Christians and Christianity in India and Pakistan

A General Survey of the Progress of Christianity in India from Apostolic Times to the Present Day

P. Thomas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367631369
• eBook ISBN: 9781000228212
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Local & Regional Planning Public Policy

Originally published in 1954, Christians and Christianity in India and Pakistan is an historical account of Christianity from the time of Apostle Thomas through to contemporary times.

The book records the vicissitudes of the Church prior to the Reformation, the work of the early Protestant missions, and the results of British influence. It provides an overview of Christianity in contemporary India and Pakistan, and explores a range of topics including Indian traditions, the labours of Armenians and the missionaries of the West, the political and social position of Indian Christians, and Christian influences on Hinduism.

Christians and Christianity in India and Pakistan will appeal to those with an interest in the history of Christianity.

Chapter I

India in the First Century of the Christian Era

the first century of the Christian era is one of those periods in Indian history of which little is known. Events of importance, to be sure, did happen during this period also, but we have no record of them due to the general indifference of ancient Indian writers to historical subjects. Ancient Indians had taken a lively interest in practically every field of human activity and have left us voluminous works on various subjects but not one book of pure history. The merely mundane did not interest them, and till the time of the Muslim conquest the history of India is largely a matter of conjecture, the main sources of information being stray accounts left by foreigners and indigenous religious literature.

Before the beginning of the Christian era, the vast Mauryan empire, built by Chandragupta and expanded and consolidated by his grandson Asoka, had shown signs of disintegration. Asoka’s successors did not possess the wisdom and strength of mind that distinguished this emperor or probably they took the doctrines of Buddhism too seriously to be good rulers; whatever the cause, the central authority weakened and the numerous potentates who owed reluctant allegiance to Magadha threw off the yoke and declared their independence. The Central Asian hordes ever on the prowl for weak spots in the Indian empire burst in through the Khyber and Bolan to plunder, pillage and carve out kingdoms for themselves. They overran the Greek kingdom of Bactria, entered the Punjab and fanned out north and south. The influence of these Scythian nomads, known in Hindu legend as the Sakas, extended from Kashmir to Western India. The Kushans, the northern branch of the Sakas, settled down in Kashmir and the Punjab, accepted Buddhism and built a flourishing empire.

Central India too claimed the attention of the Sakas. Here the powerful kingdom of Ujjain successfully resisted their expansion for some time, but in the first century of the Christian era the kingdom fell. The Saka era which begins in 78 a.d. in all probability marks the overthrow of Ujjain by the Sakas and the coronation of their emperor.

In the fourth and fifth decades of the first century of the Christian era, Gundaphoros was the most important king in North-Western India. The extent of his dominion is not known but his influence was felt in Parthia and Western India. His name was well known in Syria and the Mediterranean regions of Asia and Africa, and it was to his kingdom that Apostle Thomas came to preach Christ.

Amidst all the wars and turmoil of continuous Saka invasions, there was tremendous religious activity in India, especially among the Buddhists. They preached the Law to the oppressed and oppressors alike and converted many Saka chiefs and kings to Buddhism. Their conversion paved the way for missionary activities in their homeland in Central Asia, and the barbarous nomads of these regions were brought under the softening influence of Buddhism.

The Sakas had no great culture of their own to boast of and generally accepted the religion and culture of the peoples they conquered. The Northerners accepted the Hellenized form of Buddhism prevalent in Gandhara and the Land of the Five Rivers, and the Southerners Jainism and Hinduism. They were incorporated in the social scheme of India and soon lost their individuality as a separate nation.

While North India was thus subject to invasions by barbarous nomads from Central Asia, conflicts of the South were of a less severe nature. In the Deccan ruled the powerful Andhras who stood as a barrier between the Sakas and kingdoms of South India. There were certainly wars between the monarchs of South Indian kingdoms, but these wars were between nations that followed the same religion and code of ethics and recognized the need for protecting the civil population whether of their own kingdom or of the enemy. Nor are we correct in saying that the wars were between nations; the wars were between kings and their soldiers and the duty of the civil population was merely to watch the progress of battle and pay their homage to the victor. These ancient notions, religiously followed in South India, made wars in these regions more of a diversion for kings and soldiers than a misfortune to the people. Till Tippu Sultan, late in the eighteenth century, in imitation of the northern vandals indulged in wholesale massacre and enslavement of civil population and destruction of shrines, conflicts among South Indian Hindu kings had not seriously disrupted the economy of village life, the mainstay of every kingdom in ancient India. South India never had a Mihiragula or Mahmud of Ghazni. Protected by the Vindhyas on the north and the sea on the other sides, the country had enjoyed practical immunity from the marauding hordes of Central Asia who spent themselves up on the plains of the Punjab or Hindustan. It was due to this freedom from fear of foreign invasion that South Indians were able to remain in the ancient world an industrious, peace-loving, prosperous race who had cultivated extensive commercial relations with the outside world. The swarthy sons of the South were excellent traders and seamen and they carried the civilisation and wares of their land to the islands of the Southern Ocean and to the ports of distant lands.

In the beginning of the Christian era, South India was divided into three principal kingdoms: The Chera, the Pandyan and the Chola. The Chera kingdom corresponded to present Kerala excluding the extreme south, the Chola territory lay on the east coast from the mouth of the Krishna to the present Ramnad district, and between the two was the powerful Pandyan kingdom with its capital at Madura. These were the kingdoms of the three crowned kings, but owing nominal allegiance to one or other of these were a number of chieftains whose loyalty depended upon the strength of the suzerain to enforce it.

The country was fairly well governed though the kings were perpetually watching one another, and petty jealousies and lust for power often made war inevitable. The highways of internal trade were kept safe, as the interest of trade was a sacred trust to kings. Impaling was the common form of punishment for highway robbery. Justice was fairly well administered according to the standards of the time. In India, it is well to remember, despotism never degenerated into the depths it did in the Roman world where the emperor recognized no power above him either in heaven or on earth. The Roman Emperor was himself a god. Indian kings were only deputies or ‘portions’ of gods and there were fearless Brahmins who told recalcitrant despots in, open assemblies what they should and should not do.

In the ancient world commercial and cultural intercourse between nations was more free than in the middle ages. The religious fanaticism that marred history in the dark ages had not yet made nations exclusive and arrogant. The ancients kept an open mind in religious matters and were willing to learn and to teach. The obstacles that stood in the way of cultural contact between nations in those days were mainly those of nature and not of man: great distances, impassable mountains, wild deserts and stormy seas. But the profits of trade made men brave these dangers and commercial enterprise was in no small measure responsible for the advancement of civilization.

Alexander’s conquests opened up contact between North India and the Mediterranean region. Many of the myths Herodotus had woven round the fabulous India from hearsay were exploded by the scribes of Alexander who wrote from observation. Alexander, during his lifetime, gave a semblance of unity to his vast and unwieldy conquests, but on his death the loosely held structure tottered and tumbled down. The ideals of cultural and commercial contacts, however, continued. Greek and Indian artists worked side by side in the Hellenized kingdom of Gandhara. Regular envoys were sent by Greek kings to Indian courts, matrimonial alliances between Eastern and Western princes became common, and caravans laden with merchandise passed up and down the Khyber for trading centres from the Bay of Bengal to the Black Sea.

More important than the overland route was the sea route by which trade was carried on between India and the West. In the beginning of the Christian era navigation between India and the Red Sea was difficult and dilatory; vessels usually sailed from the ports of Malabar hugging the coast up the Indian Ocean, round Arabia to the Red Sea and discharged the cargo at Bernice the Egyptian port from where it was transported by caravan to Alexandria and other Mediterranean centres. The cargo meant for Syria and Asia Minor was discharged at the ports of the Persian Gulf.

This was a long and tedious voyage fraught with many dangers and interminable delays, but still the profits were good and the risks worth taking. And then the Egyptian mariner Hippaulus revolutionized maritime trade by his discovery of the regularity of the monsoon. By patient observation and study he found out that the wind blew in a westerly direction in the Indian Ocean for half the year and in an easterly direction during the other half. He wished to put his theories to the test, and trusting to the west wind the bold mariner plunged into the unknown sea and made straight for India (a voyage in its daring comparable to that of Columbus) and in the surprisingly short period of forty days reached India. Here he waited for the change in the direction of wind and when the wind started blowing from the east he sailed back to Bernice.

This epoch making voyage opened up unforeseen possibilities for trade. Fleets laden with costly cargo began to sail regularly between Bernice and Indian ports, and the price of Indian luxuries was considerably reduced in the Mediterranean cities where even the common folk could afford them. Rome was the most important market for Indian goods at the time and the fashionable ladies of the Imperial City vied with one another for the possession of pearls and other precious goods from India. The craze for Indian luxuries brought forth some bitter comments from the watchdogs of the Empire. Pliny complained that India drained Rome annually to the extent of 55,000,000 sesterces^* (about £500,000) and the feminine fashions were in no small measure responsible for this huge drain. Petronius expressed horror at the immodesty of ladies of fashion who went about clad in webs of woven wind’ as he termed the muslin imported from India.

The principal ports of India at the time were ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Illustrations
• Chapter I India in the First Century of the Christian Era
• Chapter II The Apostles of India
• Chapter III The early Malabar Church
• Chapter IV The coming of the Portuguese and the Mission of St. Francis Xavier
• Chapter V Robert de Nobili, the Roman Brahmin and the Madura Mission
• Chapter VI The Syrians and the Portuguese
• Chapter VII Christianity in Mogul India
• Chapter VIII Begum Zebunissa Joanna Samru, the Christian Princess of Sardhana
• Chapter IX Early Protestant Missions
• Chapter X Crusade on the Naboabs
• Chapter XI Progress of Christianity under the British
• Chapter XII The Influence of Christianity on Hinduism
• Chapter XIII Some Christian Communities of the West Coast
• Chapter XIV Christianity in Modern India
• Bibliography
• Index