ISLAM IN KERALA-HISTORIC FEATURES

ISLAMThere had been much trade and commerce between India and Arabia even before the time of Prophet Muhammad. Unlike the Jews and Christians, the Arabs settled down primarily on the West Coast, which indicates that they arrived in large numbers only in the eighth and ninth centuries.

The first Muslim merchant who visited Kerala was Sulaiman in 851 A.D. As trade between Kerala and the Muslim countries increased, many Arab Muslims came to Kerala and settled down on the Malabar Coast where the Zamorin of Calicut welcomed them. He encouraged them to marry with the local women and serve on his armed forces. Mention must be made here o-f the legend that the last of the Chera emperors, the Cheraman Perumal, became a convert to Islam and went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. There is among the Malabar Muslims a tradition about a devout Arab Muslim, Ibn Dinar. He was like Apostle Thomas before him. He came to Kerala to spread Islam; he established the first mosque in Cranganore; afterwards he built mosques in Quilon, Madayi, Kasargod, Srikantapuram, Dharmapattanam, and Chaliyam.

The travelogue of Ibn Battuta who visited Kerala between 1342 and 1347 gives detailed information on Muslims in different parts of Kerala. His journey from Calicut to Quilon lasted 10 days. He writes: "At all the halting places ... there are houses belonging to Muslims at which Muslim travellers stop and buy food and other provisions. Muslims are the most highly honored people." During the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries Muslims flourished economically and numerically. Many untouchables were attracted to Islam. At one point (twelfth century) the Muslims even had their own rulers; the Arakkal royal family of the All Raja; he was the son of a wealthy Arab and a princess of the Kolathiri royal house. One of his descendants, Azi Raja (master of the sea) conquered in 1183-84 some of the Maldive Islands for the Kolathiri Raja.

During the Mysorean invasions of Tipu Sultan (1782-1792), many Keralites willy-nilly became Muslims. Many Nairs and high-caste Hindus were seized and forcibly converted to Islam. The Mysore Sultan Tipu is the reason why there are so many Muslim Mappilas in the districts of Cannanore, Tellicherry, Calicut, and Malappuram. The Mysorean invasions and Muslim conversions deeply affected the old caste-controlled social order of Malabar. It shattered the myth of the social superiority of the Brahmins and the Nairs and improved the self-image of the lower classes.

In this century, Muslim leaders like Vakkam Abdul Kadir, Ummer Kazi, Seethi Sahib,; and E. K. Maulavi Sahib tried to bring the relatively back-ward Muslim community to the twentieth century through educational and social reforms. They opened service-oriented institutions like orphanages, Madrasas (school for teaching Arabic and Islam), primary schools, high schools, and Arabic colleges. Of all the institutions the most important under Muslim management is Farook College established in 1948. The Thangal Kunju Missal-iar College of Engineering has also done great service to the Muslim community by training engineers and technicians. The recently established (1964) Muslim Educational Society is running colleges, schools, and hospitals today. The Mappila Muslims are increasingly becoming more Indian and less Islamic. Most Kerala Muslims are Sunnis and patriotic Indians. Indeed, Muslims of Kerala, have come a long way since the ninth century and the nineteenth century.

CHRISTIANS OF KERALA-ORIGIN AND SECTS

St. Thomas Christians and other Christian sects in Kerala History

The St. Thomas Christians of Kerala firmly believe that St. Thomas the Apostle is the father of Christianity in India. According to their tradition, he landed at Maliankara, near Cranganore in 52 A.D. He preached Christianity first among the Jews and then converted twelve Brahmin families from whom the Syrian Christians trace their genealogy. St. Thomas also founded seven churches at the following places: Maliankara, Palayur, Kottakavu, Quilon, Niranom, Nilakkal, and Chayal. After several years of work in Malabar, the Apostle went to the Coromandel Coast (East Coast) where he was assassinated by irate Brahmins (or by a hunter) in 72 A.D. This tradition along with many others legends is found in ancient Christian songs (seventeenth century and later) like the Veeradian Pattu, Thomma Parvom, and Margom Kali Pattu. The Acts of St. Thomas, an apocryphal work by the Syrian Bardesan (220 A.D.) also mentions the missionary work and martyrdom of St. Thomas in India.

There is no historical evidence -for the missionary work of St. Thomas on the West Coast of India. But there is enough evidence to believe that St. Thomas probably was buried at Mylapore. It is, then more likely that he preached Christianity and made Christian converts at Muziris on the mouth of Kaveri in Tamil Nadu rather than in Kerala. The early Christians were probably from the Jewish community, and the mainstream of the St. Thomas Christians are most likely composed of Munda-Dravidian converts and of Jewish converts, but not of Brahmins. These St. Thomas Chris^tens fled west across the Western Ghats in the sixth and seventh centuries, carry-ing with them their religious traditions except the tomb of St. Thomas. The Portuguese records of the sixteenth century say that the St. Thomas Christians told them that they originally came from Tamil Nadu and settled down in Kerala. Most likely the early Kerala Christians are not descend-ants of Nambutiri Brahmins because, as mentioned before, the Aryan Brahmins arrived in Kerala only in the eighth century. Further, there is no archeological evidence for the presence of any pre-eighth-century churches or temples in Kerala.

It is important to mention here that a group of Christians in Kerala, the Thekkumbhagar (Southists), call themselves Jewish Christians. They claim that their ancestors made up of 72 Jewish Christian families from around Baghdad, Nineveh, and Jerusalem came to India under the leadership of one Thomas of Cana (the place where Jesus turned water into wine), a blood-relative of Jesus. These new colonists settled down on the south-ern shore of the Periyar; hence they received the name "Southists," as opposed to the local "Northist" Christians who lived north of the river in Cranganore.

These St. Thomas Christians followed the Aramaic language in their liturgy and were under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Oriental Patriarch of Celusia-Ctesiphon of Persia (Babylon) up until the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. Until that time the Christians of Kerala were very Indian in their culture, though Middle-Eastern in worship. The Portuguese considered it their duty to bring these Oriental Christians under the supremacy of the Pope of Rome by Latinizing their Syrian liturgy and by purging them of their errors or "heresies." Dom Menezes, the Arch-bishop of Goa, convened a Synod at Udaimperur in 1599 for changing the Syrian Christians into "true" Roman Catholics. Dom Menezes persuaded the Synod delegates to pass several decrees which admitted that their Church had been heretical in some tenets and practices. The Synod severed the connection between the Kerala Church and the "heretical" Persian Church and declared their fealty to the Pope of Rome. Oom Menezes then appointed a Portuguese bishop over the Syrian Church.

A large number of the Syrian Christians resented this foreign incur-sion in the internal affairs of their Church. They wanted their own Syrian bishops. In 1653, Ahatulla, A Syrian bishop, arrived in Kerala, but he was detained illegally by the Portuguese, who — it was rumored — even assassina-ted him on his way from Mylapore to Kerala. The enraged Syrian Christians believing the rumors were true, assembled in thousands in front of the ancient cross (koonan kurisu) at Mattancherry and took a solemn pledge with oath that they would never again obey the Latin Archbishop or the Jesuits. These de-fiant Christians came to be called Puthencoor (Protestant) Syrians and those who remained loyal to the Roman Pontiff came to be called Pazhayacoor (Orthodox) Syrians. This basic division, with many subdivisions among the Puthencoor Syrians, persists even today.

The Portuguese missionaries introduced the Latin Church in Kerala and made many converts from among the untouchables of the coastal area. Today the Latin Church has several dioceses and parishes in Kerala. Numerically, however, the Syrian Christians -form about 80% of the total Christian population of Kerala, which is about 22% of the total population of Kerala.

Protestant missionaries from England came to Kerala with the English colonists in the seventeenth century. The Church Mission Society of London (CMS) made many converts from among the untouchables and the Syrian Christians. Some Syrian Christians who were impressed by Protestant Christians wanted to introduce like them the vernacular language in the liturgy. For this purpose they formed a reform Church called "The Marthomite Church," which is a very progressive and prosperous Church today. The Christians of Kerala today are divided into several branches: (1) the Latin Catholic Church, (2) the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, (3) the Jacobite Syrian Church, (4) the Nestorian Church, (5) the Anglican Church which is now part of the Church of South India, (6) the Marthoma Syrian Church, (7) the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. In addition, there are also a number of minor Churches and Missions.

The early Christians have, indeed, made significant contributions to the culture of Kerala. The Portuguese missionaries introduced printing in Kerala besides opening several theological seminaries for the education of the clergy. Chavittunatakam is a Portuguese-Christian art-form. The Protestant missionaries from Germany and England laid the foundations of western education in Kerala by opening English grammar schools, high schools, and colleges. Some of the early Christian missionaries had performed valuable services for the development of the Malayalam language; the grammatical works and dictionaries by Arnos Patiri (Johann Ernestus Hanxleden), Angelo Francis, Rev. Bailey, Rev. Richard Collins, and Dr. Gundert are substantial contributions to the study of Malayalam.

THE JEWS OF KERALA

THE JEWS OF KERALA

There is no consensus of opinion on the date of the arrival of the first Jews in India. The tradition of the Cochin Jews maintains that after 72 A.D., after the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, 10,000 Jews migrated to Kerala. A second tradition says that the Jews are the descendants of the Jews taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar and then released by Cyrus of Persia in the sixth century B.C. A third theory holds the view that they came to India
in 370 from Majorca where they were exiled by the Roman Emperor Vespasian. A fourth tradition, the Christian tradition, says that when St. Thomas the Apostle visited Muziris in 52 A.D., he stayed in the Jewish quarter. The only verifiable historical evidence about the Kerala Jews goes back only to the Jewish Copper Plate Grant of Bhaskara Ravi Varman of 1000 A.D. This docu-ment records the royal gift of rights and privileges to the Jewish Chief of Anjuvannam Joseph Rabban.

The Jews, like the rest of the Keralites, came from the East Coast in the sixth century and after. They came to India as political refugees and/or as traders. Because of the paucity of their numbers at any time in their his-tory in India, it is very likely that they came only in small numbers to India and remained small unless most of them became Christians at one time. According to one tradition, St. Thomas converted many of them to Christianity. It seems likely that the fate and fortune of the Jews were tied in with the fate and fortune of the Christians. In my view, the early Christians of India were converts from Judaism. The clearest evidence for their view is found in the Aramaic language once spoken by the Kerala Christians and used even today in the prayer books of Kerala's Syrian Christian community. It was the language of the Iraqi Jews and of some Iraqis even today. In the sixteenth century White Jews from Spain and Portugal came to Kerala.

The Portuguese did not look favorably on the Jews. They destroyed the Jewish settlement in Cranganore and sacked the Jew town in Cochin and partially destroyed the famous Cochin Synagogue in 1661. However, the tolerant Dutch allowed the Jews to pursue their normal life and trade in Cochin. According to the testimony of the Dutch Jew, Mosss Pereya De Paiva, in 1686 there were 10 synagogues and nearly 500 Jewish families in Cochin. During the British times, too, the Jews enjoyed peace and protection. After the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, most Jews (85%) decided to depart for Israel. All the Black Jews and Brown
Jews, about 3,000, went to Israel between 1948 and 1955; they are known as Cochini in Israel today. Only a -few hundred Jews remained in Kerala; they were all white Jews. In 1961 there were only 35'9 Jews in Kerala with only two synagogues open for service: the Pardesi Synagogue in Maltancherry built in 1567 and the synagogue in Parur.

Today the number of the Jews has dwindled down to a mere 50; most of them are elderly people, and women outnumber men. According to the prominent Jewish businessman of Kerala, S. S. Koder, the main problem for the Kerala Jews is to find bridegrooms and brides for their young people in Kerala. When it is time for them to get married, they leave for the Kiriath Shemona settlement in Israel where most of the Cochin Jews resettled. Another problem is the absence of a good shoeth (butcher) to prepare kosher meat after ritual slaughter. Fortunately, they have found one recently.

BUDHISM IN KERALA-HISTORICAL FEATURES

The Buddhist History of Kerala

Tamil Sangam-works like Manimekhalai indicate that there were Buddhists in Tamil Nadu and that the Buddhist missionaries were active in spreading their religion. According to the Sangam tradition, there was a famous Buddhist chatty a (temple) at Vanchi (Karur) and a Palli Bana Perumal became a Buddhist.

The Cheras were originally Mundas, many of whom were Buddhists even before their arrival in Tamil Nadu. It was they as well as the Buddhist missionaries from the Maurya Empire that brought the religion of Buddha to the South. They were distinctly a powerful minority in Tamil Nadu and were subjected to per-secution by the Brahmin Counsellors of the Dravidian Hindu Kings during the ascendancy of Brahminical Hinduism in the South. Aalavaipathikam records that around 640 A.D., Sambanda Murti, a Brahmin, won over the Pandya royal family and caused the massacre of 8,000 Buddhist monks in Madurai; Buddhist nuns were reportedly made into devadasis and relocated in the Hindu temple precincts. The persecution and eventual exodus of Buddhists from Tamil Nadu to Kerala in the seventh century was occasioned by the fall of the Buddhist Kalabhras at the hands of the Pandyas.

The Buddhists came to Kerala and established their temples and monasteries in different parts of the country. The following Hindu temples were once Buddhist shrines: the Vadakkunnathan Temple of Trichur, the Kurumba Bhagavathi Temple of Cranganore, and the Durga Temple at Paruvasseri near Trichur. A large number of Buddha-images have been discovered in the coastal districts of Alleppey and Quilon; the most important Buddha-image is the famous Karumati Kuttan near Ambalappuzha. Buddhism probably flourished for 200 years (650-850) in Kerala. The Paliyam Copper Plate of the Ay King, Varaguna (885-925 A.D.) shows that the Buddhists enjoyed some royal patronage even in the tenth century.

The decline of Buddhism started in the eighth century with the arrival of the Aryan missionaries and the Brahminical religion. As mentioned earlier, the Brahmin scholars defeated Buddhist monks in debates and established the superiority of the Hindu religion. Adi Sankaracharya, the Hindu revivalist, was also responsible for the fall of Buddhism; he founded Hindu monasteries and trained Hindu priest-scholars to combat his Buddhist adversaries. Buddhism faded away gradually and completely disappeared during the reign of the Vaishnavite Kulasekharas in the eleventh century. What actually happened was that Buddhism was reabsorbed into Hinduism from which it broke away. Many Keralites, like the Ezhavas, who were most likely Buddhists once, gradually became Hindus.

Buddhism has left its impact on Kerala. The images and tall rathas (cars) used in temple processions, and utsavams (fairs) are said to be Buddhist legacies. The Ayurvedic system of medical treatment is also a gift of Buddhism. Buddhists opened schools [in pallikudam and ezhuthupally. Pally is the Buddhist term for school) near their monasteries. Kerala temples show traces of Buddhist art and architecture. Amarasimha, the author of the popular Sanskrit text-book used in Kerala schools until recently, was a Buddhist. Kumaran Asan, the great Kerala poet, was influenced by the great Buddhist religion and wrote the famou, Buddhist poems: Karuna. Chandala Bhikshuki, and Sri Buddha Charitam.

JAINISM IN KERALA

JAINISM
The Jain religion was brought to the South in the third century B.C. by Chandra Gupta Maurya (321-297 B.C.) and the Jain saint Bhadrabahu, according to Jain traditions. These men came to Sravanabelgola in Mysore. Later more Jain missionaries came to Tamil Nadu and converted many Cheras to their religion. Prince Ilango Adigal, the author of Shilappadikaram, is believed to be a Jain. The Jains came to Kerala with the rest of the Chera immigrants starting in the sixth century. The only evidence of their presence in Kerala is the incontro-vertible fact that some Hindu temples of today were originally Jain temples.

In Matilakam was a famous Jain temple which Hindus shunned as late as the fourteenth century according to Kokasandesam, though at present it is a Hindu temple. Today, the presiding deity of Kudalmanikkam Temple near Irinjalakuda is Bharata, the brother of Rama; originally it was Bharateswara, the digambara Jain saint. Kallil, near Perumbavur, has a rock-cut cave in which we can still see the images of Parswantha, Mahavira, and Padmavati; the local Hindus worship Bhagavati in this temple today. Several places in wynad have Jain temples -an indication that North Malabar was once a flourishing center of Jainism.

Historians believe that the decline of Jainism started about the eighth century during the Aryanization period of Kerala when Vaishnavism and Saivism were active and aggressive. Jainism seems to have completely disappeared from Kerala by the sixteenth century; the foreign visitors from Europe do not mention the Jains at all. One lasting contribution of Jainism to Kerala, according to wi'lliam Logan, is that the architecture of the Hindu temples and the Muslim mosques of North Malabar was influenced by the architecture of the Jain temples.
I may add here that there are some old Jain families in the Wynad-Kasargod area even today.

HINDU HERITAGE OF KERALA

The Hindu Heritage of Kerala

In the earlier chapters I have discussed the Aryanization process, the Brahmins, the Nairs, the Ezhavas, and their festivals. Those sections deal with some aspects of Hinduism. It is impossible to treat the riches of this great religion and its historical evolution in a short study like this.

However, a few important observations on Kerala Hinduismare in order simply because Kerala Hindus are quite different from Northern Hindus. This difference is built into the very fabric ofHHiiniil'fi.i's-m which is not an organized system or creed but a congeries of loosely related traditions and cults. In this sense, Hinduism can be compared to Christianity which is made up of numerous denominations like the Roman Catholics, the Russian Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox, the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Methodists, the Jacobites, the Marthomites, and so on.

There is much in common in the beliefs and practices of these Christians just as among the Hindus of Kerala and the rest of India. Today the Brahmins, Nairs, Ezhavas, and the various other castes and tribes of Kerala consider themselves Hindus though long ago Ezhavas and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes were really not Hindus at all. Most of them had their own tribal religions, as many tribes still do, in spite of the overwhelming influence of Hinduism.

Among the many features of their religious belief, Kerala Hindus recognize not just the thirty-three Vedic deities but many more; according to popular counting, there are 330 million godsl The major deities have a number of manifestations or incarnations known as Avatars. The essence of all things is Brahman, the impersonal universal soul, which is never represented by an image; he is like the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim God ~ only in appellations is this God different in all these religions. Of the Hindu Trinity (Trimurti), Brahma has always remained cold and aloof, like God the Father of the Christian religion. Vishnu, the Preserver) is represented as a god of pleasant countenance, with four arms, eternally sleep-ing on his couch, the many-headed serpent Ananta as in the An antasay an am of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple of Trivandrum.

Among the best-known of the ten Avatars. the most popular in Kerala are Krishna and Rama. Like Vishnu, Shiva is extremely popular in Kerala. But among the three major sects of Hinduism--Vaishnavism, Saivism and Saktism (derived from the worship of Sakti, the divine mother)--Vaishnavism is the most popular in Kerala. More Hindus take the Vaishnavite names than Saiv'ite names, and more temples are dedicated to Vishnu than to Shiva. The divine mother (Bhagavati), however, seems to have more temples in her honor as the Virgin Mary has more churches in her honor than Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church.

Among the ethical concerns of the Hinduism of Kerala are the important concepts of ritual purity, Dharma. Karma, and Moksha. Ritual purity implies that contact with impure matter (including low-caste people) defiles or pollutes a person and this pollution or sin necessitates physical and spiritual cleansing. Keralites tend to bathe about two times a day for the sake of physical cleansing; they go to temples for spiritual cleansing. It is interesting to point out that the cow, one of the purest of substances for orthodox Hinduism, is not so sacred in Kerala, which I attribute to Keralites' Munda origins; for the Mundas, cow is not a sacred animal. Dharma, the moral imperative, which is absolute, universal, and immutable in orthodox Hinduism, is rather relative in Kerala Hinduism except for the Brahmins. Karma or the acceptance of fate is becoming less and less a formidable force in the lives of most Keralite Hindus; most persons no longer believe that Brahma writes an individual's fate on his forehead when he is born except when it is impossible to get out of a tragic situation. Moksha, liberation from the wheel of Karma and reabsorption into Brahman is still the ultimate personal goal of all Hindus; this is pre-dicated upon the fulfillment of the three paths of Jnana (knowledge), jihakti (devotion to a personal god). Karma (devotion to duty).

HISTORY OF KERALA-EARLY RELIGIONS

RELIGIONS OF KERALA
Kerala is a pluralistic society where no one ethnic community or religious group dominates the scene. They are all minorities, and all minorities have their place. All are Keralites first; then they are Brahmins, Nairs, Ezhavas, Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The extinct religious communities of Jainism and Buddhism also have made their contributions to Kerala's culture.

EARLY RELIGION.

The Cheras, the ancestors of present-day Keralites, were at one time Indian Mundas and later Indian Dravidians, but not Hindus. They worshipped many gods and goddesses, among whom the most important one was Lord Shiva, the Supreme God, who was specifically adored as the Sun God. They did not have idols and icons; they worshipped lingam-shaped stones as abodes of the divine presence; they believed that some of these self-grown stone pillars, as opposed to man-made structures, were physical transformations of invisible gods. Besides praying in front of these stones located usually under the sacred Pepal tree, they used to anoint vh with water, alcohol, oil, and colored powder. Occasionally they would sacrifice a chicken and pour the blood on the stone. This form of worship is still practiced in many villages in Kerala. The Hindu temples also have taken over this form of worship and per-fected it with elaborate rituals and Sanskrit hymns and prayers.

The early people also worshipped the Mother-Goddess and various manifesta-tions of her, besides a number of minor gods and ancestors. The reason for all this worship-ritual is their belief that the universe is inhabited by super-natural beings and powers. All the rituals and prayers are designed for coping with this religious world which is not always consistent, but arbitrary; the gods control the destiny of man and the universe. Therefore, it is necessary to propitiate these deities and spirits so that they may be benevolent to the living or that they may not at least bring harm to the people.

The remarkable thing about the early religion is that it was never a static institution. It constantly evolved by the addition of new gods and new rituals and by the dropping of some old gods and old rituals. The early Indians gradually absorbed many Vedic gods or identified their own gods with the Vedic gods; for instance,the Shiva of the primitive religion was identified with the Vedic Rudra and was absorbed into Brahminical Hinduism; Murugan became identical with Subramonya/Kartikeya and Madura Meenakshi with Parvati, and so on. As a result of this contact with the Brahmins and their religion, a new pan-Indian religion called "Hinduism" evolved in India. It was neither purely Aryan/Vedic nor purely Munda/Dravidian; it was a healthy synthesis of the early religion and Vedic Hinduism; the brilliant Brahmin theologians created new mythologies and rituals to fit the needs of this new religion; they did not destroy the old, pagan, primitive religion, but rather baptized it, enriched it, and found a place for it in the new religious universe of Hindu India.

The best way to study the primitive religion is to study the religions of the tribals who still retain the basic beliefs and basic rituals of the early religion in spite of their exposure to Hinduism. The few remarks on early religion made above are the result of my fieldwork among the various tribes in India and particularly of Kerala; one of my current research projects is the study of the religion of the Kadar of Kerala.