Note 46 — J

In a note on the Kōttayam plate of Vīra Rāghava, which is in the possession of the Syrian Christians, Rai Bahadur V. Venkayya writes as follows.46 “Vīra-Rāghava conferred the title of Manigrāmam on the merchant Iravikkorran. Similarly Anjuvannam was bestowed by the Cochin plates on the Jew Joseph Rabbān. The old Malayālam work Payyanūr Pattōla, which Dr. Gundert considered the oldest specimen of Malayālam composition, refers to Anjuvannam and Manigrāmam. The context in which the two names occur in this work implies that they were trading institutions. In the Kōttayam plates of Sthānu Ravi, both Anjuvannam and Manigrāmam are frequently mentioned. Both of them were appointed along with the six hundred to be ‘the protectors’ of the grant. They were ‘to preserve the proceeds of the customs duty as they were collected day by day,’ and ‘to receive the landlord’s portion of the rent on land. If any injustice be done to them, they may withhold the customs and the tax on balances, and remedy themselves the injury done to them. Should they themselves commit a crime, they are themselves to have the investigation of it.’ To Anjuvannam and Manigrāmam was granted the freehold of the lands of the town (of Kollam?). From these extracts, and from the reference in the Payyanūr Pattōla, it appears that Anjuvannam and Manigrāmam were semi-independent trading corporations. The epithet Setti (merchant) given to Ravikkorran, the trade rights granted to him, and the sources of revenue thrown open to him as head of Manigrāmam, confirm the view that the latter was a trading corporation. There is nothing either in the Cochin grant, or in the subjoined inscription to show that Anjuvannam and Manigrāmam were, as believed by Dr. Gundert and others, Jewish and Christian principalities, respectively. It was supposed by Dr. Burnell that the plate of Vīra-Rāghava created the principality of Manigrāmam, and the Cochin plates that of Anjuvannam, and that, consequently, the existence of these two grants is presupposed by the plates of Sthānu Ravi, which mention both Anjuvannam and Manigrāmam very often. The Cochin plates did not create Anjuvannam, but conferred the honours and privileges connected therewith to a Jew named Joseph Rabbān. Similarly, the rights and honours associated with the other corporation, Manigrāmam, was bestowed at a later period on Ravikkorran. Therefore, Anjuvannam and Manigrāmam must have existed as institutions even before the earliest of these three copper-plates was issued. It is just possible that Ravikkorran was a Christian by religion. But his name and title give no clue in this direction, and there is nothing Christian in the document, except its possession by the present owners.”