Indian Christianity

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA : M. M. NINAN
magic and witchcraft. This shows why Thomas had greater success in supplanting the Buddhism,
Jainism and Vedism in the South rather than in the North.
The introduction of Christianity in the Indian religious arena brought forth an explosion of change, which
can be easily seen by comparing the religious theology and practice before and after the arrival of
St.Thomas. For some strange reason the history of religion is totally erased for the first three centuries
except for few stray documents, reports of travelers, archeological and architectural evidences, artifacts
and traditions. We have a lot of mythological stories in that place. History then starts only after 3 rd
century in Chola and Pandya regions and only after 8 th century in Chera region. We can check up on
any time line and see silence for this period.
Original Thomas Christians of Dravids
In Kerala itself the first Christian Church was established among the Jews. Hence at least for these
Jewish Christians, historians are of the opinion, that Thomas established the early liturgy in Aramaic
(Syriac) the language spoken by Jesus and the Jews of that period. But for the Churches that he
established in his second visit among the Indians he must have used local cultural modes of
worship.God and Trinity in Indian terHow would you translate the concept of God and incarnation into
Indian context which never had that concept defined? Except for Dravids, there probably was no name
for God. For Dravids the word translated as Isa or Maheswara – El Elyon. That was exactly the
experience of Thomas when he said “My God”. How would the Apostle translate the holy Trinity, Father,
Spirit and the Son in Dravidian language? Father is evidently Appan. The Aramaic female gender Holy
Spirit that gives life is best translated as Amma, and Son, evidently as Makan. And the original true
Saiva Siddhantha was born.
The Christians at the time of St Thomas were called Nazaranikal.They were also referred to as "Issanis"
in the epic poem of Manimekalai in Tamil by Mani around 3rd century AD. The other name for the
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