Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/205

 June, 1873.] EARLY TAMIL BOOKS. 181 showed as a transcript of a Malabar [Tamil] book entitledChristiano Wanakkam, ‘ ChristianWorship,’ printed in 1579 at Cochin, in the * College of the Mother of God,’ for the use of the Christians on tho Pearl-fishery Coast. And so, no doubt, was anothor Malabar book, which we have seen in the possession of a Romish Christian at Tranquebar, of which tho title is: “ Doctrina Christara, a ma- neira de Dialogo feita em Portugal pello P. Marcos Jorge, da Companhia da Jesu : Tresladada em lin¬ gua Malavar ou Tamul, pello P. Anrique Anriquez da mesma companhia. Em Cochin, no Collegio da Madre de Dios, a os quartoze de Novembro, de Anno de MDLXXIX.” * As transcripts began to be made so long ago as the early part of the last century, it is hardly pos¬ sible to expect that any copy of these early-printed books may now be found, especially as the paper then used was not likely to be of a very durable kind. Ziegenbalg, in the preface to his Tamil Gram¬ mar [Graminatica Damidica] which he printed at Halle in 1716, mentions that Tamil types had been cut at Amsterdam in 1678 for representing the names of some plants in the large work Horti Indici Malabarici, which appeared in six large volumes, but, whether from inexperience or care¬ lessness, the characters were so dissimilar to those of the language, that he says the Tamils them¬ selves did not know them to be Tamil. The at¬ tempt, however, made at Halle in 1710 to produce Tamil types seems to have been more successful* for Ziegenbalg’s Tamil Grammar was printed there in 1716, and the Tamil characters are represented pretty fairly in it, though there was great room for improvement. Fenger, in his “History of the Tranquebar Mission,” thus records this at¬ tempt :—“ The people there, though unacquainted with the Tamil language, succeeded in making some Tamil letters, which they hastily tried, and sent out to Tranquebar; where tho first part of the New Testament, as well as other things, was printed with them. This sample, the very first thing eves printed in Tamil characters, was tho Apostles’ Creed: and the friends in Halle, when they despatched it with tho printing-press, re¬ quested soon to be requited by a copy of the New Testament in Tamil” (p. 87). The translation of the New Testament into Tamil had been com¬ menced by Ziegenbalg on Oct. 17, 1708, two years after his arrival in the country, and brought to completion on March 21, 1711. Meanwhile the supply of Tamil type from Halle enabled him to bring out the first part of the New Testament, containing the Gospels and the Acts, which was printed at Tranquebar in 1714. The other part, completing the New Testament, came out in 1715. Tamil type continued to be cast in Halle for the purpose of aiding the Indian mission work. As we have already seen, Ziegenbalg’s Grammatica Damulica, a small quarto of 128 pages, (ras printed there in 1716, which, though superseded by other modern grammars, is interesting as the first attempt to reduce the principles of the language to the rules of European science, and is valuable for the matter it contains. But the wbrk was written in Latin, and never having been reprinted has be¬ come very scarce. Two other works were also printed at Halle in Tamil for the use of Native Christians in this country: one in 1749, the Hor- tulus Faradisaicus translated from the German of John Arndt, one of the most spiritual and search¬ ing writers of the Pietists as they were called, and printed in four parts in small 8vo, comprising 532 pages; and the other a translation of another po¬ pular German book by the same author, de Vero Ohristianismo, which appeared in 1751, and con¬ sists of 399 pages of the same size as the former. Both these books obtained wide popularity in this country, and copies of them were to be found some ten or twenty years ago in old Native Christian families, where they were treasured as heirlooms. Founts of Tamil type were all this time also cut in India, and a long series of publications in the language was issued from the Tranquebar Press. As it is not intended to furnish a Bibliographical Index in this paper, I omit the mention of these. In 1761 the Madras Government presented the Vepery missionaries with a Press taken at Pondi¬ cherry from the French, and in 1793 the Chris¬ tian Knowledge Society in London sent out a Press to the Vepery Mission, and stores were con¬ tinued to bo furnished from England by the So¬ ciety. The Vepery Mission Press—or as it is now better known as the Christian Knoioledge Society’s Press, Vepery, Madras—has from that period, with two intervals of cessation from 1810 to 1819 and again from 1861 to 1866, been in operation with varying degrees of activity, and is now the fore¬ most agency in South India for the accurate and elegant printing of Christian books and tracts in the vernaculars. C. E. K. Madras, April 21, 1873. NAKED PROCESSION. At the SiShastha jfttra, lately held at N&sik, one of the religious or quasi religious ceremonies is a procession of naked devotees, men and women. London: Longmans, 1858.
 * Notices of Madras and Cuddalore in the last Century from the Journals of the Earlier Missionaries, p. 106.