like, for the cure of
headache, with earth from the place where lay the body of Kasyapa, a
former Buddha. (_Beal_, p. 133.)

[Illustration: The Little Mount of St. Thomas, near Madras.]

NOTE 4.--Vague as is Polo's indication of the position of the Shrine of
St. Thomas, it is the first geographical identification of it that I know
of, save one. At the very time of Polo's homeward voyage, John of Monte
Corvino on his way to China spent thirteen months in Maabar, and in a
letter thence in 1292-1293 he speaks of the church of St. Thomas there,
having buried in it the companion of his travels, Friar Nicholas of
Pistoia.

But the tradition of Thomas's preaching in India is very old, so old that
it probably is, in its simple form, true. St. Jerome accepts it, speaking
of the Divine Word as being everywhere present in His fullness: "_cum Thoma
in India_, cum Petro Romae, cum Paulo in Illyrico," etc. (_Scti Hieron
Epistolae_, LIX, _ad Marcetlam_.) So dispassionate a scholar as Professor
H.H. Wilson speaks of the preaching and martyrdom of St. Thomas in S.
India as "occurrences very far from invalidated by any arguments yet
adduced against the truth of the tradition." I do not know if the date is
ascertainable of the very remarkable legend of St. Thomas in the apocryphal
Acts of the Apostles, but it is presumably very old, though subsequent to
the translation of the relics (real or supposed) to Edessa, in the year
394, which is alluded to in the story. And it is worthy of note that this
legend places the martyrdom and original burial-place of the Saint _upon a
mount_. Gregory of Tours (A.D. 544-595) relates that "in that place in
India where the body of Thomas lay before it was transported to Edessa,
there is a monastery and a temple of great size and excellent structure and
ornament. In it God shows a wonderful miracle; for the lamp that stands
alight before the place of sepulture keeps burning perpetually, night and
day, by divine influence, for neither oil nor wick are ever renewed by
human hands;" and this Gregory learned from one Theodorus, who had visited
the spot.

The apocryphal history of St. Thomas relates that while the Lord was still
upon earth a certain King of India, whose name was Gondaphorus, sent to
the west a certain merchant called Abban to seek a skilful architect to
build him a palace, and the Lord sold Thomas to him as a slave of His own
who was expert in such work. Thomas eventually converts King Gonda