Indian Christianity

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA : M. M. NINAN
In 1556, a Portuguese ship going to Goa for came with 14 Jesuits bound for Abyssinia (today's Ethiopia)
and a printing press. One of them, Joao de Bustamente, a Spaniard, was a printer. Before it got to
Abyssinia, the clergy in Goa requested the Portugese Governor General to keep the press in India as it
was more needed here. Thus Bustamente and his printing press remained in Goa in the College of
St.Paul in Old Goa. Four books are known to have been printed by Bustamante:
• Conclusões e outras coisas (Theses and other things) in 1556.
• Confecionarios in 1557.
• Doutrina Christa by St. Francis Xavier in 1557.
• Tratado contra os erros scismaticos dos Abexins (A Tract against the Schismatic Errors of the
Abyssinians) by Gonçalo Rodrigues in 1560.
In 1568, the first illustrated cover page (the illustration being done with the relief technique of woodblock)
was printed in Goa for the book Constituciones Do ArcebispadoDe Goa. The earliest, surviving printed
book in India is the Compendio Spiritual Da Vide Christaa (Spiritual Compendium of the Christian life) of
Gaspar Jorge de Leão Pereira, the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa.
Joao Gonsalves, is credited with preparing the first printing types of an Indian script- Tamil. However,
since they were not satisfactory, new casts were made in Quilon(Kollam) by Father Joao da Faria. On 20
October 1578, these types were used to print the first book in an Indian language in India (the first Tamil
book was printed in Lisbon in 1554 in Romanized Tamil script.)- Henrique Henriques’s Doctrina Christam
en Lingua Malauar Tamul – Tampiran Vanakam, a Tamil translation of St Francis Xavier’s Doutrina
Christa. This 16 page book of prayers and catechetical instructions was printed in Quilon.
Father Thomas Stephens in 1622, published Doutrina Christam em lingoa Bramana Canarim, ordenada
a maneira de dialogo, pera ensinar os mininos, por Thomas Estevao, Collegio de Rachol (Christian
Doctrines in the Canarese Brahmin Language, arranged in dialogue to teach children). This was the first
book in Konkani in 1640. Father Thomas Stephen produced the first Konkani Grammar also in 1640.
From then on printing in Latin, Portuguese, Tamil (which the Portugese called Malabar) and, Konkani,
were distributed for the next hundred years. Then, as suddenly as it had started the printing stopped.
Tamil printing stopped around 1612. but the books in Latin and Portuguese were continued to be printed
in Goa till 1674.
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