i am sorry, i have to agree with arvind. this stuff is a complete fabrication.
1. 'saint' thomas never went to india. he died in ortona, italy, according to the vatican itself
2. the portuguese, under 'saint' francis xavier, conflated 'saint' thomas with another fellow, thomas of canaan, who did go to kerala circa 349 CE. this is the first documented arrival of christians in kerala. these people, the 'syrian christians', were refugees who were allowed to live unmolested in kerala by the local hindus
3. then 'saint' francis xavier's zealous portuguese arrived with fire and sword and musket and started converting coastal people at gunpoint. they were flabbergasted to find christians who hadn't heard of the pope, so they promptly started burning them at the stake as heretics -- the standard treatment
4. the flute-playing jewish girl is a nice touch. it is true that there were jews in kerala starting circa 75 CE, when their Second Temple was razed by romans. but that, right there, screws up the time line, doesn't it? jews were not in kerala before 52 CE
yes, this is utter poppycock. william dalrymple allowed in a BBC program on kerala that "'saint' thomas could have gone to kerala". yes, slick willie, the moon could be made of green cheese. but it ain't. and thomas didn't go to kerala, either.
by the miracle of 'truth by repeated assertion', christians are now claiming that they are the ORIGINAL INHABITANTS of kerala, and that hindus came later!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Arvind
Date: Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 9:57 PM
Subject: Shashi Tharoor peddles religious poppycock as history
To: Rajeev
http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-we-are-all-minorities-in-india-says-shashi-tharoor/20120907.htm Christianity arrived on Indian soil with St Thomas the Apostle (Doubting Thomas), who came to the Kerala coast some time before 52 AD and was welcomed on shore by a flute-playing Jewish girl. He made many converts, so there are Indians today whose ancestors were Christian well before any Europeans discovered Christianity.
From: Arvind
Date: Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 9:57 PM
Subject: Shashi Tharoor peddles religious poppycock as history
To: Rajeev
http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-we-are-all-minorities-in-india-says-shashi-tharoor/20120907.htm Christianity arrived on Indian soil with St Thomas the Apostle (Doubting Thomas), who came to the Kerala coast some time before 52 AD and was welcomed on shore by a flute-playing Jewish girl. He made many converts, so there are Indians today whose ancestors were Christian well before any Europeans discovered Christianity.
1 comment:
This is the Indian version of the greatest story ever sold. Just as the fable of the crucified god has no historical basis and was concocted out of pagan god myths like those of Dionysus and Osiris and Krishna, the apocryphal fiction of his twin-brother-sold-to-slavery reaching the Kerala coast is not even believed by the Magisterium a.k.a. the Catholic Church. The deception includes a dug-up wooden cross purported to be thousands of years old to lay claim on land sacred to Hindus. Tharoor is a head-in-the-sand secularist who will happily resort to outright deception to further the fantasy.
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