Saint Thomas in India

The expansion of trade routes from the subcontinent at this time facilitates the movement of missionaries and the establishment of religious sects across important centres. Buddhism is a major beneficiary of this dynamic, and is likely the dominant religion of South Asia by this time. However, the subcontinent’s western coast also becomes home to diverse communities, including merchants and preachers from West Asia. 

One sign of this globalism, based on traditional beliefs held by various Christian communities in present-day Kerala, is the journey of Saint Thomas the Apostle to India, within two decades of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, leading to the establishment of the East Syrian Rite along the Malabar coast. 

The legend of Saint Thomas’ journey to India is today supported primarily by the Syrian Christian community in India, also commonly known as Thomas Christians. According to the more prevalent theory, he arrives by sea at the Malabar coast, presumably in Muziris in present-day Kerala in 52 CE, where he conducts his missionary work until 69 CE. However, according to other sources the saint takes a land route to India, first arriving in present-day Punjab, then part of the Indo-Parthian kingdom, and later travelling to the south of the subcontinent. In 69 CE, Thomas takes his missionary work to Mylapore (in present-day Tamil Nadu), where he dies in 73 CE. According to the most popular of the narratives around his death, he is killed with a trishul (or trident) by a group of Brahmins when he refuses to worship the Hindu goddess Kali during a sacred procession. A majority of the saint’s missionary work in India, specifically the stories of his martyrdom, will later be detailed in the third-century literary work Acts of Thomas, possibly composed in Edessa in present-day Turkey.