There Is, However, In Reality, No Room For Any Question On
This Subject.
For ages Coilum, Kaulam, or, as we now write it, Quilon, and
properly Kollam, was one of the greatest
Ports of trade with Western
Asia.[1] The earliest mention of it that I can indicate is in a letter
written by the Nestorian Patriarch, Jesujabus of Adiabene, who died A.D.
660, to Simon Metropolitan of Fars, blaming his neglect of duty, through
which he says, not only is India, "which extends from the coast of the
Kingdom of Fars to COLON, a distance of 1200 parasangs, deprived of a
regular ministry, but Fars itself is lying in darkness." (Assem. III. pt.
ii. 437.) The same place appears in the earlier part of the Arab
Relations (A.D. 851) as Kaulam-Male, the port of India made by vessels
from Maskat, and already frequented by great Chinese Junks.
Abulfeda defines the position of Kaulam as at the extreme end of
Balad-ul-Falfal, i.e. the Pepper country or Malabar, as you go eastward,
standing on an inlet of the sea, in a sandy plain, adorned with many
gardens. The brazil-tree grew there, and the Mahomedans had a fine mosque
and square. Ibn Batuta also notices the fine mosque, and says the city was
one of the finest in Malabar, with splendid markets and rich merchants, and
was the chief resort of the Chinese traders in India. Odoric describes it
as "at the extremity of the Pepper Forest towards the south," and
astonishing in the abundance of its merchandise. Friar Jordanus of Severac
was there as a missionary some time previous to 1328, in which year he was
at home; [on the 21st of August, 1329, he] was nominated Bishop of the See
of Kaulam, Latinised as Columbum or Columbus [created by John XXII. on
the 9th of August of the same year - H.C.]. Twenty years later John
Marignolli visited "the very noble city of Columbum, where the whole
world's pepper is produced," and found there a Latin church of St. George,
probably founded by Jordanus.[2] Kaulam or Coilon continued to be an
important place to the beginning of the 16th century, when Varthema speaks
of it as a fine port, and Barbosa as "a very great city," with a very good
haven, and with many great merchants, Moors and Gentoos, whose ships traded
to all the Eastern ports as far as Bengal, Pegu, and the Archipelago. But
after this its decay must have been rapid, and in the following century it
had sunk into entire insignificance. Throughout the Middle Ages it appears
to have been one of the chief seats of the St. Thomas Christians. Indeed
both it and Kayal were two out of the seven ancient churches which Indo
Syrian tradition ascribed to St. Thomas himself.[3]
[Illustration: Ancient Christian Church at Parur on the Malabar coast.
(After Claudius Buchanan.)]
I have been desirous to give some illustration of the churches of that
interesting body, certain of which must date from a very remote period, but
I have found unlooked for difficulties in procuring such illustration.
Several are given in the Life of Dr. Claudius Buchanan from his own
sketches, and a few others in the Life of Bishop D. Wilson.
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