When one is a Syrian Christian, one grows up believing in all the things that are usually advocated by the community. So I believe too that St. Thomas baptised our ancestors, that we have been here for thousands of years, we were originally brahmins.. Until recently, I read something that said brahmins did not come into Kerala until much later than 52 AD. And St. Thomas converted people in Kerala in 52 A.D...
So one of the claims must be wrong, right?
I am sort of inclined to believe that St. Thomas did come to Kerala. I read through a wikipedia "talks" page in which someone put forth the hypothesis that all syrian christians must have originated from Portuguese people. There is far too much difference between our culture and theirs, and far too many links between us and the Syrians/Jews that I am inclined to believe that there were ties between the Jews and the Keralites.
However, I do not find much credibility in the claim that we are all brahmin descendents... I am sort of inclined to think that some "caste chrisitans" propogated the myth to establish their cultural superiority with respect to the newly converted "latin / portugese" christians. After all, it is fairly clear that the christians in Kerala are about as obsessed with caste as their Hindu couterparts.
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