fiS4 Literary Discoveries in India. 



tween the inquisitiou at Goa and the Chriitians in the 

 mountains. 



In the acts of the council of Nice, it is recorded that 

 Joannes, bishop of India, signed his name at that council, 

 A. D. 325. This date corresponds with the Syrian year 

 636 ; for the primitive Syrian church does not compute 

 time from the Christian a^ra, but from Alexander the Great. 

 The Svriac version of the Scriptures was brought io India, 

 according to the belief of the Syrians, before the year G36 j 

 and they allege that their copies have ever been exact tran- 

 scripts of that version, without known error, through every 

 age, down to this day. There is no tradition among them 

 of the churches in the southern mountains having ever been 

 destroyed, or even molested. Some of their present copies 

 are certainly of antient date : though written on a strong 

 thick paper, (like that of some MSS. in the British Museum, 

 commonly called Eastern paper,) the, ink has, in several 

 places, eaten through the material in the exact form of the 

 letter. In other copies, where the ink had less of a corro- 

 ding quality, it has fallen off, and left a dark vestige of the 

 letter, faint indeed, but not in general illegible. There is 

 one volume found in a remote church of the mountains, 

 TX'hich merits ))arlicular description : — it contains the Old 

 and New Testaments, engrossed on strong vellum, in large 

 folio, having three columns in the page, and is written with 

 beautiful accuracy. The character is Estrangelo-Syriac, 

 and the words of every book are numbered. This volume 

 is illuniinated, but not after the European manner, the 

 initial letters having no ornament. Prefixed to each book 

 there are figures of principal Scripliu-e characters (not rude- 

 ly drawn), the colours of which are distinguishable; and in 

 some places the enamel of the gilding is preserved : but the 

 volume has suffered injury from time or neglect, some of 

 the leaves being almost entirely decayed. In certain places 

 the ink has been totally obliterated from the page, and has 

 left the parchment in its natural whiteness ; but the letters 

 can, in general, be distinctly traced from the iuqirtss of the 

 ficn, or from the partial corrosion of the ink. The Syrian 



church 



I 



