of Christianity, it is more likely that he laboured in
the western part of Parthia than on its extreme eastern frontiers. The
fact that there really was an Indo-Parthian king with a name something
like Gondophares no more makes the legend of St. Thomas historical than
the fact that there was a Bohemian king with a name something like
Wenceslas makes the Christmas carol containing that name historical.

On the other hand it is clear that during the early centuries of our
era no definite frontier in the religious and intellectual sphere can
be drawn between India and Persia. Christianity reached Persia early:
it formed part of the composite creed of Mani, who was born about 216,
and Christians were persecuted in 343. From at least the third century
onwards Christian ideas _may_ have entered India, but this does not
authorize the assumption that they came with sufficient prestige and
following to exercise any lively influence, or in sufficient purity to
be clearly distinguished from Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism.

By water there was an ancient connection between the west coast of
India and both the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Traffic by the former
route was specially active, from the time of Augustus to that of Nero.
Pliny[1076] complains that every year India and the East took from
Italy a hundred million sesterces in return for spices, perfumes and
ornaments. Strabo[1077] who visited Egypt tells how 120 ships sailed
from Myos Hormos (on the Red Sea) to India "although in the time of
the Ptolemies scarcely any one would undertake this voyage." Muziris
(Cranganore) was the chief depot of western trade and even seems to
have been the seat of a Roman commercial colony. Roman coins have been
found in northern and even more abundantly in southern India, and
Hindu mints used Roman models. But only rarely can any one except
sailors and merchants, who made a speciality of eastern trade, have
undertaken the long and arduous journey. Certainly ideas travel with
mysterious rapidity. The debt of Indian astronomy to Greece is
undeniable[1078] and if the same cannot be affirmed of Indian
mathematics and medicine yet the resemblance between Greek and Indian
treatises on these sciences is remarkable. Early Tamil poems[1079]
speak of Greek wines and dumb (that is unintelligible) Roman soldiers
in the service of Indian kings, but do not mention philosophers,
teachers or missionaries. After 70 A.D. this trade declined, perhaps
because the