Bidspirit auction | (INDIA). Seder Tephiloth Shevachoth VeShirim.

(INDIA). Seder Tephiloth Shevachoth VeShirim. Title printed in red and black. Printer’s device on final page. ff. (2), 78. Lightly browned and stained, small blank portion of title removed. Contemporary gilt-ruled mottled calf, rubbed. Sm. 8vo. Vinograd, Amsterdam 1761; Y. Goldman, India Catalogue no. 28 (this copy). Amsterdam, The Brothers Proops, 1757. First edition of prayerbook containing festival and occasional prayers according to the rite of the Jews of Cochin and Cranganore. The volume includes prayers and customs unique to the Cochin community of Kerala, Southern India. Includes prayers relating to the conversion and circumcision of non-Jews. Although Halachic practice strongly discourages conversion, since servitude was an acceptable part of Cochini life, Gentile servants were apparently converted to Judaism with a minimum of delay. See O. Slapak, The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities (1995), pp. 27-35, 63, 68. The Catalogue of the Hebrew Books in the Library of the British Museum (p. 455) amusingly notes this liturgy to be according to the rite of Ceylon! - Perhaps linking the Hebrew “Shingli” with that of Singhalese, the language spoken in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).