Book of Mormon Evidence: Large Collections of Metal Plates

The Book of Mormon indicates that the records kept by Nephite scribes included documents inscribed on metal plates, some of which were substantial. Before the destruction of the Nephites as a people, records that were preserved and hidden included the plates of brass (1 Nephi 5:10–19; Alma 37:3–5), the plates of Nephi (Alma 37:2; 3 Nephi 5:10)—including both the larger (1 Nephi 9:2–4; 1 Nephi 19:2, 4) and smaller set (1 Nephi 6:1; 2 Nephi 5:30–32; Words of Mormon 1:3–7)—the twenty-four plates of Ether (Mosiah 8:9; 28:11; Ether 1:2), the plates of Zeniff’s people (Mosiah 8:5), and the plates from which our current Book of Mormon was translated (Mormon 8:14), including the vision of the brother of Jared (Ether 4:4–5).

This indicates that Nephite record keepers possessed sets of plates of substantial size or quantity (Mosiah 28:20; Alma 63:12–13; 3 Nephi 1:2; 4 Nephi 1:48–49; Mormon 1:3–4; 4:23; 6:6). Evidence suggests that the practice of inscribing important documents on large sets of metal plates, though rare, is also known from other parts of the world.

Buddhist Traditions of Archival Documents on Plates

Buddhist tradition provides evidence that lengthy religious texts were sometimes inscribed on metal plates and preserved for later examination and potential study. According to Kogen Mizuno,

In northern India, toward the end of the first century A.D., the great Kushan-dynasty emperor Kanishka (who like the Emperor Asoka some centuries earlier, was a devout Buddhist and protector of Buddhism) supported a council to compile sutras convened by the Sarvastivadin school, one of the eighteen or twenty schools of Hinayana Buddhism. The Great Commentary (Abhidharma-mahavibhasha-shastra), a philosophical work edited at that council, was engraved on copper plates, which were preserved at the imperial residence in Kashmir.¹

The Chinese traveler Yuan Chwang spent sixteen years in India from AD 629–645, where he made Buddhism an object of intense study. In his autobiography, Chwang relates that at the time of the council, “King Kanishka had the treatises, when finished, written out on copper plates, and enclosed these in stone boxes, which he deposited in a tope made for the purpose. He then ordered the Yakshas to keep and guard the texts, and not allow any to be taken out of the country by heretics; those who wished to study them could do so in the country.”² According to another account of the meeting related by Paramartha (AD 499–569), the commentaries consisted of 1,000,000 verses.³ While the records were to remain in their repository, “anyone desirous of learning the law could come to Kashmir and was in no way interrupted.”⁴

Although such plates have not turned up in the archaeological record, the story reflects an ancient belief that important and lengthy religious texts were sometimes recorded on metal plates for preservation and future use. Collections of metal plates, including some rediscovered in the twentieth century, indicate that abundant inscriptions on metal were indeed preserved for archival purposes.

The Hindu Copper Plates of Annamayya

Tallapaka Annamayya or Annamacharya was a fifteenth century Hindu saint, poet, and musical composer who lived and worshipped at the hill-top shrine of Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh in southern India. The temple complex is visited by millions every year. At the age of sixteen, Annamayya reportedly experienced a dream or vision in which the god Venkatesvara Vishnu appeared to him. At that time he began composing hymns in praise of this god. He is said to have composed a poem or hymn every day for seventy-nine years from AD 1424 until his death in AD 1503.⁵ “He was,” as one scholar notes, among “the first few who opposed the social stigma towards the untouchable casters in his era” and some of his songs emphasize that “the relationship between god and human is the same irrespective of the latter’s colour, caste and financial status.”⁶

In a recent book on Annamayya and his writings, Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman report that “approximately thirteen thousand of Annamayya’s poems were inscribed, perhaps during his lifetime, on some 2,289 copper plates that were kept in a vaultlike room in the temple.”⁷ The unexpected discovery of this remarkable collection was made in 1922.⁸ A complete set of their contents was printed in 1998 and constitutes twenty-nine volumes published in the Telugu language.⁹

The discovery of such a large collection of metal inscriptions was extraordinary. As Rao and Shulman note, “the process of inscribing thousands of poems on copper plates was definitely long and costly––possibly the most expensive publishing venture in the history of premodern South Asia––and reveals something of the affluence that was generated around Annamayya’s name.”¹⁰ It is not known why or how, after his death, the inscriptions of his writings were forgotten for nearly four hundred years.

Additional copies of Annamayya’s poems have turned up on copper plates at other Hindu temples in southern India.¹¹ A collection of thirty-five copper plates from the temple at Ahibilam, for example, contains some of his compositions. Copper plates with his songs were sometimes bound together in sets of five, each held together by a thick ring. These could then be carried on poles through the villages with singers following in procession as the music was performed.¹²

The copper plates of Annamayya are not only significant because of the number of plates, but also because it shows how a significant corpus of metal documents could be hidden and remain unknown for a long period of time. Their fortuitous rediscovery provides a notable correspondence with the Book of Mormon and other records which were carefully preserved to come forth again at a future time.¹³

Conclusion  

The copper plates of Annamayya are not only significant because of the number of plates that were found, but also because it shows how a significant corpus of metal documents could be hidden up, forgotten, and remain unknown for a long period of time. Their fortuitous rediscovery ninety-two years after the publication of the Book of Mormon, provides a remarkable correspondence with the records created and preserved by Nephite writers to come forth again at an anticipated future day.