Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/473

Rh Manichæan, but considers that the name St. Thomas Christians was adopted by the Christians in the eighth century. He observes that "the early legend of the Manichæan Thomas in the third century and the later labours of the Armenian Thomas, the rebuilder of the Malabar Church in the eighth century, endeared that name to the Christians of Southern India." [It has recently been stated, with reference to the tradition that it was St. Thomas the apostle who first evangelised Southern India, that, "though this tradition is no more capable of disproof than of proof, those authorities seem to be on safer ground, who are content to hold that Christianity was first imported into India by Nestorian or Chaldæan missionaries from Persia and Mesopotamia, whose apostolic zeal between the sixth and twelfth centuries ranged all over Asia, even into Tibet and Tartary. The seat of the Nestorian Patriarchate of Babylon was at Bagdad, and, as it claimed to be par excellence the Church of St. Thomas, this might well account for the fact that the proselytes it won over in India were in the habit of calling themselves Christians of St. Thomas. It is, to say the least, a remarkable coincidence that one of the three ancient stone crosses preserved in India bears an inscription and devices, which are stated to resemble those on the cross discovered near Singanfu in China, recording the appearance of Nestorian missionaries in Shenshi in the early part of the seventh century."] As already said, there are those who attribute the introduction of the Gospel to a certain Thomas, a disciple of Manes, who is supposed to have come to India in 277 A.D., finding in this an explanation of the origin of the Manigrāmakars (inhabitants of the village of Manes) of Kayenkulam near Quilon. Coming to the middle of the