A Survey of the Iranian Christians’ Literature in the Sasanian Pahlavi Language (Case-Study: The Sasanian Pahlavi Inscription on a Copper Plate in Quilon, India)

The present paper focuses on one of the private inscriptions dating back to the post- Sassanid period in India. The Sassanid inscriptions can be divided into two groups: 1) royal and nobles’ inscriptions in inscriptional Pahlavi (lapidary script) that mostly date back to the first half of the Sassanid kingship and 2) private inscriptions, gravestone inscriptions and Waghf (grant) inscriptions as well as memoires that have been written in book Pahlavi (cursive script) in which letters are joined to each other. They back to the ending years of the Sassanid dynasty and early centuries of Iran. The inscription is of importance as it belongs to the Iranian Christians who moved to the south of India for commercial purposes. In fact, they were the first Iranian immigrants in India prior to the Zoroastrians. Another significant point is that it has been written in three languages. This proves that that Zoroastrian and Muslim communities co-existed in the south of India as in Kollam (Quilon). This inscription reports on the endowment (gift) of a plot of land to the Iranian Christians by the regional Indian king dating back to the 9th century A.D.