to Action

Digital Archiving of Kerala Christian Heritage: A Call to Action

Dr. Cherian Samuel, Virginia

Introduction. The history and traditions of Kerala Christiansv has been a topic of extensive research and discussion for longvi. Unlike other early Christian communitiesvii of the Near East, Kerala Christians have progressed well over time, since the arrival of Apostle Thomas in Malabar in AD 52, to fulfill Jesus’s Great Commission to His disciples to share the good news (“Gospel”) of salvation for All through Christ (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15). This article is a call to action for the Digital Archiving—digitization and archiving for public access—of Kerala Christian historical records and documents and making them publicly accessible. Since Kerala’s climate conditions may shorten the lifespan of public domain documents, Digital Archiving should be treated as a priority for preserving the Kerala Christian heritage.

This article has been inspired by the providential internet discovery of the Digital Archiving of the 1889 Royal Court Judgmentviii, which led to the formation of the Mar Thoma Church, following the plea by Justice K.T. Thomas for archiving the Judgment during the June 2021 Mar Thoma Apologetics webinar on the topicix. As elaborated below, Shiju Alexx and associates had completed the Digital Archiving of the Royal Court Judgment in August 2015—albeit unknown to many, including the Mar Thoma Apologetics webinar participants—as part of a broader efforts to digitize and archive public domain documents (print book, manuscripts, palm leaves, pictures, audio, etc.) in all languages and scripts related to Kerala and Malayalam.

Kerala Christian History. Based on tradition, the beginnings of Indian Christianity can be traced to Apostle Thomas’s arrival in Cranganore (Muziris)—a major seaport on the Malabar Coast—in AD 52. Apostle Thomas preached the Gospel and established the following seven Christian communities, before being martyred in St. Thomas Mount (Madras) in AD 72: (i) Cranganore; (ii) Chavakad; (iii) Parur; (iv) Gokamangalam; (v) Niranam; (vi) Nilakkal; and (vii) Quilon. However, presenting a coherent history of the Kerala Christian Church until the sixteenth century has been challenging, given the lack of relevant materialxi, as noted by Firth (1961). In particular, the burning of the books and documents of the Kerala Christian Church by the Roman Catholic Church—under the aegis of Portuguese colonialists who arrived in Calicut (Kerala) in May 1498—following the enactment of the June 1599 Diamper Synod decreesxii, has been the main reason for the paucity of written historical evidence of the Kerala Christian Church before the sixteenth century.

Rationale for Digital Archiving. The Kerala Christian history loss resulting from the Diamper Synod decisions provides a unique motivation for Digital Archiving. More generally, digitization provides a broad range of benefitsxiii: (i) Information and content can be delivered directly to end-users, and retrieved remotely; (ii) Ability to provide access to a large number of users; (iii) Online resources can serve local, national and international needs; (iv) Creating digital surrogates reduces handling of old or fragile material, potentially extending the life of the original. However, the costs if digitization should be considered as well: (i) Required staff expertise and additional resources; (ii) Users are completely reliant on computers and stable Internet connections to view and retrieve the digital information. Depending on users’ hardware and software capabilities, access may be frustrating because of the large variety of computer models, platforms, software, and hardware globally; (iii)

Ease of access to digital collections can lead to high expectations of end-users, that everything is available online and free.

Ongoing Digitization Initiatives. Since 2009, Shiju Alex has led an extraordinary voluntary effort for the Digital Archiving of Kerala and Malayalam related documents. Key documents digitized and archived so far includexiv: (i) Herman Gundertxv Collection (262 documents); (ii) Malankara Edavaka Pathrika collection (163 issues); (iii) Malankara Orthodox church collection (862 documents); (iv) The Church Weekly collection (238 issues); (v) Kerala Text Book collection (277 documents); (vi) Kerala Periodicals collection (232 documents); (vii) Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad collection (KSSP, 289 documents). Overall, more than 3000 documents have been digitized and placed in the public domain—with over 200,000 pages—during the past decade.

From an Indian Christian history perspective, a highlight of the Digital Archiving efforts so far has been the documents related to the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the London Missionary Society (LMS) xvi, who were the global evangelical mission leaders in the British empire. In addition, the Digital Archiving community made a breakthrough discovery in May 2019 regarding the tomb of Benjamin Bailey (1791-1871) in Sheinton, UKxvii. Benjamin Bailey served as a CMS missionary in Kottayam (Kerala) for 34 yearsxviii , translating the Bible into Malayalamxix. In March 1850, Benjamin Bailey departed to England, and served as the Rector of the St. Peter and St. Paul Episcopal Church in Sheinton (1856-1871). Until the research investigation undertaken by the Digital Archiving team (Shiju Alex, C.J. Cibu, Babu Cherian) in May 2019, little was known about the post-Kottayam years of Benjamin Bailey in Kerala and CMS records. Given the outstanding contributions Benjamin Bailey made to Malayalam printing, publishing and literature for over 30 years, the absence of any records and information during his postKottayam years remains a mystery!

Way Forwardxx . Creating awareness regarding the need for Digital Archiving of Kerala Christian documents and records among Church leadership, clergy and laity is an important first step, the purpose of this article. Another step will be to create a community of practice, which could learn from Shiju Alex and associates and share the responsibility for Digital Archiving, a public good. Given the limited capacity for digitization currently, documents will have to selected and sequenced, based on relative importance. Last, but not least, financial resources have to be set aside for meeting digitization costs. To begin with, the digitized documents can be archived in the Internet Archive (www.archive.org), similar to the current practice. In the future, different archiving options could be explored, funds permitting. Given the shared heritage of Kerala Christians, the Digital Archiving project has the potential to be ecumenical in approach, with separate portals for different denominations.

Conclusions. The case for the Digital Archiving of Kerala Christian heritage is strong and sound. In particular, the loss of history experienced by the community in the past provides a unique opportunity. Thanks to the extraordinary voluntary efforts of digitization pioneers during the last decade, significant progress has been made regarding the Digital Archiving of public domain documents related to Kerala and Malayalam. Creating more awareness about and ownership of Digital Archiving among All Kerala Christians is critical. Given the shared Kerala Christian heritage, Digital Archiving can be an ecumenical initiative as well among the Churches. Conclusion: The Living Gospel is the good news that we can be saved from our sins by trusting in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We commune with the Lord Almighty through Prayer and the Word of God, which has the power to renew our minds and transform our lives. For His glory. And our mercy. * Dr. Cherian Samuel is an economist, who after having had a distinguished career with the World Bank Group retired in February 2021. He is a member of Immanuel Mar Thoma Church, Virginia (USA).

i J-M.G. Le Clézio, Wandering Star, translated by C. Dickson. (Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 2004). ii Hadas Gold and Michael Schwartz, "Kidney from Jew killed in mob violence goes to Arab woman," May 22,2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/22/middleeast/jewish-man organ-donation-arab-woman-intl-cmd/index.html (Accessed on June 7, 2021). iii See Robert J. Schreiter, Reconciliation Mission and Ministry in a Changing Social Order, Boston Theological Institute

Series (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992); Robert J.

Schreiter, "Reconciliation and Healing as a Paradigm for

Mission." International Review of Mission, 94 (January, 2005) 74-75. iv Jonathan Kaufman, Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times between Blacks and Jews in America, (New York: Simon &

Schuster, 1995), 254. v Kerala Christians are called Syrian Christians/Saint Thomas

Christians/Marthoma Nasrani/Malabar Nasrani, Malankara

Nasrani/Nasrani Mappila, currently using the East Syriac and

West Syriac liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity. Historically,

Syrian Christians were part of the hierarchy of the Church of the East, but are currently divided into several different

FOCUS, October, 20 21, Vol. 9,Part 4

Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and Independent churches with their own liturgies and traditions. Nasrani or Nazarene is a Syriac term for Christians, who were among the first converts to Christianity in the Near East (https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Christians). vi Notable contributions include: A. E. Medlycott, “India and the Apostle Thomas”, David Nutt, 1905; E. M. Philip, “The Indian Church of St. Thomas, L.M. Press, 1950; L. W. Brown, “The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar”, The University Press, 1956; C. B. Firth, “An Introduction to Indian Church History”, ISPCK, 1961; Dr. Juhanon Mar Thoma Metropolitan, “Christianity in India and a brief history of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church”, (Pub.) KM Cherian, 1952. vii Early Christian communities in Egypt (Coptic Orthodox Church), Syria (Syriac Orthodox Church), and Iraq (Assyrian Church) have shrunk in size and importance over the years. viii https://shijualex.in/travancore_royal_court_judgement_1889/ ix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIZu7rFunec&t=4108s x Shiju Alex is from Palakkad (Kerala), living and working in Bangalore (Karnataka), Shiju writes a regular blog on ongoing digitizations (https://shijualex.in/about/), and can be reached at “shijualexonline@gmail.com”. All digitized documents are archived on the Internet Archive (www.archive.org), a digital library with the mission of "universal access to all knowledge", founded by Brewster Kahle in May 1996. xi Juhanon Mar Thoma (1952) notes that the history of the Christian Church in the first century does not depend entirely on historical documents, but tradition matters, often more true and more compelling. In this sense, St. Peter’s founding of the Roman church and St. Thomas’s founding of the Malabar church, may be regarded similar. Both are supported by traditions, which are sufficiently early and strong. xii The purpose of the Diamper Synod—convened by Alexis de Menezes, Archbishop of Goa—was to bring the Syrian church under the Roman ecclesiastical supremacy. As a result, the Syrian Church was coerced to accept Roman Catholic doctrines and practices for over five decades, until the “Crooked Cross Oath” of 1653, which also split the Syrian Christians (Malankara Church) into two groups, the Syrian Church and the Roman Church. See, “Mar Thoma Church: A Historical Sketch” by Rev. Dr. T.P. Abraham, for more details (https://www.horebmtc.org/about-us/mar-thoma-church-history/). xiii See Sally McKay (2003) for a more detailed discussion of the benefits and costs of digitization (https://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v04n01/ Mckay_s01.htm). xiv Relevant links are: Herman Gundert (https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Herma nn +Gundert %22&and%5b%5d=languageSorter%3A%22Malayalam%22), Edavaka Pathrika (https://archive.org/details/ malankaraedavaka-pathrika), Malankara Orthodox Church (https://archive.org/details/malankara-orthodox-syrianchurch), Church Weekly (https://archive.org/details/thechurch-weekly), Kerala Text Books (https://archive.org/ details/kerala-text-books), Kerala Periodicals (https://archive.org/details/kerala-periodicals), KSSP (https://archive. org/details /kssp-archives). However, only about twenty Mar Thoma Church documents have been digitized and archived (https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Martho ma+Church+Documents%22). xv A more detailed discussion of the Gundert Legacy Project (2013-2018) can be found at https://shijualex.in/myexperience-with-the-gundert-legacy-project/. Gundert, the German scholar of Indian languages, took his collection of manuscripts and rare books with him when he returned to Germany from Kerala in 1870, which is now archived in the Tuebingen University library in Germany. The digital version of the Gundert archive, thanks to the resolute and diligent leadership of Shiju, and the financial support from the University, can be accessed through the Hermann Gundert Portal, https://gundert-portal.de. xvi https://shijualex.in/missionary-documents-with-referencesto-kerala/. xvii More details on the Benjamin Bailey tomb discovery can be found at the following links: (i) Story on C.J. Cibu visiting the tomb (https://docs.google.com/document/d/13adDDG3igkAnRVn9 W4HU3loq-XPc03gYxz-qEnZEFK8/ edit); (ii) Malayala Manorama report (https://www.manoramaonline.com/news/sunday/2020/02/15/ sunday-discovery-of-Benjamin-Bailey-and-tomb.html); (iii) Assessment by Dr. Babu Cherian from the Benjamin Bailey Foundation (https://babucherian.in/images/pdf/Bailey's%20TombPMD%2 0Final.pdf). The Epitaph on the Benjamin Bailey tomb reads, “In memory of The Rev. BENJAMIN BAILEY. Thirty four years a Missionary of the Church Missionary Society in Travancore South India and fourteen years Rector of this Parish He fell asleep in Jesus. April 3rd -1871. 80 years.” xviii The three CMS missionaries—Benjamin Bailey, Joseph Fenn, and Henry Baker (Sr)—known as the "Kottayam Trio", made outstanding contributions for creating and maintaining educational institutions in Kerala. xix Benjamin Bailey also became the founder of both Malayalam printing and book publishing, producing the first English-Malayalam dictionary in 1846 and he first Malayalam-English dictionary in 1849. xx A June 2015 blog summarizes the findings of an assessment by Shiju Alex and VS Sunil regarding the status and possibilities for the digitization of public domain Malayalam documents (https://shijualex.in/malayalam_public_ domain_documents_digitization/). As noted in the blog, their research is focused on the evolution of the Malayalam script dating back to the 18th century, the history of Malayalam printing and early Malayalam books.