Indian Antiquary Vol 56

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 175

THOMAS CANA AND HIS COPPER-PLATE GRANT
149
AUGUST, 1927]
honouring, they could no longer give an account of them, nor can the Factors who come from there give an account of them."54
Do Couto wrote his Decada 7, liv. 10, c. 10, in 1610. Cf. Tem. 4, Pte. 2, Lisboa, 1783, p. 528. Mr. T. K. Joseph, in The Magna Charta of the Malabar Christians (Asiatic Review, April 1925, p. 300) writes: "In 1544, Mar Jacob, the then Bishop, in distressful circumstances, pawned the two copper-plates to the Portuguese treasurer in Cochin, and obtained two hun-. dred reals... So says Manuel de Faria y Sousa of the seventeenth century, in his Portuguese Asia, vol. 2, p. 506."
Faria y Sousa was a compiler, writing in Europe. He must have found his statement somewhere, as historians, if conscientious, remain within the limits of their materials. This notwithstanding, I believe that the Jesuit of 1604, being on the spot, must be regarded as our best authority.
Father Lucena (Hist. da vida do P. Fr. de Xavier, Lisboa, 1600, p. 162, col. 2) speaks of "tablets of metal which were found in India in one of the first three years that Father Master Francis was in India. They presented them to the Governor Martim Affonso de Sousa, with the writing already almost spoiled by age, and the letters and the language were new to all, as they were very old. However, there was found (p. 163, col. 1) a Jew, (who as such is herein less suspect), who, being curious of antiquity, had great knowledge of it and various languages. He, though with much trouble, translated it into Portuguese. It contained the grant which the then king made to the Apostle St. Thomas, of certain fields to build a Temple and a Church on."
This discovery was therefore made in 1542-1545. St. Francis Xavier came to India with Dom Martin Affonso de Sousa, and arrived at Goa on May 16, 1542. Dom Affonso governed three years and four months, his successor leaving Lisbon on March 28, 1545. We know from his history that he visited Cochin and Quilon. Did he perhaps take these copper-plates with him to Lisbon on his return? Other authors should be consulted on this incident, for instance Polanco's Chronicon, and Maffei ; but I cannot now consult these here.
As Lucena opposes this discovery to others in Narsinga, and as Cranganore and Coulam are mentioned by him immediately before as possessing ancient memorials of the St. Thomas Christians, it would seem we have here an allusion to the Thomas Cana copper-plates, and a confusion between his name and that of St. Thomas.
Three copper-plates, supposed to contain a donation of lands by Bukka Raja to the Church of St. Thomas at Mylapore, were produced by a Brahman in or before 1552 and sold for 300 pardaos. They were probably forged. A Brahman of Kanjiviram was called to decipher them. These plates are not now found at Mylapore. Where could they be? At Cochin, Goa or Lisbon (Lucena, pp. 172-173; do Couto, Dec. 7, 1. 10, c. 5, Tom. 4, Pte 2, Lisboa, 1783, pp. 482-487, where we have a translation of the three plates, which were written on one side only.)
Do Couto says that Thomas Cana's arrival was put down in A.D. 811, "as is found in the Chaldean books of these Christians; and, from many conjectures, it seems to me that he is the king of whom St. Antoninus writes in his history that he sent every year a present of pepper to the Sovereign Pontiff."55
I do not think that we need pay any attention to do Couto's date of A.D. 811, no more than to'de Barros, who states of the Sarama Pereimal,' who was said to have gone to Mecca, i.e., the last Perumal, as he is generally called, that he reigned 612 years before the arrival of the Portuguese, 56 i.e., in 1498-612 A.D. 886.
54 Dec. 7, 1. 1, c. 2 (Tom. 4, Pte 1, Lisboa, 1782, pp. 14-15).
55 Dec. 12, 1. 3, c. 5 (Tom. 8, Lisboa, 1788, p. 285). Could the passage in St. Antoninus and perhaps others like it touching the Christians in. India be discovered and translated? It might throw light on the history of the St. Thomas Christians.
56 De Barros, Da Asia, Dec. 1, 1. 9, c. 3 (Lisboa, 1777, p. 324). Do Couto's date and that of de Burros may refer correctly to later Perumals.
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