In a grove of crosses

This chapter explains the original composition of the Good Shepherd Rockery against the iconography of the so-called Persian Crosses : stone reliefs originally related to the indigenous communities of Saint Thomas Christians from South India. The study discusses the translation of these Indo-Syriac icons into comparable Roman Catholic motifs against the background of the Latinisation policy conducted by the Jesuit missions in Malabar between the late 16th and the early 17 th century. This is sustained by the analysis of sources on the Catholic-Syriac pastoral conflict, Jesuit reports on closely related cults in Mylapore, the antiquarian revival and artistic syncretism of Malabar’s Christian heritage.