Man Slaving to Divine: A Socio-religious Custom Gleaned from the Nineteenth Century Palm Leaves

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explore and analyse the practice of the institution of slavery observed by the Syrian Christian communities in Kerala. There are eighteenth and nineteenth century palm leaf (manuscript) records in the Syrian Christian churches in Kerala establishing the same which needs to be understood in its secular and spiritual senses since these records are evidence of both the secular practice of slavery as a social custom and a religious practice of adima (slave) offering as a spiritual activity. So also, this paper is an attempt to explore and analyse the origin of adimappanam or adimakasu found in the Church records.
 Keywords: Syrian Christians; Slavery; Palm leave records; Adima; Adimappanam; Slave offering