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

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

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r