The Laguna Copper-Plate Inscription: Text and Commentary

By Antoon Postma
Ateneo de Manila University

The Laguna Copper Plate Inscription (LCI)

 Considered as the oldest calendar-dated Philippine “document”

 Written in a copper sheet, measuring about 20 cm by 20 cm, with an inscription in 10 lines of finely written
characters

Contents of LCI

 An acquittal of debt incurred by a person in high office

 10th line in inscription: a warning to anyone who will wuestion or doubt the truth of the document.
 10th line ends in a mid-sentence; which infers that there is a continuation of the inscription or a second page
perhaps.

Date and Provenance of the LCI

 Written Date: Saka date of 822 or 900 A.D.

 Discovered with a mechanical conveyor in the Lumbang River by local companies along Laguna de Bay in the
Province of Laguna
 Date of Discovery: 1987
 Many residents have reported to find similar copper plate inscriptions around 1987. Thus, there could be a
possibility for the second page of the LCI to be found in a junkyard or lost to posterity.

Translation of the LCI

Line Translation of Text

1 Hail! In the Saka-year 822; the month of March–April; according to the astronomer: the fourth day of the
dark half of the moon; on

2 Monday. At that time, Lady Angkatan together with her relative, Bukah by name,

3 the child of His Honor Namwaran, was given, as a special favor, a document of full acquittal, by the Chief
and Commander of Tundun

4 representing the Leader of Pailah, Jayadewa. This means that His Honor Namwran, through the Honorable
Scribe

5 was totally cleared of a salary-related debt of 1 kati and 8 suwarna (weight of gold): in the presence of His
Honor the Leader of Puliran,

6 Kasumuran; His Honor the Leader of Pailah, representing Ganasakti; (and) His Honor the Leader

7 of Binwangan, representing Bisruta. And, with his whole family, on orders of the Chief of Dewata

8 representing the Chief of Mdang, because of his loyalty as a subject (slave?) of the Chief, therefore all the
descendants
 9 of his Honor Namwaran have been cleared of the whole debt that His Honor owed the Chief of Dewata.
This (document) is (issued) in case

10 there is someone, whosoever, sometime in the future, who will state that the debt is not yet acquitted of
His Honor...

Line 10 of the LCI ends mid-sentence

Authenticity and Script

 Authentic and genuine, hard to falsify at the present time.

 The location of the places mentioned in the LCI was thought to be situated in the Philippines.
 Type of Script: Kawi Script
- Employed in Indonesia for a period of 200 years.
- Pllava Script- lies the root of Kawi script, 6th century, used on Indian mainland, and spread into southeast
asia and further into the Malayan archipelago.
 Script is well executed, in a regular style and does not present great difficulties in reading.

The Language

 Main language used: Old Malay Language

 Because of the development of Old Malay, other forms of this language such as Sriwijaya Inscriptions were
not identical but is certainly related.
 Reasons for it to be written in Old Malay:
1. OM is the lingua franca of the Malayan area.
- Lingua franca: language spoken by several nations outside of their vicinity, such as English.
- LCI might have been issued by recognized authorities outside of the Philippines
2. Inscriptions were written by Sriwijayan authorities in Sumatera Selatan, where OM was the vernacular
and current language of communication.
 Some words in the LCI were part of the Old Javanese Language such as ngaran (name) and pamgat
(pamagat-leader or Chief)
- Pamgat (pamagat) was repeatedly mentioned in the text ( specifically 5 times) and considered as
common honorific reference to Chiefs or important persons.

Personal and Place Names

 Pulilan, the old name for Laguna de Bay area, according to some old Tagalog dictionaries, might be
considered as one of the equivalents of LCI Puliran (mentioned in line 5).
 Map of Bulacan Province
- Pulilan is also a name for a place in the Bulacan Province, along the Angat river.
- At the headwaters of Angat river, the village of Paila (mentioned in line 6) is found.
- At the mouth of Bulacan River, the Village of Binwangan (mentioned in line 7) is found, belonging to the
municipality of Obando
- North of Calumpit, the village of Gatbuca is found (may refer to the name Bukah in line 2 of the LCI)
 At the mouth of Pasig river, the district of Tondo is found ( may refer to Tundun in line 3 of LCI)

 Suprisingly, these places are surrounded by rivers, which could tell us that they might make use of these
rivers as effective ways of transportation. These rivers are connected to open sea such as the South China
sea (currently known as West Philippine sea) which could be used by seafaring traders of China and South
east Asia to access the interior trading centers.
Gold, Debt, Slavery and Class

 The Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala of Fr. Pedro de Buenaventura and Fr. Francisco Blancas de San Jose
was used as primary source to familiarized with the theme of the inscription.

 Gold
- One of the richest vocabularies in the whole dictionary is that pertaining to metallurgy and metal-
working.
- Gold was subdivided in accordance with its karat contents
 24 karat or the “Dalisay” gold
 Hotoc gold- mixed with silver and copper that it could hardly be called gold at all

 “Hutang” or Debt
- Could have a 100% interest on a daily, monthly or yearly basis or an interest added only upon payment
which could be as low as 50% to as high as 150%.
- Degrees of payment of debt
1. Though gold, if not possible then
2. Through land properties, if still not possible then
3. Though Temporary Service to the person indebted, and if still not possible then
4. Through forced slavery.
- Bayar: means to pay, a word used in the dictionary to describe buying or selling of slaves

 Slavery
- The Enslavement Ladder
1. The “namamahay” slave –the slave who could live with his family in a house of his own and still
work for his master.
2. The “sagigilir” slave- the slave who is claimed total ownership of him and his family by his master.
- The maharlika or freed slaves are treated as timawa, a commoner or a person who had never been a
slave before.

 Class
- Social Recognition in the pre-Spanish Philippine Society
1st : Principalities, Chiefs (Datu or Maginoo), Leaders
2nd : Timawa and Maharlika
3rd : The Slaves

 These social structures in gold, debt, slavery, and class did not spring up immediately. It took a considerable
amount of time for it to develop into a complicated system. Thus, it shows that some social structures might
be also present long before the Spanish Philippine Society.