Bible translations into Tamil

Tamil Bible printed in 1715 at Tharangambadi
A page of Genesis in Ziegenbalg & Fabricius's version, 1723

The history of Bible translations into the Tamil language commences with the arrival of Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg at Tranquebar in 1706.[1]

Johann Philipp Fabricius, a German, revised Ziegenbalg's and others' work to produce the standard Tamil version. Seventy years after Fabricius, at the invitation of Peter Percival a Saiva scholar, Arumuka Navalar, produced a "tentative" translation, which came to be known as the "Navalar version," and was largely rejected by Tamil Protestants.[2]

Paravas converted to Christianity in the mid 16th century. Their spiritual, cultural and literary excellency brought out the first Tamil book to modern print media. The Tamil Bible, 'Cardila', was printed in 1554 and made Tamil the first language into print for any Indian language. This was even before the first printing machine arrived Goa, India in 1556. Cardila was printed at Lisbon by the command of the Portuguese government with the motivation by the visits of three Paravars Vincent Nasareth, Joj Kavalko and Thomas Cruz from Tuticorin, India to Portugal. The funding for the press came from the Parvar community of Tuticorin. Planting of the Roman Catholic Faith in Pearl Fisherily Coast (India) Christianity in ancient India.[3][4][5]

References

  1. Dennis Hudson (2000) Protestant Origins in India: Tamil Evangelical Christians, 1706-1835; p. 142:- Bible Translation: "Bible translation into Tamil had been going on, of course, since Ziegenbalg landed in Tranquebar in 1706. These more recent efforts to revise Scripture now came from the British at the Company's headquarters ..."
  2. Rasiah S. Sugirtharajah (2006) The Postcolonial Biblical Reader; p. 282:- "However, the history of Protestant Bibles in Tamil translations, when viewed from the standpoint of the various sections of Protestant Tamils, indicates that the Protestant Tamils have adopted the translated Bible and its language on ..."
  3. Gresilz. "The Bharathar Community". Bharatharcommunity.blogpsot.in. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  4. "Tamil". Biblesociety.org.uk. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  5. "Christianity in the Tamil Coastal areas" (PDF). Docs.google.com. Retrieved 7 December 2014.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/8/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.