The Copperplates of Knai Thoma ക്നായി തൊമ്മൻ ചെപ്പേടുകൾ

സുറിയാനി ക്രിസ്ത്യാനികളുടെ ചരിത്രത്തിൽ ആവർത്തിച്ചു കാണുന്ന ക്നായി തൊമ്മൻ ചെപ്പേടുകളെ കുറിച്ചുള്ള വലിയ ഒരു തെറ്റിദ്ധാരണ ആധുനിക കെരള ചരിത്രത്തിൽ ഉടനീളം കാണുന്നു.  ഇത് ഏകദേശം 250 വർഷത്തോളം തെറ്റായ വിശകലത്തിന്റെ അടിസ്ഥാനത്തിൽ  തെറ്റായ ഒരു ആഖ്യാനം ചമച്ച് അനേക  ചരിത്രകാരന്മാരാൽ  ആവർത്തിക്കപ്പെട്ടു  അത്ഇപ്പോൾ ഒരു “വസ്തുത” ആയ സ്ഥിതി ആണ്.  ക്നായി തൊമ്മൻ ചെപ്പേടുകളെ ഇപ്പോൾ “Jewish  കോപ്പർ പ്ലേറ്റ്സ്”  എന്ന പേരിൽ മാത്രം അറിയപ്പെടുന്നു. ഓരോ ചരിത്രകാരന്മാർ ഓരോ പുതിയ തിയ്യതികളും ഇതിനു നൽകുന്നു. ദീർഘമായ പഠനങ്ങൾക്ക് ശേഷം ഈ ചെപ്പേടുകൾ ശരിയായി സുറിയാനിക്കാരുടെ ക്നായി തൊമ്മൻ ചെപ്പേടുകൾ  തന്നെ എന്ന നിഗമനനത്തിൽ ആണ് ഞാൻ എത്തി ചേർന്നിരിക്കുന്നത്. അതിലേയ്ക്ക് എന്നെ പ്രേരിപ്പിച്ച തെളിവുകൾ  താഴെ കൊടുക്കുന്നു:

1. Nature and whereabouts of the Knai Thoma Plates (hereafter, KTP) of 345.
2. Portuguese historians noted that the KTP consisted of 2 thin rectangular pieces of copper bound with a ring.
3. The plates were in the possession of the JSC when the Portuguese arrived.  
4. They mention the social, political and religious privileges granted to the Syrian migrants and the local Indian Christians, in perpetuity. The grantor is named as Raja Sri Bhaskarah Iravah Varma (NOT as Cheraman Perumal in the plates) and the donee or receiver was Joseph Rabban.
5. European historians of the 18^th to 20^th century began challenging the authenticity of the KTP, on grounds of the date, KT’s identity, the nature of the migration (as refugees after wars and persecution in 4^th century Persia) etc. These challenges are being repeated by more recent European and Indian historians, without examining the innumerable sources, and often merely copying earlier writers. or presenting their own speculations.

1. Tracing the earliest historical witnesses of the KTP, in chronological order:
2. 1547-48: the KTP was seen in the custody of the Syrian bishop Mar Jacob. On his deathbed, he requested the Plates, which he had ‘pawned’ for 20 Crusados, be redeemed and returned to the SCs.
3. The Franciscan brothers with whom Mar Jacob was staying, paid the money and redeemed the Plates and brought them to their Factory in Kochi. There, between 1550 and 1570, many eminent Portuguese officials saw the Plates.
4. Around 1570: they disappeared from Kochi. Port. historians mention that they were taken to Portugal by the Franciscans.
5. Many early Port. historians have written about the Plates and their contents, most notably, Royal historian Damiao de Gomes (‘Chronicles of the Happy King Dom Manuel’ Lisbon 1566–67);  Jesuit priest Fr. Antonio Monserrate 1579, Archbishop Francisco Ros Relaçao da Serra (=A Narrative about Malabar), 1604 manuscript British Library: MSBL Add 9853, ff.86-99; Anton Gouvea Jornada 1606; Diego do Couto 1616: Decadas da Asia: Vol. VII, Book X, Chapter X. written between 1580-1616 Lisbon (pp. 521-528).
6. These accounts agree with the JSC narratives and tradition.
7. Dutch writer Jacob Canter Visscher reported that he saw the plates when he was in Kochi between 1715 and 1724 (Drury’s tr.  1862:114-5), but this is unlikely to have been the originals, but the copy in the possession of the Jews.
8. French palaeographer Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron (in around 1756-7) saw in the possession of the Jews of Kochi, a similar set of plates. He was unable to get a suitably qualified Jewish person or a Tamil scholar to translate or interpret the Grandha script. He took a true copy of them, and published the script without translation.
9. Adrian Moens, Dutch Governor of Kochi (1770) made a thorough search for the Plates ‘and was satisfied that they were irrecoverably lost, or rather, he adds, that they never existed’ (1814:142). By now they were called the ‘Jewish Plates’.
10. Claudius Buchanan saw and reported on them in 1806.  He ‘borrowed’ some of their ancient manuscripts and monuments and tried to walk away with them, but an angry crowd of Jews of Mattancherry pursued him. He took refuge in the house of British Resident Col. Macaulay, and entrusted him with the ‘borrowed’ documents.  Macaulay pacified the Jews promising to return them after examination.  He kept his word and returned them, but only after having made an estampaged copy of the Plates.
11. Later, by the 19^th and 20^th centuries, historians began rejecting the narratives of the JSC as fictitious. Notable historians of this period are: James Hough 1839 VolI:102-3,107-9; Milne Rae 1892:155-156, Monteiro D’Aguiar Kerala Society Papers 1930:169-193; Payyappally 2016:31, with a critical evaluation by Hosten and T.K. Joseph; Mundadan 1984 Vol.1:90-98, 110 etc., and Kollaparambil 2015:145-154.) 
12. JSC sources:

JSC sources do not give the exact text of the royal grant, only enumerating the honours and privileges granted to them by the king, which may have been a part of the copper plate text. 

Lengthy accounts and partial lists of honours granted can be seen in almost all JSC histories, most notably Pukadiyil (1869), EM Philip (1950); Kaniamparambil (1984) and many more.  K T Zachariah gives the full list of honours, which he says was copied from the Chalakuzhy family’s ola manuscript (1973:33-40).  The 1771 ola gives a summary of both.

The whereabouts of the plates now:

The most recent exhaustive search for the Knai Thoma plates in Portugal was done in 1925-6.  According to Fr. Hosten and T.K. Joseph, deputed a friend of Joseph and Keralan barrister Mr. Panikkar, to search for them in Lisbon, and who in his zeal, ‘ransacked’ the Torre do Tombo (National Archives of Lisbon) with the help of its Director General, but without any success in locating the Plates.  (See Hosten and Joseph in Kerala Soc. Papers 1927b:185-6.)  The copies which Macaulay had ‘found’ in Kochi are at present thought to be in the archives in Kottayam, of the Indian Orthodox which seceded from the JSC in 1912. The remnants of the Jewish community in in Mattancherry (Kochi) are the custodians of the Jewish Plates.

What exactly are the contents of the KTP?

The much-cited ‘Roz’s copy’ of 1604 is not actually the text of the Plates at all, but rather a summary of the copy of the KTP, and what he gathered from his JSC informants, both as narrative and as tradition. Thus it is a long document.  But Ros’ account is consistent with the narrative maintained by the JSC.

In the early 19^th c., English palaeographer Charles Whish, F. W. Ellis (East India Company Civil Servant and philologist) and Herman Gundert (grammarian and Malayalam literary scholar/poet), all produced critical editions of the KTP text which are near identical, and are published in the same journal.

For Whish’s paper, see: Editorial in The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register 1831 Vol.VI:6-14, the relevant part copied below, from page 9:

“The letters of the metal plate arc precisely those on the stones in the Tiruvunnur Kshietram, which I formerly deciphered, and forwarded to the Literary Society (of Madras); it commences thus: ** Swasti Sri / The king of kings hath ordained it! In the thirty-sixth year above the second cycle* when Bhaskarah Iravah Varma wielded the sceptre of royalty in a hundred thousand places; in that year, the following deed was ordered and vouchsafed, during that prince’s sojourn in the royal Palace of Muyil Kottah. We have given to Yussoof Rabha” (written in Tamul Issooppoo Irabban, the double s being of the Grantham alphabet). Then follows an account of the privileges, &c. granted, which, while they shew the simplicity of the age in which they were indulged, also argue the high estimation in which the colony was held, as a peaceable and respectable society. There are mentioned, among some others, the privileges of using palanquins and umbrellas, and adorning their roads with garlands {torana) and the use of certain sacrificial vessels, a certain dress of distinction, and, amongst the more solid part of the indulgence, “we have given seventy and two separate houses, and we relinquish all taxes and rates, for these, as also for all houses and churches in other cities; and, independent of this bond to him, we have made and given a copper instrument for these latter, separate and distinct. These are to be enjoyed after these five modes of descent, viz. by Yussoof Rabba himself, and his heirs in succession; thus his male children and his female children, his nephews, and the nephews of his daughters, in natural succession : an hereditary right to be enjoyed, as long as the earth and the moon remain.

Sri ! I, Govarddhana Martandan, of Venadu, witness this deed; I, Kotai Giri Kandun, of Venadavalinada, wit- ness this deed; I, &c.” Then follow the names of four more witnesses, and then — This is the hand-writing of Poyanaya Koyraya” (signature).

Ellis’ more lucid translation copied below:

(Analysis of the Copper Grant in possession of the Jews of Cochin of the Madras Presidency 1844 Vol.31:1-11.)

“Swasti Sri! The king of kings hath ordained it! When Raja Sri Bhaskarah Iravah Varma was wielding the sceptre of royalty in an hundred thousand places, in the thirty-sixth year above the second cycle, he vouchsafed, during the time that he sojourned in Muyiri Kottah, to perform a deed, the subject of which is as follows: — From Yussoof Rabba and his people, in five degrees of persons, we exact the tribute of due awe and deference to our high dignity, and of the usual presents to our royal person; to these we allow the privilege of bearing five kinds of names, of using day-lamps, of wearing long apparel; of using palanquins and umbrellas, copper vessels, trumpets, and drums, of garlands for the person, and garlands to be suspended over their roads; and we have given in full seventy-and-two separate houses ; and we have relinquished all taxes and rates for these; and also for all other houses and churches in other cities; and independent of this bond to him, we have made and given a copper instrument for these latter, separate and distinct. These are to be enjoyed after these, five modes of descent, viz. by Yussoof Rabba himself and his heirs in succession — thus, his male children, and his female children, his nephews, and the nephews of his daughters, in natural succession: an hereditary right to be enjoyed as long as the earth and the moon remain. Sri! I, Govarddhana Martandan, of Venadu, witness this deed; I, Kotai Giri Kandun, of Venadavalinada, witness this deed; J, Manavepala Manuviyan, of Eralanada, witness this deed; I, Irayan Chattan, of Valluvanada, witness this deed; I, Kotai Iravi, of Nedumbutaiyur nada, witness this deed; I, Murkan Chattan, inhabitant of Kelpadui nayakam, witness this deed. This is the handwriting of Poranaya Koyraya Kellapan, engraved by Vandra Sherry Kandapan.”

From this is evident that all earlier accounts or purported texts of the KTP were in fact narratives and traditions of the JSC, which naturally had incorporated the contents of the KTP.  But here were have now a definitive translation of the KTP text, bearing the hallmarks of a royal decree such as succinctness, names of donor/donee, year, and a concise rendering of the categories of honours and privileges rather than an itemised list of them.  (For Archbishop Ros text, see a critical edition in Monteiro d’Aguiar 1930:180-82.)