By RACHEL PAULOSE
AAP guest columnist
At the Intersection of Faith, Country, and Culture: Minnesota’s Connection to the Jews of India
Introduction
This year, a group of Indian Americans will be celebrating the sixty-fifth anniversary of the modern independence of two ancient nations central to their heritage: India and Israel. Over two millennia Jews migrated to and from India, establishing a unique culture passed down by faith, traditions, and intermarriage. Today, their descendants live all over the world, including right here in Minnesota.
At least two distinct groups of Jewish settlers arrived in India. Both groups migrated primarily to the modern coastal state of Kerala, an ancient trading hub connecting merchants from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. These two groups are: (i) the Jews who migrated to India beginning as early as the Babylonian Diaspora in the sixth century B.C. and maintained their Judaism; and (ii) the “Syrian Christians” who converted from Judaism to Christianity and immigrated to India from the first through the fourth centuries A.D. to spread the gospel. Notable among the Syrian Christians is the Knanaya community, a group of Jews who also converted to Christianity and immigrated to India in the fourth century to strengthen the church in Kerala. The existence of these groups is well known in Kerala, whose Christians constitute approximately 20% of the state’s population in a nation that is less than 3% Christian. With family histories largely passed down by oral history, the story of the Jews in India is still being told.
The Jews
Persecution has historically driven Jews all over the globe. While many Jews fled to the west of ancient Israel, large populations also migrated east.
According to oral tradition, Jews may have first arrived in India after the Babylonian Diaspora in the sixth century B.C. India was already a commercial partner of Israel and the larger Middle East. The Biblical book of Esther describes India as the eastern border of the domain of King Xerxes of Persia, husband of the legendary Jewish queen.
A larger and established wave of Jews arrived after the destruction of the temple and the fall of Jerusalem about 70 A.D., and they settled in Kerala. The Jews of Kerala built houses of worship, some of which still stand, including the Pardesi (“sojourner”) synagogue in Cochin. Basically unpersecuted, the Jews lived in peace for two millennia in India. Successive waves of immigration brought more Jews to settle throughout India, but Kerala remained the site of the most settled Jewish community
Until the establishment of the modern state of Israel, India was home to the largest
number of Jews of any nation east of Iran. India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, attempted to allow Jews to claim asylum in India during the Holocaust, but he was blocked by other politicians. However, India recognized the state of Israel in 1950 and an Israeli consulate was established in Bombay three years later.
After Israel decreed a Law of Return to any Jew, the vast majority of these approximately 30,000 Jewish Indians made aliyah by migrating back to their ancestral homeland in the mid-twentieth century. Today, only a small population remains in India and specifically in Kerala. Yet the bond between Israel and India established by the Indian Jewish community continues. Steve Hunegs, Executive Director of Jewish Community Relations Counsel (“JCRC”), said:
“There is great affinity among Indians and Jews throughout the world. Culturally, Jews and Indians share a love of family, education, and democracy and are united in opposition to terrorism — as demonstrated by the Mumbai attacks and their aftermath.
In Minnesota, relationships are deepening as the India Association of Minnesota and the JCRC find common ground in many areas. Globally, the affinity is reflected in the economic and political relationship of India and Israel. Trade between the two countries has grown from $80 million in 1991 to $5 billion today.”
The Syrian Christians
Approximately 52 A.D., St. Thomas the Apostle led the first group of Messianic Jews to India in the first century. Their purpose was to carry to spread the gospel to the Jews already settled in India as well as to the Gentile natives. According to legend, St. Thomas established at least seven churches in Kerala, India. His ministry in India was widely acknowledged by early Church fathers, including St. Jerome and St. Ambrose. St. Thomas was successful in converting some Brahmins, high caste Hindus, before being martyred in Madras, India in 72 A.D. His tomb is still venerated, the Catholic Church canonized him as a saint, and both Catholics and Protestants acknowledge St. Thomas as the first Christian missionary to India.
Descendants of these Jewish converts became known as Syrian Christians because of the ancient Aramaic language they spoke, Syriac. About the time of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., as many as 10,000 Jews may have come from the Middle East to Kerala. Intermarriage with converted natives was discouraged but sometimes practiced. The community remained a distinct but recognized minority group among Kerala’s majority Hindu population.
Syrian Christians flourished in tolerant Kerala. Maintaining the traditional Jewish emphasis on education and learning, they excelled in what has become India’s best educated state. The Syrian Christians established universities, hospitals, and charities that served the whole state. They also maintained their ethnic heritage by passing down specifically Jewish practices. Syrian Christians continue to bestow Hebrew names upon their children, speak Syriac in the Eastern Orthodox church liturgy, and cover their heads in worship. The community also visualizes its heritage by using Jewish rites in marriage ceremonies. One practice that continues to this day is the practice of feeding a bride and groom milk and honey during the wedding celebration, hearkening back to ancient Israel, the land of milk and honey.
Initially, the Syrian Christians were under the authority of the Chaldean Bishop of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese formally brought some of the Syrian Christians into the Catholic Church, under the authority of the Pope, in the fifteenth century. The Portuguese also attempted to Latinize the Indian church to force Indian Christians to use the Vulgate, among other reforms. Resistance to the Portuguese developed; factions emerged; and churches of the Jacobites, Marthomites, and the Anglicans, among other denominations, were established beginning about the sixteenth century. In the early twentieth century, community leaders of the largely Eastern Orthodox Syrian Christian community began to convert to evangelical Protestant denominations, including a significant number to the Plymouth Brethren. Thomas Johns, a former Board member of the Stewards Foundation, a national Plymouth Brethren organization, is also a cousin of both M. E. Cherian, a missionary to Tamil Nadu who composed over 300 Christian hymns, and T. A. Kurien, a missionary to Madhya Pradesh. Johns said: “One of the Plymouth Brethren’s chief contributions to Protestant scholarship has been the evangelical teaching on eschatology, especially God’s continuing covenant with Israel, known as dispensationalism, a theme that resonated with our Syrian Christian family.”
The Johns family story is a microcosm of the larger Syrian Christians emphasis on evangelism, and Syrian Christians helped bring Christianity to other parts of India, including Punjab and Calcutta. When a group of Alexandrian Christian visited north India in the third century, they returned with a copy of the Gospel of Matthew, written in Hebrew. Cherished, it was preserved in the library of the Alexandrina Christians, but was later burned by the Caliphs during the Muslim invasion.
The Knanaya Christians
The Knanaya Christians, a subgroup among the Syrian Christians, have been particularly zealous in preserving their Jewish roots. Thomas Kynani, the leader of this group, was a Christian merchant of Jewish descent living in Babyloniai. Hearing of the need of the church in India for more spiritual support and leadership, Kynai led a group of seventy-two families from modern day Iraq to India about 345 A.D. Persecution against Middle Eastern Jews broke out at about this time as well, which may have provided another impetus to flee. Accompanying Kynai was a bishop, Bishop Mar Joseph, as well as four priests, several deacons, and about 400 Jewish Christian converts who set sail in three ships to arrive in Kodungalloor, Kerala. As the first bishop recognized in India, Bishop Mar Joseph helped solidify the Indian church. Later, more bishops arrived from the Middle East, further strengthening church structure and religious organization.
The Knanaya Christians received a royal welcome from the Hindu ruler, who granted them 72 privileges inscribed on copper plates. The original and replicas of these copper plates are stored in the British Museum in London as well as in ancient churches in Kerala. The 72 privileges essentially allowed the Knanaya Christians the same treatment as the Hindu upper class.
This high social status allowed Knanaya Christians to succeed, and many prospered as businesspeople. The Knanaya Christians also served the community, establishing institutions of learning, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the aged and the mentally challenged, and publications. Many Catholic institutes of consecrated life for priests and nuns were built in Kerala. Some priests and nuns immigrated and to serve in other parts of the world, including in Minnesota.
Kurian Benjamin, the CEO of Smart Delivery Service, Inc., is a Knanaya Christian who immigrated to Minnesota in 1975 with $7 and one suitcase. His wife Laly is a Syrian Christian. Benjamin said, “The Knanaya community is a still a faith centered, well educated, business oriented extended family. Those characteristics are still measures of success among the community.” Benjamin is also the son of the late Kurian Abraham, a highly respected evangelist and published author. Benjamin’s father instilled in him the importance of faith and hard work. “I hope my legacy to my children is to place God first,” Benjamin said. “Money and power come and go, but blessings will continue generation after generation if you serve the Lord.”
The Knanaya Christians celebrate their Jewish heritage through traditions passed down through the millennia. Knanaya Christians, like their Jewish brethren who carry in the bride and groom at weddings, carry in the bride and groom on the shoulders of their uncles during their wedding celebrations. The bride and groom are seated on special upraised seats to paint a picture of the marriage of patriarch Issac to Rebekah. Like the Syrian Christians, the Knanaya also feed the wedding couple milk (and banana slices, an Indian adaptation for honey) to remind them of their ancestral homeland. Sacred hymns still sung at important events were compiled in a Knanaya songbook published in 1910. Double banana leaves, traditionally used as placemats only by the upper class, are still used by the Knanaya Christians at ceremonial functions to remind them of this privilege granted centuries ago by the royal family to the Knanaya community. Members of the community fold over a single banana leaf to carry on the tradition.
Kurian Cherucheril is a Knanaya Christian who immigrated to Minnesota in 1968 and retired as the head of the Science Department at Cretin-Derham Hall. Cherucheril grew up learning of his family tree from family members, including an uncle, Father Mathew Cherucheril, a pioneering priest who helped settle the Knanaya Christian community in Malabar, Kerala in 1943. At least six of his relatives have served as priests over the last century. Another of Cherucheril’s relatives currently serves as the Chief Bishop of the Jacobite church in Kerala. In describing the ancient history of the Knanaya Christians, Cherucheril said, “The fact is, there is such a community in India. We know this from the convergence of traditions, acknowledgements in the historical record, and artifacts that exist to this day. As in a court of law, you can prove this case by circumstantial as well as direct evidence.”
The Knanaya Christians historically practiced endogamy, or marriage within the community. Those who married outside the Knanaya community were expelled from the parish. In 1911, exclusive Knanaya Catholics established a separate diocese in Kerala with their own priest. Today, Cherucheril estimates there are about 200,000 strict Knanaya worldwide. Of those, he estimates about two-thirds of the Knanaya remain Catholic. The remaining Knanaya belong to various Protestant denominations, including the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Plymouth Brethren.
Cherucheril said, “I hope my children follow our traditions and pass the torch on to the next generation. I understand we live in a culture where many things change, and indeed many things will change. Our faith is the most important part of our culture, and it is the one thing we cannot compromise.”
Conclusion
Jewish people have carried their learning and service to every corner of the globe. Of Jewish ancestry, Indian culture, and American standing, Minnesota’s Indo-Jewish community is one of the most unique of the state’s increasingly diverse ethnic landscape.
. According to Syrian tradition, the first group of Christian immigrants came as refugees from the great persecution of Persian Christians which Shapur II began in 339. They arrived at Kodungallor in 345, led by a rich merchant named Kanayi Thomas, or Thomas of Cana. It is claimed that there were several priests, a Persian bishop, 400 laymen, or, as one of the accounts puts more precisely, 472 families from around Baghdad, Nineveh, and Jerusalem. But the persecution of Christians by Shapur II was confined to Persia and it did not extend to Palestine. So religious persecution by Shapur II would not have been the main reason for Thomas of Cana to come to Kodungallor. He is known to the Syrian Christians variously as Thomas of Cana, Thomas the Merchant, Thomas the Canaanite, Thomas of Jerusalem, Knaye Thoma, Thomas Cananeus, or Thomas Cannaneo. A Syrian Chritian group (Southists) claims today that Thomas of Cana was a Jew and that they are the pure-blooded descendants of the immigrnats who came with him. They call themselves ‘Knanaya’ Syrians and to bolster this imaginary claim and to retain their mode of worship, they do not intermarry with other Christians. There is no reference in early Portuguese records about any division as Northist and Southist or any immigration of families as shown in Southist tradition. There is also no reference to Jewish- Christian origin, as claimed by Southist families. But Armenian archives bring out the fact that Thomas of Cana was an Armenian merchant and not a Jew. India’s links with Persia and Mesopotamia go back to a very distant period. In 327 BC, Armenians are believed to have come to India, when some Armenians joined the auxiliary elements of the forces under the command of Alexander the Great when he crossed Armenia en route to India. Armenians were well aware of land routes to reach India, as also the general and political geography, socio-cultural milieu, and economic life of the Indian subcontinent. Flourishing Armenian settlements existed in Madras from time immemorial. It is said that Armenians in Madras guided the Portuguese to St. Thomas’ tomb in Mylapore when the first Portuguese reached Madras. Armenian records say that an Armenian merchant-cum-diplomat, known as ‘Knayi Thomman’ or ‘Kanaj Tomma’, meaning ‘Thomas the merchant’ reached the Malabar Coast in 780 using the overland route. Armenian records say that Thomas Cana was an affluent merchant dealing chiefly in spices and muslins. This migration of Christians, in the view of Firth, cannot be treated as historical fact. “No deeds of copper plates in the name of Thomas of Cana are now extant,” writes C.B. Firth in An Introduction to Indian Church History, “… (and) it would be rash to insist upon all the details of the story of Thomas the merchant as history. Nevertheless the main point—the settlement in Malabar of a considerable colony of Syrians – may well be true” . It is also probable that Thomas of Cana came to Kodungallor from Mylapore when there was persecution. Middle East immigrants who had settled in Mylapore would have probably indulged in local trade and commerce to become a flourishing and prosperous business community. The wealth and economic prosperity of the Christians probably would have excited the envy and hatred of local Hindu chieftains which eventually led to large scale persecution. The persecution of Christians mentioned in Thomas’ arrival may not be the persecution by Saphor II of Persia but by the Hindus of Mylapore. The date of the arrival of Thomas of Cana is also disputed. The tradition currently propagated by Southists who are self-styled now as Kananayas is that Thomas of Cana arrived in 345A.D. with 72 families. A tradition is also fabricated that St.Thomas appeared in a vision to the Bishop of Edessa and Abgar, the king of Edessa, and urged them to help the Christians of Malabar. The alleged vision happened in the third century but Mar Thoma IV of the eighteenth century reveals it, although there is no record about the vision or commission of Thomas of Cana in the church records of Edessa. So there is inherent contradiction about the date as well as the arrival of Thomas of Cana. . Edessa was under Roman domination at that time and there was persecution of Christians by Diocletian. Later in 325 Atillatia, Bishop of Edessa, attended the Council of Nicea . Edessa gradually came under the influence of Nestorians and Monopphysitism prospered even after the Arab conquest. Overlooking these accounts, the alleged vision to the Metrpolitan of Edessa and other legends were propagated by the Kottakayal family and Southists to appropriate Jewish pedigree and superior caste status.
The Dutch writer Visscher claims AD 745 whereas J.Hough assigns AD 780. According to tradition he married two local women. According to Syrian tradition the king was alleged to have granted him and other Christians 72 privileges, which spontaneously elevated them to the rank of Nairs and other upper-caste people of the land. There is nothing new or spectacular about these privileges, for all foreigners, especially merchants, were given these privileges. Arab merchants who went to Malabar were honoured with all these privileges by the Zamorin. What is more, even thir wives from lower castes and their children were also allowed to avail themselves of these privileges. Adriaan Moens, the Dutch Governor of Malabar, relying on local legends, says that Thomas of Cana obtained great influence with the princes by means of his riches and wealth and “they were not only ranked among the nobility of Malabar, but were even preferred before the royal Nairs.” Day had also collected traditional account from Syrian Christians and says that according to Syrian Christian accounts Thomas of Cana and his followers were raised to the status of “Castade Nairos” that is, nobility of the Nair caste, and they generally were given the privilege to “carry a sword in the hand, as a token of their dignity.” Moens and Day have relied on local tradition and not on any primary source or documentary evidence, and therefore, their accounts do not have any historical truth. The copper plates or cheppedu which contained the list of these privileges may be spurious because the original cannot be traced. The earliest reference to Thomas of Cana is from a Portuguese report written by Penteado in 1518 .He was reporting to the king of Portugal about the existence of Christians in Quilon and Cranganore. According to him Thomas of Cana was a very old Armenian merchant, and with no way to go back to his native place, bought a land from the king and settled down in Cranganore. He had converted some slaves. After his death there was a dispute between his two sons over the property. Although the elder son got the help of the Jews, the Jews finally turned against him and expelled all the Christians. Penteado’s account appears to be realistic and all other accounts are fictitious and imaginary. Probably, property dispute would have been the root cause for the emergence of Southists and Northists. After the death of Thomas of Cana there would have been dispute between his sons through different wives for his property on the basis of blood relationship which would have been challenged by other relatives or even by his another son. People who succeeded to own Thomas Cana’s property with the help of Jews or other mercenaries called themselves Southists to establish exclusive ownership to the property and to ostracize the rival group to debar them from any claim to property. . This family enmity probably prohibited marriage among rival groups so that the claim for the ancestral property by the offspring could be disallowed
Is it so?
Rachel Paulose says that the Portuguese wanted to “Latinise” the Churches. But they allowed Syriac to continue in many churches. SYNOD DECREES DO NOT GIVE HIGHER CASTE STATUS
Some St. Thomas Christians boast of following Hindu rituals even today as evidences to show they are Namboodiri or Nair descendants.
“Decree II: Explains in what cases Christians may touch heathen and inferiors”
This decree is highlighted to claim superior caste status for Nasranis. There are no Nambudiri or Nair community records that show that their people were converted. And yet, St. Thomas Christians have been trying in vain to establish the fact that they were Nambudiri, Nair,, Jewish descendants. According to their wrong interpretation, “This decree is important because it admits that the Christians by reason of their being subject to infidel princes cannot touch those of the ‘baser rank’ asks them in places where they are not subject to strict social mores, to do away with this superstition and associate freely with all of the lower castes.” But the fact of the matter is that “people of baser rank,” and “lower castes” were subdivisions of untouchable castes. They are known as subcastes. In this context an untouchable Ezhava Syrian Christistian would not mingle with other untouchable sub castes such as Paraya or Pulaya Christians because of the previous Hindu tradition . CMS Missionaries reported that untouchable Ezhava converts in Mallappaly, Mavelikara, Alappuzha and Kodukulanji opposed untouchable sub castes such as Parayas, Mukkuvas and slaves entering their churches. So the reference to “heathen and inferiors” does not say that Nasranis were upper castes, but among the untouchables—the Synod directs— the other untouchable sub castes are to be treated as equals on the basis of Christian principles of equality and fraternity. Probably Ezhava Nasranis would have slighted other untouchable sub castes.. The vanity of claiming Nambudiri, Nair or Jewish pedigree has no demographic evidednce.
Decree XIV: Condemns many Syrian heretical books, forbids all Christians to read them, and commands that they be destroyed.
The Synod also condemned the following heretical ideas of St. Thomas Christians.
Joseph had another wife and children when he was betrothed to Mary.
Child Jesus was reproved for his naughty tricks.
Child Jesus went to school and learned from them.
St. Joseph, suspecting Mary of adultery took her to priests, who gave her the water of jealousy to drink; that Mary brought forth with pain, and parting from her company, not being able to go farther, she retired to a stable at Bethlehem.
None of the saints is in heaven, but are all in a terrestrial paradise, where they should remain till the Day of Judgment.
So the Synod’s decisions are based on Biblical principles. Archdeacon George and his nephew Thomas wanted to have complete control over church properties and finance. So they instigated the illiterate Christian masses to rise against the saintly Archbishop Menzes which led to the split in the church. How could Thomas gather 20,000 people at the time of the Coonen Cross episode? There could not be such a large Nair or Namboodiri population at Mattancheri. It is quite transparent that such a large population could be collected only from the coastal area, mukkuvas. Thomas told a blatant lie to the illiterate and ignorant masses that the Nestorian bishop Atahallah was burnt in Goa to stir them to revolt.. But the records of the Inquisition show that he was sent to Lisbon and then to Rome. It is a matter of gratification that both Jacobites and Catholics have rejected now Nestorian, heretical ideas championed by George and Thomas.
I have pointed out the ‘misconception among some groups ,’ and that does not mean that I subscribe to the view that Jews came from Syria. Cochin Jews, also called Malabar Jews (Malabar Yehudan) and Yuda Mappila, are the oldest group of Jews in India, with roots claimed to date to the time of King Solomon, though historically attested migration dates from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Historical records say that they first lived in the Kingdom of Cochin . Several rounds of immigration of the Jewish diaspora into Kerala led to an ethnic, but not a linguistic, diversity: the community was divided into White Jews and Black Jews, both of which spoke Judeo-Malayalam, a dialect of Malayalam. They existed as a separate community with their own cultural traits, and synagogue. They had no marriage allaince with Syrian Christians to claim DNA sequencing. The vast majority of Cochin Jews emigrated to Israel after its formation, the number remaining in Kerala itself is minuscule.
A. Yeshuratnam has absolutely no evidence to support the fanciful, and frankly offensive, claims he makes in his rambling post. The Jews of India were not even from Syria; that was simply the name of the community based on the Syriac language they spoke.
DNA SAMPLE OF JEWS.
It has been a general misconception that Thomas of Cana brought with him 400 Jews or 72 families. In those days only men could travel by ships, especially in long voyages to unknown lands. Long before the arrival of Thoma there were Jewish colonies in Kerala. If Thomas of Cana were a Jew, he would have reported at the Jewish settlements. Jewish records do not mention anywhere that this Thomas of cana came to Kerala.
Another misconception is that immigrants from Syria were Jews. The Bible says in Mark 7 about a woman from Syria whose daughter had an evil spirit in her . “The woman was a Gentile, born in the region of Phoenicia in Syria.” Mark 7:26. As such, if at all Thomas of Cana had come, he could not be regarded as a Jew but only as a Gentile. Portuguese and Armenian records say that Thoma was an Armenian, a Gentile.
According to tradition, the first group of immigrants of 400 laymen led byThomas of Cana arrived at Cranganore in 345 A.D. Alexis de Menzes, Roman Catholic Archbishop, arrived at Kochi early in 1599 which subsequently led to the Synod of Diamper and the oath of Coonen Cross. The Portuguese estimates placed the number of Syrian Christians as high as 200,000 when Alexis de Menzes wanted to reform the Syrian church. How did the Syrian Christian population increase betrween 345 A.D. to 1599 A.D.? In a caste-ridden and conservative society, no Nair or Brahmin woman would have ventured to mar.ry the foreigners. In the first instance, some immigrants would have married lower caste women when they decided to settle in Kerala. Like the Arabs who married lower caste women in Malabar, Christian immigrnats and their untouchable caste wives and their offspring would have lived in the areas allotted to them by the rulers. Later they would have converted lower caste people such as fisher men (mukkuvas), slaves, barbers, washermen and other labourers (Ezhavas) with whom they had daily contacts in managing the routine affairs of their settlements. These converted untouchables and offspring of immigrants would have married among themselves to increase the Syrian Christian population. So when the Portuguese met the Syrian Christians for the first time there were more than 200,000 members.
There was population explosion of Syrian Christans from the time CMS missionaries launched a spirited campaign to convert as many untouchables as possible. Bailey, Fenn and Baker openly accommodated the Ezhavas and outcastes in the Syrian church. In Alappuzha Norton converted a wide range of untouchables, especially Ezhavas. Hawksworth baptized Ezhavas and other outcastes in Mavelikara, Poovathoor and Kodukulanji and constructed churches for them. Hawksworth is remebered for the large sccale conversion of slaves in Mallappally. The first slave was baptized in 1851 with the name of Abel. Although Ezhava converts who had become Christians earler opposed the conversion of slaves, as years rolled by ( a period spread over 200 years ) slaves also became part of mainstream Syrian Christian population.
Scholarly analyses and painstaking research make illogical the claim of Namboodirii descent when there were no Namboodiris in Ist century A.D. when St. Thomas visited Kerala and the further claim of Jewish descent ,ignoring the fact that Thomas of Cana was a Gentile, and not a Jew according to Armenian and Portuguese archives. In this context DNA sample taken by some persons to establish Jewish descent should be subject to scientific scrutiny. Conversely, DNA sample of Syrian Christians of Mallappally will show descent from slaves and Mavelikara descent from untouchables (Ezhavas). With education in CMS institutions, wealth from business and estates and with the freedom of social mobility even to foreign countries, Syrian Chrisdtians emerged as an aritocratic, educated and cultured community.
Great article!
My dad had many friends among the jewish communities in India. There are hardly any left in India now.
It was a nice article…
Very nice article. It answered a number of questions I have had abount Jews and Christians in India as I had a college friend who was Jewish and from India.
Thank you.
Thank you Ms. Paulose, Most Kerala Christians do not know or ready to acknowledge these facts. For example in Malayalam Bible we use the name like Paulose, Pathrose, Mariyam, Sthephanos, Matthai, Markose, Lukose these are the original names still using in the Middle east. I used to believe the Paul, Peter, Mary, Stephen, Mathew, Mark were translated to Malayalam. But that is not the fact. I realised this fact once I met a syrian christian from Egypt, later confirmed with christians in Iraq. These are the original names which are used in the Malayalam Bible.
Thank you Ms. Paulose, for putting in words,and summing up so well, the stories I’ve grown up hearing, the songs I’ve heard in churches from my childhood.
It’s just not a legend, or a figment of any ones imagination, but the story of our ancestry is something real, and something I want to pass on to the next generation!
Your article covered another aspect of Knanayas, though diffrent in beliefs, still being essentially of one family!