________________
126
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
JULY, 1927
in the great city of the great Idol. While he reigned at the time of Mercury of February, 17 on the seventh day of the month of March, before the full moon, 18 the same king Coquarangon being in Carnelur,1' there arrived in a ship Thomas Cananeo, a chief man, who had resolved to see the uttermost part of the East. And some men, seeing him as he arrived, went to inform the king. And the king himself came and saw and called the said chief man Thomas, and he disembarked and came before the king, who spoke graciously to him ; and to honour him he gave him in surname his own name, calling him Coquarangon Cananeo. And he received this honour from the king and went to rest in his place. (Fol. 526 v; 87v). And the king gave him the city of Magoderpatanam for ever. And the said king, being in his great prosperity, went one day to hunt in the forest, and the same king surrounded the whole forest. And he called in haste for Thomas, who came and stood before the king in a lucky hour. And the king questioned the soothsayer (adivinhador). And the king afterwards spoke to Thomas, [saying) that he would build a city in that forest. And he answered to the king, first making reverence, and said: "I desire this forest for myself." And the king granted it to him and gave it for ever. And at once, the next day (logo outro dia), he cleared the forest and cast his eyes on it in the same year, on the eleventh of April, and gave it as an inheritance to Thomas at the time and day aforesaid,20 in the king's name, who laid the first brick (tijolo) for the Church and for the house of Thomas Cananeo, and made there a city for all [of them), and entered the Church and there made prayer the same day. After these things, Thomas himself went to the king's palaces (pa8808) and offered him presents, and afterwards he asked the king to give that land to him and to his descendants; and he measured two hundred and sixty-four elephant cubits, 21 and gave them to Thomas and his descendants for ever: and at the same time sixty-two houses (sesēta e duas casas), 32 which immediately were erected there, and gardens, and trees, with their enclosures, and with their paths (caminhos) and boundaries (terminos) and inner yards. And he granted him seven kinds of musical instruments, and all the honours, and to speak and walk like a king, and that at the weddings the women might give a certain signal with their finger in their mouth, 23 and he granted him distinct weight, 24 and to adorn the ground with cloths, and he granted the royal fans (abanos, fly.flaps), and to double the sandal (mark) on the arm, 25 and a royal tent [2 or 3 words not
17 W. Rees Philipps, who helped Bishop Madlycott with a translation of Bishop Roz' letter of 1604, failed to decipher the words Mercurio de feuro. Cf. Cath. Encycl., New York, XIV, 680 b.d., and compare with Mackenzie in Travancore State Manual, IL. 139. The present translation must be considered more authoritative, as I work on my own rotographs of the MS. copied for W. R. Philipps by another person. Mackenzie used do Couto's text, which differs in some notable points from Bishop Roz.
19 Compare this with the following: "He (Thomas Cana) also obtained from the Emperor land and high social privileges, as well as a copper-plate document to that effect, on Saturday, 29th Kumbham (Aquarius) of the above-mentioned year (A.D. 315), on the seventh day of the moon, and in the sign Cancer." T. K. Joseph, quoting Ittoop's Syrian Christian Church in Malabar (Malayalam), pp. 88-91, in an article, dated 17-7-1925, on Thomas Cann, which he wrote at my request and of which he sent me the MS.
The year mentioned by Fr. Roz would he 315. 19 This would seem to represent Cranganore (Curanguluru, as Monserrate spelt it in 1579, p. 130 supra). 20 This would bo April 11, 315.
31 The covado, a measure used in Portugal, is throe-fourths of a yard, a Flemish ell, as one of my Portuguese dictionaries puta it.
32 Once before and once after, Roz writes 72. I find that this number is something very sacred among the Syrians. It was likewise so among the Syrians of China, where we hear more than once of the 72 Christian tribes or clans.
23 "As do the women of Kings," which we have in Mackenzie, is not in my MS.; but we have it in do Couto.
24 Pezo distincto.
35 Mackenzie mentions among the privileges : to use sandals. This is not in my Ms. We have however : c dobrar o sandal no braço.
