Printing in Tamil language
Encyclopedia
The introduction and early development of printing
in South India
is attributed to missionary
propaganda and the endeavours of the British East India Company
. Among the pioneers in this arena, maximum attention is claimed by the Jesuit missionaries,followed by the Protestant Fathers and Hindu pundits. Once the immigrants realized the importance of the local language, they began to disseminate their religious teachings in the local language, in effect ushering in the vernacular print culture in India. The first Tamil
booklet was printed in 1554 (February 11) in Lisbon
- Carthila e lingoa Tamul e. Portugues in Romanized Tamil script by Vincente de Nazareth, Jorge Carvalho and Thoma da Cruz. it is also the first non-European language to find space in the modern printing culture in the world.
These developments took place at a time when other locations such as Madurai
were still confined to the use of copper plates and stone inscriptions. This book was printed earlier than the first printed and dated books of Russia (1563), Africa (1624) and Greece (1821).
appearance in print
, both in Roman transliteration and its script was the result of the convergence between colonial
expansion and local politics, coupled with the efforts of a Portuguese
Jew, Henrique Henriques
who arrived on the Fishery Coast(Tuticorin) in 1547. During his stay Henriques produced five different books in Tamil script and language, printed at various Jesuit settlements on the west coast. He also compiled a Tamil Grammar and a Tamil Dictionary, which, though never printed, were widely used by other Europeans. Graham Shaw speaks of Henriques as, “the first great European Scholar of any Indian language" (Stuart Blackburn).
Around 1575 Henriques was relived of his missionary duties on the east coast and moved to Goa where he began to prepare his texts. Henriques there was assisted by Father Pero Luis,who entered the Jesuit order in 1562. The stage was finally set when Tamil types were cast in Goa by Joao Goncalves (perfected by Father Joao da Faria in Kollam), with the assistance of Luis.
In 1577 the first of the Henriques’ five books, Doctrina Christam en Lingua Malauar Tamul – Tampiran Vanakam was printed in Goa.
The book was the first book with Indian type. Although some scholars refuse to consider this as a historical fact, Graham Shaw
seems convinced that it was printed. The second printed Tamil book was only 16 pages long, but a third Catechism
of 127 pages, a Tamil translation of the popular Portuguese text by Marcos Jorge, was printed again with new type in Cochin on November 14, 1579. Three Catechisms were printed with three sets of type, at three different locations on the west coast over the following three years . Henriques’ two other books printed at Cochin were:
’s Catechism, Nanopatecam, printed posthumously in three volumes: Volume 1 in 1677 followed by Volumes 2 and 3 in 1678. The second text was Antem De Proenca’s Tamil-Portuguese Dictionary of 1679.
Unlike Henriques, Roberto de Nobili
did not translate a Portuguese text into Tamil, instead he wrote his own manual, so that he might emphasize the hidden truths of the new faith.
had been established as early as 1578, but printing activities came to an end owing to a gradual decline in the religious zeal of successive generations of missionaries. Tamil printing stopped after 1612, as the numerous writings of Nobili and Manoel Martin lay unpublished in 1649 and 1660. There were some attempts to revive printing, but they proved short-lived. For instance, we find a reference to a Latin –Tamil grammar by Father Beschi, a Sanskrit scholar, having been printed at Ziegenbalg’s press.
Ziegenbalg explained in a number of letters that the books prepared in the Malabar language to help in the propagation of the Christian
faith, were initially written in Portuguese and then translated into the “Malabarick Language” with the help of Indian assistants. In the absence of a printing press the books that had been prepared up until then had to be transcribed by hand. This proved to be a slow , laborious and expensive process. With the objective of facilitating a wider and faster dissemination of Christian literature, Ziegenbalg in his letter of August 22, 1708, put forth a demand for a “Malabarick and Portuguese printing press”. In the mean time Ziegenbalg devoted considerable attention to collecting manuscripts of Indian literature, as this would help him to understand the old beliefs of the Hindus which he proposed to refute.
In a letter written in 1708, Ziegenbalg speaks of 26 sermons delivered by him at the church of Tranquebar
and two vocabularies of Malabar Language prepared by him. The first consisted of 26,000 words in common use, and had three columns, the first giving the word in Malabar characters, the second its transliteration
and the third it’s meaning in German
. The second contained words used in poetry. For this work Ziegenbalg was assisted by Indian scholars and poets who remained at his house for four months.
Ziegenbalg was keenly aware of the fact that to attain his object he needed a printing press. He made repeated demands for a press in his letters of April – June 1709. The “Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge”, set up in the 1690s, came forward to help under the recommendation of the Rev. A.W. Boehme (the German chaplain to Prince George of Denmark). In 1711 the society sent the mission some copies of the Bible in Portuguese as well as a printing press with pica types and other accessories along with a printer to operate it. The ship was held up by the French near Brazil
, and the printer Jones Finck was arrested but later released. Finck soon succumbed to fever near the Cape of Good Hope
. The printing press reached India in 1712 unaccompanied by its operator. The press, however, started functioning with the help of a German printer–cum–compositor.
Malabar characters were obtained from Europe. A letter dated April 7, 1713 contains a list of 32 books in the Malabar language, original works as well as translations, and 22 books in Portuguese prepared by the missionaries. It is stated that the books in the Malabar language included a Vocabulary written on paper and another written on palm leaves.
According to a letter of January 3, 1714, the work of printing the New Testament
in Tamil had already begun. Another letter of September 27, 1714 states that, “The Four Evangelists
and Acts of the Apostles “, was already printed. Reportedly, this is the oldest Tamil book printed at Tranquebar, a copy of which is available at the Serampore
College Library. From 1715 onwards with the completion of the New Testament, printing activity in Tamil commenced in full swing. In 1715 Ziegenbalg wrote a concise grammar of the Malabar language for use by Europeans and had it printed by 1716. A copy of this book also exists at the Serampore College Library.
Ziegenbalg and his collaborators aimed at spreading their printed work all over India. Consequently, their marketing strategies cajoled them to produce Almanacs which were quite scarce in the country. A Sheet Almanac was printed and sold on the coast of Coromandel
as well as in Malabar and Bengal.
or Tarangampãdi, the growth of the Jesuit missionary Constanzo Beschi
(Viramãmunivar; Constantine Joseph Beschi 1680–1747) was equally significant in revolutionizing the face of Tamil print and literature. The difference in the Christian beliefs of the respective cults gave rise to rigorous disputes and theological debates, which on many occasions even led to violent conflicts resulting in injuries and death. These disputes were carried on by the Lutherans through “printed books and pamphlets", whereas Beschi (due to lack of a Jesuit-owned printing press) mainly concentrated on writing influential pieces of literature. Although printing in Tamil was introduced by the Jesuits, by the eighteenth century the scenario had changed and the domain of the press came to be majority controlled and cultivated by the Protestants. Beschi's efforts in a place populated with thousands of Lutheran converts (mainly Tanjore and Travancore
), grew to become an “alarming”, “arrogant” and “formidable” rival to the already sprawling missionary activities of the Protestant fathers. One particular reason for Beschi’s popularity was, as Blackburn observes, his “Romanish compromises with local customs”. In the books of Muttusami Pillai( Beschi’s Tamil biographer), he is frequently portrayed as a traditional Eastern or Oriental king, adorned with ornate jewellery and chandan on his forehead. Beschi was reportedly favoured by the local rulers, especially Chanda Sahib whom he had served diwan to, thereby making it easier for him to master the language. He was intelligent enough to adopt such means which would undoubtedly benefit him in ways more than one.
Contrary to this image, Beschi has also been examined as a magical Indian “poet-saint” with extraordinary literary skills and persuasion prowess. Beschi’s written works constituted the substructure of modern Tamil literary acculturation. According to sources, Beschi wrote more than twenty books :– dictionaries, epic poetry
, prose collections, grammar, folklore. His major prose essay was Veta Vilakkam which ran to 250 pages. The first bilingual Tamil grammar printed in India is also credited to Beschi. He composed various interlingual dictionaries: Tamil-Latin, Latin-Tamil-Portuguese, and Tamil-French and most importantly the four-way lexicon
Tamil-Tamil Catur-Agarati which comprised meanings, synonyms, rhymes, etc. This book was not printed before 1824. Although it cannot be assumed that his works were well accepted and appreciated by the Protestants, as Blackburn comments, the rival camp unbiasedly “admired Beschi’s literary skills - they printed one of his grammars and another of his books( Vetiyar Olukkam, A Manual for Catechists) became standard reading for them by the nineteenth century…”. Beschi’s Parramarta Kuruvin Kattai or Guru Simpleton was the first printed book of Tamil folktale.
and copyists.
, especially folktales published. Between 1800 and 1835 most printed books in Tamil(dictionaries and grammars aside) were collections of oral tales. Well known literary texts, such as Tirrukkural and Nalatiyar, also appeared in print, but these classical texts were outnumbered by books of oral tales”. The first of these was Vikkiramatittan Katai , a collection of folktales in the framework of a literary tale which appeared in 1804 , followed by the Catamuka Ravanan Katai in 1808; the Mariyatai Raman Katai and Tamilariyum Mantai Katai in 1812; the Pururava Cakravarti Katai in 1819; the Katamantacari , a collection of oral tales in 1820; the Tamil – English bilingual publication of Paramartta Kuruvin Katai (Guru Simpleton) in 1822 (in London) ; a Tamil Pancatantra in 1826 ; the Katacintamani, another collection of oral tales, in 1833; and translations of tales from English, French and Aesop
by the 1850s. Some of these books are still available today.
The rise of the pundit - presses saw growth during the 1830s with Kalvi Vilakkam, the joint venture of Charavanaperumal Aiyar and Vichakaperumal Aiyar in 1834. The press functioned till the 1850s producing more than 50 books. This was followed by the Sarasvati Press (1835) of Tiruvenkatachala Mutaliar, and Kalvi Kalanchiyam set up in 1839 by Umapati Mutaliar and his three brothers. These presses quickly became associated with movements in deflecting the missionaries as they started voicing the sentiments of certain sections of the Hindu community.
spearheaded the Saivism cult both in Sri Lanka
and in Tamil Nadu. He was the guardian of pure and pristine Saiva tradition. He established a number of schools for Tamil and Saivism and printing presses at Jaffna
, Chidambaram
and Madras. He was the most fluent Tamil speaker and writer of his generation. At the age of 27, Arumugam was conferred the title of “Navalar”, the eloquent.
In the context of printing, Arumuka Navalar or Arumuga Navalar was an editor of old Tamil texts. Among his editions the most important are Mantalapurutar’s lexicon cutamani nikantu with commentary (first printed in 1849), the standard medieval grammar Nannūl
with a commentary (1851), the early devotional poem Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai, Manikkavacakar’s great devotional poems Tiruvacakam and tirukkovaiyar, the text of Tirukkuṛaḷ
with Parimelazhagar
’s detailed gloss in 1861.
Arumuga Navalar apparently introduced few novel features in the area of Tamil editing. He was probably the first to use punctuation marks like the semicolon, the question mark and the exclamation mark. He produced the first “split” complex sandhi forms to facilitate reading and comprehension.
was established under the patronage of the Marquis of Hastings in 1817. Soon after a similar society was set up in Madras. The association in South India soon languished, and for many years it virtually ceased to exist. It was revived around 1850, when prizes were offered for the best school book on specified subjects. Several new publications were thus secured of which, The History of India by H. Morris Esq., was very successful.
The publications of the Madras School Book Society being chiefly used in Government Schools such that religious sentiments were adapted accordingly. The committee of the Madras Tract Society issued some books with Christian elements intended specially for mission schools Classified catalogue of Tamil printed books,with introductory notices. Though reading books of the Madras School Book society were prepared with special reference to the government schools, the committee was not restricted to non–Christian publications. The Rev. A.R. Symonds suggested that the society should make an effort to provide wholesome and attractive literature. Prizes were also offered for the best translation of Robinson Crusoe
.
, a well-known Tamil scholar convinced Coote to hand over the press, only on agreement that the printing demands of Fort St. George would be given maximum importance. In 1762 itself, the SPCK press published a calendar and several Tamil books, “pre-dating the books printed in Calcutta and Bombay at least by a decade”.
By 1766, Vepery got its own press supplemented with its own print equipment. Therefore, the presses confiscated from Pondichérry were returned to Fort St George, which led to the establishment of the Government Press in Mount Road. The Vepery Press was renamed as the SPCK Press; Johann Philipp Fabricius being its managerial head, who composed and printed a Tamil book on Catechism (1766) with typefaces cut in Germany (Halle). By the next decade typecases were produced by the SPCK Press itself and they lasted until the 1870s. Books printed included Fabricius’s Translation of the New Testament (1772); his Dictionary of Tamil and English, based on Ziegenbalg’s Malabar English Dictionary(1779) which came out 100 years after Antão da Proença’s Tamil-Portuguese Dictionary of 1679; and Oru Paratecyin Punyacaritram (a translation of Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress (1793). This press was sold to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
(the American Board Mission or ABM) in Çintadaripet in the mid 19th century. When the ABM left India in 1886 the press was reacquired by the SPCK–Diocesan committee and renamed the Diocesan Press that still exists today, almost 250 years later, as the CLS Press.
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
in South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
is attributed to missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
propaganda and the endeavours of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. Among the pioneers in this arena, maximum attention is claimed by the Jesuit missionaries,followed by the Protestant Fathers and Hindu pundits. Once the immigrants realized the importance of the local language, they began to disseminate their religious teachings in the local language, in effect ushering in the vernacular print culture in India. The first Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
booklet was printed in 1554 (February 11) in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
- Carthila e lingoa Tamul e. Portugues in Romanized Tamil script by Vincente de Nazareth, Jorge Carvalho and Thoma da Cruz. it is also the first non-European language to find space in the modern printing culture in the world.
These developments took place at a time when other locations such as Madurai
Madurai
Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...
were still confined to the use of copper plates and stone inscriptions. This book was printed earlier than the first printed and dated books of Russia (1563), Africa (1624) and Greece (1821).
Henriques and the sixteenth century
TamilTamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
appearance in print
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
, both in Roman transliteration and its script was the result of the convergence between colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
expansion and local politics, coupled with the efforts of a Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
Jew, Henrique Henriques
Henrique Henriques
Henrique Henriques , was Portuguese Jesuit priest and missionary who spent most of his life and missionary activities in South India. After initial years in Goa he moved to Tamil Nadu where he mastered Tamil and wrote several books including a dictionary...
who arrived on the Fishery Coast(Tuticorin) in 1547. During his stay Henriques produced five different books in Tamil script and language, printed at various Jesuit settlements on the west coast. He also compiled a Tamil Grammar and a Tamil Dictionary, which, though never printed, were widely used by other Europeans. Graham Shaw speaks of Henriques as, “the first great European Scholar of any Indian language" (Stuart Blackburn).
Around 1575 Henriques was relived of his missionary duties on the east coast and moved to Goa where he began to prepare his texts. Henriques there was assisted by Father Pero Luis,who entered the Jesuit order in 1562. The stage was finally set when Tamil types were cast in Goa by Joao Goncalves (perfected by Father Joao da Faria in Kollam), with the assistance of Luis.
In 1577 the first of the Henriques’ five books, Doctrina Christam en Lingua Malauar Tamul – Tampiran Vanakam was printed in Goa.
The book was the first book with Indian type. Although some scholars refuse to consider this as a historical fact, Graham Shaw
Graham Shaw
Graham Laurence Shaw, was an English football player who played for Sheffield United between 1951–1967, in the position of left-back.-Career:...
seems convinced that it was printed. The second printed Tamil book was only 16 pages long, but a third Catechism
Catechism
A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...
of 127 pages, a Tamil translation of the popular Portuguese text by Marcos Jorge, was printed again with new type in Cochin on November 14, 1579. Three Catechisms were printed with three sets of type, at three different locations on the west coast over the following three years . Henriques’ two other books printed at Cochin were:
- A Confessionary (Confessionairo) 1580 (214 pages)
- Lives of Saints (Flos Sanctorum), 1586 (669 pages)
Roberto De Nobili and the seventeenth century
In the 17th century, Tamil books were printed at Ambalakad with type made in Rome. Only five in number and printed within a space of two years, these books might be called the second phase of Tamil printing. There were five books but only two texts. The first was Roberto De NobiliRoberto de Nobili
Roberto de Nobili was an Italian Jesuit missionary to Southern India. He used a novel method of adaptation to preach Christianity, adopting many local customs of India which were, in his view, not contrary to Christianity.Born in Montepulciano, Tuscany in September 1577, Roberto de Nobili arrived...
’s Catechism, Nanopatecam, printed posthumously in three volumes: Volume 1 in 1677 followed by Volumes 2 and 3 in 1678. The second text was Antem De Proenca’s Tamil-Portuguese Dictionary of 1679.
Unlike Henriques, Roberto de Nobili
Roberto de Nobili
Roberto de Nobili was an Italian Jesuit missionary to Southern India. He used a novel method of adaptation to preach Christianity, adopting many local customs of India which were, in his view, not contrary to Christianity.Born in Montepulciano, Tuscany in September 1577, Roberto de Nobili arrived...
did not translate a Portuguese text into Tamil, instead he wrote his own manual, so that he might emphasize the hidden truths of the new faith.
Ziegenbalg and printing in Tranquebar
Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg was the pioneer in the set up of a printing press at Madras. In South India the printing pressPrinting press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
had been established as early as 1578, but printing activities came to an end owing to a gradual decline in the religious zeal of successive generations of missionaries. Tamil printing stopped after 1612, as the numerous writings of Nobili and Manoel Martin lay unpublished in 1649 and 1660. There were some attempts to revive printing, but they proved short-lived. For instance, we find a reference to a Latin –Tamil grammar by Father Beschi, a Sanskrit scholar, having been printed at Ziegenbalg’s press.
Ziegenbalg explained in a number of letters that the books prepared in the Malabar language to help in the propagation of the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
faith, were initially written in Portuguese and then translated into the “Malabarick Language” with the help of Indian assistants. In the absence of a printing press the books that had been prepared up until then had to be transcribed by hand. This proved to be a slow , laborious and expensive process. With the objective of facilitating a wider and faster dissemination of Christian literature, Ziegenbalg in his letter of August 22, 1708, put forth a demand for a “Malabarick and Portuguese printing press”. In the mean time Ziegenbalg devoted considerable attention to collecting manuscripts of Indian literature, as this would help him to understand the old beliefs of the Hindus which he proposed to refute.
In a letter written in 1708, Ziegenbalg speaks of 26 sermons delivered by him at the church of Tranquebar
Tranquebar
Tharangambadi is a panchayat town in Nagapattinam district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, 15 km north of Karaikal, near the mouth of a distributary of the Kaveri River. Its name means "place of the singing waves"...
and two vocabularies of Malabar Language prepared by him. The first consisted of 26,000 words in common use, and had three columns, the first giving the word in Malabar characters, the second its transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
and the third it’s meaning in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. The second contained words used in poetry. For this work Ziegenbalg was assisted by Indian scholars and poets who remained at his house for four months.
Ziegenbalg was keenly aware of the fact that to attain his object he needed a printing press. He made repeated demands for a press in his letters of April – June 1709. The “Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge”, set up in the 1690s, came forward to help under the recommendation of the Rev. A.W. Boehme (the German chaplain to Prince George of Denmark). In 1711 the society sent the mission some copies of the Bible in Portuguese as well as a printing press with pica types and other accessories along with a printer to operate it. The ship was held up by the French near Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, and the printer Jones Finck was arrested but later released. Finck soon succumbed to fever near the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
. The printing press reached India in 1712 unaccompanied by its operator. The press, however, started functioning with the help of a German printer–cum–compositor.
Malabar characters were obtained from Europe. A letter dated April 7, 1713 contains a list of 32 books in the Malabar language, original works as well as translations, and 22 books in Portuguese prepared by the missionaries. It is stated that the books in the Malabar language included a Vocabulary written on paper and another written on palm leaves.
According to a letter of January 3, 1714, the work of printing the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
in Tamil had already begun. Another letter of September 27, 1714 states that, “The Four Evangelists
Four Evangelists
In Christian tradition the Four Evangelists are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the authors attributed with the creation of the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament that bear the following titles:*Gospel according to Matthew*Gospel according to Mark...
and Acts of the Apostles “, was already printed. Reportedly, this is the oldest Tamil book printed at Tranquebar, a copy of which is available at the Serampore
Serampore
Serampore is a city and a municipality in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. It is a pre-colonial town on the right bank of the Hoogli River...
College Library. From 1715 onwards with the completion of the New Testament, printing activity in Tamil commenced in full swing. In 1715 Ziegenbalg wrote a concise grammar of the Malabar language for use by Europeans and had it printed by 1716. A copy of this book also exists at the Serampore College Library.
Ziegenbalg and his collaborators aimed at spreading their printed work all over India. Consequently, their marketing strategies cajoled them to produce Almanacs which were quite scarce in the country. A Sheet Almanac was printed and sold on the coast of Coromandel
Coromandel Coast
The Coromandel Coast is the name given to the southeastern coast of the Indian Subcontinent between Cape Comorin and False Divi Point...
as well as in Malabar and Bengal.
Constanzo G. Beschi
Parallel to printing efforts by the Protestant missionaries at TranquebarTranquebar
Tharangambadi is a panchayat town in Nagapattinam district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, 15 km north of Karaikal, near the mouth of a distributary of the Kaveri River. Its name means "place of the singing waves"...
or Tarangampãdi, the growth of the Jesuit missionary Constanzo Beschi
Constanzo Beschi
Constanzo Beschi, also known under his Tamil name of Vīramāmunivar or Constantine Joseph Beschi was an Italian Jesuit priest, Missionary in South India, and renowned poet in the Tamil language.-Early years and formation:Born in Castiglione delle Stiviere, Mantova, Italy, a place very close to...
(Viramãmunivar; Constantine Joseph Beschi 1680–1747) was equally significant in revolutionizing the face of Tamil print and literature. The difference in the Christian beliefs of the respective cults gave rise to rigorous disputes and theological debates, which on many occasions even led to violent conflicts resulting in injuries and death. These disputes were carried on by the Lutherans through “printed books and pamphlets", whereas Beschi (due to lack of a Jesuit-owned printing press) mainly concentrated on writing influential pieces of literature. Although printing in Tamil was introduced by the Jesuits, by the eighteenth century the scenario had changed and the domain of the press came to be majority controlled and cultivated by the Protestants. Beschi's efforts in a place populated with thousands of Lutheran converts (mainly Tanjore and Travancore
Travancore
Kingdom of Travancore was a former Hindu feudal kingdom and Indian Princely State with its capital at Padmanabhapuram or Trivandrum ruled by the Travancore Royal Family. The Kingdom of Travancore comprised most of modern day southern Kerala, Kanyakumari district, and the southernmost parts of...
), grew to become an “alarming”, “arrogant” and “formidable” rival to the already sprawling missionary activities of the Protestant fathers. One particular reason for Beschi’s popularity was, as Blackburn observes, his “Romanish compromises with local customs”. In the books of Muttusami Pillai( Beschi’s Tamil biographer), he is frequently portrayed as a traditional Eastern or Oriental king, adorned with ornate jewellery and chandan on his forehead. Beschi was reportedly favoured by the local rulers, especially Chanda Sahib whom he had served diwan to, thereby making it easier for him to master the language. He was intelligent enough to adopt such means which would undoubtedly benefit him in ways more than one.
Contrary to this image, Beschi has also been examined as a magical Indian “poet-saint” with extraordinary literary skills and persuasion prowess. Beschi’s written works constituted the substructure of modern Tamil literary acculturation. According to sources, Beschi wrote more than twenty books :– dictionaries, epic poetry
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
, prose collections, grammar, folklore. His major prose essay was Veta Vilakkam which ran to 250 pages. The first bilingual Tamil grammar printed in India is also credited to Beschi. He composed various interlingual dictionaries: Tamil-Latin, Latin-Tamil-Portuguese, and Tamil-French and most importantly the four-way lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
Tamil-Tamil Catur-Agarati which comprised meanings, synonyms, rhymes, etc. This book was not printed before 1824. Although it cannot be assumed that his works were well accepted and appreciated by the Protestants, as Blackburn comments, the rival camp unbiasedly “admired Beschi’s literary skills - they printed one of his grammars and another of his books( Vetiyar Olukkam, A Manual for Catechists) became standard reading for them by the nineteenth century…”. Beschi’s Parramarta Kuruvin Kattai or Guru Simpleton was the first printed book of Tamil folktale.
Guru Simpleton
Beschi’s Guru Simpleton (which occupies a status similar to The Arabian Nights or The Panchatantra in Tamil culture) is a blend of the oral tradition of Tamil folklore and the European story form, wrapped in the author’s imaginative faculty. Although Beschi had completed its composition (along with a preface) by 1776, the book was not published singularly until 1822 in London. Records show that Beschi wrote the Tamil version first and later translated it into Latin. Although Beschi claimed that the sole purpose of the book was to disseminate amusement and humour among both locals and missionaries, Blackburn mentions that the author was most probably yearning for something more than that – “this was a plea for a Jesuit patron, somewhere outside India, to underwrite the publication of his dictionary and folktale”, as print was a more reliable medium to “demonstrate correct spelling” than local scribesScribes
Scribes is a minimalist and extensible text editor for GNOME that combines simplicity with power. Scribes focuses on ways workflow and productivity can be intelligently automated and radically improved...
and copyists.
Printed oral tales in Tamil
In the history of print in early nineteenth-century India there were an enormous number of books of oral literatureOral literature
Oral literature corresponds in the sphere of the spoken word to literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do...
, especially folktales published. Between 1800 and 1835 most printed books in Tamil(dictionaries and grammars aside) were collections of oral tales. Well known literary texts, such as Tirrukkural and Nalatiyar, also appeared in print, but these classical texts were outnumbered by books of oral tales”. The first of these was Vikkiramatittan Katai , a collection of folktales in the framework of a literary tale which appeared in 1804 , followed by the Catamuka Ravanan Katai in 1808; the Mariyatai Raman Katai and Tamilariyum Mantai Katai in 1812; the Pururava Cakravarti Katai in 1819; the Katamantacari , a collection of oral tales in 1820; the Tamil – English bilingual publication of Paramartta Kuruvin Katai (Guru Simpleton) in 1822 (in London) ; a Tamil Pancatantra in 1826 ; the Katacintamani, another collection of oral tales, in 1833; and translations of tales from English, French and Aesop
Aesop
Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
by the 1850s. Some of these books are still available today.
Printing by Pundits
A number of early Tamil print publishing houses were set up by the pundits in the 1830s in Madras. These establishments played a significant role in the consolidation of the commercial printing world. They were also involved in public–politics, the anti–missionary movement in Georgetown, for instance. Pundits who were educated at the College Fort of St George and some who were not, used the text-making skills they learned from the Europeans in setting up of their own presses at Madras.The rise of the pundit - presses saw growth during the 1830s with Kalvi Vilakkam, the joint venture of Charavanaperumal Aiyar and Vichakaperumal Aiyar in 1834. The press functioned till the 1850s producing more than 50 books. This was followed by the Sarasvati Press (1835) of Tiruvenkatachala Mutaliar, and Kalvi Kalanchiyam set up in 1839 by Umapati Mutaliar and his three brothers. These presses quickly became associated with movements in deflecting the missionaries as they started voicing the sentiments of certain sections of the Hindu community.
Arumuka Navalar
Arumuka NavalarArumuka Navalar
Arumuka Navalar was one the early revivalists of native Hindu Tamil traditions in Sri Lanka and India. He and others like him were responsible for reviving and reforming native traditions that had come under a long period of dormancy and decline during the previous 400 years of colonial rule by...
spearheaded the Saivism cult both in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
and in Tamil Nadu. He was the guardian of pure and pristine Saiva tradition. He established a number of schools for Tamil and Saivism and printing presses at Jaffna
Jaffna
Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna district located on a peninsula of the same name. Jaffna is approximately six miles away from Kandarodai which served as a famous emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical...
, Chidambaram
Chidambaram
Chidambaram is a fast growing industrial city in Eastern part of Tamil Nadu and the taluk headquarters of the Cuddalore district. It is located in 58 km from Pondicherry, 60 km from Karaikal, and 240 km south of Chennai by rail...
and Madras. He was the most fluent Tamil speaker and writer of his generation. At the age of 27, Arumugam was conferred the title of “Navalar”, the eloquent.
In the context of printing, Arumuka Navalar or Arumuga Navalar was an editor of old Tamil texts. Among his editions the most important are Mantalapurutar’s lexicon cutamani nikantu with commentary (first printed in 1849), the standard medieval grammar Nannūl
Nannul
Nannūl is a work on the grammar of the Tamil language derived from Tolkāppiyam. This was written by Pavananthi Munivar around 13th century....
with a commentary (1851), the early devotional poem Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai, Manikkavacakar’s great devotional poems Tiruvacakam and tirukkovaiyar, the text of Tirukkuṛaḷ
Tirukkuṛaḷ
Tirukkuṛaḷ , sometimes spelt 'Thirukkural, is a classic of couplets or Kurals or aphorisms celebrated by Tamils. It was authored by Thiruvalluvar, a poet who is said to have lived anytime between the 2nd and 6th centuries AD. Although the exact period of its composition is still disputed,...
with Parimelazhagar
Parimelazhagar
Parimelazhagar was a Tamil poet and commentarian who was known for his commentary on the Thirukkural.- Biography :Simon Casie Chetty in his Tamil Plutarch mentions Parimelazhagar as a tamil poet who was renowned mainly because of his commentary on the Thirukkural...
’s detailed gloss in 1861.
Arumuga Navalar apparently introduced few novel features in the area of Tamil editing. He was probably the first to use punctuation marks like the semicolon, the question mark and the exclamation mark. He produced the first “split” complex sandhi forms to facilitate reading and comprehension.
Madras School Book Society
The Calcutta School-Book SocietyCalcutta School-Book Society
The Calcutta School-Book Society was an organization based in Kolkata during the British Raj. It was established in 1817, with the aim of publishing text books and supplying them to schools and madrasas in the country.- Background :...
was established under the patronage of the Marquis of Hastings in 1817. Soon after a similar society was set up in Madras. The association in South India soon languished, and for many years it virtually ceased to exist. It was revived around 1850, when prizes were offered for the best school book on specified subjects. Several new publications were thus secured of which, The History of India by H. Morris Esq., was very successful.
The publications of the Madras School Book Society being chiefly used in Government Schools such that religious sentiments were adapted accordingly. The committee of the Madras Tract Society issued some books with Christian elements intended specially for mission schools Classified catalogue of Tamil printed books,with introductory notices. Though reading books of the Madras School Book society were prepared with special reference to the government schools, the committee was not restricted to non–Christian publications. The Rev. A.R. Symonds suggested that the society should make an effort to provide wholesome and attractive literature. Prizes were also offered for the best translation of Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...
.
Vepery Press
Madras was the foremost seat of printing among the “colonial metropolises”. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) was set up at Vepery (situated just outside Madras) in 1726 by Benjamin Schultz. This new venture (Vepery mission) was just an extension of the Tranquebar mission. Earlier in 1712, a printing press enabled with Tamil and Telegu typefaces was provided by the SPCK for publishing activities at Tranquebar, on repeated appeals by Ziegenbalg. This press mostly dealt with smaller publications like A General Description Of Malabar Heathendom, Four Gospels And Acts, and Accursed Heathendom which were usually antagonistic to Hindu beliefs and principles. It also printed the translated version of the New Testament in 1715. When the English army under Sir Eyre Coote attacked the French colony of Pondicherry in 1761 they seized the printing press from the governor’s house along with its typefaces (which were a “prize catch” for them ) and the printer, Delon and transferred it to Madras. Nonetheless Johann Phillip FabriciusJohann Phillip Fabricius
Johann Phillip Fabricius was a German Christian missionary and a Tamil scholar in later part of his life. He arrived in South India in 1740 to take charge of a small Tamil Lutheran congregation in Madras and expanded it during his stay...
, a well-known Tamil scholar convinced Coote to hand over the press, only on agreement that the printing demands of Fort St. George would be given maximum importance. In 1762 itself, the SPCK press published a calendar and several Tamil books, “pre-dating the books printed in Calcutta and Bombay at least by a decade”.
By 1766, Vepery got its own press supplemented with its own print equipment. Therefore, the presses confiscated from Pondichérry were returned to Fort St George, which led to the establishment of the Government Press in Mount Road. The Vepery Press was renamed as the SPCK Press; Johann Philipp Fabricius being its managerial head, who composed and printed a Tamil book on Catechism (1766) with typefaces cut in Germany (Halle). By the next decade typecases were produced by the SPCK Press itself and they lasted until the 1870s. Books printed included Fabricius’s Translation of the New Testament (1772); his Dictionary of Tamil and English, based on Ziegenbalg’s Malabar English Dictionary(1779) which came out 100 years after Antão da Proença’s Tamil-Portuguese Dictionary of 1679; and Oru Paratecyin Punyacaritram (a translation of Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress (1793). This press was sold to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was the first American Christian foreign mission agency. It was proposed in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College and officially chartered in 1812. In 1961 it merged with other societies to form the United Church Board for World...
(the American Board Mission or ABM) in Çintadaripet in the mid 19th century. When the ABM left India in 1886 the press was reacquired by the SPCK–Diocesan committee and renamed the Diocesan Press that still exists today, almost 250 years later, as the CLS Press.