Kerala: the Cradle of Christianity in South Asia

Film (English / 34 minutes)

Script and narration: Joseph J. Palackal, Ph. D.

Screenplay, cinematography, and direction: Jain Joseph ftii

Produced by the Christian Musicological Society of India

In collaboration with the Dept. of Education and Mass Media, Sacred
Heart Province of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, India

And the Dept. of Tourism, Government of Kerala

Copyright © 2008 Joseph J. Palackal


Abstract

The spice trade between Kerala and the Middle East, established much
before the Christian era, paved the way for the import of the Eastern
form of Christianity to South India. According to tradition,
St. Thomas, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus preached the Christian
faith in South India. In the fourth century, a group of Christians
from Persia migrated to Kerala; they brought the liturgy in Syriac, a
form of Aramaic that Jesus and his disciples spoke. Continued
commercial and religious interactions between the two regions helped
the preservation of the linguistic and musical traditions associated
with the Chaldean rite from the Middle East, as if in a time capsule,
in Kerala.

At the dawn of the sixteenth century, Vasco de Gama brought Portuguese
missionaries to Kerala; they introduced the Roman Catholic form of
Christianity along with liturgy in Latin. The missionaries converted
many local people into the Roman Catholic faith. The Latin Church,
thus established, flourished in Kerala through the zealous activities
of the Jesuits, Franciscans and Carmelites. The missionaries also
introduced the Western chants in Latin for use in the Roman Catholic
churches in Kerala. This musical tradition continued until the 1960s
when the Latin liturgy was translated into the vernacular. However,
there are active musicians and singers who were raised in the Latin
chant tradition. The film uses excerpts from their recording of the
Latin hymn, Pange Lingua, written by St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), and
from another recording of Kyrie Eleison that has both Greek and Latin
texts.

In their zeal for uniformity, the Portuguese missionaries made an
attempt to change the Syriac language and music of the St. Thomas
Christians to Latin language and Western chant. However, the
St. Thomas Christians considered the Syriac language and music to be
crucial to their unique religious identity and, therefore, resisted
the move. The missionaries finally gave up their attempt; instead,
they translated a number of Latin chants into Syriac and incorporated
them into the Roman Catholic ritual that they introduced among the
St. Thomas Christians. These Syriac translations of Latin chants were
set to music locally, incorporating indigenous musical elements such
as the six-beat Rupaka taalam and the seven-beat Misrachaapu taalam.

In 1653, a group of St. Thomas Christians revolted against the
Portuguese missionaries who wanted to take complete control over the
religious and social lives of the local Christians. These Christians
gathered at the church in Mattanchery, near Cochin, and took an oath
that they would never subject themselves to the Jesuit Archbishop
Garcia. Later, they contacted the Patriarch of Antioch to send them
bishops. The bishops who came to Kerala gradually introduced the
Antiochene liturgy in West Syriac (different from the East Syriac of
the Chaldean rite). The Antiochene liturgy has its own musical
repertoire. The film shows segments from the celebration of this
liturgy with chants in West Syriac.

In the nineteenth century, the Church Missionary Society, an auxiliary
society of the Church of England, became active in Kerala. They
introduced the Anglican liturgy and chants in English. The film
includes a popular hymn in English as background for the narration of
events in the nineteenth century. The British influence is seen also
in the Church festivals for which the Western band has become an
important item.

In the 1960s, churches in Kerala began to translate Syriac and Latin
liturgies into the vernacular. Most of the melodies that originated in
Middle East with Syriac texts are now sung in Kerala with Malayalam
text. Thus, the melodies have received a second life in a completely
different cultural and linguistic milieu. The film incorporates a
chant in Malayalam. While keeping up with the present, the St. Thomas
Christians continue to preserve the ancient Syriac language and
musical traditions associated with it, and add to the already complex
linguistic and musical mosaic in Kerala. There are a few priests who
were trained in the Syriac tradition who continue to celebrate Mass in
Syriac. The film documents a segment from one such celebration that
took place at Palai, in the Kottayam district of Kerala.

There has been a renewed attempt in the recent past to interpret
Christianity in Indian terms through music, art and literature. In the
area of music, worshippers are adapting semi-classical and bhajan
styles of singing with Christian texts, indicating an ongoing
intra-cultural dialogue that is happening in Kerala. The film shows
samples of artworks as visual background during the performance of a
bhajan in Sanskrit, written by Chevalier I. C. Chacko in the
mid-twentieth century.

Kerala is famous for its interreligious harmony. For centuries,
different religious traditions have coexisted through sharing many
cultural elements. Several traditions related to the celebration of
life-cycle events of the St. Thomas Christians, for example, are
directly borrowed from the local Hindu tradition. Also, Christians
invite Hindu musicians, mostly instrumental ensembles, to perform
during church festivals. The film showcases a unique performance
context in which Hindu instrumental ensembles share space in a church
festival at Pallippuram, in the Alappuzha district of Kerala; it is
the Chenda ensemble, which consist of performers who are all Hindus,
that lead the church procession, placing themselves in front of the
processional cross; the same segment of the film shows and sets,
consisting of Western musical instruments, playing alongside with
Chenda ensembles. The festival also includes several ritual elements
that the Portuguese missionaries introduced in the sixteenth
entury. Thus, this segment presents a festival of sounds, rituals and
colors, within a relatively small space; the confluence of these
sights and sounds is not a coincidence, but a consequence of
centuries-long religious and cultural interactions in Kerala.  In
short, the film explores the historical embeddedness of the liturgical
and musical traditions and the events that led to the introduction of
the Chaldean, Antiochene, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and other
liturgies along with their musical styles. Over the centuries, these
styles have become an integral part of the musical mosaic of
Kerala. The film documents excerpts from the current practice of
chants in East Syriac, West Syriac, Latin, Sanskrit, English, and old
and contemporary Malayalam. Drawing attention to the lesser known
aspects of the religious, musical, and linguistic complexity of the
region, the film presents Kerala as a potential field for inquiries in
an emerging area of scholarship on Christian music in India.

Joseph J. Palackal

Christian Musicological Society of India

www.thecmsindia.org