Tamil mission at Tranquebar
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[edit] Start of the Tamil mission at Tranquebar
2005 was the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the first Protestant mission, the s. c. Tamil mission at Tranquebar. The initiative came from the Christian King of Denmark and Norway, Frederick IV, he discovered two young Halle-trained Pietists, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg (1683–1719) and Heinrich Plütschau (1678–1747). Ordained at Copenhagen in 1705, they became the founders of the famous Tamil mission at Tranquebar, on the Coromandel coast in the East-Indies. The king sent the German missionaries Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau to India to spread the gospel to the new subjects of the King in the Danish colony Tranquebar. They were the first Protestant missionaries who stayed in India for a longer period.
[edit] Mission principle
Believing that people best hear and learn the Gospel in their own language and cultural context, their first tasks were to learn Tamil and to understand Hinduism. They preached for a definite conversion as the point of entry into Christianity. Ziegenbalg and Plütschau operated a school for reading and writing in Tamil, so that each convert could read the Scriptures. Ziegenbalg translated the Scriptures, Luther's Catechisms, and other works into Tamil. The missionaries encouraged indigenous leadership of Indian Christians; the first Indian pastor, a convert from Hinduism, was ordained in 1733. In several years' time there was a Christian community of about 350 in Tranquebar. The first Protestant missionaries who stayed in India for a longer period were the Lutheran missionaries of the Royal Danish-Halle Mission.
[edit] Their work
They established churches, schools, orphanages, a printing press, a paper mill, a mission library and an internationally cooperating network. They studied and documented not only the religious life, but also the plant and animal life of South India. They translated the Bible into Tamil and Telugu languages, 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. Missionaries like Christopher Samuel John (1747–1813)were passionate botanists and astronomical experts.
[edit] History of the Tamil mission at Tranquebar
From the arrival of the first missionary Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719) in Tranquebar in 1706 to the death of the last missionary August Frederick Kammerer in 1837, there were fifty-four missionaries working in India. Among them, the linguist Benjamin Schultze (1689–1760), the Hebrew scholar Christopher T. Walther (1699–1741), the great missionary diplomat Christian Frederick Schwartz (1726–1798), the Bible translator Johann Philipp Fabricius (1711–1791), the educator Christopher Samuel John (1747–1813) and the lexicographer John Peter Rottler (1749-1836) were some outstanding figures. Among the Tranquebar pioneers were some well-known Indian Christian leaders: Rajanaikkan founded the Lutheran Church in Tanjore in 1727. Aaron was the first Indian Lutheran pastor ordained on Dec. 23, 1733. Among his successors Diago (1709–1781, ordained on October 22, 1740), Ambrose (ordained on April 9, 1749, died in February 1777), Philip (1731–1788, ordained on December 28, 1772), Rajappen (ordained in 1778) and Sattyanadan (ordained on December 26, 1790) were known for their pastoral and missionary work. A special mention must be made to Clarinda, the great woman founder of the Lutheran church in Palayamkottai.
