Indian Antiquary Vol 56

SR No.: 032548
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1986
Total Pages: 286
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 13 MB

Page 209

OCTOBER, 1927)
THOMAS CANA AND HIS COPPER-PLATE GRANT
183
I have found no reason yet to think thąt the vision and the emigration were not in the Malabar tradition when Monserrato, Gouves and others wrote their accounts. Are de Barros and Gaspar Correa also silont on the matter 1-T.K.J.
Page 147, note 40.-I have heard of Jewish colonists in PAlayur (= PAlur). but not of Armenians. I must enquire.--T.KJ.
Page 147, para. 2.-Thomas Cananeo among the saints. No, he was a mercbant.--T.K.J.
Page 147, para. 2.-A wife and a concubine. Thomas Cananeo is even now said to have had a wife of his own nationality, and a concubine belonging to the velutistan or washerman caste of Malabar. We know that concubinage is a regular recognised institution among the Jews (those in Malabar too) and other Semitic people. Until recent times it was often so among the indigenous Malabar Christians also, the concubines in this case, as in the case of the Malabar Jews, being women converts from low caste Hindus, who are usually retained as maid servants. The offspring of thes, Christian concubines are Christians, contemptuously termed vatukar, and are put very low in the social scale. To call a pure-bred, high caste Malabar Christian a vatukan may cost the offender his life. Family tradition tells which Christian is of high caste and which a Vatukan. The distinction is now-a-days vanishing.
The Malabar Christian system of concubinage was condemned at the council of Diamper in 1599 (Act 7, decree 13).-T.K.J.
Page 147, note 11.-Bishop Mar Johannan, before the arrival of the Portuguese in A.D. 1498.
This may be Bishop Mar John sent to Malabar in the year 1801 of Alexander (= A.D. 1490) by the Catholicos Mar Simoon, Patriarch of the East. In a letter from Malabar written a year after the year 1814 of the Creeks (= A.D. 1803), ho is described as "still alive and hale." The letter must have been of A.D. 1504. There is another Mar John of A.D. 988 (cf. p. 181, n. 44 of p. 148).-T.K.J.
Page 148, para. 1.-The Cranganore Church of St. Cyriacus was in existence in A.D. 1301, for the colophon of a Syriac book (Cod. Syr. Val., N. xxii), containing a church Lectionary of the Pauline Epistles, says it was finished in that Church on a Wednesday, in June, of the year 1612 of the Greeks (=A.D. 1301).-T.K.J.
Page 148, para. 2.- Patna is Mahadevarpattanam, Cranganore. “This king was a Christian." No, he was a Hindu.-T.K.J. Page 148, para. 2.-Coulão is Quilon in Travancore. “In many things their memory.” Many things in memory of their antiquity ? “Padrões." The reference must be to the public copy on stone of the Thomas Cana plates. “Temples." Better, Churches.--T.K.J.
Page 149, para, 4.-" They presented them to the Governor," "Thoy means the Malabar Christians.
But where did Faria y Sousa get the following specitic details?
In the year 1544 came to Cochin, Jacob, a Chaldean bishop of Cranganore, where being dangerously sick, he sent for the treasurer. Peter de Sequeyra, and told him neccssity had obliged him to pawn two copper plates” (those of Thomas Cana" with characters engraven on them, which were original grants and privileges bestowed on the Apostle St. Thomas” [no, Thomas Cana, the merchant)" by the sovereigns” [better, sovereign, singular) " of those countries, when he preached there :" (Thomas Cana did not preach, but carried on trade)" that he desired him to release them, lest they should be lost if he died, for if he lived, he would take them out bimself. This prelate found the only way to lose them, was trusting the Portuguese ; for Sequeyra paid the two hundred Royals they were pawned for, put them into the Treasury, and they were never more heard of."--Portuguese Asia, II, 506.
Perhaps the Governor, Dom Affonso took them away in A.D. 1545--T.K.J.
Page 149, para. 4.--"Writing already almost spoiled by age.” That would show that the plates were much more than a thousand years old in 1544. For the Jewish plate of 1085 A.D. is still as good as new.and the Quilon Church plates of circa 880, though broken to pieces, have the characters quite deop and legible. Of course, we assume that these three sets of plates being considered very valuable, were carefully preserved by the owners under similar conditions of safety.
1544 minus say 1100 = 444, which makes the year 345 A.D., assigned by tradition to the Thomas Cana plates, very probable.-T.K.J.