Indian Antiquary Vol 03

SR No.: 032495
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 420
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 349

NOVEMBER, 1874.]
PAHLAVI INSCRIPTIONS IN SOUTH INDIA. PAHLAVI INSCRIPTIO
313
ably lost is more than probable, but some may Since then it has been visited and described by yet be discovered, like the famous Mount tablet. perhaps a score of travellers, and it certainly This was found during some excavations made deserved this notice far more than many similar by the Portuguese about 1547. According to objects in Southern India. Lucena, a safe authority on the Portuguese All the Persian crosses that I know of closely transactions in India of that time, it was met resemble one another, yet it is impossible to with "on digging for the foundations of a assign them all to the same period. The oldest hermitage amid the ruins which marked the of the two at Kottayam || and that at spot of the martyrdom of the Apostle St. Madras appear to be of much the same time, if Thomas. On one face of this slab was a cross one may judge from the formation of the letters. in relief, with a bird like a dove over it, with The symbolical ornaments of the cross are its wings expanded, 'as the Holy Ghost is nearly the same, and the Pahlavi inscription is usually represented when descending on our the same in both cases. I was not able to Lord at his baptism or our Lady at her annun- examine the tablets at Kottayam as closely as I ciation. This cross was erected over the altar could have wished, for the native priest there at the chapel which was built in the new was anxious to hurry me away as soon as possanctuary.". This account is, no doubt, ac- sible, and the older tablet is so covered with curate, for the Portuguese on first visiting the whitewash as to render the letters in many parts Mount found the Christian church in ruins, indistinct; but of the identity of the inscription and occupied by a native fakir. The descrip-| on this tablet and that at the Mount I have no tion of the slab is also accurate. It does not doubt. appear what cause had destroyed the Christian The inscription on the older tablet at Kottacommunity there, but it probably was owing toyam and on the one at the Mount is longer the political disturbances attending the war than that on the altar tablet at the former place, between the Muhammadans of the north and the first part being omitted in the last. The the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagara. #
inscription on the two former is divided into Once re-discovered, the cross at the Mount two parts by a small cross on the right of the continued for a long time to excite considerable arch. The first part is then to be read downattention. 'I have already given in the extract wards, and the second over the arch to the left. from P. Vincenzo) the story of the attempt to The characters and language are nearly those get the inscription interpreted, when so remark- of the books, but are not, by any means, of the able an imposture was practised with success earliest period. If one may judge by the by some Brahmans. By the end of the 16th legends on coins the dates of which are known, century this story was universally accepted in the earliest of these inscriptions may belong to Europe, and is even given by Cardinal Baro- the seventh or eighth century. The earliest apnius in his Ecclesiastical Annals. In the 17th pear to be the ones at the Mount and in the century the zealous antiquarian P. Kircher, south wall of the Kottayam old church, and also Couto, engraved figures of the cross. the latestt that behind a side altar in the same
p. 181.)
latter are the masters of the public steelyard." (About 1347 A.D.) Singularly enough, this is the very privilege assigned to Taries & palliat Cranganore by B, which transfers to that church the vdrakkst or steelyard held by Marvin Sapfr Io. (See Madras Journal, XIII.
• I take this from the Life of St. Francis Xavier by the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J., vol. II. pp. 49-50. Maffei gives long moount of the excavations made by the Portuguese. t See plates, fig. 1.
It is by no means clear what is the proper name of the town between the Mount and the sea now called ridiculously Mayil Appar, but which the Portuguese called San Tomé. The European medieval travellers (Conti and Varthema) who mention it call it Malepur or Melis pore. This indicates the Tamil Malaippuram = mount-town). The Muhammadan geographers (Abd-er-Razzak and Abu'l. fida) speak of a Malifatan which is evidently the same place pattana and pura being interchangeable and having the same meaning town. The Mount is a very conspicu ous object on the flat Coromandel coast, and this accounts
for the name. The place was the chief port of Tondai. a&du, the ancient kingdom of Conjeceram. The Araba also mention another Fatan; the Pattanam par excellence on the Coromandel coast was Kaveripattanam, at the mouth of the KAvert, which gives name to the Tamil poet Pattanattu Pillai, and was the great port of the Sola (Chola) kingdom; this must be the place intended. $ I am indebted to Col. Yule for this information.
See fig. 4. This is in the south wall of what may be called the nave of the older Syrian church at Kottayam, dedicated (I was told) to St. Gabriel. The other tablet is behind one of the minor altars in the same church.
I refer to Dr. Mordtmann's articles in the German 48. Society's Journal, and to those by Mr. E. Thomas in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. The forms of the letters agree vory nearly with those of the third epoch of the Sascanian character as determined by M. Lenormant,
Second plate, fig. 4. + This is written in a sort of running hand (conf. the word máthd in the plates, fig. 4).
TAIP baser Ridentis id having