Indian Antiquary Vol 04

SR No.: 032496
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 410
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 181

OBSERVATIONS ON THE KUDUMI.
JUNE, 1875.]
period denoted the Greeks in general. In subsequent times, when the Greeks were succeeded by the Arabs, it was the Arabs that were denoted by this name: so that in the later Sanskrit of the Vishnu Purána we are to understand by Yavanas not the Greeks, but the Arabs, or, more widely, the inhabitants of both shores of the Persian Gulf. The name Sonagas, by which Muhaınmadans of Arab descent are sometimes called in Tamil, is merely a corruption of the Sanskrit Yavanas. The Arab and Persian Yava nas, whether Christians or Muhammadans, were accustomed to shave their heads, as the Hindus were well aware; and when merchants of both creeds came over, many centuries ago, from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, and settled on the Malabar coast, they not only brought with them their own peculiar usages as regards dress, food, &c., but received express permission from the Chera kings to retain those usages and to govern themselves by their own laws. They received permission also to make converts to their respective religions, and, what is more remarkable still, permission to incorporate those converts in their community or caste, and make them sharers together with themselves in the social privileges that had been conferred upon them, including the privilege of self-government.
This being the case, conversion to Christianity or to Muhammadanism came to be regarded as a change of caste or nationality, and not merely as a change of religion. The convert ceased to be a member of any Hindu caste. He ceased even to be a Hindu, and became, as far as it was possible for him to become, a Syrian or an Arab, that is, he became a member of the Syrian or the Arab caste. He adopted not only the Christian or the Muhammadan creed, but the shaven head and the dress of the Yavana. He might originally have been a Polia slave, but if he was thought worthy of being accepted as a convert, he was thought worthy also of being admitted to the caste name and the caste rights of his new friends, and would not even be refused the privilege of connecting himself with them by marriage. The absence of the kuḍumi amongst the Syrian Christians of the Western coast, as also amongst the Indian Muhammadans generally (as adherents
Speaking of Tipu Sultan, Fra Bartolomeo says that during his ravages in the Malayalim country "the pagans were
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of an Arabian religion and of Arabian usages), is therefore to be regarded, not as a proof of their regarding the kudumi as a sign of Hinduism as a religion, but as a sign and memento of their admission into the nationality or caste of the Syrians and Arabs by whom they were converted, and of their adoption, as was not only natural but unavoidable under the circumstances, of the Syrian or Arab, that is, of the Ya va na modes of life, including dress and the fashion of wearing the hair.
It was natural that the Protestant missionaries on the Malabar coast should advise their converts to follow the practice of their Syrian predecessors in this particular, though the imitation of their practice has only been partial after all, seeing that it does not include a change in nationality of their converts; but it does not follow that the practice of the Syrians should be followed by missionaries in other parts of India. where the Syrians are unknown, and where it has never been considered to be necessary or desirable that converts should adopt a new nationality, without the adoption of which the imita tion of the Syrians in one particular alone seems partial and arbitrary.
The example of the Syrians and Arabs was followed to the letter by the Roman Catholic missionaries who settled in the same neighbourhood in Goa, in the sixteenth century. The converts made by the Portuguese in Goa adopted a new nationality and a new dress, as well as a new religion. They assumed the dress and customs of their Portuguese patrons, and are called 'Portuguese' to the present day, though mostly of unmixed native descent.
A similar plan is acted upon still by the Muhammadans of both coasts on the reception into their ranks of converts to their creed. The converts occasionally made by Muhammadans. whether from Hinduism or from Christianity, change not only their religion, but also their nationality or caste, and, as a sign of this change, adopt the Muhammadan, that is, the Yavana dress and mode of wearing the hair, including especially the skull-cap,' the equivalent of the Arabian or Turkish fez; and so well is this understood, that in the common talk of the Tâmil people a convert to Muhammadanism is not said to have become a Muhammadan, but to deprived of the token of their nobility, which is a lock of hair called cudumi:" Voyage to East Indies, p. 141.-C. E. K.