Christian Researches in Asia

"Dr. Claudius Buchanan visited this part of India...in...Christian Researches in Asia he mentions...the Jews fled to Cochin and sued for the Rajah''s protection...Jews are divided into distinct classes---one known as the Jerusalem or White, the other the Black Jews." -The Star (Guernsey, England), May 25, 1886

"Dr. Buchanan...visited...from Calcutta to Cape Comorin, thence to Bombay. The result of his travels...Christian Researches in Asia...an account of the christian church in Malabar, called the christians of St. Thomas, who had existed in India." -The Hull Packet, June 18, 1811

"It is only necessary to look at the countenance of the Black Jews to be satisfied that their ancestors must have arrived in India many ages before the White Jews." -Claudius Buchanan

"Buchanan has been credited with playing the decisive role in opening India to Christian missions in the early years of the nineteenth century." -Int''l Bulletin of Mission Research

Rev Claudius Buchanan (1769 - 1815) was a Scottish theologian, an ordained minister of the Church of England, and an evangelical missionary for the Church Missionary Society. He served as Vice Provost of the College of Calcutta in India. In this capacity he did much to advance Christianity and native education in India, especially by organizing systematic translations of the scriptures.

In 1806-1808 Buchanan undertook an arduous journey to investigate conditions of Christianity in South India and Sri Lanka. In 1811, his findings were published as "Christian Researches in Asia."

Buchanan also visited the Jews who were settled in India. Some of these were white, who told him, that after the second Temple was destroyed, (which they hoped God would soon rebuild) their fathers dreading the Conqueror''s wrath, departed from Judea, as numerous body of men, women, priests and Levites, and came into this land.

He also visited the black Jews, who from their complexion must have settled in India long before the arrival of the former. From these, Dr. Buchanan procured some valuable manuscripts. One of them he says is an old copy of the Books of Moses, written on a roll of leather. The skins are sewed together, and the roll is about forty-eight feet in length. It is in some places worn out, and the holes have been sewed up with pieces of parchment.

Regarding black Jews, Buchanan writes:

"There are also Jews here from remote parts of Asia, so that this is the fountain of intelligence concerning that people in the east; there being constant communication by ships with the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the mouths of the Indus. The resident Jews are divided into two classes, called the Jerusalem or White Jews; and the Ancient or Black Jews.

"It is only necessary to look at the countenance of the Black Jews to be satisfied that their ancestors must have arrived in India many ages before the White Jews. They have been detached from the parent stock in Judea many ages before the Jews in the west. The Black Jews communicated to me much interesting intelligence concerning their brethren the ancient Israelites in the east; some few families had migrated into regions more remote, as to Cochin and Rajapoor in India, and to other places yet farther to the east."

He visited Mar Thoma VI, head of the Malankara Church at Angamali, near Kochi.