Have you ever wondered
what happened to the contents of the Armenian churches of
India as they slowly, and painfully were closed or abandoned?
The precious altar pieces, vestments and even the books from
their libraries? Of course it is almost impossible to
find out now, but one man, Mesrovb Seth, who spent forty years
of his life researching Armenians in India was able to pick up
many a small piece of information here and there as he
travelled around India gathering material for his books.
I list below the snippets of information Seth discovered on:
It
seems the once beautiful and well stocked library of the church was
completely devoid of its past historical content which had never had
an inventory done of its unique collection. The Armenian College library
never recovered from the huge loss of these unique and priceless works
and near 50 years later in 1937 more unique and priceless works were
to go missing, but this time at the hands of the very students they
were educating in an act of deliberate vandalism. An ex student,
Hovhannes (John) Sookias recalled the dispicable incident to Fr.
Aramais Mirzaian for his book "Armenians: A Pilgrim People in
Tierra Australia". Whatever became of it?
A number of items went missing from
St Gregory's in Singapore during the war. They included: the Persian
carpets, pews, crystal chandeliers, the priest's vestments, valuable
paintings, the Bible printed in Venice in 1686, hymnbooks from the
1850s, prayer books printed in 1846 in Constantinople and some
old gold and silver vessels Where did they all end up? Surat
In March 1903, we picked up in
a second-hand book shop in Kalbadevi Road, Bombay, a very rare
Armenian book, printed at Amsterdam in 1669. It had originally
belonged to the now ruined Armenian church at Surat, according to a
colophon (Hishatakaran) at the end of the book, in the handwriting of
the priest in charge of the Surat Church
When the
Surat Church was finally closed down in 1861 because there were no
Armenian community left there, the Wardens of Bombay, had all the
sacred books, vessels and vestments of Surat brought to Bombay for
preservation there. Amongst these was a manuscript Bible in the
Armenian language which was written at Surat in 1658, there was also
an old chasuble (shoorjar) belonging to the Surat Church on which the
year 1782 was beautifully embroidered in gold thread.
Madras
In October 1905, we picked up
in a second-hand book shop in Madras, some rare Armenian works, the
productions of the different Armenian presses which had existed in
that old city between the year 1772 and 1812. Whether they came
from the Church library or from some private collection, we
cannot say, as they bore no names of the original owners.
Over a 50 year period we have
picked up many rare Armenian publications in the second-hand book
shops of Calcutta, including amongst others, a copy of Father Jacob
Villotte's "New Latin - Armenian Dictionary" (Dictionarium Novum
Latino-Armenium), printed in Rome in 1714, and a copy of the Latin
translation of "Moses Chorenensi's History of Armenia," (Moses
Chorenensis Historiae Armeniaca) by the Whiston Brothers, printed with
the Armenian (classical) text and a map of ancient Armenia, in 1736,
at London.
The Armenian Church at Madras
was once well known for possessing a large number of rare and valuable
manuscripts and books. In April 1904 Mesrovb Seth made his first
visit to the church in Madras and made the following observation.
Having arrived on the Saturday, we went to the church service
the following day, which was very poorly attended owing to the paucity
of Armenians in that city. We paid our respects to the priest in
charge and he received us in the room where the so called Church
Library was located. As a bibliophile, if not a bibliomaniac, we
expected to find a large number of rare manuscripts and a complete
collection of the works which had been issued from the different
Armenian presses at Madras, between the years 1772 and 1812, but we
were sorely disappointed when we saw no manuscripts and only a few
torn and dilapidated copies of "Hisoos Vordi" (Jesus the Son) which
was printed in Rev. Arathoon Shumavon's press in 1792.
Gwalior
Around 1907 six baskets
containing a large number of Armenian manuscripts, books and
pontifical (Kondaka) belonging to the Armenian church at Gwalior,
which was erected by Colonel Jacob Petrus, the Brigadier General of
Scindias' Army, were sold as waste paper for six Rupees only, by a
descendant of the Colonel who told us about it at Agra in October
1919.
Armenian College, Calcutta
At the Armenian College in
Calcutta, the Araratian Library, which had been founded on 7th April
1828 had grown significantly by 1843 when it contained over 1000
precious and rare Armenian manuscripts.
In January 1890, the
late Professor Frederick Conybeare, a distinguished Armenist of
international reputation, paid a visit to the Academy, accompanied by
his accomplished wife, who was a daughter of the world-renowned
orientalist, Max Muller. He wishes to see the college library,
expecting to find some rare Armenian manuscripts, as he had found in
Armenia, during a tour in 1888. We happened to be present in the
college at that time, and acted as a cicerone, not knowing who the
strange visitor, with long hair, was. We showed him the remnants
of the once famous "Araratian Library" and placed in his hands an
Armenian work, printed by Jacob Shameer at Madras, in 1772, thinking
we were showing him a rate publication, but he said that he had seen
it already in the Madras Armenian Church Library. He then
desired to see the manuscripts, and was visibly disappointed on
learning that they had disappeared long ago.
The Araratian
Library having ceased to exist with the mysterious disappearance of
the numerous books and manuscripts in the Armenian, English, Latin,
Greek, French, Dutch, Persian, Chinese and other editions in the
church library. When we looked at the books, we found that most
of them were worm-eaten but the older 17th and 18th century ones were
in better shape than the newer ones because paper used to be made from
cotton rags rather than wood pulp combined with softening chemicals.
These same chemicals accelerate the deterioration of paper.
Amongst the older books are three volumes comprising section of the
New Testament in Armenian, dating back to the 17th century. The
newer ones include an almost complete edition of the "Encyclopaedia
Britannica" the first volumes of which were published in 1871."
As far as can be ascertained, the books remain in Dhaka in their
unpreserved state and quite probably not much left of them.
Hovhannes said: Another memorable day, a
sad one, was the exit of the great classical Armenian champion and
historian, Mr. Mesrope J. Seth, the author of "Armenians in India"
when he left the Armenian College in 1937. His sad parting with
the students and the incineration of hundreds of his three part
library of English and classical Armenian text books. The boys
looked on helplessly and with youthful grief and astonishment as the
precious heaps of classical Armenian literature were consumed by the
flames. Hovhannes was not sure who it was that ordered these
books to be burnt, nor whether the books belonged to Mr. Seth
personally or to the college library or to the Church. But they
certainly pertained to the nation and were heedlessly and deliberately
destroyed." Hovhannes continued: "Some of us youngsters were
emboldened discretely to rescue a few of these books which stood us in
very good stead in later years in passing the difficult subject of
classical Armenian in our Matriculation Examinations. It was a
tragic holocaust [of literature]; the books had seemed almost human to
us.
Saidabad
In the
library of the Armenian church in Calcutta, used to be a beautiful
manuscript copy of a collection of 306 hymn, canticles and melodies
composed in ancient Armenian by the Fathers of the Armenian Church
from time to time. From the title page it could be seen that it
was compiled by Petrus Amirjan, a chorister, but the date and place of
the compilation was not shown. From the colophon (the symbol
or emblem that is printed on a book and represents a publisher or
publisher's imprint) that this copy was made at
Saidabad from the original of Petrus Amirjan, by a young Armenian,
named Arakiel, the son of Mahtesy Johanness, who laboured for 4 months
with great devotion and completed his self-imposed task on the 17th
August 1757.
The colophon indicates that the paper was supplied
by Martyrose, the son of Arathoon and the cost of the binding was
borne by Petrus, the son of Rev. Nicholas, the pious and zealous
warden of the Saidabad Armenian Church. Further evidence
indicated that Carapiet, the son of Mathew, helped the copyist by
reading the original, thereby enabling him to revise the copy.
The volume, again according to the colophon, was presented by the
scribe, Arakiel Mahtesy Johanness to the Armenian church at Saidabad,
on the 3rd August 1759 in memory of all those mentioned
above who had participated in its production.
The manuscript
itself was composed of 320 quarto pages, measuring 10” x 7 ½ “.
It was beautifully written, like print, with a reed pen on thick
hand-made glazed paper, in jet black Indian ink, with the headings and
the first letters of the lines in red ink. In the 1930’s Mesvrob
Seth noted in his book “Armenians in India” that “although
written 180 years ago, it is in a very fair state of preservation,
despite the damp climate of Bengal”.
Singapore