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MAY, 1927]
LAND'S ANECDOTA SYRIACA ON THE SYRIANS OF MALABAR
85
18 Thomas of Jerusalem. St. Thomas, Manikkavâchakar, Thomas Cana, and the Kadisas (Sapor And Prodh) are constant factors in all versions of Malabar Christian tradition.
31 Serkun is Chérnkon, which means King of Malabar, 22 Kuramaklur : Cranganore ; not Kotamálar.
33 Syrian Fathers : Bishops or Patriarchs : not priests. Syrian priests are not called fathers, except recently in imitation of the Portuguese practice. The word in the original must be some form of abûn, fother. Cp. 'Abba, father of the Bible. Abûna Jacob is Bishop Jacob, though literally Father Jacob.'
25 Lord Sapor, Mar Sapor, Bishop. Mår (Syriac) = Lord, applied to laymen also as a term of respect, 9., by servants to masters.
Sebarjesu is Sabr 140 of the two copper plates of the Quilon Church (c. 880 A.D.).
(Hosten.) The following dates can, I think, be taken as correct. Sabr 140 of the Quilon Church copper plates came a little before A.D. 825 and refounded Quilon in 825. Mar Sapor came in Sabr 180's ship, either with that merchant or after his refounding Quilon, i.e., c. A.D. 825. The Quilon Church plates are of c. 880 A.D. All these events are generally assigned, wrongly, to the same year.
Bishop Roz' "100 years after the foundation of Quilon " is the approximate date of the plates (c. 880). 1602—733=869 in Jornada is, I suppose, the actual date of the earlier of the two sets of Quilon Church plates.
Raulin's 879, if it be correct at all, may apply to the second set of Quilon Church plates. Le Quien's ebout 880' is the date of the Quilon Church plates. [Raulin says at p. 434 : "According to the Malabar tradition, Gouvea wrote that these two Bishops [Mar Xabro and Mar Prodh) were sent to those churches a littio after the foundation of the town of Coulam, where they built the Church of St. Thomas, 733 years before the year when Gouver wrote, that is 1602 : hence we conclude that this happened in A.D. 879." Raulin should have said A.D. 869:-H.H.]
The Calicut ora. No such era is known. I think old writers called the Quilon era the Calicut era, because of a confusion between Quilon in Travancore and Quilon near Calicut. The former was called Kurakkêni Kollam (Quilon); the latter, Pantalâyini Kollam (Quilon). This latter has become Pandarani (Portuguese), Flandrina (Odoric), Fandreeah (an Arabic author), Fandaraina (Ibn Batuta). Some accounts say that Vasco da Gama first landed here.
The plates of the Quilon Tarisa Church are not of 824, but of circa 880. Sabr 150, re-founder of Quilon in Travancore, must have been about 80 years old when he got the plates.
Sabarjesu is Maruvân Sabir 180 of the Quilon Church plates. Maruván is, I think, a variant of Mar, lord. Sabr 140 (Persian or Syrinc ) = patience of Jesus. Sabr 140 is not the same person as Mar Sapor."
37 Sakirbirti. Chakravarti (Skt.) emperor: not a proper name. Some old writings give his name as Sankara Iravi Sri. The name of the contemporary emperor at Cranganore given in the Quilon copper plates (set No. 1) is Tänu Iravi (Skt. Sthânu Ravi), who ruled up to at least the last quarter of the 9th century (T.A.S., III, p. 162). Sthậnu is a synonym for Sankara. Hence, I suppose, Sthanu Ravi became Serkara Iravi in some later MSS. But Sthanu Ravi could not even have been born in 825 : besides, he was not king of Quilon, but Emperor of Malabar ruling from Cranganoro.
31 (Hosten.) Lord Abraham ; Mar Abraham : Bishop, not layman.
82 (Hosten.) The tradition of the Malabar Syrians and their belief are that Menezes burnt many more books than are mentioned in Gouvea, the Diamper Decrees, etc. (J. M. Campori, S.J., wrote after the Diemper council from the Seminary of Vaipicota, near Parur, on Nov. 28, 1599: "Father Francisco Roz and I are busy examining their books. We delete, cut out, and throw into the fire entire books. All con sidered this work as a marvel. Formerly they were so attached to their books that they would not even allow them to be opened by us. Now they were not annoyed to see us erase, truncate and burn entire books, as we pleased." Cf. Raulin, in the Elogia.-H.H.).
38 Quqsin : Cochin. 34 Mutumseri : Mattañchêri.
40 Bispe is from the Portuguese, not from the Skt. It is found in old Malayalam writings of the Portuguese period, and is sometimes even now used by the Roman Catholics in Malabar.
4 The Jesuits were known in Malayalam as Paulist Akkar (Paulists), Sampaluppåtirimêr (San Paolo Padres), and Yesuvittanmar (Jesuits).
J. C. Visscher's Version of Matthew's Letter. I considered myself fortunate when, in February 1926, while at Calcutta, I found in Major Heber Drury's translation of Letters from Malabar by Jacob Canter Visscher (Madras, 1862, pp. 105-109) a somewhat different version of Land's document. It comes in the 16th letter of the Dutch domine. Now, as his letters 18 and 19 are of 1723, we can bring down the date of Matthew's document from 1730 (cf. my note 46a above) to 1723. At any rate Matthew used a document existing in 1723, and this gives us a further reason to identify him with the priest Matthew Beticulel. The end in Visscher is later than 1705.
