The apocrypha book "Acts of St. Thomas' mentions
about his connection with the Indian King. Till the
middle of the 19th century even the existence of such
a king was legendary. How ever, a large number of
coins were discovered in Kabul, Kandahar, and in the
western and southern Punjab, bear the name 'Gondophares'.
[SESSION
TOPICS]
> Overview
> Proof of coming
> Indian Context
> King Gondaphar
> In North India
> In South India >
Malabar History
According
to the investigations, one may reasonably say that the St. Thomas
mission in the 'King Gondophares' land is real and historically
proven.' His
kingdom comprised Taxila, Sistan, Sind, Southern and Western
Punjab, the NWFP, Southern Afghanistan, and probably part of
the Parthian dominions west of Sistan.
Hence he could be considered both as an Indian king and as a
Parthian.
Ruins
of Taxila, Pakistan, where the apostle St. Thomas is said to have
begun his missionary work in India. A yearly festival commemorating
the coming of St. Thomas attracts up to 60,000 people.
To
go in detail,
A 2nd century AD work in Syriac, many poems by Ephraem (3rd/4th
century), many folksongs in South India, a historical narrative
committed to writing some five hundred years ago in Kerala, timehonoured
traditions prevalent in many parts of India speak of the arrival,
travels, and activities of a visitor from around Alexandria in
India in the First Century A D. The crediblity
of this 'St. Thomas legend,' as described in Kerala-Mylapore tradition,
in the Song of St. Thomas Rambhan, in the Margam Kali songs etc.,
and in the Acts of Judas St. Thomas has been vehemently questioned
and denied by the vast majority of western scholars during the
major part of the 19th century.
It has been said and with quite some truth that this vehemence
was at least partially due to the fact that many westerners refused
to believe that their own present religion, though originally
from the East, had arrived in another country, that too a 'pagan'
and 'idolatrous' country like India many centuries before it had
come to their own motherlands in Europe. Whatever the truth of
this one thing is certain: these western scholars left no stone
unturned in their attemps to disprove the Indian 'legend' about
the travels of the Alexandrian visitor St. Thomas.
Among
the strongest arguments used were
1] that there is no king
of the name Gondaphares (as mentioned in the 2nd C. Acts) in
Indian history, none of his coins had ever been discovered,
no geneology of Indian kings mentions such a name etc. and
2]
it is not possible to associate the specific places, routes
etc. mentioned in the Acts, traditions, songs, and narratives
with first century contacts with the west. These are the only
two objections we are dealing with here and analysing in the
light of numismatics developments in the subcontinent.
A most dramatic discovery in the field
of numismatics in India effected a magical change in the understanding
of this whole story. This was as a result of the excavations
made both to the east and west of the river Indus. Long before
any coins or inscriptions of Gondaphares had been discovered,
the name of the king was familiar to the western world in connexion
with the visit of St. Thomas in India. In the several texts of these
apocryphal books the king's name appears variously as Gudnaphar,
Gundafor, Gundaphorus, and Goundaphorus. His brother Gad's name
also is mentioned there. Yet those names were totally unknown
to history until large numbers of coins of this King were discovered.
On his coins it appears , in Karoshti, as Guduphara or, occasionally,
Godapharna; in Greek, as Undopheros, Undopherros or Gondopherros,
which apparently represent local pronunciations of the Persian
Vindapharna 'The Winner of Glory'.
Coins
of King Gondophares discovered in the 19th century, in
the North - western parts of India.
The
Greek rulers of the Punjab were ultimately overcome by the
Saka tribes of central Asia...They established principalities
at Mathura, Taxila, and elsewhere. We are here concerned
with one of these Persian Princes, known to the Greeks as
Gondopharnes, who was in 50 A.D. succeeded by Pacores. His
kingdom comprised Taxila, Sistan, Sind, Southern and Western
Punjab, the NWFP, Southern Afghanistan, and probably part
of the Parthian dominions west of Sistan. Hence he could
be considered both as an Indian king and as a Parthian.
(cf.
Farquhar, North India, I.C.H.C. v. I, p. 313 ff.; Sir John Marshall,
A Guide to Taxila, 4th Edn., Cambridge University Press, 1960.
For photographs of some Gondophares coins, see Medlycott, India
and the Apostle St. Thomas, London, 1905 , or in ICHC I p.191, or
STCEI I Montage inside front cover, and A Guide to Taxila, plate
III (18).)
Dr.
Fleet. One of the scholars concludes: 'There is an
actual basis for the tradition in historical reality' and St. Thomas did visit the courts of two Kings reighning there, of whom
one was Gundupphara - the Gondophares of the Takht - i - Bhai
inscriptions and the coins - who was evidently the ruler of 'an
extensive territory which included as a part of it much more of
India than simply a portion of the Peshawar District'.
