Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/529

Rh feast of one who entered upon the marriage state, without a previous request and special permission. This was always reserved, even to the present day, to the kings of Cochin only. Yet up to now it was always allowed to the Jews without asking first. And it is known that the native kings do not easily allow another to share in outward ceremonies, which they reserve for themselves. If, therefore, the Jews would have arrogated to themselves this privilege without high authority, the kings of Cochin would put a stop to this privilege of this nation, whose residences are situated next to the Cochin palace, but for this reason, I suppose, dare not do so.'" Various authorities have attempted to fix approximately the date of the copper-plate charter. Mr. Burnell gives 700 A.D. as its probable date. The Rev. G.Milne Rae, accepting the date as fixed by Mr. Burnell, argues that the Jews must have received the grant a few generations after the settlement, and draws the conclusion that they might have settled in the country some time about the sixth century A.D. Dr. J. Wilson, in a lecture* on the Beni-Israels of Bombay, adopts the sixth century of the Christian era as the probable date of the arrival of the Beni-Israels in Bombay,about which time also, he is inclined to think, the Cochin Jews came to India, for their first copper-plate charter seems to belong to this period. There is no tradition among the Jews of Cochin that they and the Beni-Israels emigrated to the shores of India from the same spot or at the same time, and the absence of any social intercourse between the Beni-Israels and the Cochin Jews seems to go against this theory. In one of the translations of the charter obtained by the Dutch