Page:The Indian Antiquary, Vol. 4-1875.djvu/166

 Mat, 1875.] C0RBE8P0NDEXCE AND MISCELLANEA. 153 highest (svauehcJi), and consequently no pliice could have been better for it. The position of Venus is easily inferred from the position of the Sun, and the necessity for securing it a place beyond the range of the Ice- of the other planets. We have only to fill in these apparently missing planets in the second figure, which gives at once a counterpart of the first figure. With this explanation the passage is divested of obscurity. Mr. Growse's translation (p. 341) may therefore lie read with the following emendation : — ■ U*c,&c. Omit u fir one, &c. to admvdrilm." ** with Saturn in f/wlagna(thi- showa the highly powerful character of the lagna when the king marched out to battle). Omit " at sunrise, &c. to might." It may be remarked that the assumption of an allusion to palmistry in a verse strictly astro- logical is rather irrelevant in explaining an author who plumes himself on his knowledge of astrology. To correct an inaccuracy :— the eight outside houses are not collectively called ApdkHma, Panphar is the first outside house, and AjfoWma the second, and so on. L, Y. Askitebkau, B.A. Himj, UHh February 1876. MANICH2EAKS O'S THE MALABAH COAST. The P a h 1 a v i Inscriptions at the M ount and at Kottayam are not, if we accept Mr. Bmncirs own interpretation, Manichman.* TRey simply, therefore, connect the Malabar Christians with Persia during some period of the Sassanian dynasty. Now this connection with Persia we are, I think, already pretty clear about, without supposing it to have been in the hands of Manichjeans. There are Syrian documents which tell us that the Christians of Malabar were early connected with Urrhoi or Edessa. They speak of men of note reaching Malabar from Bagdad and Babylon too, as well as from Syria. We have no difficulty in understanding tbat these men would know the Pahlavi language, which was the court language of Persia at that time. And the nature of the Pahlavi Inscriptions, so far as they can l>e understood, would seem to indicate that the writers were rather Eutychinns or Nestorians than Manichamns, I can ipiite follow Dr. Burnell when he says that "all the trustworthy facts up to the tenth century" * go to show that the earliest Christian uents in India were Persian." But I can- not follow to the sudden conclusion that they " probably, therefore, wore Manichrean or Gnos- • Soe Ind. Ant. toI. III. PP- 308-316. t Oont Qffiboa, Hist roL VI. pp. 17, :>7, «©t VII. pp. tic." The connection of the early Christian Church of South India with Urrhoi or Ede:- enougb to account for any amount of Persian antiquities now discoverable, without the sup- position that the only Persian arrivals were Manichseans. The testimony of Abd Zaid, in 805 a.d., as to the presence of " Jews and people of other re- ligions, especially Manio-hieans" in Ceylon, is no doubt valid. But even this mention of Maui- chasans is to be received a talis. For it IB i remarkable fact that through the Middle Ages the term of Oj, y, in rela- tion to any despised company of Christians, was Manichaean . See a very valuable note on this subject in Elliott's Horm Apocalyptkm, in an appendix to vol. II., on the charge of Ma- nichausm against the Paulikians. Mr. Elliott says : " At the rise of Paulikianism, and afterwards, Mauicheo was the opprobrious term un vogue. The Eutychi Mouophy- site were reviled as Manichees; the Icono- clast as a Manichee. What else then the Pau- likian dissident ? The charge once originated, the bigotry of the apostate churches in Greek and Roman Christendom pretty much ensured its continuance. So at least through the Middle Ages." In a isote to this Mr. Elliott adds, " In latter times Pope Boniface VIII. even con- demned as Manichees all that asserted the prerogative of kings as independent of and nor. subject to the Pope."t Abu Zaid would only therefore have been following the fashion ol time if he called Entychian, Nestorian, or any class of Christians he might meet in the Manichionm. The only safe conclusion we draw from his testimony is, I fancy, that there were Christians in Ceylon. Again, as to tho name of tho place JL gram am, where Iravi Korttan, who was pro- bably a Syrian or Persian Christian, settled. 1 think it is very unlikely to have received its name from the heresiarch Manes. The meaning or Manigramam is more likely, I think, to be village ktits. The Mani was t he B r a h m a c h -i r i or Brahman student. Another form of the same root is the common word in I suppose all (cer- tainly in anij villages for any scholar — II a uiikkii n OT M a n a v a k a n, the origin being no doubt the Sanskrit Mdnava, a child. Moreover the name Grdmam, if my memory serves me, was applied in Malabar chiefly, if not solely, to villages of Brahmans- Hov here I write under correction, since at the present moment I cannot verity my belief in the matter. 136, i:»s. l IS, ic. ; also Elliott'* Horn Apocalyptic II u. am; (did ed.).
 * Mercury carrying the tridmt in ha hand and