THE BRITISH SPY BEHIND CHEMPAKA RAMAN

He Took Chempaka Raman Pillai to Germany

A European Communist spy lived once in Travancore.

In a book he wrote, Travel Letters From Ceylon, Australia and South India ( B. Westermann Co., New York, 1931), he remembered Thycaud Ayya Swamikal, the spiritual Guru. He shared this story:

"One-day Ayya guru was very impatient and restless, walking round and round. The spy asked him what the matter was. The guru told him that he was expecting two of his disciples who had gone to meditate at Maruthwamala to bring a certain plant which he needed for some experiment. After some time two boys entered the scene. The guru eagerly asked, "Did you bring what I had asked you to bring ?"

"The senior of the two boys with some hesitation said "We have brought what you wanted" and took out something from his mundu and placed it on the table. It was a gold coin which probably they had purchased from the market. The guru's face became red with anger. Seeing this, the boys made a quick exit. The spy asked, "Sir, you should be happy since they have gifted you a gold coin. Why are you angry ?"

"Then the guru said, "They are making fun of me. They think I am greedy for gold. They do not understand my real purpose. What I need is a certain plant for an alchemical experiment which requires this plant. The plant is only for cleaning the brass coin. The real transmutation process is psychical". The spy grabbed the golden opportunity. He offered to bring the plant. The guru at first was reluctant, saying that being a foreigner he may not be able to converse with the local people and get the plant. But the spy was very enthusiastic and at last, the guru told him the name of the plant. The spy hired a horse-drawn carriage, went to Maruthwamala and brought a carriage full load of the plant. This pleased the guru and he included the spy in the experiment in place of the two boys who never showed up again."

If the two boys in this story are Chattampi and Narayana Guru, it may fail in chronology. So let us take it as just two boys. It is said that the British had sent a spy to keep a watch on Ayya's alchemy experiments. The spy was a man with anarcho-marxist views.

Walter Strickland, last portrait

The spy was Walter William Strickland, who found Chempaka Raman Pillai and sent him to Germany.

There lived a Vellala couple Chinna Swami Pillai and Nagammal in Trivandrum in a house where the present Accountant General office is situated. Chempaka Raman alias Venkidi was born to them on 15 September 1891. Even during his Model school days he rallied against the British and shouted 'Jai Hind' on the school campus. Fearing retribution, the Principal called in the police. A Constable, Chinnaswami Pillai was sent to investigate the misdemeanour of the erring student. It turned out to be his own son.

In 1908, a British Biologist, Walter Stickland was camping at Trivandrum and he had claimed he had come to study butterflies that were found in the Western Ghats. He met a boy, T Padmanabhan Pillai, who had written a paper in a well-known science journal about the ability of spiders to change their colour, on one of his field trips. Strickland was impressed by the skills of the 18-year-old boy and took him to Europe for further studies. Along with him his close friend, cousin and neighbour, 17-year-old Chempaka Raman was also taken to Europe. He continued his education in Zurich and Germany. That he studied in Zurich, not Italy, and Strickland financed it, is confirmed by Harald Fischer-Tine, in the biography, Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology, Anti-Imperialism.

This book also records: "Aldred's heroic act of solidarity directed the attention of another illustrious representative of British anarchism, Sir Walter Strickland, towards Krishnavarma's anti-imperial campaign. Strickland was a rather eccentric British aristocrat who had left his homeland in 1889 and stubbornly refused to return even after he had succeeded to the title of Baronet and the inherited family estates in Yorkshire in 1909. The 'anarchist Baronet", who was at least according to British intelligent sources, o of doubtful sanity' became something of a celebrity all over the English-speaking world. His anti-British activities were reported and humorously commented upon by the popular press of various countries. Strickland was a man of letters and had published translations of Latin and French classics as well as Czech poetry and fairy tales before he spent years in India and South East Asia. It was during his sojourn in the East that he came to the conclusion that 'The English and the despotism there...was nothing but a Camorra of infamous, bestial and obscene thieves, murderers, liars and worse' and turned into a staunch anti-imperialist. In the following years, he published a number of pamphlets and books containing trenchant attacks on British imperialism, one of which was extensively reviewed by Indian Sociologist*. When he read about Aldred's conviction, he sent him a telegram of congratulations and a cheque for 10 pounds...Together with Shyamji, the 'anarchist Baronet' was also one of the assessors of the pro-India committee founded in Zurich in 1912 his south Indian protege Champaka Raman Pillai."

Padmanabhan Pillai is referred to as Raman's brother in history-it doesn't matter.

It is said Raman and Padmanabhan studying in the same Model School, helped  Walter Strickland to collect samples of plants and trees and the English man was impressed with the young Chembakaraman and asked him to accompany him to Austria where he had contacts and facilities. Chempakaraman agreed to accompany him and left with him for Austria. Walter Strickland put him in a school in Vienna to complete his school education and later he joined a technical school in Vienna where he got his diploma in engineering. When World War I broke out he along with many other Indians formed the “India ProIndia Committee” at Zurich and he was its president in 1914 and then moved to Berlin.

In his 1992 book Europe and India’s Foreign Policy, Verinder Grover writes:

“When the first World War broke out, Indian revolutionaries abroad attempted to seize the opportunity to enlist German support for India’s fight for freedom… The emigre Indian revolutionaries in Europe, prominent among them a young south Indian called Chempakaraman Pillai, contacted the German embassy in Zurich. In September 1914, the International Pro-India Committee was formed, with Pillai as the president and Zurich as headquarters.”

From Zurich, Pillai ran the German/English monthly Pro-India, a magazine that put forward the Indian view of the world to the German people.

In October 1914, Pillai travelled to Berlin where a group of Indians had founded the Berlin Committee in support of the Indian cause. The following year, the International Pro-India Committee and the Berlin Committee combined to form the Indian Independence Committee.

Raman took a degree in Public Governance and  Economics from Germany. He lived in Germany for 20 years. He carried campaign against British rule in India, With Virendranath Chatopadhyaya, Lala Hardayal, Raja Mahendra Pratap, Dr Prabhakar, A R Pillai and A.C. N Nambiar he founded Indian Independence CommitteeA R Pillai was Novelist C V Raman Pillai's son in law; Nambiar was writer Vengayil Kunjiraman Nayanar's son. Armed with an Engineering diploma, Raman joined German Navy. He was an officer on the cruiser” Emden” and attacked British ships and shelled several places in India. On September 22,1914 Madras was shelled.

Raman Pillai

 

A free Government of India was established in Afghanistan on 1 December 1915 with Raja Mahendra Pratap as President Barkatulla as Prime Minister and Chempaka Raman Pillai as Foreign Minister. After World War 1 he formed an association with the “League of Oppressed People” In 1933 he met Subash Chandra Bose. They organized INA outside India. The Azad Hind Government was based on Pillai’s experience during World War I. In 1933 Pillai married Lakshmi Bai. Unfortunately, they had short life together. Pillai soon fell ill. 

The mentor of Chempakaraman Pillai, Walter William Strickland (born Westminster 26 May 1851- died Java 9 August 1938 ) was the son of Sir Charles Strickland, 8th Baronet (1819–1909). He was the eldest son and the only child of his first marriage to Georgina, daughter of Sir William Milner, 4th Baronet, He was educated at Edinburgh Academy and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the 9th Baronet, known as the Anarchist Baronet because he wandered around the world for much of his life espousing radical causes. The family estate was at Hildenley Hall in Yorkshire.

He married Eliza Vokes (1860–1946) in 1888. They had no children and the title passed to a cousin once removed, Sir Henry Strickland-Constable.

He wrote several books and pamphlets and translated works of the Czech poet Viteslav Halek, Moliere and Horace. He has been linked with the Voynich manuscript. He may have met Voynich during his first years in London, when Voynich was directly involved in the political activities of Russian refugees in London, under the leadership of Stepniak - Kravchinskii, who founded the SFRF (Society of Friends of Russian Freedom) and the RFPF (Russian Free Press Fund).

Wilfrid Voynich

Wilfrid Voynich (born Michał Habdank -Wojnicz; 1865 New York-1930) was a Polish revolutionary, antiquarian and bibliophile. Voynich operated one of the largest rare book businesses in the world, but he is best remembered as the eponym of the Voynich manuscript.

He attended a gimnazjum in Suwałki (a town in northeastern Poland), and then studied at the universities of Warsaw, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. He graduated from Moscow University in chemistry and became a licensed pharmacist.

In 1885, in Warsaw, Wojnicz joined Ludwik Waryński's revolutionary organization, Proletariat. In 1886, after a failed attempt to free fellow conspirators, Piotr Bartowski (1846-1886) and Stanisław Kunicki (1861-1886), who had both been sentenced to death, from the Warsaw Citadel, he was arrested by the Russian police. In 1887, he was sent to penal servitude at Tunka near Irkutsk.

Whilst in Siberia, Voynich acquired a working knowledge of eighteen different languages, albeit not well.

In June 1890 he escaped from Siberia and travelling west by train got to Hamburg, eventually arriving in London in October 1890. Under the assumed name of Ivan Kel'chevskii at first, he worked with Stepniak, a fellow revolutionary, under the banner of the anti-tsarist Society of Friends of Russian Freedom in London. After Stepniak's death in a railway crossing accident in 1895, Voynich ceased revolutionary activity.

Voynich became an antiquarian bookseller around 1897, acting on the advice of Richard Garnett, a curator at the British Museum. Voynich opened a bookshop at Soho Square in London in 1898. He was remarkably lucky in finding rare books, including a Malermi Bible in Italy in 1902.

In 1902 he married a fellow former revolutionary, Ethel Lilian Boole, daughter of the British mathematician George Boole, who Voynich had been associated with since 1890. Voynich was naturalised as a British subject on 25 April 1904, taking the legal name Wilfrid Michael Voynich.

Voynich opened another bookshop in 1914 in New York. With the onset of the First World War, Voynich was increasingly based in New York. He became deeply involved in the antiquarian book trade and wrote a number of catalogues and other texts on the subject.

Voynich relocated his London bookshop to 175 Piccadilly in 1917. Also in 1917, based on rumours, Voynich was investigated by the FBI, in relation to his possession of Bacon's cypher. The report also noted that he dealt with manuscripts from the 13th, 12th, and 11th centuries and that the value of his books at the time was half a million dollars. However, the investigation did not reveal anything significant beyond the fact that he possessed a secret code nearly a thousand years old.

The most famous of Voynich's possessions was a mysterious manuscript he said he acquired in 1912 at the Villa Mondragone in Italy, but first presented in public in 1915. The book has been carbon-dated, which revealed that the materials were manufactured sometime between 1404 and 1438, although the book may have been written much later. He owned the manuscript until his death.

A page from Voynich's manuscript

The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown writing system. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), and it may have been composed in Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish-Samogitian book dealer who purchased it in 1912. Some of the pages are missing, with around 240 remaining. The text is written from left to right, and most of the pages have illustrations or diagrams. Some pages are foldable sheets.

The Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. The manuscript has never been demonstrably deciphered, and the mystery of its meaning and origin has excited the popular imagination, making it the subject of novels and speculation. None of the many hypotheses proposed over the last hundred years has been independently verified. In 1969, the Voynich manuscript was donated by Hans P. Kraus to Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

In his correspondence preserved in the Beinecke Library, Voynich reveals that he has been introduced to the Jesuits of Villa Mondragone by one "Father Strickland", who lived here. It credits the origin of the manuscript and the purchase to Villa Mondragone.Villa Mondragone was built in 1573-1577 by Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps.Cardinal Altemps enlarged the existing villa Tusculana, a work done in 1571. One of his guests was Cardinal Ugo Boncompagni, who became pope Gregorius XIII a few months later. He suggested building a new villa on the hill overlooking the villa Tusculana, on the Roman ruins of the Qunitili's villa. The Villa is called Mondragone referring to the coat of arms of the family Boncompagni (a dragon). The Villa received the Pope and his court for a long time.

In 1613, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of pope Paul V, bought villa Mondragone and villa Tusculana, together with other properties of duke Gian Angelo Altemps, nephew of cardinal Marco. In 1621, at the death of Paul V, the decline of villa Mondragone began.

In 1865, the owner of Villa Mondragone, Don Marcantonio Borghese, signed an agreement with the Jesuits in order to use the Villa as a college for the Italian nobility. The "Nobile Collegio Mondragone" opens its doors on February 2, 1865. The Jesuits bought Villa Mondragone in 1896.

Since three fathers with the name Strickland were associated with the Villa, the relationship between the anarchist Strickland to Voynich needs further research. Rev W Strickland, a Jesuit was Military Chaplain in India for 12 years and wrote the book, Catholic Missions in Southern India to 1865.

Strickland spent some time in Russia and in 1923 became a citizen of Czechoslovakia, renouncing his British citizenship and the Baronetcy. Encyclopedia of Literary Translation Into English states:

"The virtually unknown English eccentric was a traveller and free thinker with a taste for anarchism and Buddhism, but he managed to find time to learn Czech and to translate poems. The quality of the translation is rather good but again the impact on the British public was nil and they are long out of print".

He had libertarian, socialist and atheist ideas. He helped Guy Aldred, founder of the Glasgow Anarchist Group.

As related by Albert Meltzer: " After the publication of Hyde Park in 1938 support for Aldred in London fell off and he had burned his bridges in London and Glasgow, but then an extraordinary chance ended his days of poverty. Sir Walter Strickland, a millionaire whose family practically owned Malta, had during the First World War taken to him and was disgusted with the British Government after the Versailles Treaty. In acknowledgement of the newly created State of Czechoslovakia, the first fruit of League of Nations liberal idealism, Strickland became a naturalised Czech (1923), though he never went to that country. In 1938 Strickland died and left a fortune to Aldred, who promptly formed the Strickland Press, bought a hall, bookshop and machinery and proceeded to reprint all his old pamphlets, before actually getting the money. Then the Strickland relatives brought a suit saying the will was invalid. Strickland had said in his will he left the money to Aldred "for socialist and atheist propaganda", illegal under Czech law. There was a complicated legal case which ended as such things usually do, with the money in the hands of the lawyers. Aldred, used to defending his own cases personally and handling courts with ease on matters of obstruction and sedition, found himself outgunned among the moneyed lawyers ".

Albert Mezler was an English anarcho-communist and contributor to the anarchist paper Freedom, who wrote, Anarchism, For and Against.

According to John Taylor Caldwell: "Walter was an eccentric. He preferred books to the pursuits of normal young men of his class and had no interest in sport, drink, gambling or women. His father was disappointed and disgusted. One day when he was having it out with Walter (probably not for the first time) about his unsatisfactory lifestyle, and the fact that he was nearing forty and still not married, Walter rose from the table and, so the story goes, proposed to the first girl he met, who happened to be the kitchen maid."

Caldwell was a Glasgow-born anarchist communist and biographer of anarchist, Guy Aldred.

In the early 1890s, Strickland went to live abroad.

After 1912 Strickland did not live in England. Eventually, he settled in Java and became a strong opponent of imperialism.

He gave Sun Yat Sen £10,000 "to help him start a revolt against the Emperor of China".During the First World War, Strickland donated £10,000 to his friend Tomáš Masaryk's Czechoslovakian Independence Movement. He left Guy Aldred £3,000 and with this money he bought some second-hand printing machinery and established The Strickland Press. Over the next 25 years Aldred published regular issues of the United Socialist Movement organ, The Word and various pamphlets on anarchism. Thomas Masaryk ( 1850 – 1937), was a Czechoslovak politician, statesman, sociologist and philosopher. Until 1914, he advocated restructuring the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a federal state. With the help of the Allied Powers, Masaryk gained independence from the Czechoslovak Republic as World War I ended in 1918. He co-founded Czechoslovakia together with Milan Rastislav Štefánik and Edvard Beneš and served as its first President, and so is called by some Czechs the "President Liberator".

In 1909 Guy Aldred was sentenced to twelve months of hard labour for printing the August issue of The Indian Sociologist, an Indian nationalist newspaper edited by Shyamji Krishnavarma. Strickland heard of Aldred's action and sent him a telegram of congratulation to the prison and a cheque for £10.

Guy Aldred

Guy Alfred Aldred (often Guy A. Aldred;  1886 – 1963) was a British anarchist communist and a prominent member of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation (APCF). He founded the Bakunin Press publishing house and edited five Glasgow-based anarchist periodicals: The Herald of Revolt, The Spur, The Commune, The Council, and The Word, where he worked closely with Ethel MacDonald and his later partner Jenny Patrick.

The Indian Sociologist was an Indian nationalist newspaper edited by Shyamji Krishnavarma. When Krishnavarma left London for Paris, fearing repression by the authorities, the printing of the newspaper was first taken over by Arthur Fletcher Horsley. However, he was arrested and tried for printing the May, June and July issues. (He was tried and sentenced on the same day as Madan Lal Dhingra, who was convicted of the assassination of Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie). At Horseley's prominent trial the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Alverstone, indicated that anyone printing that sort of material would be liable for prosecution. Nevertheless, Aldred, as an advocate of the free press, published it, bearing his own name. The police obtained a warrant and seized 396 copies of the issue. At the trial, the prosecution was led by the Attorney General, Sir William Robson, at the Central Criminal Court. Robson highlighted parts of TIS that Aldred had himself written, particularly focussing on a passage which touched on the execution of Dhingra:

In the execution of Dhingra that cloak will be publicly worn, that secret language spoken, that solemn veil employed to conceal the sword of Imperialism by which we are sacrificed to the insatiable idol of modern despotism, whose ministers are Cromer, Curzon and Morley & Co. Murder - which they would represent to us as a horrible crime when the murdered is a government flunkey - we see practised by them without repugnance or remorse when the murdered is a working man, a Nationalist patriot, Egyptian fellaheen or half-starved victim of despotic society's bloodlust. It was so at Featherstone and Denshawai; it has often been so at Newgate: and it was so with Robert Emmett, the Paris communards, and the Chicago martyrs. Who is more reprehensible than the murderers of these martyrs? The police spies who threw the bomb at Chicago; the ad-hoc tribunal which murdered innocent Egyptians at Denshawai; the Asquith who assumed full responsibility for the murder of the workers at Featherstone; the assassins of Robert Emmett? Yet these murderers have not been executed! Why then should Dhingra be executed? Because he is not a time-serving executioner, but a Nationalist patriot, who, though his ideals are not their ideals, is worthy of the admiration of those workers at home, who have as little to gain from the lick-spittle crew of Imperialistic blood-sucking, capitalist parasites at as what the Nationalists have in India.

Madanlal Dhingra

Aldred also remarked that the Sepoy Mutiny, or Indian Mutiny, would be described as The Indian War of Independence. Aldred received a sentence of twelve months of hard labour. His involvement with The Indian Sociologist brought him into contact with Har Dayal, who combined anarchism with his Indian Nationalism, based on his view of ancient Aryan culture and Buddhism.

Disaffected with Britain, in 1911, Strickland sold the family home, which became a convent. After 1912, he did not live in England. On August 15 1913 The Argus of Melbourne reported:

ANARCHIST BARONET

Sir Walter Strickland

Scholar and Gipsy

LONDON, Aug. 14.

Sir Walter Strickland, the "anarchist
baronet," who has been missing from his
accustomed haunts on the Continent for
sometimes, and for whom his friends have
been searching, is reported to be living
quietly at Geneva. He took a prominent
part in the recent formation of a committee
to promote freer trade for India.

Sir Walter, who is the ninth of his line,
and whose title dates from 1641, was born
62 years ago, and succeeded his father four
years ago A scholar and savant of undo
repute, he is called a gipsy and an anarchist,
owing to his wandering habits and politi
cal theories He is a linguist of ability,
verged in both ancient and modem lan
gauges, and won wide fame by his transía
lions of Moliere and Horace.

It is said that during his 62 years he
has spent only 1 week in London
Sir Walter once declared that he had
hidden on the Continent because 

he had received a warning "from an
absolutely reliable source" that powerful
officials were plotting his assassination. In
Vienna the baronet was arrested because
he was thought to be Ugo Schenek, a 

murderer .' This was a great compliment,"
commented the baronet, ' for Schenek was
described as extremely handsome and 

aristocratic looking ". Upon succeeding to the
title, Sir Walter announced his intention of
removing every scrap of his property to the
Continent, and for the future to have as
little as possible to do with England and
its people.

In a letter to a London newspaper Sir
Walter wrote -"The vulgar, ungentle
manly, and, indeed, murderous 

persecution to which I have been subjected is ex
exclusively British " The 'anarchist baronet"
comes of an ancient family that had its seat
at Strickland, in Westmoreland, before the
Conquest, and one of Sir Walter's ancestors,
carried the banner of St George at Agincourt.

Archive box no 27 of Aldred Collection: Socialist pamphlets by Strickland; the photo seen is Strickland, just out of Cambridge

After receiving Czechoslovakian citizenship in 1923, he renounced his British citizenship and in 1931, moved to Java, where he died on 9 August 1938. His two works of some interest are Sacrifice; Or, the Daughter of the Sun (1920), a tale with Lost Race implications, and the more ambitious Vishnu; Or, the Planet of the Sevenfold Unity (1928), in which a distant planet, whose inhabitants are divided into seven Sexes, is visited.

William A Stricklin in the book, Family Secrets, writes that Strickland willed his vast wealth to print communist pamphlets. The information comes under the subheading, Family Idiots. Though Strickland had become a neutralized Czech, he never went to that country. When he died, he left his entire fortune to Aldred who promptly formed the Strickland Press, bought a hall, bookshop, and machinery and proceeded to reprint all his old pamphlets, before actually getting the money.

There is a slightly different version: Strickland left most of his money to peace causes of which Guy was the executor. Due to Strickland's hatred of Imperial Britain most of his money was invested in countries that would be at war with Britain before the will was probated. Guy received £3,000, and with this, he bought some second-hand printing machinery and Bakunin Press - renamed Strickland Press in memory of Sir Walter - moved into 104-106 George Street Glasgow. Strickland Press set about republishing many of Guy's pamphlets and the Word, which would appear every month for 25 years, for 22 years of this period a free copy of the Word was sent to every Labour MP.

The Strickland relatives brought a lawsuit saying the will was invalid. Strickland had said in his will that he had left the money to Aldred "for Socialist and atheist propaganda", illegal under Czech law. There was a complicated legal case which ended as things usually do, with the money in hands of the lawyers. Aldred used to defend his cases personally and handle courts with ease on matters of obstruction and sedition, found himself outgunned among the moneyed lawyers. Strickland disregarded Lincoln's admonition not to represent himself. Aldred was left out of pocket only to be saved, financially, by the Marquis of Tavistock. Through Tavistock's support, Aldred was able to begin work on his monthly The Word - a periodical of the United Socialist Movement which was one of the key publications produced by the Strickland Press.

The Marquis of Tavistock - who became the Duke of Bedford - committed suicide after the Second World War, making no provision for Aldred in his will. Nevertheless, Aldred continued to publish The Word until his death in 1963 supported by Ethel MacDonald and Jenny Patrick. MacDonald acted as manager and bookkeeper of the company until her death in 1960, setting type and printing alongside Patrick who continued working at Strickland Press until its dissolution. The George Street premises had to be vacated in 1962 when they were demolished to make way for the expansion of the Royal College of Science and Technology, which later became the University of Strathclyde which now hold Aldred's archive. The Strickland Press was continued by John Taylor Caldwell until its closure in 1968.

Chempaka Raman, after the first world war, continued to work in a German company but kept his efforts for Indian independence alive. In 1930 he became the representative in Berlin of the Indian Chamber of Commerce. He was the only white in the National People's Party that supported the Nazis. In a press meeting on 10 August 1931 Hitler said that if non-Aaryan Indians were ruled by the British, it is their fate. This irritated Raman. On 4 December, Hitler said: "Britain losing India would not augur well for any nation, including Germany".

Raman wrote to Hitler: "You seem to attribute more importance to the colour of the skin than to the blood. Our skins may be dark; not our hearts".

Hitler sent his Secretary to Raman to apologize but expressed his irritation at being attributed with a black heart. Their friendship came to an end. In January 1933, Hitler became the Chancellor. Nazis raided and arrogated Raman's house in Berlin; he was manhandled and bundled out. He moved to Italy for treatment. Blood had clotted in his brain. He had no money for treatment. He died on 28 May 1934, in an ordinary nursing home. Hitler killed him.

My enquiries at the University of Strathclyde Archives and Special Collections and the Glasgow Mitchell Library reveal that in the Aldred collection there, "bundle 49 dated 08/08/1939, contains a letter from the wife of Chempaka Raman Pillai, adopted by Sir William Strickland, about her husband’s disappearance enclosing an article about Strickland."

His wife, Lakshmi Bai from Satara in Maharashtra returned to Mumbai with his ashes in 1935. She had valuable documents on Raman. She lived alone in a flat in Church Gate allotted to her by Morarji Desai. She died in December 1972 in St George Hospital, due to starvation. The unidentified body was identified by Journalist P K Ravindranath. Her famished fingers still clenched 17 keys that protected her husband's documents. The documents were transferred to the National Archives.

Padmanabha Pillai returned to Trivandrum and became a Curator with the help of the royal family. During this period, he went to the University of Bern to present a paper on frogs. On his way back, he disappeared without a trace, but his coat was retrieved from a beach in Thailand; his belongings reached Colombo. His father-in-law burned all his remaining documents. Butterflies, spiders and frogs do exist.

____________________________

*Pagans and Christians

Note: I am indebted to Carol Stewart, Senior Library Assistant, and Dr Anne Cameron, Senior Archives Assistant, University of Strathclyde Andersonian Library, Glasgow, UK for providing me with the last portrait of Strickland, by digging deep into the archives.

© Ramachandran 

VARIYANKUNNAN, THE FANATIC GANGSTER

He Had Planned Mass Conversion of Hindus

Chakkiparamban Variyankunnathu Kunjahammed Haji (1877- 20 January 1922 ) was a Muslim gangster who led the Malabar Rebellion,culminating in the first Hindu pogrom in India,which was criticized by leaders like Ambedkar and Annie Besant.Subsequently he was executed by the British.He ran a parallel government, for more than six months in most parts of the then Eranadu and Valluvanadu taluks. He  raised an army of illiterate Mappilas,seized control of a large area,killed umpteen number of Hindus and looted their homes,alongwith his long term mentor, friend and Islamic fundamentalist,Ali Musliyar.

Haji was an illiterate bullock cart driver.

Haji was born in a Muslim  family with a history of criminal activities;later on moved to Nellikuth village, near Manjeri, Malappuram district. He was the second child of his parents, Chakkiparamban Moideenkutty Haji and Kunjaisha Hajjumma. Moideenkutty Haji,apart from being a criminal, was a small time farmer as well, one among those who had been deported and imprisoned in Jails of Andaman for taking part in the 1894 Manjeri Hindu massacre.32 mappilas were involved in the evolot.They set fire to Hindu houses and killed all the hindus whom they met.Finally they hid inside the temple,where they were confronted and killed.Variyankunnan's father escaped to Erattupetta;he was declared a fugitive.

He pursued his basic religious education from village Madrasa;He is said to have studied some Arabic texts from Mammad Kutty Musliyar. After his father was deported to Andaman, Haji was brought up in his mother's family. His grandfather was also a criminal, who asked a teacher named Balakrishnan Ezhuthachan, to teach Malayalam to Haji along with other grandchildren .

The Dorcett Regiment

The deportation of his father and other criminals was followed by the seizure of their properties, and Haji harboured hostility towards the British as wells as the Hindus.

In 1896 Haji turned against Manjeri Kovilakam. He and his followers seized land and properties of the Kovilakam. British army came to help the landlords. After the revolt, the mappilas took shelter in the Manjeri temple. In the fight that followed with the British forces, 94 mappilas lost their lives. Among them, 20 mappilas were beheaded by the mappilas themselves. Inspector Khan Bahadhur Chekkutty tried to arrest Haji but C I Kurikkal, a Muslim friend, helped him. Haji came under constant surveillance of the British. His friends and family insisted him to leave for Mecca when they smelt that Chekkutty was planning to arrest him. He left to Bombay, anf then to Mecca. During the  exile, he visited home several times but was compelled to go back due to the continued surveillance. Haji returned from Mecca in 1905 and married Ruqiyya, daughter of Unni Muhammed. After her death in 1908, he married Sainaba , sister of one of his friends. In 1920 Haji married his cousin Malu (Paravetti Fathima), daughter of his uncle Paravetti Koyamu Haji. They have been brought up in same home and this was the third marriage for both of them. Fed up with the aged Variyankunnan, Malu later fled with Variyankunnan's younger brother Moideenkutty.

There were 83 Mappila revolts against the Hindus, before 1921; after each revolt, the Hindus used to flee the area and their land and property were seized by the Muslim criminals. When the Hindus returned and reclaimed the properties, further attacks by Muslim fundamentalists happened.This was the reason for continued Mappila rebellions.

In 1920, Gandhi visited Calicut, after  inadvertently tying up the unwarranted Khilafat movement with the non co-operation movement of the Congress.The Congress leaders of Malabar like K P Kesava Menon and K Madhavan Nair had no other option than to join it. Thus the ignorant muslim fundamentalists like Ali Musaliyar and Haji began to bask in the reflected glory of being becoming part of the Congress band wagon. Some of these Muslims were made Khilafat committe chiefs; they shared the same platforms with Congress leaders. The Ali brothers, Muhammad and Shaukath, hijacked Gandhi at the national level and Gandhi became a hostage of Muslim fundamentalists. Haji was under the impression that India will come under the Turkey Caliphate, after the Khalifa was put back in his throne. He did not know that the people of Turkey never wanted the Khalifa.

By this time, the Communist Party of India had taken shape in Tashkent under the leadership of M N Roy, who recruited Muhajirs to the Party. The Muhajirs were the band of muslims who had left India to fight for the Turkey califate-jihadis.

Few days before the rebellion, the British got wind of the fanaticism and had reinforced its Second Leinster Regiment at Calicut with three more platoons from Madras, of the same Regiment. It was planned to search the hidden weapons of the muslim fanatics at Tirurangadi.The Magistrate with these forces reached Tirurangadi on the early morning of Saturday, 20 August, 1921. Three people were arrested  by 10 am, after the search. Information came that 2000 Mappilas have reached Parappanangadi railway station from Tanur, and they were heading for Thirurangadi. By 12.30 this Mappila mob was confronted by Meinvering, District Police Supdt R H Hitchcok, and Dy S P Amu.The mob had held the Khilafat flag. The police bayonets were attacked with iron rods by the mob.One Constable's head got split into two.Nine in the mob were killed in the police firing.When the mob withdrew, the British caught Thanur Khilafat Committee Secretary Kunjikhadar and 40 Mappilas.

When the Forces left, a small band of the Force, under Lt W R Johnston and Rowley. Another 2000 strong Mappila mob that came from another direction attacked this small British force-Johnston, Rowley and the interpreter head constable Moideen were killed.The mutilated dead bodies lay on the road.

Thus, the 1921 Mappila Jihad began.The war ship HMS Comus reached the Malabar coast. On 26th morning, a Mappila mob attacked the British forces at Pookkottur and in the fight that lasted five hours, 400 Mappilas were killed. Two British army men got killed. A S P Lancaster, who was injured, breathed his last, later.

The incidents that led to Mappila Jihad of 1921. It began on 20 August with Ali Musaliyar and his gang, attacking the Tirurangadi Revenue Office. They killed some policemen and seized the police station. District Collector E F Thomas and other officials fled to Calicut. The criminals took shelter at the Tirurangadi mosque. After  evacuation of the Tirurangadi Mosque on 30 August 1921, fanatics were up in arms. Following the attack from the mosque, 34 Mappilas were killed. Musaliyar and Haji had mobilised the fanatic muslims. They attacked and seized police stations, treasuries, courts, registrar and other government offices. The rebellion soon spread to the nearby areas of Malappuram, Manjeri, Pandikad and Tirur under the leadership of Variyan Kunnath Kunjahammad Haji, Seethi Koya Thangal, Chembrassery Thangal and Ali Musliyar. Hindus, Police, army, and  British officials fled from areas like Malappuram, Manjeri, Tirurangadi and Perinthalmanna.  The Muslim rowdies destroyed railway and telephone lines, bridges and roads.

H M S Comus 

Ali Musaliyar had been anointed as the Caliph on 22 August. In Thekkekalam meeting held on the same day, Haji appointed commanders under these leaders, and it was the duty of these commanders to recruit soldiers, train them and collect weapons. Nayik Chekkutty was the commander of Kunjahammed Haji. Amakundan Mammad, Thaliyil Unnenkutty Haji, Vadakkuvettil Mammad were some other commanders among them. Since the police and other forces had fled from Eranad, Valluvanadu and Ponnani, Haji declared it as an independent state from British. According to R H Hitchcock, the name of this state was Doula; Arabic equivalent for state. Haji got few Muslim ex-military men who had fought for the British in First World War, as part of the Mappila infantry. Nayik Thaami, the commander of Variyan Kunnath Haji, wrote in his diary that Doula had almost 60,000 soldiers in its Army.

Variyan Kunnath Kunjahammad Haji took over command of the rebellion from Ali Musliyar, after Musaliyar was arrested after the Tirurangadi mosque incident. Public proclamations were issued by Haji to the effect that he is the Amir of Muslims, King of Hindus and Colonel of the forces. On 30 August 1921, the mob under Haji, killed Khan Bahadur Chekkutty, a former muslim British  police Inspector.While he was dying on the lap of his wife, his hands and legs were chopped off by Haji and his gangsters. The declaration of the founding of the new state, was done at Manjeri. By 28 August 1921, British administration had virtually come to a standstill in Malappuram, Tirurangadi, Manjeri, and Perinthalmanna, which then fell into the hands of the criminals who established complete domination over  Eranad and Valluvanad Taluks. Haji had blacksmiths to make weapons and the gangsters had weapons that they had seized from police stations.

On 25 August, Haji began armed training. He collected tax for goods from Wyanad to Tamilnadu. Hindus  were subjected to punishment, branding them informants of the British. He captured Pookkottur Kovilakam  and their properties were distributed among the Muslims. He came to Manjeri on the 24th, raided the Nambudiri Bank, and distributed the pledged gold, to its owners, freely.

One of the most notable attacks that British had to face was the Battle Of  Pookkottur on 26 August in which 400 mappilas lost their lives and the Battle Of Pandikkad, in which British sustained many casualties and had to retreat from the field. On 1 September,the  British declared Martial law in Malabar. Haji fled and started his suicidal attacks on 13 September. On 16 September,Haji declared Martial Law against the British, he appointed guards on the border of his territory, established courts for the trial and issued passport for those who were travelling to other areas. 

Hindus could heave a sigh of relief only after the Pookottur episode. Musaliyar and Haji had planned to catch all Hindus from Manjeri and neighbouring places on 26 August and convert them en masse, including K Madhavsan Nair, into Islam after the Jama namas.The caps and dresses were ready.

After fleeing on 16 October, Haji and his gang destroyed the Nellikuth bridge in Pandikkad. On 26 October, Haji's notorious and cruel hench man Kothampara Unithari was killed with 100 gangsters by the Chin Cachin Regiment.

By 1 January 1922, Haji's gang had been reduced to just 80.They were confronted on 30 December at Pandalur hill.

List of Dorcett soldiers Killed 

The British seized Unyan Musaliyar, Haji's right hand man, and told him that they are interested in signing a treaty if Haji was ready to surrender. According to this treaty Haji had to disperse his illegal administration, he had to surrender. The police promised that he will be deported to Mecca. Unyan went to Haji's hide out at Chokkad to inform him about the  offer. Haji had no other option since his days were numbered and his army had slimmed to just seven or eight men. Unyan went to meet Haji with S I Ramanatha Iyer. Iyer had brought Subedar Gopala Menon and the force along with him and they surrounded Haji and his gang. Haji and Unyan were unaware of the presence of the battalions; they arrested him on 5 January 1922. They captured all the illegal documents of his administration and confined all  gangsters with him. On 6 January they were taken to Manjeri. He was sent to Malappuram along with his commander Nayik Chekkutty.

C Gopalan Nair's book, Moplah Rebellion 1921 records:

7 January, '21 :Kunhamad Haji with 21 followers, one. 303 rifle, 10 police rifles, and four other B. L. firearms were captured by a specially organised Police Force under the leadership of Subadar Gopala Menon and Sub-Inspector Ramanatha Iyer at Chokad yesterday.

The British Court in its judgement recorded the killings of two Muslims by Haji thus:

These were the two of the most brutal murders in the rebellion which cost the lives of two loyal Government officers who were killed for doing their duty and for their services to the Crown. It is difficult to say which of the two was the more dreadful and the callous crime. In Chekutti's case the murderers had the decency to send away the women-folk before they finished the deceased off, but they were guilty of appalling barbarity in subsequently parading the head on a spear. In the case of Hydross the murder was carried out in the presence of his wife and children and in spite of the entreaties of the latter and the efforts of his wife to protect her husband.

He was sentenced to death by a British military court. Haji's death virtually ended the rebellion for a Caliphate, peace was restored in a few months from January. Gopalan Nair records:

20 January, '22:Variamkunnath Kunhamad Haji and six other Moplahs who were charged with waging war and tried by a Military court, were shot at Malappuram to-day.

Madras Mail, 23 January,1922:

The capture of the " Khilafat King ", Varian Kunnath Kunhamad Haji, marked the collapse of the rebellion. " There are only two bands of active rebels left to be dealt with. They are under the leadership of two minor leaders, Konnara Tangal and Moideen Kutty Haji. They are being vigorously pursued and are decreasing in numbers owing to surrenders and casualties. Various detachments of troops have already left the area and it is hoped that the two battalions will have left by the 25th instant, and the force will be reduced to approximately peace garrison by the middle of next month. The total approximate rebel casualties up to date are 2,266 killed, 1,615 wounded and 5,688 captured and 38,256 surrenders.

Records show that Haji committed the following crimes:

Killing of Police Inspector Khan Bahadur Chekkutti, decapitating the head, and parading the head on a spike.

Collection of taxes; seizure of harvest directly from the Nilambur Tirumulpad's pookottur Estate.

Collection of money called Ayudha Fund, towards purchase of weapons for the uprising.
Issuance of passports to people to leave Malabar. Rs 5 Passes for transit from his area.
Warfare on British officers in various militant engagements with the officers in 1921.

Haji was sentenced to death by martial law Commander Colonel Humphrey and was shot dead on 20 January 1922 at Kottakkunnu, Malappuram. British officials burnt his dead body along with all records and documents relating to his five months long parallel government.

The Mappila Jihad was never a class war; the interpretation of it as a class war was the pervasive comments contained in the first Communist document of it by Abani Mukherji, handed over to Lenin in October 1921 and published in March 1922. It was titled Moplah Rebellion 1921.The Marxist historians of Kerala are keeping mum on this document, which I found in London in 2019. Mukherji, while trying to interpret it as class war, also highlighted the fanatic content of the rebellion. He observed that the Khilafat movement was coopted and subjugated by the fanatic Muslim clergy. He avows that the mullahs, forgetting the aim of the movement, diverted their rank and file, against their peace-loving Hindu neighbours. The Hindus were given the option," death or Islam". Thus, the Hindus were massacred, forcibly converted and if they refused, were hacked to death. They ransacked the military depot at Malappuram and looted treasury of 40,000 pounds.

Marxist historians have a pervasive tendency to infer first, distort facts and then theorize. Thus, Fazal Pookkoya Thangal, leader of the Malabar jihad , who had declared three fatwas against Hindus and hence deported to Arabia, has become an expert in class wars, in the eyes of Marxist historians like K N Panicker and K K N Kurup. When jihad becomes class war, fundamentalists become Marxists. Thus the fanatic Variyankunnan, has become a Marxist now!

The Hindu and the Variyankunnan Letter:

1. A family in Erattupetta now claims they are the descendants of Chakkiparamban Moideenkutty Haji,Variyamkunnan's father. K M Jaffar who belongs to it says that Haji escaped to Erattupetta, after being acquitted in the Mannarkkad revolt case. He lived there in disguise as an Islamic preacher for eight years, before being captured by the British police. He married Ummuhani Umma from Muttathuparambil Mather family and had a son named Muhiyuddinkutty Haji. This family didn't know of his earlier wife and the son Variyamkunnath Kunjahammad Haji ( The Hindu, 26 June 2020).

The problem with this claim is that Moideenkutty Haji was never acquitted, but was deported and was in Andaman jails.The Mappila Outrageous Act was in force. In European countries, such claims have to be proved by DNA tests.

The letter The Hindu published

2. The Hindu reprinted on 26 June 2020, a letter purported to be written by Variyankunnath Haji to the paper, on 7 October 1921. The head line of the new story was,"Reports of Hindu-Muslim strife in Malabar baseless".

There was no way to cross check for the paper then, whether the letter was actually written by him. The Hindu claims that the letter in Arabic-Malayalam was translated and printed. In the letter Haji makes a fantastic claim:" Report that Hindus are forcibly converted by my men are entirely untrue. Such conversions were done by the Government party and Reserve police men in mufti mingling themselves with the rebels ( masquerading as rebels)".

There is no question of an European mingling with the locals, because the colour will betray him. The only possibility is that Hindu local men masquerading as Muslims, which is impossible. Hindus in disguise, converting Hindus to Islam-it is an absurd fantasy,which suits The Hindu's fetish for pseudo secularism.

.

The issues of The Hindu in 1921 have reported the Muslim gangsters resorting to mass conversion, which is historically true. Abani Mukherji, founder of the Communist Party, who gave a note to Lenin on the Moplah Rebellion, had collected reports of The Hindu, probably from, Singaravelu Chettiar, his friend.

Here is a quote from The Times, 6 September 1921:

“The spark which kindled the flame was the resistance by a large and hostile crowd of Moplahs, armed with swords and knives, to a lawful attempt by the police to affect certain arrests in connection with a case of house-breaking. The police were powerless to effect the capture of the criminals, and the significance of the incident is that it was regarded as a defeat of the police, and therefore of the Government.”

Kunjahammad Haji has signed as Pandalur Commander, in the letter, published by The Hindu. He had anointed himself as "Amir of Muslims, King of Hindus and Colonel of the Forces. "By the time he is said to have written the letter, Haji had gone underground, fleeing from the British forces, as a war criminal. According to British records, he was in Pandikkad on 13 October, 1921, and had destroyed the Nellikkuth bridge that day. The letter suggests that, he was in Pandalur, a week earlier. He was caught on 6 January 1922 from Chokkad, between Nilambur and Kalikavu.

The pseudo secularist gang also has quoted Sardar Chandroth, to prove that a criminal like Haji was secular. Sardar Chandroth Kunjiraman Nair, who was a loyal follower of the Marxist, A K Gopalan, has no locus standi, being a native of Kannur.

The Hindu, so far has not published the so called original letter of Haji in Arabi Malayalam. The Hindu's then Editor, S Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, was a supporter of Variyankunnan, and Iyengar had presided over the Malabar Congress meet in April 1920, that had heckled the moderate Annie Besant, to silence. Both K Madhavan Nair and M P Narayana Menon had brought several mappilas from Eranad, to the meet, to gain majority.

© Ramachandran 

NOT St THOMAS, St BARTHOLOMEW CAME TO INDIA

He Was One of the Twelve Disciples; Came After Ascension

L K Ananthakrishna Ayyar, the father of Indian Anthropology, in his pioneering work, The Anthropology of Syrian Christians, states: "As recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred the Great in 883 sent an embassy to India, headed by Sighelm, bishop of Shireburne, bearing the alms which the King had vowed to send to shrines of St. Thomas and to St Bartholomew in India."

It has been historically proved that St Thomas was never in India. But who was St Bartholomew?

He was one of twelve disciples of Jesus, like St Thomas. The exact statement in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is: "In the year 883, Alfred sent Sighelm and Athelstan to Rome, and likewise to the shrine of Saints Thomas and Bartholomew in India, with the alms which he had vowed." 

Two ancient testimonies of Eusebius of Caesarea (early 4th century) and of Saint Jerome (late 4th century) exist about the mission of Saint Bartholomew in India. Both refer to this tradition while speaking of the visit of Pantaenus to India in the 2nd century.

St Bartholomew Flayed, by Marco d'Agrate, 1562

Eusebius of Caesarea Ecclesiastical History (5:10) states that after the Ascension, Bartholomew went on a missionary tour to India, where he left behind a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. Other traditions record him as serving as a missionary in Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia, and Lycaonia. Popular traditions and legends say that Bartholomew preached the Gospel in India and then went to Greater Armenia. He has also been identified as Nathanael or Nathaniel, who appears in the Gospel of John when introduced to Jesus by Philip (who would also become an apostle, John 1:43–51) although many modern commentators reject the identification of Nathanael with Bartholomew.

The twelve disciples are:

Simon who is called Peter (buried in St Peter's Basilica, Rome)

Andrew, his brother (buried in St Andrew's Cathedral, Patras, Greece

James, son of Zebedee (buried in Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain)

John, brother of James (buried in the Basilica of St. John in Ephesus, Turkey)

Philip (buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Rome or possibly Hierapolis, near Denizli, Turkey)

Bartholomew (buried in the Basilica of Benevento, Italy, or Basilica of St. Bartholomew on the Island, Rome, Italy )

Thomas (Supposed to be buried in the San Thome Basilica in Chennai, India or in the Basilica of St. Thomas the Apostle in Ortona, Abruzzo, Italy)

Mathew the Publican ( buried in the Salerno Cathedral, Salerno, Italy)

James, son of Alphaeus (buried in the Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem or the Church of the Holy Apostles in Rome)

Thaddaeus-Judas the Zealot (buried in St. Peter's Basilica under the St. Joseph altar with St. Simon; two bones (relics) located at the National Shrine of St Jude in Chicago, Illinois)

Simon, the Canaanite (buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome under the St. Joseph altar with St. Jude)

Judas Iscariot (remains located in Akeldama, near the Valley of Hinnom, in Jerusalem)

He is also Nathaniel

In the East, where Bartholomew's evangelical labours were expended, he was identified as Nathanael, in works by Abdisho bar Berika (often known as Ebedjesu in the West), the 14th-century Nestorian metropolitan of Soba, and Elias, the bishop of Damascus. Nathanael is mentioned only in the Gospel of John. In the Synoptic Gospels, Philip and Bartholomew are always mentioned together, while Nathanael is never mentioned; in John's gospel, on the other hand, Philip and Nathanael are similarly mentioned together. Giuseppe Simone Assemani specifically remarks, "The Chaldeans confound Bartholomew with Nathaniel". Some Biblical scholars reject this identification, however.

Bartholomew is English for Bar Talmai and comes from the Aramaic: bar-Tolmay native to Israel "son of Talmai" or "son of the furrows". Bartholomew is listed among the Twelve Apostles of Jesus in the three synoptic gospels: Matthew,[10:1–4] Mark,[3:13–19] and Luke,[6:12–16] and also appears as one of the witnesses of the Ascension; [Acts 1:4, 12, 13] on each occasion, however, he is named in the company of Philip. He is not mentioned by the name Bartholomew in the Gospel of John, nor are there any early Acta, the earliest being written by a pseudepigraphical writer, Pseudo-Abdias, who assumed the identity of Abdias of Babylon and to whom is attributed the Saint-Thierry (Reims, Bibl. mun., ms 142) and Pseudo-Abdias manuscripts.

Along with his fellow apostle Jude "Thaddeus", Bartholomew is reputed to have brought Christianity to Armenia in the 1st century. Thus, both saints are considered patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

One tradition has it that Apostle Bartholomew was executed in Albanopolis in Armenia. According to popular hagiography, the apostle was flayed alive and beheaded. According to other accounts, he was crucified upside down (head downward) like St. Peter. He is said to have been martyred for having converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity. Enraged by the monarch's conversion, and fearing a Roman backlash, King Polymius's brother, Prince Astyages, ordered Bartholomew's torture and execution, which Bartholomew endured. However, there are no records of any Armenian King of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia with the name Polymius. Current scholarship indicates that Bartholomew more likely died in Kalyan in India, where there was an official named Polymius.

The 13th-century Saint Bartholomew Monastery was a prominent Armenian monastery constructed at the site of the martyrdom of Apostle Bartholomew in Vaspurakan, Greater Armenia (now in southeastern Turkey).

Altar of San Bartolomeo Basilica in Benevento, with the relics of Bartholomew

The 6th-century writer in Constantinople, Theodorus Lector, averred that in about 507, the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I Dicorus gave the body of Bartholomew to the city of Daras, in Mesopotamia, which he had recently refounded. The existence of relics at Lipari, a small island off the coast of Sicily, in the part of Italy controlled by Constantinople, was explained by Gregory of Tours by his body having miraculously washed up there: a large piece of his skin and many bones that were kept in the Cathedral of St Bartholomew the Apostle, Lipari, were translated to Benevento in 838, where they are still kept now in the Basilica San Bartolomeo. A portion of the relics was given in 983 by Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor, to Rome, where it is conserved at San Bartolomeo all'Isola, which was founded on the temple of Asclepius, an important Roman medical centre. This association with medicine with time caused Bartholomew's name to become associated with medicine and hospitals. Some of Bartholomew's alleged skull was transferred to the Frankfurt Cathedral, while an arm was venerated in Canterbury Cathedral.

Of the many miracles claimed to have been performed by Bartholomew before and after his death, two very popular ones are known by the townsfolk of the small Italian island of Lipari.

The people of Lipari celebrated his feast day annually. The tradition of the people was to take the solid silver and gold statue from inside the Cathedral of St Bartholomew and carry it through the town. On one occasion, when taking the statue down the hill towards the town, it suddenly became very heavy and had to be set down. When the men carrying the statue regained their strength, they lifted it a second time. After another few seconds, it got even heavier. They set it down and attempted once more to pick it up. They managed to lift it but had to put it down one last time. Within seconds, walls further downhill collapsed. If the statue had been able to be lifted, all the townspeople would have been killed.

During World War II, the Fascist regime looked for ways to finance their activities. The order was given to take the silver statue of Saint Bartholomew and melt it down. The statue was weighed, and it was found to be only a few grams. It was returned to its place in the Cathedral of Lipari. In reality, the statue is made from many kilograms of silver and it is considered a miracle that it was not melted down.

Saint Bartholomew is credited with many other miracles having to do with the weight of objects.

The appearance of the saint has been described in detail in the Golden Legend: "His hair is black and crisped, his skin fair, his eyes wide, his nose even and straight, his beard thick and with few grey hairs; he is of medium stature..." Christian tradition has three stories about Bartholomew's death: "One speaks of his being kidnapped, beaten unconscious, and cast into the sea to drown. Another account states that he was crucified upside down, and another says that he was skinned alive and beheaded in Albac or Albanopolis", near Başkale, Turkey.

According to the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Bartholomew's martyrdom is commemorated on the first day of the Coptic calendar (i.e., the first day of the month of Thout), which currently falls on September 11 (corresponding to August 29 in the Julian calendar). Eastern Christianity honours him on June 11 and the Catholic Church honours him on August 24. The Church of England and other Anglican churches also honour him on August 24.

Popular martyr

St Bartholomew is the most prominent flayed Christian martyr. During the 16th century, images of the flaying of Bartholomew were so popular that they came to signify the saint in works of art. Consequently, Saint Bartholomew is most often represented as being skinned alive. Symbols associated with the saint include knives (alluding to the knife used to skin the saint alive) and his skin, which Bartholomew holds or drapes around his body. Similarly, the ancient herald of Bartholomew is known for "flaying knives with silver blades and gold handles, on a red field." As in Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, the saint is often depicted with both the knife and his skin. Representations of Bartholomew with a chained demon are common in Spanish painting.

St Bartholomew is often depicted in lavish medieval manuscripts. Manuscripts, which are literally made from flayed and manipulated skin, hold a strong visual and cognitive association with the saint during the medieval period and can also be seen as depicting book production. Florentine artist Pacino di Bonaguida depicts his martyrdom in a complex and striking composition in his Laudario of Sant’Agnese, a book of Italian Hymns produced for the Compagnia di Sant’Agnese c. 1340. In the five scenes, narrative-based images of three torturers flay Bartholomew's legs and arms as he is immobilised and chained to a gate. On the right, the saint wears his own flesh tied around his neck while he kneels in prayer before a rock, his severed head fell to the ground. Another example includes the Flaying of St. Bartholomew in the Luttrell Psalter c.1325-1340. Bartholomew is depicted on a surgical table, surrounded by tormentors while he is flayed with golden knives.

Due to the nature of his martyrdom, Bartholomew is the patron saint of tanners, plasterers, tailors, leatherworkers, bookbinders, farmers, housepainters, butchers, and glove makers. In works of art, the saint has been depicted being skinned by tanners, as in Guido da Siena's reliquary shutters with the Martyrdoms of St. Francis, St. Claire, St. Bartholomew, and St. Catherine of Alexandria. Popular in Florence and other areas in Tuscany, the saint also came to be associated with salt, oil, and cheese merchants.

Although Bartholomew's death is commonly depicted in artworks of a religious nature, his story has also been used to represent anatomical depictions of the human body devoid of flesh. An example of this can be seen in Marco d'Agrate's St Bartholomew Flayed (1562) where Bartholomew is depicted wrapped in his own skin with every muscle, vein and tendon clearly visible, acting as a clear description of the muscles and structure of the human body.

The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (1634) by Jusepe de Ribera depicts Bartholomew's final moments before being flayed alive. The viewer is meant to empathize with Bartholomew, whose body seemingly bursts through the surface of the canvas, and whose outstretched arms embrace a mystical light that illuminates his flesh. His piercing eyes, open mouth, and petitioning left-hand bespeak an intense communion with the divine; yet this same hand draws our attention to the instruments of his torture, symbolically positioned in the shape of a cross. Transfixed by Bartholomew's active faith, the executioner seems to have stopped short in his actions, and his furrowed brow and partially illuminated face suggest a moment of doubt, about the possibility of conversion. The representation of Bartholomew's demise in the National Gallery painting differs significantly from all other depictions by Ribera. By limiting the number of participants to the main protagonists of the story—the saint, his executioner, one of the priests who condemned him, and one of the soldiers who captured him—and presenting them half-length and filling the picture space, the artist rejected an active, lively composition for one of intense psychological drama. The cusping along all four edges shows that the painting has not been cut down: Ribera intended the composition to be just such a tight, restricted presentation, with the figures cut off and pressed together.

The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew by Aris Kalaizis, 2015

The idea of using the story of Bartholomew being skinned alive to create an artwork depicting an anatomical study of a human is still common among contemporary artists with Gunther Von Hagens's The Skin Man (2002) and Damien Hirst's Exquisite Pain (2006). Within Gunther Von Hagens's body of work called Body Worlds, a figure reminiscent of Bartholomew holds up his skin. This figure is depicted in actual human tissues (made possible by Hagens's plastination process) to educate the public about the inner workings of the human body and to show the effects of healthy and unhealthy lifestyles. In Exquisite Pain 2006, Damien Hirst depicts St Bartholomew with a high level of anatomical detail with his flayed skin draped over his right arm, a scalpel in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. The inclusion of scissors was inspired by Tim Burton's film Edward Scissorhands (1990).

Bartholomew plays a part in Francis Bacon's Utopian tale New Atlantis, about a mythical isolated land, Bensalem, populated by a people dedicated to reason and natural philosophy. Some twenty years after the ascension of Christ the people of Bensalem found an ark floating off their shore. The ark contained a letter as well as the books of the Old and New Testaments. The letter was from Bartholomew the Apostle and declared that an angel told him to set the ark and its contents afloat. Thus the scientists of Bensalem received the revelation of the Word of God.

The above biodata reveals that Bartholomew is a better person than St Thomas or Thomas of Cana, for the Syrian Christians of Kerala to venerate. The studies of Fr A.C. Perumalil SJ and Moraes hold that the Bombay region on the Konkan coast, a region which may have been known as the ancient city Kalyan, was the field of Saint Bartholomew's missionary activities. Quite unlikely. Both these priests are Jesuits, their inference could be termed as part of a Latin agenda. If Bartholomew had been to India, he would have been in Kerala, the stronghold of Syrian Christians.

© Ramachandran 

PANTAENUS AND INDICOPLEUSTUS IN KERALA

Not St Thomas,but St Bartholomew

L K Ananthakrishna Iyer,in his Anthropology of the Syrian Christians,records:

"In AD 190, the Great Gnostic Pantaenus, a Professor of Theology in the school of Alexandria, set sail from Bernice in the Red Sea and landed after the tedious coasting voyage of those days in one of the Cochin ports, where he found a colony of Christians in possession of the Aramaic version of the Gospel of St. Mathew, in Hebrew, which St. Bartholomew was supposed to have carried thither, and this is the earliest mention of the community now known as the Syrian Christians."

Who was Pantaenus?

Ayyar in his book states:

"In 547 AD, Cosmos, an Alexandrian monk, who was called Indicopleustes on account of his voyages to India, went to Ceylon, and reported that there were churches there. "At Male (Malabar) where pepper grows and at Kalliana Kollam) — Quilon — there is a Bishop who is specially ordained in Persia."

Who was Indicopleustes?

Ayyar states that,"As recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred the Great in 883 sent an embassy to India, headed by Sighelm, bishop of Shireburne, bearing the alms which the King had vowed to send to shrines of St. Thomas and to St Bartholomew in India."

Who was Sighelm?

Ayyar's book refers to The Acta Thomae.What is it?

Saint Pantaenus the Philosopher (died c. 200)was a Greek theologian and a significant figure in the Catechetical School of Alexandria from around AD 180. This school was the earliest catechetical school, and became influential in the development of Christian theology.
Pantaenus was a Stoic philosopher teaching in Alexandria. He was a native of Sicily. He converted to the Christian faith, and sought to reconcile his new faith with Greek philosophy. His most famous student, Clement, who was his successor as head of the Catechetical School, described Pantaenus as "the Sicilian bee". Although no writings by Pantaenus are extant, his legacy is known by the influence of the Catechetical School on the development of Christian theology, in particular in the early debates on the interpretation of the Bible, the Trinity, and Christology. He was the main supporter of Serapion of Antioch for acting against the influence of Gnosticism.

In addition to his work as a teacher, Eusebius of Caesarea reports that Pantaenus was for a time a missionary, travelling as far as India where, according to Eusebius, he found Christian communities using the Gospel of Matthew written in "Hebrew letters", supposedly left them by the Apostle Bartholomew (and which might have been the Gospel of the Hebrews). This may indicate that Syrian Christians, using a Syriac version of the New Testament, had already evangelized parts of India by the late 2nd century. However, some writers have suggested that having difficulty with the language of Saint Thomas Christians, Pantaenus misinterpreted their reference to Mar Thoma (the Aramaic term meaning Saint Thomas), who is currently credited with bringing Christianity to India in the 1st century by the Syrian Churches, as Bar Tolmai (the Hebrew name of Bartholomew). The ancient seaport Muziris on the Malabar Coast (modern day Kerala in India) was frequented by the Egyptians in the early centuries AD.

Ancient trade routes in Silk road map

Saint Jerome (c. 347 – 30 September 420), apparently relying entirely on Eusebius' evidence from Historia Ecclesiastica, wrote that Pantaenus visited India, “to preach Christ to the Brahmans and philosophers there.”It is unlikely that Jerome has any information about Pantaenus' mission to India that is independent of Eusebius. On the other hand, his claim that "many" of Pantaenus' Biblical commentaries were still extant is probably based on Jerome's own knowledge.

His feast day is July 7.

The Universalist Church of America historian J W Hanson (1899) argued that Pantaenus "must, beyond question" have taught Universalism to Clement of Alexandria and Origen.However, since it is now considered that Clement of Alexandria's views contained a tension between salvation and freewill,and that he and Origen did not clearly teach universal reconciliation of all immortal souls in their understanding of apokatastasis, Hanson's conclusion about Pantaenus lacks a firm basis.

Cosmas Indicopleustes (Cosmas who sailed to India; also known as Cosmas the Monk) was a Greek merchant and later hermit from Alexandria of Egypt.He was a 6th-century traveller, who made several voyages to India during the reign of emperor Justinian. His work Christian Topography contained some of the earliest and most famous world maps.Cosmas was a pupil of the East Syriac Patriarch Aba I and was himself a follower of the Church of the East.

Around 550 Cosmas wrote the once-copiously illustrated Christian Topography, a work partly based on his personal experiences as a merchant on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in the early 6th century. His description of India and Ceylon during the 6th century is invaluable to historians. Cosmas seems to have personally visited the Kingdom of Axum in modern day northern Ethiopia, as well as Eritrea, India, and Ceylon.

"Indicopleustes" means "Indian voyager".While it is known from classical literature, especially the Periplus Maris Erythraei, that there had been trade between the Roman Empire and India from the first century BC onwards, Cosmas's report is one of the few from individuals who had actually made the journey. He described and sketched some of what he saw in his Topography. Some of these have been copied into the existing manuscripts, the oldest dating to the 9th century. In 522 AD, he visited the Malabar Coast (South India). He is the first traveller to mention Syrian Christians in present-day Kerala in India. He wrote, "In the Island of Taprobane (Ceylon), there is a church of the Christians, and clerks and faithful. Likewise at Malé where the pepper grows; and in the town of Kalliana, The present Day Kalyan where Comas used to rule, there is also a bishop consecrated in Persia.

A major feature of his Topographia is Cosmas' worldview that the world is flat, and that the heavens form the shape of a box with a curved lid. He was scornful of Ptolemy and others who held that the world was spherical. Cosmas aimed to prove that pre-Christian geographers had been wrong in asserting that the earth was spherical and that it was in fact modelled on the tabernacle, the house of worship described to Moses by God during the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. However, his idea that the earth is flat had been a minority view among educated Western opinion since the 3rd century BC.Cosmas's view was never influential even in religious circles; a near-contemporary Christian, John Philoponus, disagreed with him as did many Christian philosophers of the era.

David C. Lindberg asserts: "Cosmas was not particularly influential in Byzantium, but he is important for us because he has been commonly used to buttress the claim that all (or most) medieval people believed they lived on a flat earth. This claim...is totally false. Cosmas is, in fact, the only medieval European known to have defended a flat earth cosmology, whereas it is safe to assume that all educated Western Europeans (and almost one hundred percent of educated Byzantines), as well as sailors and travelers, believed in the earth's sphericity."

Cosmology aside, Cosmas proves to be an interesting and reliable guide, providing a window into a world that has since disappeared. He happened to be in Adulis on the Red Sea Coast of modern Eritrea at the time (c. 525 AD) when the King of Axum was preparing a military expedition to attack the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas in Yemen, who had recently been persecuting Christians. On request of the Axumite king and in preparation for this campaign, he recorded now-vanished inscriptions such as the Monumentum Adulitanum (which he mistakenly attributed to Ptolemy III Euergetes).

World map by Indicopleustus

Though containing no important information, it were unpardonable in an English collection of voyages and travels, to omit the scanty notice which remains on record, respecting a voyage by two Englishmen to India, at so early a period. All that is said of this singular incident in the Saxon Chronicle, is, "In the year 883, Alfred sent Sighelm and Athelstan to Rome, and likewise to the shrine of Saints Thomas and Bartholomew, in India, with the alms which he had vowed." (Bartholomew was the messenger of Christ in India, the extremity of the whole earth.) This short, yet clear declaration, of the actual voyage, has been extended by succeeding writers, who attribute the whole merit to Sighelm, omitting all mention of Athelstan, his co-adjutor in the holy mission. 

The first member of the subsequent paraphrase of the Saxon Chronicle, by Harris, though unauthorized, is yet necessarily true, as Alfred could not have sent messengers to a shrine, of which he did not know the existence. For the success of the voyage, the safe return, the promotion of Sighelm, and his bequest, the original record gives no authority, although that is the obvious foundation of the story, to which Aserus has no allusion in his life of Alfred. "In the year 883, Alfred, King of England, hearing that there existed a Christian church in the Indies, dedicated to the memory of St Thomas and St Bartholomew, dispatched one Sighelm, or Sithelm, a favourite ecclesiastic of his court, to carry his royal alms to that distant shrine. Sighelm successfully executed the honourable commission with which he had been entrusted, and returned in safety into England. After his return, he was promoted to the bishoprick of Sherburn, or Shireburn, in Dorsetshire; and it is recorded, that he left at his decease, in the treasury of that church, sundry spices and jewels, which he had brought with him from the Indies." 

Of this voyage, William of Malmsbury makes twice mention; once in the fourth chapter of his second book, De Gestis Regum Anglorum; and secondly, in the second book of his work; entitled, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum; and in the chapter devoted to the Bishops of Shireburn, Salisbury, and Winchester, both of which are here added, although the only authority for the story is contained in what has been already given from the Saxon Chronicle42. "King Alfred being addicted to giving of alms, confirmed the privileges which his father had granted to the churches, and sent many gifts beyond seas, to Rome, and to St Thomas in India. His messenger in this business was Sighelm, bishop of Sherburn, who, with great prosperity, which is much to be wondered at in this age, penetrated into India; whence he brought on his return, splendid exotic gems, and aromatic liquors, of which the soil of that region is prolific." "Sighelm having gone beyond seas, charged with alms from the king, even penetrated, with wonderful prosperity, to Saint Thomas in India, a thing much to be admired in this age; and brought thence, on his return, certain foreign kinds of precious stones which abound in that region; some of which are yet to be seen in the monuments of his church."

In the foregoing accounts of the voyage of Sighelm, from the first notice in the Saxon Chronicle, through the additions of Malmsbury, and the amplified paraphrase by Harris, we have an instance of the manner in which ingenious men permit themselves to blend their own imaginations with original record, superadding utterly groundless circumstances, and fancied conceptions, to the plain historical facts. 

Thus a motely rhetorical tissue of real incident and downright fable is imposed upon the world, which each successive author continually improves into deeper falsehood. We have here likewise an instance of the way in which ancient manuscripts, first illustrated by commentaries, became interpolated, by successive transcribers adopting those illustrations into the text; and how many fabricators of story, first misled by these additaments, and afterwards misleading the public through a vain desire of producing a morsel of eloquence, although continually quoting original and contemporary authorities, have acquired the undeserved fame of excellent historians, while a multitude of the incidents, which they relate, have no foundations whatever in the truth of record. He only, who has diligently and faithfully laboured through original records, and contemporary writers, honestly endeavouring to compose the authentic history of an interesting period, and has carefully compared, in his progress, the flippant worse than inaccuracies of writers he has been taught to consider as masterly historians, can form an adequate estimate of the enormity and frequency of this tendency to romance. The immediate subject of these observations is slight and trivial; but the evil itself is wide-spread and important, and deserves severe reprehension, as many portions of our national history have been strangely disfigured by such indefensible practices. 

The early 3rd-century text called Acts of Thomas is one of the New Testament apocrypha. References to the work by Epiphanius of Salamis show that it was in circulation in the 4th century. The complete versions that survive are Syriac and Greek. There are many surviving fragments of the text. Scholars detect from the Greek that its original was written in Syriac, which places the Acts of Thomas in Edessa. The surviving Syriac manuscripts, however, have been edited to purge them of the most unorthodox overtly Encratite passages, so that the Greek versions reflect the earlier tradition.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Fragments of four other cycles of romances around the figure of the apostle Thomas survive, but this is the only complete one. It should not be confused with the early "sayings" Gospel of Thomas. "Like other apocryphal acts combining popular legend and religious propaganda, the work attempts to entertain and instruct. In addition to narratives of Thomas' adventures, its poetic and liturgical elements provide important evidence for early Syrian Christian traditions," according to the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

Acts of Thomas is a series of episodic Acts (Latin passio) that occurred during the evangelistic mission of Judas Thomas ("Judas the Twin") to India. It ends with his martyrdom: he dies pierced with spears, having earned the ire of the monarch Misdaeus because of his conversion of Misdaeus' wives and a relative, Charisius. He was imprisoned while converting Indian followers won through the performing of miracles.

Embedded in the Acts of Thomas at different places according to differing manuscript traditions is a Syriac hymn, The Hymn of the Pearl, (or Hymn of the Soul), a poem that gained a great deal of popularity in mainstream Christian circles. The Hymn is older than the Acts into which it has been inserted, and is worth appreciating on its own. The text is interrupted with the poetry of another hymn, the one that begins "Come, thou holy name of the Christ that is above every name" (2.27), a theme that was taken up in Catholic Christianity in the 13th century as the Holy Name.

Mainstream Christian tradition rejects the Acts of Thomas as pseudepigraphical and apocryphal, and for its part, the Roman Catholic Church declared Acts as heretical at the Council of Trent.

Thomas is often referred to by his name Judas (his full name is Thomas Judas Didymus), since both Thomas and Didymus just mean twin, and several scholars believe that twin is just a description, and not intended as a name. The manuscripts end "The acts of Judas Thomas the apostle are completed, which he did in India, fulfilling the commandment of him that sent him. Unto whom be glory, world without end. Amen.".

First page of the Gospel of Judas

The Acts of Thomas connects Thomas, the apostle's Indian ministry with two kings, According to one of the legends in the Acts, Thomas was at first reluctant to accept this mission, but the Lord appeared to him in a night vision and said, “Fear not, Thomas. Go away to India and proclaim the Word, for my grace shall be with you.” But the Apostle still demurred, so the Lord overruled the stubborn disciple by ordering circumstances so compelling that he was forced to accompany an Indian merchant, Abbanes, to his native place in north-west India, where he found himself in the service of the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares. The apostle's ministry resulted in many conversions throughout the kingdom, including the king and his brother.

According to the legend, Thomas was a skilled carpenter and was bidden to build a palace for the king. However, the Apostle decided to teach the king a lesson by devoting the royal grant to acts of charity and thereby laying up treasure for the heavenly abode. But at least by the year of the establishment of the Second Persian Empire (226), there were bishops of the Church of the East in north-west India comprising Afghanistan and Baluchistan, with laymen and clergy alike engaging in missionary activity.

The Acts of Thomas identifies his second mission in India with a kingdom ruled by King Mahadeva, one of the rulers of a 1st-century dynasty in southern India. It is most significant that, aside from a small remnant of the Church of the East in Kurdistan, the only other church to maintain a distinctive identity is the Mar Thoma or “Church of Thomas” congregations along the Malabar Coast of Kerala State in southwest India. According to the most ancient tradition of this church, Thomas evangelized this area and then crossed to the Coromandel Coast of southeast India, where, after carrying out a second mission, he died in Mylapore near Madras. Throughout the period under review, the church in India was under the jurisdiction of Edessa, which was then under the Mesopotamian patriarchate at Seleucia-Ctesiphon and later at Baghdad and Mosul. Historian Vincent A. Smith says, “It must be admitted that a personal visit of the Apostle Thomas to South India was easily feasible in the traditional belief that he came by way of Socotra, where an ancient Christian settlement undoubtedly existed. I am now satisfied that the Christian church of South India is extremely ancient... ”.

Although there was a lively trade between the Near East and India via Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf, the most direct route to India in the 1st century was via Alexandria and the Red Sea, taking advantage of the Monsoon winds, which could carry ships directly to and from the Malabar coast. The discovery of large hoards of Roman coins of 1st-century Caesars and the remains of Roman trading posts testify to the frequency of that trade. In addition, thriving Jewish colonies were to be found at the various trading centers, thereby furnishing obvious bases for the apostolic witness.

Piecing together the various traditions, one may conclude that Thomas left north-west India when invasion threatened and traveled by vessel to the Malabar coast, possibly visiting southeast Arabia and Socotra en route and landing at the former flourishing port of Muziris on an island near Cochin (c. AD 51–52). From there he is said to have preached the gospel throughout the Malabar coast, though the various churches he founded were located mainly on the Periyar River and its tributaries and along the coast, where there were Jewish colonies.He reputedly preached to all classes of people and had about seventeen thousand converts, including members of the four principal castes. Later, stone crosses were erected at the places where churches were founded, and they became pilgrimage centres. In accordance with apostolic custom, Thomas ordained teachers and leaders or elders, who were reported to be the earliest ministry of the Malabar church.

Image of St Thomas

The text is broken by headings:

• 1 - when he went into India with Abbanes the merchant. The apostles cast lots to see who will go where as a missionary. Thomas gets India, but refuses his mission, even after Jesus speaks to him. Jesus then appears in human form and sells Thomas to a merchant as a slave, since Thomas is skilled as a carpenter. Thomas is then asked if Jesus is his master, which he affirms. It is only then he accepts his mission.
• 2 - concerning his coming unto the king Gundaphorus
• 3 - concerning the servant
• 4 - concerning the colt
• 5 - concerning the devil that took up his abode in the woman
• 6 - of the youth that murdered the Woman. A young couple begin to have relationship problems when the woman proves to be too keen on sex, while the male advocates being chaste, honouring the teachings of Thomas. So the male kills his lover. He comes to take the eucharist with others in the presence of Thomas, but his hand withers, and Thomas realises that the male has committed a crime. After being challenged, the male reveals his crime, and the reason for it, so Thomas forgives him, since his motive was good, and goes to find the woman's body. In an inn, Thomas and those with him lay the woman's body on a couch, and, after praying, Thomas has the male hold the woman's hand, whereupon the woman comes back to life.

The story clearly has the gnostic themes of death and resurrection, death not being a bad thing but a result of the pursuit of gnostic teaching, and the resurrection into greater life (and they lived happily ever after) once gnostic teaching is understood.

• 7 - of the Captain
• 8 - of the wild asses
• 9 - of the Wife of Charisius
• 10 - wherein Mygdonia receiveth baptism
• 11 - concerning the wife of Misdaeus
• 12 - concerning Ouazanes (Iuzanes) the son of Misdaeus
• 13 - wherein Iuzanes receiveth baptism with the rest
• The Martyrdom of Thomas
• Leucius Charinus

The view of Jesus in the book could be inferred to be docetic. Thomas is not just Jesus' twin, he is Jesus' identical twin. Hence it is possible that Thomas is meant to represent the earthly, human side of Jesus, while Jesus is entirely spiritual in his being. In this way, Jesus directs Thomas' quest from heaven, while Thomas does the work on earth. For example, when the apostles are casting lots to choose where they will mission, Thomas initially refuses to go to India. However, Jesus appears in human form to sell Thomas as a slave to a merchant going to India, after which Jesus disappears.Also in line with docetic thinking is Jesus' stance on sex. In one scene a couple is married, and Jesus miraculously appears to the bride in the bridal chamber. He speaks against copulating, even if it is for the purpose of reproduction. This indicates that the spiritual world is more important than the earthly one, and therefore Christians should not be concerned with reproduction.

St John with Bartholomew( right) /Dosso Dossi,1527

It is clear now that St Barthalomew was in India and maybe,Kerala.

Bartholomew was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. He has also been identified as Nathanael or Nathaniel, who appears in the Gospel of John when introduced to Jesus by Philip (who would also become an apostle,John 1:43–51) although many modern commentators reject the identification of Nathanael with Bartholomew.

In the East, where Bartholomew's evangelical labours were expended, he was identified as Nathanael, in works by Abdisho bar Berika (often known as Ebedjesu in the West), the 14th century Nestorian metropolitan of Soba, and Elias, the bishop of Damascus. Nathanael is mentioned only in the Gospel of John. In the Synoptic Gospels, Philip and Bartholomew are always mentioned together, while Nathanael is never mentioned; in John's gospel, on the other hand, Philip and Nathanael are similarly mentioned together. Giuseppe Simone Assemani specifically remarks, "the Chaldeans confound Bartholomew with Nathaniel". Some Biblical scholars reject this identification, however.

Eusebius of Caesarea Ecclesiastical History (5:10) states that after the Ascension, Bartholomew went on a missionary tour to India, where he left behind a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. Other traditions record him as serving as a missionary in Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia, and Lycaonia.Popular traditions and legends say that Bartholomew preached the Gospel in India, then went to Greater Armenia.

Two ancient testimonies exist about the mission of Saint Bartholomew in India. These are of Eusebius of Caesarea (early 4th century) and of Saint Jerome (late 4th century). Both of these refer to this tradition while speaking of the reported visit of Pantaenus to India in the 2nd century. The studies of Fr A.C. Perumalil SJ and Moraes hold that the Bombay region on the Konkan coast, a region which may have been known as the ancient city Kalyan, was the field of Saint Bartholomew's missionary activities.

Since it has been accepted that St Thomas was never in India,it is better to replace him with Bartholomew.

© Ramachandran