TRANSFORMATION TRIGGERED AT TRANQUEBAR

Tranquebar in the 18th century.

It was early in the eighteenth century, while the Jesuits were still carrying on their work in Tamilnadu, the Protestant missionaries first appeared in India. During the previous century trading companies of other European nations besides Portugal had established stations in India. Most of the newcomers were Protestants, and many of their stations were along the east coast. The Dutch settled at Pulicat (1609), Sadras (1647) and Nagapattinam (1660); the British at Masulipatnam (1622), Madras (1639), Cuddalroe (1683) and Calcutta (1689), the French at Pondicherry (1674), the Danes at two places namely, Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) in what is new the Nagapattinam District of Madras State (1620) and Serampore (1676), in Bengal near Calcutta.


Lutheranism in India

Less than two centuries after the Reformation, the first Lutheran missionaries set foot on Indian soil. Over the years there followed representatives of 14 Lutheran societies from Germany, USA, and the Northern European lands. Today, Indian Lutherans are formed into 10 Indigenous churches, with various languages and scattered from Cape Coromandel to Bengal along the East Coast. More than 600 ordained Indian pastors serve over 4000 local congregations. There are. extensive educational and medical institutions.


Missions is South India

This church is a lineal descendant of the Danish-Halle mission enterprise, which began when Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg and Pluetschau landed at the Danish crown colony of Tranquebar in 1706. Under J.P. Fabricius, C.F. Schwartz, and others, a confessional Lutheran community of many thousands arose in and around Tranquebar, Tanjore, Tiruchirapalli and Tirunelveli.

The work began in 1706 by the Royal Danish Mission. It was taken up by the LELM (Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission) in 1841 and from 1848 Swedish Missionaries began to join the LELM. In 1901 the CSM (Church of Sweden Mission) gat a part of the fields as its own Diocese and in 1915 it teak over the whole work. The LELM re-entered the work in 1927 and was registered on 1st November 1933 under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. The TELC (Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church) was constituted on 14th January 1919 and registered on 28th January 1919 under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. The Church of Sweden Mission was registered under the same Act in the name of 'The Church of Sweden Mission Council in South India' on 14th February 1936. In 1951 the registered name of the CSM was amended as 'The Church of Sweden Mission in India'.

The revised Document "B" Game into force on 14th January 1950. Accordingly, the work till then administered by CSM Council in South India and the LELM field was handed over to the TELC and it is new being administered by the TELC. The Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Department for World Mission (LMW) is the Mission Department of the churches of Mecklenburg, Saxony and Thuringia. On the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Zjegenbalg and Pluetschau on 1956, Dr. Rajah, B.Manikam was consecrated the first Indian bishop of the Tamil Church, succeeding Swedish Bishop J. Sandegren. Headquarters of the church is in Trichirappalli.


Missions in Tranquebar :

The Tranquebar missionaries and Protestant Christians in Tamil Nadu were influential in many areas. They translated the Bible into Tamil and Telugu languages and were grammarians and lexicographers and studied the religious, social and cultural customs of the people. They translated " Indian literatures into European languages. They established indigenous churches and public schools and helped the Christians to help themselves. They established a theological seminary to train future Indian leaders to reach fellow Indians with the gospel of Christ.


The Mission of Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg inTranquebar :

The man who first conceived the idea of sending Protestant missionaries to India was King Frederick IV of Denmark, a Lutheran. His court chaplain, to whom he assigned the task of finding suitable men, not having been able to find any in Denmark, appeal ed to his friends in Germany; and there two young theological students, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg and Henry Pluetschau, agreed to go. They were then sent out to Tranquebar as 'royal missionaries' at the personal expense of the King. So it cam e about that the first Protestant missionaries to India were German Lutherans sent by a King of Denmark. They arrived at Tranquebar on the 9th of July 1706!
The authorities there had not been advised of their coming, and the account of them given by the captain of the ship, who had personal reasons for disliking them, was unfavourable. It soon became clear that no welcome awaited them. It was three days before they could get a beat to take them ashore from the ship, and when at last they did get to land and presented themselves at the entrance to the fort with their papers addressed to the Danish commandant, these were taken from them and they were kept waiting there from ten o'clock in the morning until tour in the afternoon. Receiving a grudging permission to enter, they followed the official party to the market - place, only to be left there standing in the street; where they might have remained all night but for a junior official who teak pity on them and led them to the house of his wife's parents.

They beg an their work by setting themselves to learn Portuguese and Tamil, Portuguese because it was then in use in the European trading stations of South India, and Tamil was the language of the people. They also found a sphere of work among the many German soldiers serving in the Danish East Indian Company's troops, for whom they were able to hold services in their own language. Another sphere of work, which they found for themselves, was among the domestic servants of the Europeans. They managed to prevail upon the commandant to issue orders that these people were to be given leave for two hours every day to receive Christian teaching. Soon Ziegenbalg entered into religious discussions with Hindus in Tamil, and beg an to preach to them. Since a European who could speak Tamil and was interested in discussing Hindu religious beliefs was a rarity in those days, he did not Jack an audience. News of him spread in the country round about, and many cam e to see him and talk with him. He formed a little congregation, and as early as August 1707 a small mission church was built outside the fort. The first Tamil converts, nine in number, were baptized in the following month.

Fortunately, Ziegenbalg had the gift of learning languages. With his methodical habits he was able to urge Tamil effectively within a year. As his progress was much more rapid than Pluetschau's, it was natural that he should concentrate more on the Tamil work and Pluetschau on the Portuguese. Quite early he began to write in Tamil, not of course without Indian help. He began by producing a translation of Martin Luther's Short Catechism for use in catechizing the children. Sermons, tracts and schoolbooks followed this. Within two years of his arrival he began to translate the New Testament, a thing that apparently no one had ever attempted in any Indian language before. The publication of these backs and pamphlets was made easier by the gift of a printing press sent out from Europe in 1712, before that caries had to be made by hand. For the rest of his life Ziegenbalg remained assiduous writer besides his Biblical translations and his other Tamil works, he found time to compile a Tamil-German dictionary and to write out in German the results of his inquiries into South Indian Hinduism. The German manuscripts were not published until over a century later.

Three more missionaries by name Gruendler, Jordan and Boevingh arrived at Tranquebar in 1709. They brought money and clear instructions from the King to the commandant that his missionaries were to be give all necessary assistance. Out of this money a large house and compound, sufficient for all the missionaries and three schools, Tamil, Portuguese and Danish, was bought, so that the work began in a more solid and organized form. Ziengenbalg went back to Germany for same time and Game with his wife Maria Dorathia.

The first project to be undertaken after his return was the building of a new church. This was the New Jerusalem Church (1718), which is still in use. Another new project in the same year was a training school for teachers and catechists. In the New Jerusalem church, which was cruciform, the Sudra men sat on one side of the nave and the others on the other; and likewise the Sudra women in one of the transepts and the other women in the other; at Holy Communion all the Sudras, men and women, communicated first and the other afterwards. The Missionaries themselves had made this arrangement so that everyone could worship without inhibitions.

The secretary of the Mission Board in Copenhagen, a man called Wendt alarmed at the rising costs of the work, stopped grants. Deeply depressed, Ziegenbalg became ill, and in February 1719 he died at the early age of thirty-six. Gruendler too died thirteen months later, leaving the direction of the Mission in the hands of three young men namely Schultz, Walther and Pressier.

This sacrificial life of Ziengenbalg paved the way to many missionaries to work in Tamil Nadu in places like Chennai, Thanjavur, Palayamcottai. Hence, Tranquebar became the birthplace of many protestant missions in South India.

Dr. P. MARTIN DEVAPRASATH 
Department of Chemistry