How K.V. Simon Reformed Christian Practices In Kerala
A GLOBAL INDIAN TIMES INTERVIEW
By Cherian Samuel*
October 13, 2023
About a fifth of Kerala’s 35 million population are Christians. Most of them are Roman Catholics, while the rest include congregants of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church and other Christian denominations.
Mahakavi K. V. Simon (1883-1944) was a Malayalam poet and evangelical Christian reformer of Kerala, who advocated the biblical model of living the faith in Christ with the scripture as the sole spiritual authority.
In 1931, he wrote Vedaviharam (A Vedic Odyssey/A Sojourn through the Word), the mahakavya (an epic poem) of 12,000 lines. It is a verse rendition of the whole Book of Genesis in Malayalam, which brought him eminence in both faith and literature.
Simon was also a star hymnodist, composing devotionals in Malayalam in the form of Carnatic ragas. Today, his hymns are sung by every Keralite Christian denomination.
Simon’s life and work is the subject of Mahakavi K. V. Simon: The Milton of the East published this month by the Bloomsbury Press. The book is written by Varghese Mathai, who teaches at Judson University, near Chicago. Mathai earned a Ph.D. from Baylor University and was a Fulbright Scholar.
In a conversation with Cherian Samuel, Mathai talks about Simon, his contributions to Christianity and Kerala and why he wrote the book.
Why are you interested in Simon?
Mathai: Simon was a poet with a prophetic calling. He has also been given numerous titles based on his contributions to Kerala’s history.
His mahakavya, Vedaviharam, is a masterpiece of inspirational triumph, making him akin to world class poets like Milton. It should be the intellectual destination of any keen reader who seeks to see the ways of God to man justified.
He wrote more than three hundred hymns. He founded three magazines that provided education to the untaught laity. His writings appear in both religious and secular publications, though hundreds of his essays, still in the archives, await discovery.
While Kerala has a large Christian population, it never had reformers like Martin Luther, as did the Western world. In the Eastern world, especially in Kerala, Simon deserves similar recognition, like the Western reformers.
You refer to Simon as a peacemaker.
Mathai: Yes, one important facet of Simon’s work was his work as a peacemaker in Kerala. In the years between 1920 to 1935, there were harsh conflicts between Hindutva groups led by Krishnan Nambiathiri and the Christian communities of the towns in and around Pathanamthitta district, where Simon lived. The Christians approached Simon to mediate a peace.
Simon invited Nambiathiri to present his position in a public debate which will help people see what his campaign sought. Simon offered to be the voice of the Christians. Nambiathiri agreed. Many debates ensued extending over several nights.
Simon disarmed Nambiathiri and soon Nambiathiri and his followers moved away to Kalady, Kerala. Had it not been for Simon, the Travancore region of Kerala would likely have seen violent clashes between Hindus and Christians during those years.
K. V. Simon
What was the significance of Simon's literary works?
Mathai: Think of religion being considered as the business of priests and only theirs. That would mean that lay people have no functional part in it except to be part of the community. Historically, this is the way religions devolve into heresies or become extinct.
Simon saw this perilous course in the faith and practices of his own ancestral Church in Kerala. That Church, known by various names such as St. Thomas Christian, Syrian Christian, Malankara Syrian, Eastern Orthodox and the like, all claiming their origin from the Apostle St. Thomas, who visited Kerala in the first century CE.
By Simon’s time that Church had been in existence for nineteen centuries. However, if Thomas had reappeared in Kerala, in the early twentieth century, he would have been dismayed by the dead ritualism and superstitions that had stuffed the Church, not to speak of the utter absence of scriptural knowledge in the whole population.
Simon’s goal was to revive and invigorate the Church. So, where does he start? The Bible had just begun to appear in Kerala in the Malayalam language. Most Malayali Christians knew little about what the Bible said. Simon wrote commentaries on the Bible in Malayalam. Then, as mentioned, there was his mahakavya, Vedaviharam, a Malayalam translation of the Book of Genesis.
He wrote hymns that inspired deeper spirituality. He also wrote for magazines, booklets, and books. Simon had teams of disciples taking dictations of his texts for articles, booklets, and books. These were his teaching platforms.
Independent believers who followed Simon rose in congregations all over Kerala. The followers organized themselves into local congregations called “Viyojithas” or Independents, which later merged with the Brethren Church, a Christian denomination.
It was in these ways that Simon achieved significant reforms in the Keralite churches.
You write that Simon had remarkable language skills from an early age.
Mathai: Simon was born and brought up in a village of the Pampa Delta, in Pathanamthitta district, Kerala. He found early fame as a wonder boy with a deep intellect and high powers of memory. From age seven onwards, he composed poetry and won the admiration of many literary figures of the time. Where schools were few and libraries virtually none, by his early youth Simon learned more than a dozen languages, including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit and English.
At the age of thirteen, he became a licensed school teacher. Around the same time, he attended the evangelical meetings of Tamil David, who conducted revival meetings in Southern India in the late 1890’s. Simon elected to live a dedicated life as a Christ-follower. He read the Christian scriptures and classical literature in their original Hebrew and Greek.
Soon, he was preaching about Christianity all over Kerala. His audiences ranged from a few people in a home to thousands in public spaces. By the age of 31, Simon gave up his school teaching, devoting himself to the Viyojithas (independent) movement.
What did Simon’s parents do? Did he attend college? Any priests in the family?
Mathai: Simon’s father had mastered the Puranas, (ancient sacred literature of Hinduism) while his mother was skilled in poetry. Taught by his elder brother K V Cherian, Simon started writing poems by the age of eight.
No Simon did not attend college. There were no priests in his family.
Did Simon work on harmonizing relationships with Hindus and Muslims in Kerala?
Mathai: Simon had cordial relationships with the Hindu community. A great many of the sishyas (disciples) trained in his gurukula-home were Hindu scholars. He started a larger organization called Sahitya Darshini (Literary Studies), which enrolled 250 aspirants, the majority of whom were Hindus.
Simon was a friend of famous journalists like Mitavadi C. Krishnan and philosopher Nataraj Guru, who were both Hindus. Most importantly, another Hindu, Sarasakavi Mooloor S. Padmanabha Panicker was Simon’s lifelong friend and mentor. Simon was very well read in the entire Vedic literature and profoundly appreciative of ancient Indian classics.
Is there something unique about the Malayalam language?
Mathai: The Malayalam language is the youngest of the Dravidian group of Indian languages—Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada are its older sisters. Their alphabets differ, but their grammars are identical. Until the 1980’s, the characters in Malayalam had an enormous outlay of 900 symbols. Modern revisions have reduced it to 90, making the language even digitally compatible.
Some of the languages of India, Malayalam included, were developed by missionary experts from Europe. They brought printing, recast each language, created dictionaries and grammar books, and provided education.
Why do Simon’s reforms matter now?
Mathai: Any faith-based movement risks gradual atrophy if the power from above is not infused into it continually. Simon exhorted Christians in Kerala to return to the basics of faith. He taught people that a faith that is not grounded in the scriptures, and lived out actively in the power of God, will have no relevance. Simon was the prophetic voice for Kerala in the early 20th century. The signs of the times cry out now for new authentic voices for this new century.
Varghese Mathai
*Cherian Samuel, a writer based in suburban Washington DC, retired as an evaluator from the World Bank. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland.
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