India
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(Esth 1:1, 8:9). Holy Scripture of the Old Testament says very little about India and the Indians. In 2 Esdras 3:2, for example, the boundaries of the regions subject to King Darius are described in the words, 'from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces.' Likewise, in the book of Esther, in connection with the banquet given by Ahasuerus to the satraps of the provinces over which he reigned, the limits of his kingdom are marked by the words 'from India even unto Ethiopia' (Esth 1:1, 8:9).
In 1 Maccabees 6:37 it is said that the army of Antiochus Eupator included thirty-two elephants trained for war and that an Indian was stationed upon each elephant. Yet long before the times just mentioned, even in the earliest days of the world's creation, there are certain indirect references to India. Thus some, not without reason, see the Indian rivers Indus and Ganges in the names of the rivers of Paradise, Pishon and Gihon (Gen 2:11-13). The land of Ophir, to which Solomon's ships sailed and from which they brought gold, red wood, precious stones, ivory, apes, and peacocks (1 Kings 9:28 and elsewhere), is also thought with considerable probability to have been located in India, specifically on the island of Ceylon.
Christianity in India, as is known from church history, was planted by the holy apostle Thomas, who there received the crown of martyrdom. Indian Christians on the Malabar Coast still call themselves Christians of Thomas and trace the beginning of their Church to that apostle. According to tradition, the Syriac Church of St. Thomas at Parur in Malabar is the most ancient. When Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese arrived at Cochin on the Malabar Coast in 1503, they found there many Christian churches whose priests were governed by bishops receiving their ordination from the Patriarch of Antioch; this succession of governance had continued among them without interruption for nearly three hundred years. All this points to the very great antiquity of the Syrian Christian Church in India.