Skip to main content

Malayattoor Pilgrimage

Pilgrims on the way


Thomas, one of the disciples of Jesus, is believed to have come personally to India to propagate his master’s religion. An early 3rd-century text titled Acts of Thomas narrates the story of Jesus sending Thomas, a carpenter by profession, to India. Thomas was supposed to help build the palace of Gondophares, founder of the Indo-Parthian kingdom and ruler from 19 to 46 CE. One of the traders from Gondophares’s kingdom brought Thomas with him to India. According to the text, King Gondophares gave a huge sum of money to Thomas for constructing the palace. Instead of constructing the palace, Thomas distributed the money among the poor people. Infuriated, the King imprisoned Thomas. Soon the King’s brother died. This brother made an apparition to the King and revealed to him that Thomas had constructed a palace for the King in heaven. Pleased with that, the King released Thomas from prison. The King and his subjects all accepted the religion of Thomas.

The authenticity of this story is disputable though King Gondophares was real. It is also true that there were trade relations between the Roman Empire and many Eastern countries like India. There is evidence that Rome started trade relations with South India during the period of Augustus Caesar [c BCE 40]. Egypt had already become part of the Roman Empire and Alexandria was the centre of these trade connections. Pepper was the most precious commodity that the Romans took from South India. The Malabar coast had pepper in abundance.

It is quite possible that Thomas reached Kerala in one of the many ships that came from Rome in those days in search of pepper and other spices. In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon writes that every year, just before the end of summer, about 120 ships set sail to the Malabar coasts and Ceylon from the Egyptian port of Mios Hormis. There is ample evidence that Kodungalloor in Kerala was one of the ports that the Romans frequented. The prominent tradition among Kerala’s Christians is that Thomas, Jesus’ disciple, landed in Kodungalloor. Possible.

One of the many places that Thomas is believed to have prayed at is Malayattoor, a hill near Kochi. That hill is a forest even now though not densely wooded. One of the information boards on top of the hill says that the hill was an impenetrable forest in the olden days. Why on earth would Thomas climb that forest to pray is a mystery. Now there is a trekking path well-trodden by thousands of pilgrims over the years. It took about two hours for Maggie and me to reach the pilgrimage centre on top though we took the traditional track. I think it would be a grave understatement to say that Thomas was very adventurous.

The pilgrimage season has only just started. So the place was not too crowded. In a week’s time the tracks will be full of pilgrims. May Saint Thomas bless them with a lot of goodness! 

On top of the hill

A pillar of the chapel
The lake at the foot of the hill


Comments

  1. Hari Om
    It has not been uncommon for all early ascetics (of all philosophical backgrounds) to seek out solitary and often difficult places for meditation/prayer/contemplation and whatever other 'ation' applies to the practice of their faith. Even all around the place I live are settlements named KIL-something, Kilmun, Kilmartin, Kilmalcom and so forth. Kil is the gaelic word for cell. Early monks travelling to spread the word would find little caves, or build very small, single-room shelters (cells) in which to sit with themselves. Which is all to say, that I think it entirely possible and likley that Thomas would have made that forest trek in service of his own "sadhana". What he would make of all those folk and those constructions growing up around his 'footprints' though, might be worth contemplating on! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can accept that. Once I visited Badrinath and saw the cave of a sage who lived in that place throughout the year. That's quite a feat given the severity of the winter in that place. I saw similar ascetics in other places too - Kedarnath, etc.

      Delete
  2. Interesting to learn about the potential connection between Saint Thomas and India, and how trade relations between Rome and South India could have facilitated his arrival. The story of Thomas distributing money to the poor and constructing a palace in heaven is thought-provoking. It's also fascinating to hear about the pilgrimage to Malayattoor and how it has evolved over time. Thanks for sharing this informative post, Matheikal!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Welcome.
      That story about the palace is apocryphal. Thomas reaching Kerala is more probable.

      Delete
  3. There is another very intriguing theory about Jesus coming to India through the Kashmir route and staying incognito for a while there. I don't know how historically correct that data is. But I believe he interacted with other yogis aand monks there and exchanged spiritual notes which seems possible because Spiritual Leaders do interact with sadhaks of other religions.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Are You Sane?

Illustration by Gemini AI A few months back, a clinical psychiatrist asked me whether anyone in my family ever suffered from insanity. “All of us are insane to some degree,” I wanted to tell her. But I didn’t because there was another family member with me. We had taken a youngster of the family for counselling. I had forgotten the above episode until something happened the other day which led me to write last post . The incident that prompted me to write that post brought down an elder of my family from the pedestal on which I had placed him simply because he is a very devout religious person who prays a lot and moves about in the society like the gentlest soul that ever lived in these not-so-gentle terrains. I also think that the severe flu which descended on me that night was partly a product of my disillusionment. The realisation that one’s religion and devotion that guided one for seven decades hadn’t touched one’s heart even a little bit was a rude shock to me. What does re...

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The...

To an Old Friend

Image by Copilot Designer Dear S, I don’t know if you’d even remember me after all these decades, but I find myself writing to you as if it were only yesterday that we parted ways. You were one of the few friends I had at school. You may be amused to know that a drawing of yours that you gifted me stayed with me until I left Kerala after school. Half a century later, I still remember that beautiful pencil drawing, the picture of a vallam (Kerala’s canoe) resting on a shore beneath a coconut tree that slanted over a serene river on whose other bank was an undulating hilly landscape. A few birds flew happily in the sky. Though it was all done in pencil, absolutely black and white, my memories of it carry countless colours. I wonder where you are now. A few years later, when I returned to Kerala on holiday, I did visit your village to enquire about you. But the village had changed much and your hut on the hill wasn’t seen anymore. Maybe, you moved on. Maybe, you took up your father’s...