The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c28.9

c28.9

those of Sankarapuri and Pakalomattam.¹ For in consonance with this long-standing traditional belief in the minds of the people of the Apostle's mission and labours among high-caste Hindus, we have [it] before us to-day the fact that certain Syrian Christian women, particularly of a Desom called Kunnamkolam, wear clothes as Nambudiri women do, move about screening themselves with huge umbrellas from the gaze of profane eyes as those women do, and will not marry, except perhaps in exceptional cases and that only recently, but from among dignified families of similar aristocratic descent. This is a valuable piece of evidence of the conduct of the community, corroborating the early tradition extant on the coast.' (*Manual*, II, 122.)