C A R A G A STATe U NIVeRSITy

Ampayon, Butuan City 8600, Philippines

URL: www.carsu.edu.ph

THE LAGUNA COPPERPLATE

INSCRIPTION
SULAT SA TANSO
A PHILIPPINE DOCUMENT FROM 900 A.D

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The Laguna Copperplate Inscription (LCI)

 The earliest known Philippine

historical document found
locally.
 A declared National Cultural
Treasure, the artifact was
discovered in 1989 in Lumbang,
Laguna.
 It is now under the custody of
the National Museum of the
Philippines.

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 It is written in Kawi, the indigenous writing system in
Java, Indonesia and predated baybayin and other
related indigenous scripts of the country.

 It is about the granting of the ruler of Dewata (now

part of Butuan City) of perpetual freedom from debt
to a certain family in Luzon, testified by the ruler of
Tundun (now Tondo, Manila) and ruled by the court of
the Kingdom of Mdang (now in Java, Indonesia).

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 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LCI

 First of which was through the initiative of the late

naturalized Filipino anthropologist Antoon Postma in
the early 1990s who sought the knowledge of the
Dutch paleographer J. Casparis on Kawi.

 The language used in the document could be a

proto-Tondo Austronesian vernacular, as it has
attributes of old Tagalog and old Malay.

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 In 1989, Ernesto Legisma, a man from Lumbang
Laguna found an uncovered blackened roll of metal

 He offered the copperplate to one of the antique

dealers in the area and the dealer eventually sold it to
the Philippine National Museum for 2,000 pesos in 1990.

 Postma's exposure to Dutch studies on Indonesian

paleography made LCI an artifact to the National
Museum

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 LOCATION OF LCI

 Postma's original interpretation to the place names in

the LCI was these were located along the Angat
River-Pampanga River-Manila Bay complex--Pailah in
the document is the Sitio Paila, San Mateo,
Norzagaray, Bulacan province (part of the headwater
of Angat River); Puliran is the now Pulilan, Bulacan,
also along Angat River;

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 LOCATION OF LCI

 Binoangan is Binuangan, Obando, Bulacan; and the

ruler named Bukah in the document was likely the
derivation of the place name Gatbuca, a barangay
in Calumpit, Bulacan where Angat River and
Pampanga River meet (gat was an ancient Tagalog-
Kapampangan honorific title for noblemen).

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 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LCI

 Laguna historian Jaime Tiongson introduced another

interesting interpretation: the context of the complex
of Laguna de Bai (Lake of Bai, from which the name of
the present day province of Laguna ['lake' in Spanish]
was derived). Aside from the fact that the document
was found in Lumbang River, which connects Laguna
de Bai to the sea, Pailah was actually the archaic
name of the lake town of Pila, now part of Laguna;
and Puliran was the pre-Hispanic name of Laguna de
Bai.

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 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LCI

 The LCI is just one of the proofs how integrated Luzon,

Mindanao, Java, and India more than 600 years
before the Magellan-Elcano expedition arrived to the
Visayas.

 Indeed, we have history before the Spaniards came.

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 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LCI

 The Laguna Copperplate Inscription would be the

“starting point of the Philippine history.

 Way back to 900 A.D. or 621 years earlier than the

previous discovery accepted date of 1521 when
Antonio Pigafetta wrote his observation during his
voyage with Magellan.

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 CONTENT OF LCI

 The LCI seems to be a semi-official certificate of

acquittal of a debt incurred by a person in high office,
together with his whole family, all relatives and
descendants. The debt mentioned involved a
substantial amount in gold, that apparently was still
unpaid. The tenth or last line of the LCI seems to be a
warning to any one who might questions or doubt the
truth of the document.

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 TRANSLATION OF LCI

 (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) Mon- day. At that
time, Lady Angkatan together with her relative, Bukah
by name, (3) the child of His Honor Namwran, was
given, as a special favor, a docu- ment of full
acquittal, by the Chief and Commander2 of Tundun
(4) repre- senting the Leader of Pailah, Jayade~a.~
This means that His Honor Namwran, through the
Honorable Scribe

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 TRANSLATION OF LCI

(5) was totally cleared of a sal- ary-related5 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 Bin- wangan, representing
Bisruta. And, with his whole family, on orders of the Chief
of Dewata (a), representing the Chief of Mdang,
because of his loy- alty as a subject (slave?)' of the
Chief, therefore all the descendants

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 TRANSLATION OF LCI

(9) of his Honor Namwran 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, some time in the future, who will state that
the debt is not yet acquitted of His Honor. . .B

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 The last sentence on the copperplate is incomplete,
indicating that there was at least one more page to
the document. Unfortunately, none has been found
so far.

In the Philippines before, an unpaid debt usually

resulted in slavery not only for the person concerned
but also for his family and his descendants.

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 AUTHENTICITY AND SCRIPT

 Fortunately, some of the foremost experts in the

fields of Paleography and Old Malayan languages
assured that the LCI is genuine and authentic,
based on the identical script-type known to have
existed during the tenth century, and the
correctness of the languages employed, substantial
elements that would be hard to imitate or falsify at
the present time without being noticed by the
experts.

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 AUTHENTICITY AND SCRIPT

 They gave credence to the theories regarding the

location of the toponyms or placenames mentioned
in the LCI, that I thought to be situated in the
Philippines.

 The type of script used in the LCI belongs to the so-

called Early Kawi script that was also employed in
the inscriptions that were found in Indonesia during a
period of almost two hundred years (about 750-925
AD

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 OTHER DISCOVERIES

The 14-15th century The 10th century

Butuan silver strip Butuan ivory seal

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OTHER DISCOVERIES

the 15th century Calatagan jar

THANK YOU!

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 References:

 Postma, Antoon. “The Laguna Copper-Plate Inscription:

Text and Commentary.” Philippine Studies, vol. 40, no. 2,
1992, pp. 183–203. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/42633308.

 Museo ng Muntinlupa

 National Quincentennial Committee, Republic of the

Philippines

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