Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - I. Undersökningar - Jarl Charpentier, St. Thomas the Apostle and India
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
3 2
JARL CHARPENTIER
with which to erect a palace. But the holy man gave all the
money to the poor and spent his time in preaching and working
miracles. When, at last, the king wanted to inspect his new
palace the reply was that he could see it only after his death.
He then became very angry and had both Thomas and
Hab-bän sent to prison preparing for them a death in tortures.
However, in that same night Gad, the brother of the king,
died and was carried by angels to heaven where he saw a most
glorious palace — the one that Thomas had built for Güdnaphar
with his alms-giving. Then Gad obtained leave to return to life
in order to buy that palace from his brother. When the king
heard about the miraculous palace he at once had Thomas and
Habbän set free; and he himself together with his brother and
many subjects became Christians. Thomas after this performed
many miracles and finally was called away to heal the queen
and daughter of a neighbouring king called Mazdai. At his
court he at first had a friendly reception but soon got into
troubles owing to his many conversions and was thrown into
prison. After some time, by order of Mazdai, he was taken to
a mountain in the neighbourhood and speared to death by four
soldiers and their captain.
At first sight this tale seems to be a most curious jumble
of purely fictitious stories. And we may well agree with its
critics that it seems fairly suspicious that the author’s
geographical and personal names are nearly all quite fanciful and cannot
be identified with any Indian ones. That is true of nearly all
of them but not of all; and the few exceptions are of a most
decisive nature.
Since the year 1834 finds have at times been made in the
Punjaub and in Afghanistan of coins and inscriptions belonging
to a certain Gondopharés, Gudapharna, Guduphara etc. who
styles himself ’great king’, ’king of kings’ and saviour’1 and
must at one time have been the mighty ruler of North-Western
India and the neighbouring parts of Afghanistan and Baluchistan.
Before he became a ’king of kings’ he had been the viceroy
of Arachosia and was then associated with a certain Guda or
1 This, of course, is simply the Indian translation of the Greek Iwrrjp.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
