Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Paradēsi

by Edgar Thurston

Paradēsi. — Recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a class of Malayālam beggars. The name indicates strangers (paradēsa, a foreign country), and is applied to the White Jews of Cochin, in connection with whom it occurs in Sirkar (State) accounts and royal writs granted to them.