"Trial by Fire" - St. Thomas/Murugan legend

December 9, 2000

Guardian Unlimited Archive

(see paragraphs - 33, 34): While inter-religious violence is nothing new

in India, animosity between Hindus and Christians was, until recently,

almost completely unknown. According to pious legend, Christianity is

supposed to have been brought to India by the apostle St ("Doubting")

Thomas in AD52. Whether or not this was the case, Christianity was

certainly flourishing in south-west India by the early fourth century:

after all, the Keralan spice coast lay only 40 days sailing from

Palestine on the much-plied Red Sea trading route.

From the very earliest days, Indian Christians - who, in the beginning,

were almost exclusively Brahmin converts - maintained excellent

relations with their Hindu brethren. Keralan Christians kept their

high-caste status despite their conversion, with Christians

participating actively in local Shiva festivals and sacrifices. In many

places in south India, Christian images were carried in Hindu temple

processions next to the idols of Kali, Shiva and Murugan. The mythology

of Kerala preserves strange stories of St Thomas holding religious

debates with the Goddess Bhagvati, and in some places there are even

hints of the saint and the goddess forming some sort of sexual

connection - perhaps a reflection of another widely-recorded Keralan

belief that

St Thomas was actually an avatar of Murugan, the son of Shiva.

Certainly, early missionaries recorded that many Indian Christians

believed in reincarnation, carried out Hindu ceremonies to remove caste

pollution, and practised Hindu techniques of exorcism, divination and

dream interpretation. Moreover, until the coming of Protestant

missionaries in the mid-19th century, the Keralan Christians performed

many amazingly unorthodox rituals, such as the mass slaughter of cocks

on the feast days of St Thomas and Our Lady - a straight borrowing from

the cult of Bhagvati.

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