Forster, in a note to Bartolomeo (p. 109), says Erawi Wanmara, emperor of Malabar, in the year of the Kali Yoga 3481, corresponding to A.D. 426, in the 36th year of his reign, gave a charter to Isup Rabbaan (Rabbi Joseph), bestowing vice regal powers. But that all who went to India prior to 1371 have died out. The white Jews near Cochin went to India at later periods from different countries.
When Wolff reached Cochin, he found there black and white Jews celebrating the feast of Paschal. Those that are called black Jews are, he says, such as became Jews of their own accord at Cranganore, and in other parts of the country they are of black and half-black colour. For this reason the white Jews do not intermarry with them. They have neither priests, nor Levites, nor families, nor relations on foreign coasts. They observe the law as white Jews do. They are most numerous at Cochin. Many of the black Jews, however, assert that their ancestors became Jews when Haman fell, and affirm (though the white Jews deny it) that they were there when the white Jews came to India. They consider themselves as slaves to the white Jews, pay their yearly tribute and a small sum for the circumcision of their children, and for per mission to wear frontlets in prayer time. They do not sit down with the white, Jews, nor eat with them.
Kukel Kelu Nair is of opinion that at the time of the grant of three of the copperplate docu ments in the Jews' possession, and possessed by the Christian church there, two towns, viz. Mani-gramman, which Irani Korten of Mahadeva Patnam obtained by No. 1 in A.D. 230, and Achu Vanam, which Joseph Roben, a Jew, obtained by No. 3 in A.D. 186, were chiefly inhabited by Jews and Syrian Christians ; and he thinks that document No. 2 was granted in A.D. 316 by the last Perumal to the Tarisa Palli or church. It is obvious that Jews and Syrian Christians must have arrived in Malabar before the date of the documents 1 and 3. The Jews there have not much increased. In the food, the clothing of the men, and language, the Syrian Christians are not to be distinguished from the Hindus, and few of them know the Syrian language. The Jews are in many of these respects similar, and some of them are black in colour. Many of them possess gardens and lands, and follow trades.
One legend of the Afghans is that were Jews whom Nebuchadnezzar transplanted, after the overthrow of Jerusalem, to the town of Ghor, near Bamian, and that they continued in their faith till Kalid, in the first century of Muhammadanism, summoned them to assist in the wars with the infidels. Another tradition is
to the effect that they are descended from Afghan, son of Irmia or Berkia, son of Saul, king of Israel ; but the Hebrews have no knowledge of such persons as Saul's descendants. Another tradition is that they are descended from Saul's father Kish. But Muhammad Hayat Khan, C.S.I., in his History of Afghanisan and its Inhabitants, states that the earliest mention of this legendary claim on the part of the Afghans occurs in a history of the Afghans, entitled Makhzan-i Afghani, drawn up by Khan Jahan Lodi, an Afghan noble of the court of the emperor Jahangir, with the assistance of his •secretary, Niamat-Ulahi ; that this history was avowedly based on the reports of four servants sent by the author to Afghanistan to make inquiry into the origin of the Afghan race ; that this inquiry was made for the express purpose of furnishing the means of confuting the assertions of a Persian ambassador, who had made uncomplimentary statements regarding the descent of the Afghans ; that the earlier histories referred to in the Makhzan - i -.Afghani — namely, the Majma - i Insah, the Madan - i - Akbar - i - Ahmadi, and the Guzida - Jahan Kusha—trace the lineage of the Afghan no further than Kais Abd-ur-Rashid, who lived in the time of Maltomed.
All the Jews of Turkestan assert that the Turko man are the descendants of Togarmah, one of the sons of Gomer, mentioned in Genesis x. 3.
The Jews in Bokhara are 10,000 in number. The chief rabbi assured Dr. Wolff that Bokhara is the Habor, and Balkh, the Halah of 2 Kings xvii. 6 ; but that in the reign of Chengiz Khan they lost all their written accounts. At Balkh the Muhammadan mullahs assured him that it was built by a son of Adam, that its first name had been Hanakh, and afterwards Halah, though later writers called it Balakh or Balkh. The Jews both of Balkh and Samarcand asserted that Turkestan is the land of Nod, and Balkh, where Nod once stood. The Jews of Bokhara bear a mark, by order of the king, in order that no Muhammadan may give them salaam or peace. He thought the general physiognomy not Jewish, but he was wonderfully struck with the resem blance that the Yusufzai and the Khaibari, two of their tribes, bear to the Jews.