We are quite warranted in imaging Tiruvalluvar, the thoughtful poet, the eclectic . . . pacing along the seashore with the Christian teachers, and imbibing Christian ideas, tinged with the peculiarities of the Alexandrian school, and day by day working them into his own wonderful Kurral . . . the one Oriental book much of whose teaching is an echo of 'the Sermon on the Mount'.

When Dravidanadu was a victim to Aryan deceit, Thirukkural was written by a great Dravidian Thiruvalluvar to free the Dravidians".

Dr. R. Arulappa, the former Archbishop of Madras, is one such facile scholar – and yet he has made some unusual contributions to the study of Tamil history. In his book Punitha Thomayar – where he tries to show that Tiruvalluvar’s Kural is a Christian work – he mentions the finding of yantra stones in ancient foundations on all the sites in Madras associated with St. Thomas. He does not expand on these momentous discoveries or say where the stones are today, and it is not clear why he refers to them, but it is certainly true that the Agama Shastra requires the placing of such stones beneath the foundations of new temples before their construction begins.

Legend has it that an ancient Shiva temple existed at Thirunavaya, believed to have been consecrated by Parashurama and among the 108 major shrines for Lord Shiva in Kerala. But pilgrims are unable to find this temple at Thirunavaya. A Shiva Linga and pedestal were excavated from a location there in 2003, but were hastily buried again, claims Dinesh.42 After its destruction and subsequent neglect over time, the site was used by the British to establish a tile factory.

The story that places the Apostle St Thomas in India in 53 CE is a lingering medieval myth. 1 It implicitly includes colonial and racial narratives; for instance, that the peaceful apostle ministered to the dark-skinned Indians, who turned on him and killed him. This myth, however, has no historical basis at all. Nevertheless, it has been shaped by various Christian churches into a powerful tool for the appropriation of Hindu culture in Tamil Nadu, by giving credit to 'Thomas Christianity' for everything positive in the south Indian culture, while blaming Hinduism for whatever is to be denigrated. It further serves as a tool to carve out Tamils from the common body of Indian culture and spirituality.

The earliest records of the Madras area, including money-lenders' accounts, go back to the fourth century CE. They identify Mylapore, Triplicane and Tiruvottiyur as temple towns. The Nandikkalambakkam describes Mylapore as a prosperous port under the Pallavas, the early-fourth- to-late-ninth century emperors of Kanchipuram, who patronized various schools of Hinduism including Jainism and Buddhism, built temples and generously supported the arts. There is no record of a Christian church or saint's tomb at Mylapore before the Portuguese period, and Olschki is basing his comments on the wrong assumption that Marco Polo did visit Mylapore and that he found a church there. Friar Oderic is describing the original Kapaleeswara Shiva Temple on the Mylapore seashore (see Henry Yule's comment: "This is clearly a Hindu temple."), which the Tamil saint Jnanasambandar has positively identified as being there at least before the sixth century CE.

The effort made by some interested quarters to link the Muziris excavations with the visit of St. Thomas Apostle has been criticised by eminent archaeologist and former director of the Tamil Nadu Archaeological Survey of India, Dr. R. Nagaswamy. “When looking at the literature on the life of St. Thomas, it is not mentioned anywhere that he came to India. It is only a myth, which has now been connected with the excavations at Pattanam, near Kodungallur,” the former visiting professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University told Express. In fact, the ancient Muziris port must have been located in Kodungallur and not in Pattanam because all major ports in ancient times were situated at river mouths. And so it is safe to assume that Muziris was at Kodungallur, where the river joins the sea. He felt there was a hidden agenda by certain sections to propagate the idea that Muziris was connected to Pattanam, where St. Thomas is believed to have landed, and not with Kodungallur. “Myth cannot be called history. Connecting myth with history could only create confusion and distort history,” he said. “There is no substantial evidence to say that Pattanam is connected with Muziris. How was this conclusion reached? Those who claim to have found materials to connect Pattanam with Muziris have forgotten that these materials were also found in the eastern and the western coasts of the country,” said Dr. Nagaswamy.

The consensus among most historians who do not have a theological axe to grind, is that the first Christians to arrive in India, landing at Cranganore, Kerala, came in 345 CE. They were four hundred refugees belonging to seven tribes of West Asia, who were fleeing religious persecution by the Persian Shapor II. Their leader was a Syrian who is known to history as Knae Thomman, Thomas Cananeus, Thomas of Cana, or Thomas the Merchant. It is probably this man whom the Syrian Christians later converted into the first century apostle-martyr St. Thomas. Though the myth of St. Thomas coming to Kerala in 52 CE was invented by Syrian Christians, it was resurrected and embellished in the sixteenth century by Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries who needed a pious story of persecution to cover up their own persecution of the Hindus. During this period they and their Portuguese masters destroyed the great Shiva temple on the Mylapore beach, the Murugan temple on Little Mount and the Hindu temple on Big Mount, and built Christian churches on the ruins.

19. Q. Tell me again when Prince Siddhārtha was born? A. Six hundred and twenty-three years before the Christian era.

At that time there lived in Kashmir a king called Turuska . He lived for a hundred years and was highly religious.... When the charmed circle was found inside the fruit, [the Persian king] became convinced of the use of black magic. So he [the Persian king] destroyed Magadha by the Turuska army, ruined many temples and heavily damaged Sri Nalendra. Even the ordained monks fled away.

He was a true son of the soil and a farmer till his very last breath. His birth took place in a farming community in Illuru in May 1913 of the district of Ananthapuramu, which is also the working place of one of India’s most revered philosophers and former President Dr. Sarvapali Radhakrishnan.

“He was accordingly born during the Tretã Yuga on the ninth of the light half of the month of Chaitra (March-April) in the city of Ayodhya, of Kausalya, wife of Rãjã Daśaratha. At the first dawn of intelligence, he acquired much learning and withdrawing from all worldly pursuits, set out journeying through wilds and gave a fresh beauty to his life by visiting holy shrines. He became lord of the earth and slew Rãvana. He ruled for eleven thousand years and introduced just laws of administration.” (Rãma-Incarnation, Vol- III, p. 291)

Now the fact that the South Indian St. Thomas story was not written down until 1892, as T.K. Joseph testifies, is an extraordinary circumstance for so famous a piece of Indian “history”. It also brings Bishop Medleycott of Trichur back into the picture. He was the great St. Thomas advocate in South India from 1887 to 1896, and had the motive and means to assist Varghese Palayur in writing his “ancient” composition. The Vatican had declared the apostolate of St. Thomas in South India as unverified after studying the Rabban Pattu, but the Roman Catholic Church in India then and now is still the only entity that reaps any benefit from the propagation of the myth among Indians.

It is impossible to fix the exact date either of the life of Vatsyayana orof his work. It is supposed that he must have lived between the first and the sixth centuries of the Christian era