Category: religion

Today we experienced darshan at Sri Venkateswara Temple in Tirumala, Andhra Pradesh. Said to be the religious site that draws the largest number of pilgrims in the world (more than Rome, Mecca or Jerusalem), the temple houses a Vishnu idol for the sight of which tens of thousands of people arrive daily. The waits were so long that the temple, a huge administrative organization given the volume of visitors, has established an offsite nationwide reservations network, complete with capture of biometric data to confirm identity of the pilgrims. Not knowing how to make such advance reservations, which in any event still require lengthy waits at the temple, we opted for an expedited “VIP Cellar” darshan available to foreigners for Rs. 100 ($2.50) (and we think available to Indians as well, although not sure at what price).

The line started in a purpose-built queuing facility, which did not seem anywhere near capacity, but we had no concept of where exactly the temple was in relation to the queuing facility, or what our relatively priority was with respect to the other, non-“VIP” lines for the same shrine. As time went on, it became clear that the line was not going to move quickly, occasionally stopping altogether. Sometime within the first hour, our line left the queuing facility to merge with the other lines in a cage that seemed to snake around the temple compound, including up and down stairs.

Waiting in a line, when you do not fully understand what you are waiting in line for or how long it will take, and there is no-one around to explain things to you, is an experience in itself. Trapped in a narrow space with disorderly Indians shoving forward (in the Indians’ defense most were orderly, but a small minority was extremely pushy and took every opportunity to try to cut ahead), thirst and hunger building and partially quenched only by mango juice and crackers pushed through the bars of the cage by vendors, we were close to giving up more than once, although each time we realized that there was no way to exit but to continue inching forward. We knew, as our line would occasionally stop to let those in other lines go forward, that our “VIP” access even if not truly speedy was cutting our wait into a fraction of what others were experiencing, added to the experience of many that they had hiked for hours uphill to Tirumala, rather than taking a bus up from the town of Tirupathi as we had. [The town of Tirupathi, which really exists only to service pilgrims to Tirumala, itself a pretty fairly large development with lodging and board of its own, has more theaters and liquors stores than any other Indian town I’ve been in, quite a contrast between the sacred and the profane.]

As the line reached the outside wall of the temple, we knew that we were close, and after entering the doorway, we didn’t mind even when our line stopped, since it gave us time to absorb our surroundings. The gateway to the temple was lined with silver, and to the immediate left of the entry lay a giant scale. Many Hindu temples have such balances, so that donors can give commodities in his or her weight (or the weight of a child) to the temple, but this was the first we’d seen. [Royal tradition at some temples was that the local king present his weight in gold on each of his birthdays–we were told that a skinny raja of Travancore was much disliked.] Behind the scale was a list of prices, so that a rupee equivalent could be given instead of kilograms of actual rice, jaggery or five rupee coins.

Once inside, we also had a view of the worshippers leaving the temple. Up to this point, we had been somewhat cynical, thinking that our wait of hours couldn’t possibly have been worthwhile, but the cynicism wore off as we saw the intensity of devotion of some of the worshippers. Before they exited the gateway of the temple, many would turn back in the direction of the shrine one last time, some making a brief prayer, a few prostrate. Of course the idol itself was not visible from the gateway, but they had burned an image of it in their mind, or were trying to recall it as they faced toward the central shrine.

As we passed through the gateway to the central shrine and reached around its side, I could see that the entire interior was lined with gold, far more ornate than at any other temple we had seen. The queue became a crush as excitement grew in the crowd. As we entered the front door and reached sight of the idol itself, I could feel the intensity climax, and it became contagious, everyone stretching their neck for a view of the god. Approaching the idol itself, pushers employed by the temple kept the line moving through a horseshoe shaped path, first pushing us toward the idol (though not very close), and then away, to let others through. What of the actual idol? As you may have noticed, we do not have any pictures of the interior of the temple or idol, because cameras are not allowed, but you should be able to find depictions by googling “venkateswara” or “balaji”–the image is also on signs and window decals all over South India.

On my way out, I couldn’t help but repeatedly turn back to get another look, like everyone else, not only because I had waited hours for this moment but because I was trying to see what they were seeing–why this small idol, draped in flowers, caused such an ecstasy among the hundreds of people in that room, the millions of people who come each year. Facing the entrance of the shrine on the way out I saw the most dramatic sight–far more impressive than that of the idol–the worshippers heading in, eyes afire and enchanted by the image of the god.

Back out of the central shrine, and out of the pressure of the line, we returned to reality. After eating some (untasty to me) prasad and taking a look at the outside of the central shrine and the vimana, we headed out of the temple. Before we exited the temple, however, really in the space right behind the central shrine, we saw a huge room full of people counting temple revenues, mostly small rupee bills but including some dollars and pounds. Having a somewhat (Christian?) distaste for money in places of worship, I found it unappealing, but the location and visibility were clearly intentional (perhaps to show worshippers the wealth and prestige of the temple). Admittedly, Tirumala is a huge operation, the holy city having all the material necessities–hotels, restaurants, banking, medical care, etc.–sufficient for the millions of pilgrims each year, much of it provided by the temple authorities for free or at subsidized rates to pilgrims.

Darkness, not from sunset but from a passing storm, set in, and from a distance I could see the lights of the temple start to glow, the compound shining from inside as if from a holy fire, the gold of the vimana, visible above the walls of the temple, reflecting an orange luster. And I thought about what I had experienced.

Though familiar with similar excesses of the Catholic Church, with its bleeding statues and worship of relics, I had not personally seen this level of pure idol worship, either in its quantity or its ferocity. How can people believe that an all powerful god could be embodied in an object that gets “woken” and dressed up by priests and resides in a physical place, vulnerable to physical destruction or desecration? How is it that people see the eternal and infinite, the answers to those metaphysical questions that we cannot solve, in such an earthly, material form? Why the worship of objects such as the idol at Tirumala, or the true cross or Buddha’s tooth? What is the role of such objects?

Swami Vivekananda answered a question on idols posed by a Muslim prince (Islam prohibiting representations of God (and humans, for that matter)) by asking a servant of the prince to spit on a portrait of th
e prince, in the prince’s presence. Even though the servant knew the image not to be the prince himself, Vivekananda explained, the servant cannot do it because the image represents the prince. But of course it’s not just representation–a facsimile copy of the Venkateswara shrine would not be the same. People believe that these specific objects themselves have power.

In the premodern era, having tangible objects must have made a religion easier to grasp, easier to understand and hold onto, for the average person. Claims of miracles performed by sacred objects buttressed a religion’s force. Today, however, with the realm of science taking over nearly the entire material world, tangibility does not aid a religion but detracts from it. The identification of material manifestations of a religion, in the form of miracles, merely tempt scientific debunking, and religions that make such claims in the current age (as opposed to claims of miracles in the mythical past) seem harder to believe. [For example, to me, one of the oddest thoughts of the Mormon church (well, at least I read somewhere that this is what they believe) is that heaven and the creator reside at an identified location in our three-dimensional world. What about space travel? And no doubt that some of the resistance that the Mormon church faces is that it recounts miracles that are said to have happened relatively recently in time, even if the miracles are no less ambitious than those of other faiths.]

Modern Western Christianity, to a large extent, has learned to cede the material world to withdraw to a spiritual realm. [I am reminded of one prayer in the Anglican prayer book that has explicit astronomical references, giving place of honor to a science that has so often run into conflict with religion.] In this retreat, religion becomes more and more abstract and the spiritual world a realm totally separate from the physical one. To a modern audience accustomed to dealing in abstractions, this is not so hard to conceive. The premodern physical claims of the religions become allegorical and God becomes something of a concept, a theoretical solution to theoretical questions.

But many of the Hindus at Tirumala clearly still believe in a physical god who operates in the physical world. Most of this has to do I think with basic things like the level of education, with scientific education wiping out superstition as it has for centuries, but it also occurred to me, in comparing with the worship of Christian saints, that it also reveals something about the nature of Hindu deities. First, Hindu gods have specific shapes that define them. The forms also define their attributes, such that when they take on different forms they take on different identities (consider the various incarnations of Vishnu). The representation/presentation of the god is of the essence, and a physical model of the god essential to its worship. It seems to me that forms become necessary in any polytheistic religion (or worship of multiple sacred personae, such as the Christian saints). [The Shiva lingam, the history of which I do not know, is obviously something of an exception to this.] Second, gods with forms are implicitly limited. Hindu gods (and perhaps by logical necessity all polytheistic gods) are not all powerful, not the universal, infinite being that is the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God. Taking on a shape imposes a limit to a god’s power, as it suggests that a change in forms may be necessary for exercise of a particular power, or that specific forms have certain weaknesses. Anthropomorphic forms, regardless of number of limbs, also imply human weaknesses and limitations. Third, it is easier for deities/demi-deities with shapes, such as the Hindu gods and Jesus, Mary and the Christian saints, to maintain roles in the physical world. Although the god of the Old Testament was of course responsible for many physical acts, most Christian miracles today (I believe) are ascribed to Jesus, Mary or a saint, and not God the Father. Quite often, a miracle is ascribed to a particular artist’s rendition of Mary, in the form of a particular painting or statue. Being physical already, it becomes easier to imagine that such objects performed a physical act (a miracle).

As I mentioned in my post on the Syrian Christians of Kerala, the apochryphal Acts of Judas Thomas and local tradition here in South India say that St. (Doubting) Thomas, one of Jesus’s disciples, came to India to preach after Jesus’s death. After founding a community of Christians along the now Keralan coast (a community which still exists today), he is by legend said to have come to the town of Mylapore, now southern Madras, where he was persecuted and killed.

We started with the first of the sites, referred to as the “Little Mount.” Located near the wretchedly poor dhobi ghat dwellers along the Adyar River in southwestern central Madras, the very gradual and low hill called the Little Mount is a legendary site of St. Thomas’s persecution. Under a small Portuguese church, founded in 1551, lies a cave where it is said that St. Thomas fled from his persecutors and prayed.

A few kilometers to the west of the Little Mount is the “Great Mount,” or “St. Thomas’s Mount.” A significant bigger hill, not far from Madras’s airport, the Great Mount is the legendary site of St. Thomas’s martyrdom. It is said that the altar of the Portuguese church (Our Lady of Expectations, dating from 1547) lies above the site of St. Thomas’s death, and an ancient rock cross of miraculous legends located in the church is said to have been carved by St. Thomas himself. A painting to the right of the altar, of Mary, is (implausibly) said to have been painted by another of the apostles and brought to India by St. Thomas.

Finally, to the east along the coast in the upscale neighborhood of Mylapore lies the great San Thome Basilica. Rebuilt in 1896, the impressive basilica lies on top of the legendary site of St. Thomas’s burial. A newly built, air-conditioned passageway takes you to a small chapel, where you can see the gravesite as well as some relics (most of the remains, we were told, were removed to Italy in the 13th century).

Local women praying before an effigy of St. Thomas located in the main church, directly above the tomb itself.

Our Lady of Mylapore, a very old carving of Mary before which no less than St. Francis Xavier prayed, when he was in now Madras.

The tomb itself. The area the worshipper is touching is exposed dirt (under glass).

So is all this for real? That is, did St. Thomas make it all the way to India, found a community of Christians in now Kerala and die in now Madras? I am inclined to believe the stories, if only because in many ways they seem to have been held, relatively consistently, for hundreds and hundreds of years. Multiple sources, some of them ancient, believed that St. Thomas came to India, and existing trade routes (in the Pondicherry museum are a great number of remains from an ancient trading port that received merchandise from Rome) made such a visit easy to conceive. The world was quite connected in ancient classical times.

But what matters in the end is not what actually happened, but what worshippers believe. As acknowledged by a visit from Pope John Paul II, these sites are venerated by millions of Christians, including especially those located in India, and, as far as religion goes, faith is the most important thing.

The big temple at Thanjavur was the first UNESCO World Heritage Site on our trip, and the rock-cut temples and shrines of Mamallapuram our second.

The Thanjavur temple dates from the tenth and eleventh centuries, when Chola rule of South India was approaching its height. The Chola kingdom was quite powerful, and made its impact all over Southeast Asia, contributing Hindu/Indian culture to that region.

The temples and shrines of Mamallapuram are from the seventh century, from the Pallava kingdom. In case you are not familiar with rock-cut, or monolithic, structures, they are made by chiseling away at a big rock–so while some of these appear to be full-fledged buildings, they are almost more like huge sculptures carved from one stone. We will be visiting more rock-cut temples and shrines at Ajanta and Ellora (the Ajanta caves are particularly ancient and are said to have inspired the Mamallapuram ones). The most impressive rock-cut sites we have seen are those at Lalibela, Ethiopia, which are essentially full-fledged (small) churches that you can enter and worship in, all carved out of a single rock.

Some pictures.

Thanjavur

A sadhu outside the temple.

Schoolchildren visiting the temple.

A view through the entryways.

Detail of entrance to central shrine.

Bicycles parked outside main entry.

Sunset on the tower above the central shrine.

Two views from outside the walls:

Mamallapuram

Local boy on sculpture (relief) inside cave temple.

Lighthouse.

Local boy.

Five Rathas, rock-cut temples.

Children on field trip at Five Rathas.

Krishna’s butterball, a boulder defying gravity.

Relief inside a cave temple.

Shore temple.

Fishermen breaking the waves.

Among the temples that we have visited in South India, the Sri Meenakshi temple of Madurai is by far the most intense and atmospheric. In fact, it is probably one of the most interesting public spaces we have been in, and certainly the single place of worship that we have found most exotic and fascinating. It is not that the architecture of the temple is so outstanding–as impressive as it is, it certainly doesn’t inspire the immediate awe of, say, the Hagia Sophia or the mosques of Istanbul or the greatest cathedrals of Europe. It’s not even the most beautiful Hindu temple we have visited on this trip (that choice may be the Chola era temple at Darasuram). But the space is so chaotic with activity, so full of people engaging in a form of worship that to a Western observer is so foreign, that it simply overwhelms the visitor.

There are many things about the temple which trigger this response, and I thought I would touch on a few.

First is the space itself. The Madurai temple is in the center of the town (I suppose the town was actually laid out to surround it) and huge, the outer walls enclosing a space that is about 250 meters on each side. Because the temple is so ancient (sources say over 2000 years and there have additions at various periods, although much of the structure dates from the 17th century), it is a true jumble of many different buildings, unlike temples that were conceived and built by a single design. This disorganization of layout results in more chaotic flows of human movement, and to the visitor the potential of getting lost, adding to the experience of the visit. The Madurai temple also has fewer spaces that are open to the sun than many other temples, making much of it very dark and cavernous. The many pillars are sculpted, some containing carvings of gods and the ceilings painted with geometric designs. The florescent lights (or the neon, for that matter) used today are unattractive, but one can imagine what the temple was like when oil lamps were used.

Second is the sense of historical continuity. Some of the other temples we have visited, like at Mamallapuram or Thanjavur, were also old but now are really archeological/tourist sites, even if still active places of worship. At Thanjavur, for example, even the Hindu visitors somehow seemed much more like tourists than pilgrims, even while engaging in devotional practice. I think that this is because these sites have a certain museum-like feel, with partially ruined structures being restored and maintained by the Archeological Survey of India. Though ancient the Madurai temple was built in accretion over the centuries, with successive rulers making their contribution to the heritage of the temple, unlike the Thanjavur temple which feels and often is a snapshot of one particular (long dead) king. Madurai could not be a more living and breathing place.

Third is the flow of worshippers. The temple is at times totally packed with people, especially around the entryways (the “queue” at the chappals stand can be quite an ordeal) and surrounding the tank. As at many Hindu temples, the activities of the people present are varied–some are actively performing the circuit of worship, some seemingly lounging about, some more sightseeing than praying and others engaged in some form of business (within Madurai temple one of the halls is reserved for flower/offerings vendors). We saw a very large number of newlyweds taking pictures around the tank (indeed, the first night we had trouble getting a hotel room because so many wedding parties were in town).

Finally, the form of worship. To a Christian visitor, even a Catholic one well familiar with worship before idols, Hindu worship is exotic and foreign. People pray before reliefs and sculptures of elephants (Ganesh), phalluses (Shiva lingam) and other representations of exotic gods, and cover their foreheads with dots and lines of ash and other powder (some of which are actually on the carvings themselves, see below). Brahmin priests, shirtless but strung with decoration, stand and chant before shrines, lighting oil lamps and bathing the statues. The occasional sadhu, or itinerant ascetic, goes by, looking generally like someone who may be committed back home. Not to be offensive, but all this seems so medieval or pagan (in the pre-Christian sense)–to me it really felt like a trip back in time, what religious worship must have been like in the west and near east long, long ago.

Below are some pictures from Madurai.

Facing the western gopuram down the street.

Gopuram detail.

Hallway near southern entrance.

Column detail.

Worshippers in a main part of the temple.

Some people we encountered.

Temple flagstaff, with sunlight streaming in.

Statue with paste for placing on forehead.

View into central shrine, with sunlight streaming in.

I realized that many of my recent postings have not really touched on what we’re seeing here in India, what we have been spending our time doing. The answer is, principally, at least sightseeing-wise, temples. Tamil Nadu has an extremely rich and ancient collection of Hindu temples, including the seventh century Pallava temples in Kanchipuram and Mahabalipuram (where I am now), the great eleventh and twelfth century Chola temples in and near Thanjavur and the amazing Sri Meenakshi temple in Madurai, which dates largely from the seventeenth century Nayaks although its foundation is far more ancient. I will post separately on the rock-cut shrines of Mahabalipuram, the Sri Brihadisvara temple of Thanjavur and the intense Sri Meenakshi temple once we have sorted through some of the photographs. But in this post I want to give a brief overview of the general structure of a South Indian (or Dravidian) (Hindu) temple.

The temple I have selected for this exercise is Jalakantesvara temple, which is a small and beautiful sixteenth century Vijaynayagar temple located inside Vellore Fort. The Vijayanagars ruled one of the greatest empires of South India from their base at Hampi in Karnataka state, which we visited in 2003 and recommend for any India itinerary.

First, to enter a temple, you have to take off your shoes, which you keep at a stand generally for a small fee (or sometimes for free). Given that the temple complexes are huge, with birds, bats, cows and an occasional elephant residing within, walking barefoot can be tricky, but I guess one of the trials of religious devotion. The picture below is actually from a different temple (although all of the other ones are from Vellore).

Surrounding temples, and often lining the principal entryway, are shops, selling offerings including coconuts, bananas and flowers but also other, really random items. At the great temple at Srirangam, which is truly monstrously large and has seven concentric walls, the first few courtyards contained everything from tailors to souvenir shops to restaurants. At Vellore, most of the shops were selling small stone carvings of Hindu gods, as well as necklaces and toys.

The rectangular area of the temple is defined by fairly high walls, so that from the outside you see only the tops of the tallest structures. The walls are often painted with red and white vertical stripes, although not at the Vellore temple. The entryways, which can be at all four cardinal points but sometimes fewer, are topped with highly decorated pyramidal towers, or gopurams. The base is usually solid, carved rock and the higher levels made of plaster. At Vellore, these were painted white but at other temples the decorations are a gaudy technicolor, crowded with carvings of gods and the great Hindu epics.

Note the carvings on the doorway, as well as the huge studded doors, in this picture looking out from the first courtyard inside the first set of doors.

Inside this first courtyard are columned halls along the walls, as is typical. In the Vellore temple, you see immediately on the left a very beautiful columned hall, or mandapam, one of the most intricately carved we’ve seen. [This being a late Vijayanagar temple, I wondered whether in styles of art ornamentation generally increases as the years pass, as a principal elaboration/corruption of the style becomes ornamentation, until it is supplemented by another style.] The back of the mandapam is adjoined to the wall, so that the mandapam can be seen as an enlargement of the columned hallways lining the lengths of the walls. At the largest temples, there are thousand-pillared mandapams.

Immediately on the right is a tank, or reservoir, another typical feature of temples. Of course, the water inside many temple tanks is said to be holy and have therapeutic properties.

Inside the first courtyard is another set of walls, with another gateway. Directly through this door in the second courtyard is a shrine to Ganesh, the elephant son of Shiva and Parvati. The Vellore temple is a Shiva temple, as most of the temples we have seen in South India have been. Shiva is the creator and destroyer and one of the Hindu “trinity,” which also includes Brahma and Vishnu, although temples to Shiva and Vishnu are more common. One core feature of Shiva temples is the sculptural depiction of his “vehicle,” Nandi the bull, which usually sits loyally facing the central shrine. Directly above the Ganesh shrine you can see the gold topped vimana, which is the tower directly above the central shrine, or garbhagriha. This temple therefore has a tripartite structure, with the first set of doors leading you to the courtyard with the tank, the second to a smaller courtyard with the ganesh shrine and then finally the central shrine, or garbhagriha, containing the principal god of the temple.

In some ways, and I do not mean to offend, Hindu practice reminds me of what Christian practice must have been like before the Reformation. On this sign, promises of blessings to come with a donation of two rupees (around five cents). Temples feature many price lists, most of which are not translated into English but are clearly for different pujas (or worships/ceremonies). [Of course, Christian churches charge for ceremonies too, from weddings to funerals.] Temples are given a further commercial flavor by small businesses (some related to worship, others not) that operate within the compound, although there isn’t much at the Vellore temple.

Inside the second courtyard is also the temple flagstaff, or dvajasthambam. In wealthier/more famous temples, this can be plated with gold.

We happened to be at the Vellore temple when an elderly couple was celebrating their 80th wedding anniversary. Musicians were hired, playing South Indian temple music. Another common sound you hear at Shiva temples in South India is a recording of a chant of “Om Shiva” or a particular devotional song we have heard repeatedly. At some point I will try to put up my recordings.

Finally, the central temple. The garbhagriha is fully enclosed and ceilinged, and therefore dim in light, especially when stepping in from the hot South Indian sun. They tend to smell a bit like a dank basement of somebody who owns cats (perhaps the smell of bat droppings). They are also less decorated than the external parts of the temple, as you are supposed to focus less on the structure of the temple and more on the icon of the god residing within. In the outer area of the central temple in Vellore was a shrine to Nataraja, Shiva as Lord of the Cosmic Dance, a form with which you are likely familiar. You can see that the figure of the god is dressed and decorated with flowers. At the shrines, or at least the principal ones, Brahmin priests stand ready to intermediate between you and the god. The act of witnessing the god at the shrine is called darshan, and this sight is considered essential to the act of worship. Upon worship the brahmin will offer some ash, which you can place on your forehead, as a tilaka, often as a dot but also as a stripe. In big temples, you see worshippers walking around with multiple and various forehead markings.

Inside the heart of the central temple, the garbhagriha features a Shiva lingam. Some temples will allow non-Hindus to enter the sanctuary while others do not. Photography is generally not allowed.

Our bus departed from Ernakulam, the “new” city a ferry ride across the harbor from historic Cochin (in terms of geography, Cochin is San Francisco proper to Ernakulam’s Oakland); our destination, the city of Kottayam. The road from Ernakulam to Kottayam crosses over backwaters and the very first foothills of the Western Ghats, the scenery varying from palm trees crowding wide waterways to rubber trees planted in rows, healing from their harvest. The small towns we passed through however are notable not only for their picturesque scenery, but also for their places of worship–even for Kerala, where Christianity is well-known, there are countless churches in these towns, some new some old, seemingly far outnumbering Hindu temples or mosques. Schools tend to be named St. George, St. Anthony or St. Thomas, and even the occasional nun is sighted.

When one thinks of Christianity in India, the first thought is usually to the Catholic community in Goa, a remnant of the Portuguese empire in the East, but the actual history of Christianity in India goes much further back, all the way to apostolic times according to legend. According to the apochryphal Acts of Judas Thomas (apochryphal meaning that it is not one of the books generally recognized to be part of the Christian Bible), St. (Doubting) Thomas, one of Jesus’s twelve disciples, traveled from the Holy Land to India, spreading the gospel and eventually achieving martyrdom. Legend has it that he established churches in the now Keralan coast and the legendary site of his martyrdom in Chennai is graced with a church.

The “Thomas Christians” of India maintained links with the Christians of the Near East. One of the most significant delegations, in the fourth century, consisted of seventy-two families, roughly four hundred strong, who traveled from what is now Syria to the Keralan coast, descendants of which group survive today (more on this later). Further spiritual support continued over the centuries from the Middle East through the Syrian Christian Church, giving these Christians of India the name “Syrian Christians.” The Christians were fruitful and multiplied, and formed a significant community (of around 30,000) by the time the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century.

The first major fissure in the Syrian Christian community of India happened as a result of Portuguese control, and the road from Ernakulam to Kottayam took us by the key site of Diamper. Initially the Portuguese looked favorably upon the fellow Christians (it is said that one goal of Portuguese explorations beyond the Cape of Good Hope was to search for a legendary eastern Christian kingdom), but then grew hostile as the Thomas Syrian Christians refused to pledge allegiance to the Pope in Rome and adhere to Roman Catholic doctrine. Finally, the Portuguese convened the Synod of Diamper in 1599 to cleanse the Thomas Syrian Christians of doctrinal impurities, which they saw as coming both from Nestorian heresies and from Hindu contamination. The Portuguese banned books, burned books and records and instituted other oppressive policies. When an emissary from Antioch was detained in now Chennai, some of the local Christians publicly revolted, taking the “Bent Cross Oath” at Mattancherry church (briefly described in my blog entry of March 3 and pictured below) in 1653. Others made peace with the Portuguese and the Roman Catholic church.

About two and a half hours after we left Ernakulam, our Kerala state bus arrived at Kottayam bus station, and we transferred into an autorickshaw to take us to some of Kerala’s oldest existing Syrian Christian churches.

In the northern part of Kottayam, a center of the Syrian Christian community in Kerala, different sects (resulting from further schisms) are represented by churches steps apart, and demonstrate some of the later history of the Syrian Christians of India. Heading from east to west on Kumarakom Road, we first passed St. Thomas Mar Thoma Church.

The Mar Thoma Church is the product of a schism in the Indian Syrian Christian Church that occurred under the relatively more gentle control under British rule. A 19th century prelate educated in the British missionary system determined that the local church should undergo reforms, a position not shared by all of his peers, and founded the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, which has since entered into communion with the Anglican churches in India, the Church of North India and the Church of South India.Heading west, we arrived at Cheriapally, “Small Church” or St. Mary’s Orthodox Church. Founded in 1579, Cheriapally remains close to its original structure, featuring a porch similar to a Hindu temple, beautiful altar and murals and an impressive old baptismal font.

The facade of the church is overwhelmingly Portuguese in flavor, reflecting the era of its construction despite the Syrian Christians’ doctrinal objections to Portuguese hegemony.

Cheriapally, as our church officer/guide explained to us, is an Orthodox Syrian Church, as opposed to a Jacobite Syrian Church. The 1912 schism defining these sects is perhaps the most significant and puzzling in the history of the Indian Syrian Christian Church. How did such an enduring, small and ancient community become divided yet again, this time less directly caused by outside colonial powers?

The history on this seems less certain, but it appears that the Syrian Christian Church hierarchy was damaged by a series of conflicts in the late 19th century, including a series of lawsuits brought over who had true authority over the church. The competing factions included those who believed that the Syrian Christian Church should adhere to existing indigenous dogma and practices, believed to be handed down from St. Thomas himself, against those who believed that the church should follow more closely the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch, the head of the Syrian Christians in the Near East. These differences were made more explicit in a synod called by the Patriarch of Antioch in 1876 to conform religious practice in India to that in the Near East. Finally, in 1912, the group favoring local authority invited the living “deposed” Patriarch of Antioch, Abdul Mesih, to India. It is not exactly clear why he was deposed, although some argue that the act was illegitimate because it was forced by the Ottoman Turkish authorities. Abdul Mesih in India established the so-called Orthodox Syrian Church, headed by a local Catholicate (based near Kottayam in a town called D
evalokam), as a semiautonomous branch of the Syriac Orthodox Church. This move was not recognized by the “official” Patriarch at the time or his successors, or by the so-called Jacobite Syrian Christians, who favored the authority of the official Patriarch.

Less than a hundred yards west of Cheriapally, on a small hill, stands Valiapally, “Large Church” or St. Mary’s Knanaya Church, one of the oldest existing Christian churches in Kerala.

Originally built just prior to Cheriapally, although much of the building does not speak from that date, the prizes of the church’s collections include two ancient crosses carved in granite, one older and the other a replica, which contain inscriptions in Pahlavi and Syriac.

The church and its treasures belong to the Knanaya, who are descendants of the delegation that came to India from the Near East in the fourth century. The Knanaya have remained loyal to the Syriac Orthodox Church based in Damascus, and plaques and portraits inside Valiapally feature prominently the connection between the church and the mother church in the Near East.

Leaving Valiapally, I saw an elderly Indian lady, resplendent in sari and gold jewelry, step up to the hill on which the church sits, and cross herself. I did not know to which sect she belonged, and I suppose she may even have been Roman Catholic or Anglican, but through her gesture I imagined a continuity of almost two thousand years, from new Christians converted to a new and foreign God or descendants of voyagers from a distant land, taken root and somehow survived and even flourished despite great odds, even if now the trunk has borne many branches. And I wondered how this history would have played out in a different country, and whether India wasn’t particularly fertile soil for not only new native religions but also ancient and exotic foreign religions, from eastern Christian sects to Zoroastrianism.

I have read that Indian Syrian Christian churches have now been established all over the world, following the migrations of Indian communities. Perhaps, in the years to come, there will be other divisions, or old differences will be reconciled. But the continuity of the tradition seems assured.

Much of Cochin drips with history and atmosphere, but the most romantic part, for us, is not the colonial architecture and churches of Fort Cochin but the merchants of Mattancherry and Jew Town. Along a main road alternately permeated with the scent of ginger, pepper and chili, hundreds of shops and warehouses continue business as they likely have for centuries, trading in the riches of Kerala’s agriculture. Nearer the center of Jew Town, and on and near Synagogue Lane in particular, antique shops and Kashmiri carpet salesmen take advantage of the newer trade with domestic and international tourists, trying to greet each in their guessed mother tongue.

Jew Town now has only thirteen Jewish residents, but throughout much of Cochin’s history was the center of a large and prosperous Jewish community. Kerala’s first Jews arrived possibly before Christ and are called the “black” Jews. Later “white” Jews arrived later and flourished especially during the tolerant Dutch era in the 17th and 18th centuries (after suffering persecution under Portuguese control).

Our brush with one of the thirteen came when we visited the synagogue (the largest and best renovated of several which existed in and around Cochin). A young lady who collected the Rs 2 (~10 cent) admission, she explained that most of the Jews had moved to Israel, where they are dispersed but keep in contact with one another. [Wikipedia reports that there are Cochin Jewish synagogues in Israel–these may be interesting to visit.] She wouldn’t allow us to take her picture, but her outside appearance was typically that of a European Jew, showing that however long her family had lived in India, there did not seem to have been much intermarriage. [The flight of Jews from distant native lands to Israel is something we had heard of before, with the Falashas of Ethiopia. In some cases we assume that the decision is economic, but a contemporaneous survey of Cochin Jews showed that a principal concern was finding suitable coreligious marriage partners.]

Jew Town may no longer be Jewish, but religious pluralism survives, with Christian and Muslim places of worship steps apart hidden among the merchant houses (and no doubt Hindu ones also close by). The merchants themselves were also mixed, seemingly with no faith dominating particular lines of goods. [Although this may not have been true historically–I have read reports that Christians at certain point dominated the important pepper business.] Holy Cross Church, which at present appeared to be Anglican, is said to have been established in 1550 and has the layout of an Indian place of worship, with a more or less typical church contained within a small structured compound which is entered (barefoot) through a small shrine area. [See also my blog on Syrian Christians for an important historical event at this site.] A lady at the entrance sold religious paraphernalia.