Tharisapalli copper plates
Also called: Syrian Christian copper plates · Topic: India, a Home to Many: Diasporas and Refuge · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Tharisapalli copper plates are a set of royal grants written on copper sheets. They date to c. 849 CE and were issued at Kollam (Quilon) in Kerala, during the reign of the Chera king Sthanu Ravi. They gave land and special rights to the Tharisapalli church and to the Christian merchants linked with it. They are among the oldest written records of Christians in India. They also show that Kerala's ports were used by traders from many lands.
Example
The plates carry witness signatures in Arabic, Pahlavi (Middle Persian) and Hebrew scripts. This shows that Muslim, Zoroastrian or Persian Christian, and Jewish traders were all present at Kollam in the 9th century.
Don't confuse with
- Jewish copper plates of Kerala: these are a separate Chera grant made to a Jewish leader, Joseph Rabban, not to a church.