It is on the strength of evidence such as this that scholars such as Fleet, Smith, Dahlmann, and others have concluded that it is quite possible that the story of St. Thomas the Apostle having preached the Gospel of Christ in North-West India is well within the bounds of probability, though the same cannot be said of the other story, which tells us that he preached in South India, and was buried at Mailapur, near the coast of Madras. This much, however, we can say of it. There is a constant tradition in South India which for centuries has connected the shrine of Mailapur (or Meliapore) with the death, not the preaching, of St. Thomas; and the so-called Christians of St. Thomas can be traced, not certainly to Apostolic times, but to a period of great antiquity. In A.D. 78 there is a Pallava king reigning at Mailapur and its neighbourhood, and Ceylon tells of another king, named Shalivahana, who was a Takshakaputra, "son of a carpenter," i.e. a Christian--a follower of Christ, or a follower of Thomas the Carpenter. The phrase is a Gnostic one; at some later time I shall show traces of a Gnostic connection between the Alexandrian Gnosis, a Tamil poet from Mailapur, and Kobo Daishi.

For present purposes, I shall assume that the earlier portion of the St. Thomas legend is at least so far true that there actually was Christian preaching at a very early period in North-West India. What I have to say in the next chapter may (or may not) be found to confirm the truth of the ancient legend.

Footnotes

^71:1 "Acts of the Holy Apostle Thomas" in "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. viii. p. 535.

^72:1 Cf. Eusebius, "Ecc. Hist.," i. 13.

^74:1 J.R.A.S, vol. xvii. The Pallavas, or Parthians, seem to have carried on an extensive commerce both with the West and the East. It seems probable that Gondopharus and Vasdeo were both Parthians and if so, the Pallava king at Mailapur may have been Vasdeo.