at other times gave out water. It was supposed to mark the place where St. Thomas was buried. It still exists in the Church of our Lady on the Hill of St. Thomas at Mailapur, and has been photographed.[1] On the stone is carved a cross which has a remarkable likeness to that of the Nestorian monument at Si-ngan-fu (p. 107); above it is a dove. Around are letters which for a long time no one could read. It is now established that they are Pehlevi (the language of Persia under the Sassanids); but there still seems to be some uncertainty as to their meaning. Mr. Burnell interpreted them: "In punishment by the cross was the suffering of this one, he who is the true Christ and God above and guide ever pure."[2] Dr. Haug of Munich thinks that he has translated wrongly, and reads: "Who believes in Christ and in God on high and in the Holy Ghost, he is in the grace of him who bore the suffering of the cross."[3] He dates the cross and inscription as 5th century. The existence of this monument (in Persian) is a valuable witness of Persian missions in India, and confirms our view of Indian Christianity as a mission from the Persian Church.
The other document is the famous charter of privileges. In 1549 a dying Malabar bishop gave the Portuguese Governor, as a most precious relic, certain copper plates, which he said contained the authentic grant of privileges made to Christians by the King of Cranganore, and were given by him to Thomas "Cannaneo" (p. 357). After a time these were lost, but they were found again by Colonel Macaulay, British Resident in Travancore, and were deposited by him in the Anglican College at Kottayam in 1806. They have been photographed and published.[4] There are six copper plates, written in an ancient Indian language (Karnataka), with signatures in Arabic and Syriac. They confer on Christians the highest caste, and exempt them from the jurisdiction of Hindu magistrates, except for criminal cases. In all civil and ecclesiastical matters they are to be ruled by their own Metropolitan. Among the signatures are names of Moslems; so the tradition which dates these plates at the time of
