Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/475

Rh Their leader Thomas Cana is said to have visited the last of the Perumāls and to have obtained several privileges for the benefit of the Christians. He is supposed to have built a church at Mahādēvarpattanam, or more correctly Mahodayapūram, near Kodungallūr in the Cochin State, the capital of the Perumāls or Viceroys of Kērala, and, in their documents, the Syrian Christians now and again designate themselves as being inhabitants of Mahādēvarpattanam. In the Syrian seminary at Kōttayam are preserved two copper-plate charters, one granted by Vīra Rāghava Chakravarthi, and the other by Sthānu Ravi Gupta, supposed to be dated 774 A.D. and 824 A.D. Specialists, who have attempted to fix approximately the dates of the grants, however, differ, as will be seen from a discussion of the subject by Mr. V. Venkayya in the Epigraphia Indica."* Concerning the plate of Vīra Rāghava, Mr. Venkayya there writes as follows. "The subjoined inscription is engraved on both sides of a single copper-plate, which is in the possession of the Syrian Christians at Kōttayam. The plate has no seal, but, instead, a conch is engraved about the middle of the left margin of the second side. This inscription has been previously translated by Dr.Gundert.† Mr. Kookel Keloo Nair has also attempted a version of the grant. ‡ In the translation I have mainly followed Dr. Gundert."

Rh Hari! Prosperity! Adoration to the great Ganapati! On the day of (the Nakshatra) Rōhini, a Saturday