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pass, under the dominion of Shiraprimael, and in the year 4189 of the creation, which answereth to 379 of the Nazarene era, there was granted to them from the King of Shiraprimael, whose name was Airvi Brahmin, privileges and charters, engraved on a plate of copper, or brass, called Sepiru, according to their custom and grandeur, and at this time there were 72 families of them in Cranganore, and the name of their prince was Joseph Rabban. This is that King of Shiraprimael, who divided all his country and gave it to 8 Kings, namely, the King of Trebangore, Varachangor, Callicut, Argot, Palgatchery, Colastere, Corbenath, and the King of Cochin.

And this is the translation of the plate of brass which was rendered from the Malabar to the Hebrew language.

In the peace of God, he is the King who made the earth according to his will, and to this God have I Airvi Brahmin lifted up my hauds, (swore) as is decreed in virtue of this charter. Whereas from time immemorial, (Hebrew many hundred thousand years) the government has been subject to continual changes, and as this day I dwell in Cranganore, and still decree, and which is the 36th year of my reign; and as in might I am strengthened to decree, so with might will I strengthen the nobility of Joseph Rabban of five different colours; to have mulberry trees, to ride elephant and horse, to cry before him to clear the road, to proselyte of the five nations, light of day, carpets on the earth, and carpets for the habitation, a flower garden, shade, pomegranates, trumpets, drums, and these privileges have I granted to him and the 72 families; and the land rents, and weight (duty) are quitted to them; and in the other provinces wherein there is Jew settlers and Synagogues, he shall be their head and ruler, forbidding any alteration or gainsaying. This plate of brass is made and given to the Lord of 5 colours to say to Joseph Rabban, to him and his seed, sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, all the time that any of his seed shall exist in the world; and all the time that the moon shall abide, and their seed shall abide, and let

*It does not appear whether these 8 Kings were independent or only viceroyalfies.

+ Hebrew, the rule was led or changed one year and two years,

God be praised.

And this is witnessed by the 8 Kings aforesaid and the scribe who wrote it, Chilapin, and this is his seal,

And the Jews were settled in Cranganore until the coming of the Portuguese and as soon as the Portuguese came, they were a thorn and stumbling block to them; and they departed thence and came to Cochin in the year 5326 of the creation; and the King of Cochin gave the:n a place for houses and synagouges near his palace, in order to be an assistance to them: and the synagogue was built here in the year 5326 of the creation, by four wealthy men, viz. Samuel Casteal, David Belila, Ephraim Selach, and Joseph Levi; and yet they were labouring under persecutious, insomuch that they could not observe our statutes, neither could they retain their former occupations, and they experienced great troubles, even till the Dutch came to Cochin, in the year 1663 of the era of the Nazarenes; then they received light and enlargement of mind, and lived quietly and peaceably with the people of Malabar, by the assistance of the Hollanders in Cochin.

And in the year 1586 of the Nazarene era, there arrived at Cochin, four Hollanders from Amsterdam, namely, Moses Pereira, Isaac Yergas, Abraham Boretta, and Isaac Mucatto, Spanish Jews, merchants, who visited all the places settled by Jews, and rejoiced they also wrote to Amsterdam of their concerns, particularly of the lack of books, which when understood at Amsterdam, the congregation there sent a present to the congregation at Cochin, consisting of Pentateuchs, prayer books and the Shulchon Aruch, and several other books, and all the congregation rejoiced.

And from that time we have had friends in Amsterdam with whom we correspond, who sent us such books as we needed continually. In consequence we have here many books, Gemaroth, Medrashoth, and books of Cabala; but we are not well versed in those books, but are governed by the Shulchan Aruch composed by Joseph Caro; and our customs are the same as the Portuguese Jews.

In Cochin we are called white Jews; they came from the captivity of the holy land; we consist of forty families and one synagogue, and there is no more in all the coast of Malabar, except the Jews called the black Jews, who are from such as were converted in Malabar, from converted and freed females, and even from unfreed females and mixed people, on which account we do not intermarry, however their customs and laws are exactly like ours; and they are settled in seven places, namely:

In Cochin, about 150 families, 3 Synagogues.

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Thus we have before us three accounts. We may easily perceive wherein they disagree. We will examine the last by the two first: it informs us that on the destruction of Jerusalem, A. M. 3828, the white Jews came to Cranganore, &c. This is conceded by the other two. Sargon reports the black Jew, saying, "An ancestor of his had a book which he brought with him when they came out to India from Jerusalem, after the destruction of the 2d temple." This is the same epoch as mentioned by the white Jews, A. M. 3828; no doubt the ancestors of the black Jew came with the ancestors of the white Jews, and was a white Jew himself. Perhaps Joseph Rabban. And Claudius Buchanan gives the same account of the arrival of the white Jews on the Malabar coast, after the destruction of the second temple; but the object of both is to have the black Jews to be the earliest comers; their purposes are obvious; Claudius Buchanan manfully avows it. He wants to find some old manuscript copies of the law and prophets, which may be more pliable for the support of . . . . . . ianity; a tacit acknowledgment this that all other known copies are against it. Now he will willingly content himself with allowing the white Jews to have arrived on the destruction of the second temple, A. M. 3828; but contends the black Jews came long before, even on the destruction of the first temple, unfortunately for his position, the black Jews

themselves do not pretend any such thing, they only pretend to have come on the destruction of the 2d temple. Sargon makes them black Jews when they first arrived on the coast. Buchanan accounts for their colour and appearance, having been so long in India. But both black and white Jews assign another reason, and no doubt the true one. The white Jews say that they, the black Jews, consist of such as have been made Jews, (proselyted) children of freed women, by freed men, and children of such men and women who were not even freed, and a mixture of both; among these there may also be some of the families of the white Jews who were under Joseph Rabban, for in his time there were 72 white Jew families; whereas there is now only 40 of the white Jews; these 32 families which are lacking, were no doubt, amalgamated with the numerous proselyted Hindoos, for by charter they were allowed to make proselytes of the 5 nations. The black Jews, if they were to give an account themselves, it would no doubt agree with that given by the white Jews and even now, wickedly as it is represented by the sinner Sargon, it is sufficient for our purpose. He makes the black Jews declare thus, "according to the book in question, they, the black Jews were as truly the children of Israel as the white Jews." "The white Jews had intercourse with us, and we had intermarriages with each other." This is however qualified by Mr. Sargon; he also takes special care to qualify all the rest. The old black Jew is then made to say, "Moreover the black Jews had not many females among them, they did buy the native women, who had female children, and made their offspring free, and married them afterwards. Thus they intermixed with the natives, and became such as they. On the other hand, when they made their slaves' male offspring free, they gave them their females to wife, and in three or four generations considered them as black Jews; but there was a difference made, such as "that they could not wear sandals, as the other black Jews; were considered as inferior to the other black Jews, and distinctly separated from all kinds of offices in their Synagogue; they could only marry among themselves; and could not be public readers in the Synagogue, nor go up to read in the Sepher Torah, or Book of the Law." Now all this is consonant with what the white Jews say of them, and assign it as a reason

for not intermarrying with them. Thus is the account given by the white Jews verified by the black, even according to Sargon; but he also despairing of making the arrival and settlement of the white Jews on the coast, later than themselves allow, does in the face of his own information, transform the black Jews into Ephraimites, for he proceeds, "From all the foregoing, and for other reasons, I conclude that the black Jews are partly of the long lost ten tribes, and partly of those proselyted to Judaism after the white Jews arrived at Cranganore."

The hardest difficulty in the way of the Rev. Mr. Buchanan is the brass plate in possession of the white Jews. He must give an account of it, and still wishes to smother the evidence it contains; he therefore pretends inability to render correctly its Hebrew translation on account of the language being so difficult, and as he says, "they do not agree among themselves as to the meaning of some of the words." Now is this the case? I can safely say I never saw a plainer composition. But the secret lies here; there are Hebrew words used in this composition which are purely Rabbinical and Chaldaic, and which he must suppose were not used in the time of the first temple; so that the writer must have been master of Talmudical Hebrew, and used from the time of the 2d temple only, he could consequently not have been of the ten tribes, who - knew nothing of such kind of Hebrew, as 20 fritga, which is purely Rabbinical, and means a free gift, a charter of nobility, and the word tas, a plate, which is Chaldaic, was also not understood by the Jews in the time of the first temple: their Hebrew of which was 'y tsits or pach, so that the translation must have been made by a Jew of the second temple or after, and not an Ephraimite, or a Jew of the first temple. This translation is also acknowledged ancient, because he allows that the Malabaric plate is so ancient that the letter is no more known, and cannot now be translated; consequently, as it could not have been translated into Hebrew latterly, the translation itself must be also ancient: and here Sargon has also overshot the mark, for he makes the black Jews claim the plate as theirs, and only latterly taken from them by force, (with power ;) but latterly the white Jews could not have translated it; the translation must have been belonging to

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