9. Paradesi Synagogue Song

Venus Lane. Recorded by Barbara Johnson, Ithaca, February 2007; I-18.

Muḍiyāya ñāyaně munnamě ŏḷḷavaně
Mulppěṭṭu tanně něnippān kanivu tā—něnippān kanivu tā 

1. O God from the beginning, You the highest judge!
You the first and foremost, kindly give us grace; kindly give us grace
To think about You always, to hold You in our minds. 
By the merit of our deeds, stand by us in this place; stand by us in this place.

2. In harmony unite us! May it all go well.
Help us build the paḷḷi, build in harmony; build in harmony
So the Father of the land in this place will dwell,
In the most beloved Paradesi paḷḷi, Paradesi paḷḷi.

3. Only a few people came to celebrate, 
To do the ceremonies with ritual and drum, with ritual and drum.
But then the king of the land came and stayed with us, 
And so, for the holy deed, we had some others come; we had some others come.

4. In front of the three Patriarchs, we stand here to ask:
Please support us with Your help in this holy task, in this holy task.
Uniting in harmony, together as they should,
The paḷḷi they raised up, all doing what they could, all doing what they could.

5. A brightly shining gem, a beloved Sefer^[1] too,
A brightly shining teybah and fine carvings of wood, fine carvings of wood:
What a splendid pleasure, this beauty to behold.
We know it is protected. We see that it is good, see that it is good.

6. An enlightened personage presented as a gift 
A bright and shining lamp of silver so fine, of silver so fine. 
The ever-burning tamid^[2] lamp and carvings of wood,
Like five-colored parrots in harmony they shine, in harmony they shine.

7. When the lamps are burning—all the seventy-eight—
For our One and Only Father to stay—for our Vava to stay,
Inside our beloved Paradesi paḷḷi,
Let us go together and bow down to pray—and bow down to pray.

8. In the two-story building, there is an upstairs room  
For those who desire to come there and pray, to come there and pray.
Another lovely room is also found upstairs,
For prominent people to come inside and pray, come inside and pray.

9. O parrot, you’re the one! In splendor you have come! 
Your beauty and glory you should proudly display, you should proudly display.
By the auspicious Prophet and beloved Mashiya
Lovingly take us to settle down and stay, to settle down and stay.

10. By the Prophet, our protector, and the loving Mashiya,
O God of Justice take us, in love and harmony, in love and harmony.
Settle us united, together in our land,
In good Yerushalayim to dwell in unity, to dwell in unity. 

This is one of two Malayalam songs about the Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancherry Kochi, which was initially constructed in 1568, partially destroyed by the Portuguese in 1662, and rebuilt shortly thereafter (Bar-Giora 1958, 226; Segal 1993, 38,110). A complete version of the song translated here is found in three Paradesi books, one dated from the nineteenth century. A quite similar version—but without stanzas 5–7 and lacking any particular reference to the Paradesi paḷḷi—was discovered by Ophira Gamliel in two notebooks from Kadavumbhagam-Kochi. We have built our translation and comments on the longer version, as translated earlier by Ruby Daniel and Scaria Zacharia, whereas Gamliel’s translation and interpretation (2009, 267–273, 469–471) are significantly different from ours.

For the sake of rhythm and authenticity, several Hebrew words have been included without translation in this song and explained in footnotes.

The song opens with an extended prayer that members of the community be united in their intention to build a paḷḷi as a dwelling place for God the Father (Vava). In stanza 3, they gather for a ritual to celebrate the commencement of the building project; this is comparable to rituals mentioned in songs about the other two Kochi synagogues 8 and 10). Participation by the king of the land echoes royal patronage in the building of other Kerala synagogues (songs 4 and 5), along with the tradition of the Kochi Raja’s special relationship with the Paradesi community. 

A phrase in stanza 3 presents difficulties in translation that were bypassed earlier by Daniel and Zacharia. Venus Lane suggests that the puzzling term “four mouths” in the last line of the stanza, translated here as “some others,” might come from the Jewish Malayalam saying, “Why don’t you ask four people?”—a stock response to the need for at least a few more people to participate in an event or give an opinion about a matter. Taking “mouths” literally, we can understand that the phrase might refer to gathering at least a few more women to make the joyous kurava sound of ululation. Drumming and ululation are also portrayed in describing the synagogue dedication celebrations in song 10. 

Stanzas 5–7 of the longer Paradesi version celebrate details of the beautiful synagogue interior, including seventy-eight shining oil lamps, many of them hanging by chains from the ceiling in brass holders. One of these lamps was donated by a prominent or “enlightened” man—a likely reference to the British official Colonel Colin Macaulay, who donated a silver lamp to the Paradesi synagogue in 1807.^[3] The brightly painted carvings (presumably on the wooden ceiling and on the ark) are compared to the brilliance of a five-colored parrot—the same bird mentioned in “Oh Lovely Parrot” (song 1a).

As in songs 7 and 8, stanza 8 of this song expresses a particularly female experience of the paḷḷi. It focuses on two spaces on the upper level, each referred to in Malayalam as a mādam or upstairs room. The one immediately behind the upper tebah, separated from it by a latticed partition, would be the maṇamāra-mādam mentioned in the second part of the verse, where the “prominent people” sit and pray. The descriptor maṇamāra suggests a lovely, decorated place, comparable to the maṇāra constructed from silk hangings to form a symbolic bridal chamber for wedding celebrations or a temporary ark for the Torah scrolls on Simḥat Torah. Though the women’s section adjoining the upper tebah is not actually decorated, it is a pleasant place with comfortable wooden chairs and couches, in contrast to the plain and unfurnished upstairs room in the entrance building. Older Paradesi Jews today still remember the seats in the more comfortable room, unofficially “reserved” for the older women of prominent families. The māḷiga-mādam mentioned first in the song may be the upstairs of the separate entrance building, connected by a covered breezeway to the women’s section above the sanctuary. This space was used in earlier times by younger women, women from less prominent families, and/or visiting non-members—especially when there was an overflow crowd of women during festivals. Within more recent memory, the breezeway itself has been used for this purpose.^[4]

The song concludes by welcoming a splendid parrot to see the synagogue and then requesting God to take the Jews, led by the Prophet (Elijah) and the Messiah (Mashiya), to settle in Jerusalem.     

Like the songs 6 and 8, this was a song without a recorded melody until it was “tuned” for this translation project, in order to represent the synagogues of as many Kerala Jewish communities as possible. Venus Lane set it to a Kerala tune for Yom Zeh leYisra’el (’Areshet 1980, 246), a Hebrew piyyut attributed to the seventeenth century Rabbi Isaac Luria (Ha’Ari). The same melody was used by Paradesi women in 1977 to record songs 18 and 19—both blessing songs for the festive table.

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^[1] Sefer is the Hebrew word for book, used also in Jewish Malayalam, and capitalized here for respect when it refers to a Torah scroll, handwritten by a trained scribe and kept inside the ark except when it is properly removed.  

^[2]Tamid is the Kerala Jewish term for the ner tamid (Hebrew: everlasting light), which should be kept continually alight in any synagogue

^[3] This lamp with the Macaulay inscription is now located in the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, catalogued as item 68.80.3. See photo and Johnson, in Spagnolo 2013, 10n11. See also Fischel 1960, 162–164.

^[4] See Eliyahu-Oron and Johnson 2021, 132–140 for these and other details about the history and architecture of the Paradesi Synagogue.