A book traces the history of Christianity in India through its churches

Book review of Joanne Taylor's 'The Churches Of India'

Delhi and other major Indian cities share with Jerusalem, some cities in southern Spain and in the Syria of old, fascinating skylines that speak of mankind’s noblest feelings. Spires of churches, the minarets of mosques and, in the case of South Asia, the golden lotuses atop the domes of Sikh gurdwaras and the sharper naves and gopurams of Hindu temples raise themselves from the more mundane architecture of everyday life, the homes, businesses and graveyards. 

Symbols of gratitude to the divine, most often, they also evidence the power, wealth, might of the King, emperor, Pope or Bishop and his community. Certainly, from after the Buddha, places of worship also form an unbroken record in stone of the rise and fall of civilisations in Asia. Structures seem to survive the death of their makers as often as they fall prey to predation, natural disasters or just the weakness of the material.

But to the student of religion, history or architecture, there is more than meets the eye. Much has been written on the evolution of the architecture of mosques, from Kerala’s traditional thatched mosque, said to be the oldest in the world outside Arabia, to the full blooming of the double mosques that link India with Central Asia as nothing else could.  

THE CHURCHES OF INDIA; Author: Joanne Taylor; Publisher: Niyogi Books; Pages: 284; Price: Rs 1,495

Alas, very few new mosques reflect the traditions seen in the full bloom of the Moghuls. New money makes for garish, if colourful, new architecture with minarets made just to house the loudspeaker of the Azaan rather than to speak of the love of the divine.

The dome in its ripeness, with a dash of the martial traditions of the Rajputana and the Punjab, is echoed in the gurdwaras. In the past 50 years or so and especially in North India, the smaller gurdwaras seem to have been made to a template, with concrete supporting structures clad in a glazed and contoured ceramic moulded to a pattern. Gurdwaras glow as much in bright sunshine as they do in the spotlight of a sodium or mercury lamp at night.

Many would argue that contemporary Hindu temple architecture gives no evidence at all of the tradition of a millennia, best seen in peninsular India south of the Vindhyas. I am a fan of old temple architecture, with the intricacy of its carvings and the delicacy of the balance of heavy stones, one atop the other, massive but also spiritually uplifting. Modern temples made either by rich people to perpetuate the memory of their parents or slum dwellers to save their piece of land from the municipal bulldozer are for the most part houses for the family of the priest and his supports, with the frontage given over to the deity. It is only the devotion of the devout that justifies its name. 

In terms of the places of worship of India’s Christian population — a mere 2.3 per cent in figures, but a massive 26 million in body count spread across the landmass — the only pattern in the spread is that it reflects the lines of major highways, railways and military garrison towns where in the last 500 years the growing community followed missionaries, governments, railways and infrastructure.

But Christianity has been in India from the times of the Apostle Thomas in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and St Bartholomew who touched the western coast higher up, and folklore traces him till the scent is lost in the wilds of Baluchistan. 

Why is all visible evidence only from just before the arrival of the Portuguese who themselves were mighty surprised to see a thriving Christianity in India, which, for them, did not follow their Papal liturgy, or indeed their understanding in all ways of the Word of Jesus Christ? This is not about the historic tussle between the invader and the local that took place in Kochi. This is about surviving architecture.

Kerala’s Christians must have had a distinctive architecture in the early days, when they imported their Bishops from religious centres in West Asia and made them their own. The prayer structures may well have then a dash of Mediterranean flavour, interpreted in the wood of the coconut palm and the mighty jackfruit, or the laterite stone, light as foam, and not strong.

Add to this the local habit — to this day — of smashing everything old to rebuild a more modern edifice, home, temple or church, and there is little that remains other than in racial memory.

The intrepid traveller, talented photographer and magnificent storyteller Joanne Taylor is familiar to the Indian reader through her earlier books, including one on the mansions of the uber-rich of old in Kolkata.  The richness of her images and the often unusual frames show even the familiar in a manner that demands attention. 

To the Christian reader, this will be a handbook tracing the work of the various waves of missionaries that made India their home, and  made it the richer with the ideas of architecture, facades, building style and wood and stone-working techniques, inlays and gold leaf work, and, coloured or stained glass as had not been seen in this part of the world.

The architecture of the heritage churches of Old Goa, Bom Jesu with the remains of Francis Xavier, perhaps tops the list, but others are no less. Through the east and west coast towns, she traces them all, the major ones and some unusual finds. 

In a great insight, she documents how local churches married aspects of the new facades or elevations with their traditional prayer halls to evolve what is now a typical Kerala church, with a towering frontage, and a long pew-less hall, which can seat on its carpeted floor the entire parish congregation and more if need be. 

Syncretism is a mark of some contemporary churches, which may not be popular, such as the small chapel in the National Biblical and Catechetical and Liturgical Centre in Bangalore, which will remind Hindu visitors of an old Tamil temple, but will bemuse Christian visitors, including the occasional orthodox who may even be scandalised.

Some churches have indeed created templates in the manner of the Sikhs of North India. The Believers Church founded by the evangelical pastor K P Yohannan, now an Archbishop of his church, has standardised the Kerala architecture. It has parishes often in deep tribal areas of Central India. It is uplifting in a manner to see a whiff of Kerala there, even if the pastor is not a Malayali but a local tribal.

Christianity, verily, is now firmly rooted in Indian soil. 

ROOTED IN RELIGION: The Believers Church founded by the evangelical pastor K P Yohannan, now an Archbishop of his church, has standardised the Kerala architecture

 

 

The reviewer is a writer, social activist and former president of the All India Catholic Union