present 
poverty. In the same proportion that their 
opulence decreased, their population also ap- 
pears to have dirpliueelh Alangada con= 
tained, before the year 1750, more than a 
thousand Christian families, who lived in 
substantial houses, of which the ruins are 
still extant, and bear evidence to the fact, 
Of those families, not full one hundred arg 
now remaining, and*them J found in the 
most abject state of misery. The same me- 
. 
