during the granting of the Thomas of Cana copper plates is long lost because for the last 779 years the inhabitants of Kerala have been using the Coulao Era or Kollam calendar (Kollavarsham). Ros states that the "copper original" of the plates were taken to Portugal by the Religious of St. Francis, who only left a copy of the plates in Kerala. Ros gives the following summarized account of the copper plate grant: "Before the full moon, the same king Coquarangon being in Carnelur, there arrived in a ship Thomas Caneneo, a chief man, who had resolved to see the uttermost part of the East, and some men, seeing him as he arrived, went to inform the king. And the king himself came and saw and called said chief man Thomas and he disembarked and came before the king who spoke graciously to him; and to honor him he gave him in surname his own name, calling him Coquarangon Caneneo. And he received this honor from the king and went to rest in his place. And the king gave him the city of Magoderpatanam forever. And the said king, being in his great prosperity, went one day to hunt in the forest, and the same king surrounded the whole forest and he called in haste for Thomas, who came and stood before the king in a lucky hour, and the king questioned the soothsayer. And the king afterwards spoke to Thomas saying that he would build a city in that forest. And he answered to the king first making reverence and said: "I desire this forest for myself". And the king granted it to him and gave it forever. And at once, the next day he cleared the forest and cast his eyes on it in the same year, on the eleventh of April, and gave it as an inheritance to Thomas at the time and day aforesaid, in the King's name, who laid the first brick for the church and for the house of Thomas Caneneo, and made there a city for all (of them) and entered the church and there made prayer the same day. After these things, Thomas himself went to the king's palaces and offered him presents, and afterwards he asked the king to give that land to him and to his descendants; and he measured two hundred and sixty-four elephant cubits, and gave them to