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May, 1875.] COBEESPOXDENCE AND MISCELLANEA. 155 as the 9th century. The Syrians themselves speak of the care of the Edessans for them. And Eusebius and other Church historians tell us that St. Thomas was the Apostle of Edessa. It is remarkable too that Psendo-Abdias, in his account of the Consummation of Thomas, adds to the original that St. Thomas's bones were taken by bis brethren after his martyrdom, and buried in Edessa. Even though we allow that this is a myth, we cannot but ask, Whence did Abdias re- ceive this idea of Edessa f My own strong impression is that St. Thomas was the Apostle both of Edessa and Malabar, and that hence their connection arose. The Persian colonists thus become no mystery. The Puhlavi language, according to Max Miiller, originated in an Aram&an dialect of Assyria, and may well therefore have been known and used su far north in the Persian Empire as Edessa; and from An- tiocb, which is not many miles from the ancient Edessa, the Malabar Christians have received their Bishops fro> -?. a very remote period. As Edessa was also the see of Jacob Albardai, the reviver ut Eutychianisra, I suspect that the Church of Malabar, or ut least many of its mem- bers, have been Eutychians since the 6th century. Bat this is too wide a subject for me to enter On now. Dr. Bumell seems to think that some causes must have arisen to "transform the old Persian Church into adherents of Syrian sects." But surely there is no necessity whatever to raise such lestion. The Church of Edessa early became oh, and beyond this there is no leTK-e of change. The name Syrian was. no doubt, first given to tlu-se people by Europeans. call themselves Syrians, but H" us rani M & p p i 1 1 a . !y remains for me to add that having read through Dr. IJurnell's pap sing ast onishme nt ut the slender grounds, as they ap- pear to me, on which ho seeks to establish the fact that the earliest Christian sects in India v. Manichamns. and having supposed that the Pah- lavi Inscriptions were to make it all plain, my astonishment came to: when I read, "If these Pahlnvi Inseriptions were Maui- iiaiin, they would be in a different character. It .seems tome not unlikely, however, that relics of the Manicluu- 1 enred on the west coast of tho Peninsula, where they onOS were very numerous." iThe italics are my own.) The Manichfleau origin of Christianity in South India, then, is a thorough w fa ,•— and we may safely shelve the subject till the " relics of the ManicluBans" actually do come to light. • Coaf . Ind. Ant. rob L p, 877, and nL UL p. 266.— Ed. All this does not. however, diminish one jot the interest one feels in the discovery of the Pahlavi Inscriptions at the Mount and at Kottayara. I tender my very best thanks to Dr. Buraell for his antiquarian researches, and trust they may be long continued. The true value of these Pahlavi Inscriptions is, I venture to think, that they testify to the I believe I was the first to bring forward, that there was a very early connection between the Chnrch at Edessa and the Church of Travan- core and Cochin. ElCHARD COLLLNS. Kawbj, Ceylon, IWi March 1875. NOTES :— SAUPGAM, BELGAm, Ac. Town S 4 m p g a m , or the Village of Snakes, S.E. from Belgdrh i Ind. Ant. vol. IV. p. 6. Fort 11 o 1 gfi m was conquered from Parikshtt, the father of Janamejaya of the Gauja Agrahara grant* by Saltan Muhammad Shah Bahmani in a.d. 1472. In 1523 Ismail Adil Shah conferred it in jagir upon Khusril Turk, from Laristan, with the title of Asad Khan, and upon tho death of that nobleman in 1546 it was confiscated, with all his other estates and property, by Ibrahim Adil Shah. The town and great Temple of Harihara. where the burning of the snakes mentioned in the Gauja Agrahara grant took place in 15121, is situated 120 miles S .!•:. from Belgam, where aneis Buchanan discovered some inscrip- tions of tho reign of Yudishthira when he visited the place in 1803. W hen and by whom was the Mosque at Samp- gam erected ? and may not the passages from the QoriLn ably deciphered by Professor Blochmanu be applied in throwing further historical light upon the atrocious burning of the wretched beings denounced as heretics at tho solar eclipse at Harihara, 6-7 April 1521 a.D. P Why was the town designated by the name S a m p g am , or Village of Snakes ? Was it at any period inhabited by a Suri or Syrian popula- tion,^ and what accounts are given there of the burning at Harihara? Notes. — Ferishtah, Persian toot, vol. II. p. 31 ; Buchanan"- vol. III. |>, D>:khan, p. 277; Ar< •'.-•/;-;'- If ■ihj'il, translated by Lieut. 21 R. Court (1871), p. 164. E. E. W. Ellis. Stur-cross, near E*eU-r, 6th March 1875. f Certainly not— Ed.