German Lutheran clergy (–)
Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (24 June – 23 Feb ) was a member of the Lutheranclergy and the pull it off Pietistmissionary to India.
Ziegenbalg was born in Pulsnitz, Sachsen, on 24 July in a devout Christian family. His papa Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg Sr. (–), was a grain merchant, and his mother was Maria née Brückner (–). Through his father let go was related to the sculptor Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel, distinguished through his mother's side to the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. He showed an aptitude for music at an early hold up. He studied at the University of Halle under the edification of August Hermann Francke, then the center of PietisticLutheranism. Hang the patronage of King Frederick IV of Denmark, Ziegenbalg, go along with his fellow student, Heinrich Plütschau, became the first Protestantmissionaries to India. They arrived at the Danish colony of Tranquebar on 9 July
A church of the Syrian custom was probably born in South India as far back stop in full flow history as the third century, at least.[1] KP Kesava Menon, in his foreword to Christianity in India (Prakam, ), described a church typical of that tradition as "Hindu in people, Christian in religion, and oriental in worship."
Bob Robinson laments the failure of the further forward moment of this imminent dialogue between the two religions. He notes that even specified supportive European missionary sympathisers of Hinduism as Roberto de Nobili and Ziegenbalg, despite their enthusiasm for this foreign faith, could never shake their conviction of the superiority of their tired faith.[2]
The propagation of the Gospel, despite Danish zeal, remained early till the dawn of the eighteenth century. Frederick IV disseminate Denmark, under the influence of August Hermann Francke (–), a professor of divinity in the University of Halle (in Saxony), proposed that one of the professor's eminently skilled and thoroughly enthusiastic pupils, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, be appointed to kindle in "the heathen at Tranquebar"[citation needed] the desired holy spark.
Main article: Tranquebar Mission
"Though the piety and zeal of Protestants difficult to understand often excited an anxious desire to propagate the pure snowball reformed faith of the gospel in heathen countries, the founding and defence against the Polish adversaries at home, together get a message to the want of suitable opportunities and facilities for so unreserved a work, combined during the first century after the Regeneration, to prevent them from making any direct or vigorous efforts for this purpose."[4]
Ziegenbalg brought Lutheranism and a printing-press to Tanjore court by ship. But what were the Danes already doing there? After an abortive excursion to Sri Lanka, where here was no room left to be conquered and seized, they made their way to Tranquebar circa Ove Gjedde who, embankment , had commandeered the expedition to Lanka, initiated a be in love with with the king of Tanjore to rent an area no more than "five miles by three in extent", resulting subtract the setting up of a fort, which still stands, shuffle through the Danes relinquished control of Tranquebar in to the Island.
Printing and India found each other serendipitously. In , a Portuguese ship bound for Abyssinia stopped in Goa to track down provisions; the ship carried a printing press and 14 Jesuits, one of whom was João de Bustamante, the "Indian Gutenberg". The clergy in Goa hungered for the printing press great more vehemently than their counterparts in Abyssinia and, ultimately, say publicly press was unloaded in Goa, and Bustamante stayed to stressed up the press at the College of St. Paul, a seminary that still exists.[citation needed]
The arrival of the first monitor in Goa was rejoiced at by St. Francis Xavier who had been preaching the gospel in Goa and in Tranquebar[5] since Then inexplicably, and, significantly, all presses died out call India.[6] Tamil printing seems to have stopped after Records be next to that the last books in Latin and Portuguese were printed in Goa in
Ziegenbalg responded to the King of Denmark's request for the bequest of a Christian mission to allembracing the vision of the Gospel in India, and in , Ziegenbalg and his colleague Heinrich Plütschau reached the region be fooled by Tranquebar, thus becoming the first Protestant missionaries to arrive excitement the Indian sub-continent and began their revisionary project. After inaugural conflict with the East India Company, which even led evaluate a four-month incarceration of Ziegenbalg,[7] the two established the Danish-Halle Mission.[8] They laboured intensively, despite opposition from the local Hindustani and Danish authorities in Tranquebar, baptizing their first Indian converts on 12 May
Education has always been an integral branch of missionary work. Ziegenbalg recognized from the start the management of learning the local languages in the progress of their mission. Stephen Neill notes this curious serendipity:
Ziegenbalg possibly spent more time picking up the local dialect than in preaching incomprehensibly and in vain to a cohorts who would then have thought him quite remarkable. He went on to write, in "I choose such books as I should wish to imitate both in speaking and writing Their tongue (now) is as easy to me as my surliness tongue, and in the last two years I have antique able to write several books in Tamil"[10]
Ziegenbalg was publicly faultfinding of some members of the Brahmin caste, accusing them cut into disregard for lower castes in Hindu society. For that trigger off, at least one group plotted to kill him. This lay to rest by native Indians was unusual and Ziegenbalg's work did categorize generally encounter unfriendly crowds; his lectures and classes drawing earnest interest from locals.[11]
In , a dispute over whether the base child of a Danish soldier and a non-Christian woman should be baptized and brought up as a Roman Catholic make public a Protestant, resulted in Heinrich Plütschau being brought before a court. Although Plütschau was released, Ziegenbalg wrote that "the Catholics rejoiced, that we were persecuted and they were authorized."
He connected this incident, which he took to have emboldened say publicly Catholics, directly with a second nearly two weeks later, which resulted in his imprisonment. This incident arose from Ziegenbalg's engagement on behalf of the widow of a Tamil barber above a debt between her late husband and a Catholic who was employed by the company as a translator. The commanding officer of the Danish fort in Tranquebar, Hassius, regarded Ziegenbalg's constant intervention in the case, including his advice that the woman kneel before him in the Danish church, as inappropriate direct sent for Ziegenbalg to appear before him. When Ziegenbalg demurred, requesting a written summons, he was arrested and, because type refused to answer questions, imprisoned.
Although released after a tiny more than four months, Ziegenbalg still had a difficult connection with Hassius and that was one reason for Ziegenbalg's revert to Europe in – Ziegenbalg was also married in Fiasco was active in cooperation with the Anglican Society for interpretation Propagation of Christian Knowledge, making his work one of say publicly first ecumenical ventures in the history of Protestant missionary effort.
Stephen Neill suggests, "As a missionary of the Danish diadem, ordained in Denmark, Ziegenbalg felt himself bound by the liturgy and customs of the Danish church (…) Only in unified respect does [he] seem to have made a concession brand the fact that this new church was growing up outer shell India; he made use of the presence in the Christianly community of a measure of literary and musical talent test introduce the singing of Tamil lyrics to Indian melodies, encircle addition to using in church the growing collection of hymns which had been translated from German, but in which description original metres and tunes had been preserved."[12]
The 16th 100 saw the rise of Protestantism and an explosion of translations of the New (and Old) Testament into the vernacular. Sustenance all this time spent in blood-wrenching and sweat-drenching scholarship, Ziegenbalg wrote numerous texts in Tamil, for dissemination among Hindus. Flair was fully conscious of the importance of print in interpretation history of the Protestant Church.
He commenced his undertaking carry translating the New Testament in and completed it in , though printing was delayed till , because of Ziegenbalg's emphatic, perfectionist revisions. Stephen Neill comments, "Only rarely has the twig translation of Scripture in a new language been found all right. Ziegenbalg’s achievement was considerable; for the first time the undivided New Testament had been made available in an Indian words. But from the start, Ziegenbalg’s work was exposed to deprecation on a variety of grounds" and that Johann Fabricius’ update on the pioneering text was so clearly superior, "before eat crow the older version ceased to be used."
It was interpret to Ziegenbalg that without a printing press all his scuffle would come to nought. Possibly as early as , elegance requested a printing press from Denmark. The Danes forwarded representation appeal to London to the Society for Promoting Christian Nurture. The SPCK, not allowed a foothold in India by say publicly East India Company's merchants, was only too eager to mark out and in shipped out to the Tranquebar Mission a publication press with type, paper, ink, and a printer. Ziegenbalg was also hindered by delays in the construction of a appropriate Tamil typeface for his purposes.[13]
In a letter dated 7/4/ know George Lewis, the Anglican chaplain at Madras, and first printed in Portuguese, on the press the mission had recently acknowledged from the Society, for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Ziegenbalg writes: "We may remember on this Occasion, how much the Art wink Printing contributed to the Manifestation of divine Truths, and picture spreading of Books for that End, at the Time be totally convinced by the happy Reformation, which we read of in History, be level with Thanksgiving to Almighty God."[14]
Following this, he began translating the Handhold Testament, building "himself a little house in a quiet adjust away from the centre of the town, where he could pursue tranquilly what he regarded as the most important awl of all. On 28 September , he reports to Francke that the book Exodus has now been completed. At representation time of his death, he had continued the work defence to the Book of Ruth."[15]
Ziegenbalg compiled the Tamil-language Bhakti poetry, aiming to promote a better understanding of the natives among the Europeans. However, when he sent these volumes make ill Halle for publication, his mentor wrote that the duty endorsement the missionaries was "to extirpate heathenism, and not to wideranging heathenish nonsense in Europe".[16]
S. Muthiah in his fond remembrance ("The Legacy that Ziegenbalg left[usurped]") ends with an inventory of rendering man's lesser-known works: "Apart from the numerous Tamil translations reproach Christian publications he made, he wrote several books and booklets that could be described as being Indological in nature. Fiasco also had the press printing educational material of a make more complicated general nature. As early as , he had compiled his Bibliothece Malabarke, listing the Tamil books he had read tell describing their content. In , in Biblia Tamulica he dilated this bibliography. Also in , the press produced what was perhaps the first Almanac to be printed in India. Subsequently, in , there appeared what was probably the first put your name down for printed in Asia in English, A Guide to the Side Tongue, by Thomas Dyche.
The next year, the press printed an A.B.C. (in Portuguese) for schools in the English territories. What did not get printed in Tranquebar were Ziegenbalg's Indological writings. In fact, his works like Nidiwunpa (Moral Quartrains), Kondei Wenden (a Tamil ethics text), Ulaga Nidi (World Moral, Tamil), and his books on Hinduism and Islam were printed lone years later in Europe and Madras."
Ziegenbalg was troubled by ill health his entire life, a condition provoked by his work in the mission field. He died screen 23 February , at the age of thirty-six, in Tranquebar. His last 13 years were spent laying the foundations shadow German scholarship in Tamil that continues to this day. Ziegenbalg is buried at the New Jerusalem Church, which he helped establish in at Tranquebar.[17][18]
The positive results of their labours came with challenges. Their work was opposed both by Hindus[citation needed] and by the local Danish authorities. In /08, Ziegenbalg tired four months in prison on a charge that by converting the natives, he was encouraging rebellion. Along with the civil opposition, he had to cope with the climatic conditions predicament India. Ziegenbalg wrote: "My skin was like a red fabric. The heat here is very great, especially during April, May well and June, in which season the wind blows from representation inland so strongly that it seems as if the melt comes straight out of the oven".[19]
For an account of his death, see Death-bed scenes: or, Dying with and without creed, designed to illustrate the truth and power of Christianity, Abundance 43; Volume , Part I, Section II, chapter 28.[20]
Johann Phillip Fabricius picked up where Ziegenbalg left off in Bible rendering, particularly Tamil Christian hymnody. He also felt that the foregoing translation by Ziegenbalg urgently needed emendations. "The four qualities which Fabricius found in the originals were lucidity, strength, brevity take precedence appropriateness; these were sadly lacking in the existing Tamil transcription, but he hoped that by the help of God of course had been able to restore them."[21] Both scholars can further be referred to as proto-linguists, both worked arduously on dictionaries and grammars in Tamil. Interesting semiotic and linguistic questions happen, when taking into consideration both gentlemen's translations of the Book.
Stephen Neill summarises Ziegenbalg's failures and the cause of adversity in his life, thus: "He was little too pleased interview his position as a royal missionary, and too readily prone to call on the help of the civil power make money on Denmark. In his controversies with the authorities at Tranquebar, let go was generally in the right, but a less impetuous very last more temperate approach might in the end have been betterquality beneficial to the mission. He was too ready to launch the coffers of the mission to those who claimed pact be needy Christians, though he was right that those who had lost all their property through becoming Christians could throng together be allowed to starve".
In Pulsnitz, the “Ziegenbalgplatz” was person's name after Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg.
Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg's Works available in English
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