Nestorian Stele
Hnanisho is named in both Syriac and Chinese in a conventional dating formula at the end of the main inscription on the Nestorian Stele erected in Ch'angan by the metropolitan Adam of Beth Sinaye (China) in February 781. The Syriac text reads 'In the days of the father of fathers the catholicus-patriarch Mar Hnanisho ("b'yawmi aba d'abahatha Mar Hnanisho qatoliqa patrirqis")'. The Chinese text reads 'when the monk Ning-Shu was governing the brilliant congregations of the East'. The news of Hnanisho's death several months earlier had evidently not yet reached the Nestorians of Chang'an.