The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died

by Philip Jenkins

Christianity appeared in southern India no later than the second century, and other missions and monasteries followed. Around 425, we hear of an Indian priest translating the Epistle to the Romans from Greek into Syriac. In 550, Cosmas reported, from firsthand observation, that [e]ven in Taprobanê [Sri Lanka], an island in Further India, where the Indian Sea is, there is a church of Christians, with clergy and a body of believers, but I know not whether there be any Christians in the parts beyond it. In the country called Malê [Malabar], where the pepper grows, there is also a church, and at another place called Calliana there is moreover a bishop, who is appointed from Persia.47 India by this time had an indigenous church with its own hierarchy.