NOTE 3.—­The use of the earth from the tomb of St Thomas for miraculous cures is mentioned also by John Mangnolli, who was there about 1348-1349.  Assemani gives a special formula of the Nestorians for use in the application of this dust, which was administered to the sick in place of the unction of the Catholics.  It ends with the words “Signatur et sanctificatur hic Hanana (pulvis) cum hac Taibutha (gratia) Sancti Thomae Apostoli in sanitatem et medelam corporis et animae, in nomen P. et F. et S.S.” (III.  Pt. 2, 278.) The Abyssinians make a similar use of the earth from the tomb of their national Saint Tekla Haimanot. (J.R.G.S. X. 483.) And the Shiahs, on solemn occasions, partake of water in which has been mingled the dust of Kerbela.

Fa hian tells that the people of Magadha did the 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.