Apostle Thomas in India (tradition)

The oldest written source is the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, composed in the 3rd century, probably in Syriac. It tells how India fell to Thomas when the apostles divided the world among themselves, and how he came to King Gudnaphar in north-western India to build him a palace but gave the money to the poor. The king is usually identified with Gondophares I, the founder of the Indo-Parthian kingdom; according to the numismatist Robert Senior, however, the Gudnaphar of the Acts may have been a later king of the same title, Gondophares IV Sases.

The Kerala tradition, set out in the Songs of Thomas (Thomma Parvam) — a text of 1601 believed to summarize an older work — places the apostle’s landing at Maliankara near Kodungallur, by ancient Muziris, then one of the chief ports of the Roman pepper trade, and names seven churches he founded, from Kodungallur and Palayoor to Niranam and Kollam; it ends with his martyrdom at Mylapore — by tradition, by a spear. According to tradition, his relics were later taken to Edessa. Eusebius reports that in the 2nd century Pantaenus of Alexandria found Christians in India who had the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, left with them, it was said, by the apostle Bartholomew; in the 6th century Cosmas Indicopleustes met Syrian Christians in India and Sri Lanka. Some historians believe that the Kerala community was founded not by the apostle but by Thomas of Cana, who is placed in the 4th century (by others in the 8th).