Column | Why an Armenian priest from Thrissur wanted to visit Mount Kailash

Few foreign clergymen living in India in the colonial era enjoyed as much respect from Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru as Mar Abimalek Timotheus, who served as the Metropolitan of Malabar and All India of the Assyrian Church of the East. Timotheus was also well respected for his efforts to help Armenian refugees who survived the massacres perpetrated on the community by the Ottoman Empire.

In his nearly four decades in Thrissur, Timotheus managed to meet a diverse set of people from all parts of India. One such meeting had an immense impact on the Armenian clergyman. Sadhu Sundar Singh, a missionary who converted to Christianity from Sikhism, travelled to Thrissur in 1917 to meet Timotheus.

The Armenian bishop was deeply impressed with Singh, who had integrated Hindu asceticism into Christianity and was an ardent traveller. “Mar Timotheus was attracted by the personality of this Indian mystic whom the Metropolitan described as the second St Paul,” Mar Aprem, Metropolitan of the Assyrian Church of the East in India, wrote in his biography of Timotheus.

In Thrissur, Singh had an interesting story for Timotheus. Singh said he met a 318-year old Christian sage near Mount Kailash in Tibet, and spoke of his experiences of interacting with the man. He also offered to take the Armenian bishop to meet him.

Timotheus was convinced this was a true story and decided to approach the British authorities for permission to visit the region. At that time, Indians were allowed to visit Lake Mansarovar and perform the parikrama around Mount Kailash, but there were strict restrictions on foreigners visiting Tibet. The colonial authorities viewed almost every non-Indian who wanted the region as a spy.

“I was filled with an inordinate desire to visit him,” Timotheus wrote in a September, 1918, letter to the British Resident in Travancore and Cochin. He added that the desire had become a passion.

“I wish to inform you that I intend to visit Mount Kailash of the Himalayas to see the now renowned Christian sage living there and therefore I respectfully request that you will be good enough to obtain for me the necessary permission from the government to travel to and back,” Timotheus wrote. “My object is purely of the nature of a pilgrimage and I assure you that I have no other intentions.”

Timotheus requested permission to travel to Tibet in April, 1919, and said Singh would act as a guide for the journey.

“I feel almost that I shall not know peace till I visit this saint, and also that some great thing is to happen from our meeting and that is why I have ventured to think of going now, even in these hard times,” Timotheus wrote.

Timotheus’s appeal was seen favourably by the British bureaucracy in southern India. “The resident in Travancore and Cochin reports that the applicant is of unimpeachable character and that his sympathies are entirely antagonistic to Turkey,” Charles Todhunter, chief secretary to the government of Madras, wrote in a letter to the Home Department in Delhi. He added that if there was no valid ground for refusal, the authorities in Delhi could approve this request.
The request to the authorities was made several months before the planned journey as Timotheus would have needed the time to collect funds.

Todhunter’s letter was written just four days after the World War I Armistice was agreed upon. However, as far as the British were concerned, Timotheus, despite the character certificate, was a “Turkish subject.” His being ethnic Armenian and part of a community that was subject to atrocities by the Ottomans seemed to be of little consequence to the British.

The Foreign and Political Department of the colonial government denied Timotheus permission to visit Tibet. In a reply to Todhunter in December, 1918, the department did not give any specific reason for the refusal.

A few years after India attained independence, the authority to allow Indian pilgrims to visit Mount Kailash rested with the People’s Republic of China, making it further difficult for Timotheus to visit. The Armenian priest’s desire to visit the region and meet this mysterious Christian sage remained unfulfilled.
(Ajay Kamalakaran is a multilingual writer, primarily based in Mumbai)