Aramaic Peshitta
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page VI
DR.
CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN, of the Church of England, in 1806-8, visited the Christians
of St. Thomas in India, and also the Israelites who dwell near them. He found
that the Israelites "are divided into two classes, called the Jerusalem or
White Jews; and the ancient, or Black Jews." He saw and conversed with some
of both classes. The White Jews delivered to him a narrative, in the Hebrew
language, of their arrival in India. It stated that their "fathers,
dreading the conqueror's wrath, departed from Jerusalem, a numerous body of men,
women, priests, and Levites, and came into this land after the second temple was
destroyed," which took place A. D. 70. This narrative states that other
Hebrews afterwards joined them from Judea, Spain, and other places, (pp.
200-202).
He says of the Black Jews, "It is only necessary to look at their
countenance to be satisfied that their ancestors must have arrived in India many
ages before the White Jews....The White Jews look upon the Black Jews as an
inferior race, and as not of a pure caste, which plainly demonstrates that they
do not come from a common stock in India. The Black Jews recounted the names of
many other small colonies of the ancient Israelites resident in northern India,
Tartary, and China; and gave me a written list of SIXTY-FIVE places. I conversed
with those who had lately visited many of these stations." Dr. Buchanan
seems to have regarded the Black Jews as part of the ten tribes. Those to whom
the apostle Thomas preached must have been settled there before his arrival,
which probably was many years before the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70, and
the arrival of the White Jews; so that there is a strong probability that those
to whom he preached were a migratory part of the ten tribes. Dr. Buchanan
says," I inquired concerning their brethren the ten tribes. They said that
it was commonly believed among them that the great body of the Israelites is to
be found in the very places whither they were first carried into captivity; that
some few families had MIGRATED into regions more remote, as to Cochin and
Rajapoor in India, and to other places yet further to the East, but that the
bulk of the nation, though now much reduced in number, had not to this day,
removed two thousand miles from SAMARIA." (pp. 206-207)