Printing in Goa
Encyclopedia
The art of printing
first entered India
through Goa
. In a letter to St. Ignatius of Loyola, dated 30 April 1556, Father Gasper Caleza speaks of a ship carrying a printing press
setting sail for Abyssinia
from Portugal
, with the purpose of helping missionary work in Abyssinia. Circumstances prevented this printing press from leaving India, and consequently, printing was initiated in the country.
. Grants of land were originally recorded by engraving
the information on copper plates and etchings on different surfaces like wood, bone, ivory and shells. However, printing arrived about a hundred years after the Gutenberg Bible
was first printed.
Many factors contributed to the necessity of the initiation of printing in the subcontinent, the primary being evangelization
and the Jesuits were solely responsible for this. Francis Xavier
is known to have been teaching the Bible
in Tharangambadi (Tranquebar), Tamil Nadu around 1542. Also, when the Viceroy of Goa, on behalf of the King Joan III of Portugal, opened schools for Indians, Francis Xavier pressured Portugal to make printing presses available to India, Ethiopia
and Japan
. Meanwhile, the Emperor of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) also requested Portugal to send a press along with missionaries. Consequently, the first batch of Jesuit missionaries, along with the printing press, left for Ethiopia on March 29, 1556 on a Spanish ship. The Patriarch designate of Abyssinia, Joao Nunes Barreto, as well as a team of technicians accompanied the press.
The prevalent route from Portugal to Abyssinia then required ships to round the Cape of Good Hope
, touch Goa and reach Abyssinia. The press thus reached Goa, but soon after, news reached Goa that the Abyssinian Emperor was not keen on receiving the missionaries. Around the same time, the clergy
in Goa felt the need for a printing press and on their request to the then Governor-General
the press was made available to them. Thus, the press stayed in Goa. This was after Mexico had seen its first printing press, but preceded the press in Lima
. The Patriarch designate Barreto was detained in Goa and it appears he never left India, but died in Goa on 22 December 1562.
in Old Goa
), resulting in the publication of Conclusiones Philosophicas. 1557 saw the posthumous printing of St. Francis Xavier’s Catecismo da Doutrina Christa five years after the death of its author. No extant
copy of this work is however, available.
(rechristened Joao Rodrigues in 1563), a Spaniard who joined the Society of Jesus in 1556. Bustamante, who was an expert printer, along with his Indian assistant set up the new press and began to operate it. Among others, four books are known to have been printed by Bustamante:
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. It was printed by Joao Quinquencio in 1561 and re-edited by Manuel de Araujo in 1600, and was embellished with ornate woodcut initials on each opening chapter. This was followed by the printing of Garcia da Orta’s Colóquios dos simples e drogas he cousas medicinais da Índia on 10 April 1563 by Joao de Endem. 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 Arcebispado De Goa.
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. Though no extant copies of the first edition are available, MSS copies dating 1548-1614 are preserved in Lisbon and Rome
. It should be mentioned here that Henriques was inducted into the Society of Jesus with the express intention of sending him to India to assist Francis Xavier. After the first press, a second press was set up. Not much is known about it save that it belonged to John Quinquencio and John Endem. The third press was set up in the St. Ignatius College, Rachol. Though Devanagari
types were cast in 1577, the Christa Purana- an epic poem on the life of Jesus Christ written in the literary form of the Hindu
puranas
- was published not in Devanagari, but in the Roman alphabet in the College of Rachol (1616 and 1649) and the College of St Paul (1654). This was primarily because of the clumsy shapes of the Devanagari types. In 1626, Diogo Reberio compiled the Vocabulario da lingoa Canarim (A Vocabulary of Konkani language) a Konkani
-Portuguese
and Portuguese-Konkani dictionary.
The 17th century saw the beginning of a large-scale book-printing in Goa, egged on massively by the need to print Christian
texts for the benefit of the newly converted Christians. This time also saw a shift from the use of coercion to that of religious education for conversions. Thus, a number of books were printed in Konkani and Marathi
due to the initiative of, among others, Father Thomas Stephens (who, in 1640, produced the first Konkani Grammar- the Arte de Lingua Canarin and in 1622, published Doutrina Christam em lingoa Bramana Canarim, ordenada a maneira de dialogo, pera ensinar os mininos, por Thomas Estevao, Collegio de Rachol or Christian Doctrines in the Canarese Brahmin Language, arranged in dialogue to teach children.) which was the first book in Konkani and any Indian language), Father Antonio Saldanha, Father Etienne do la Croix, Father Miguel do Almeida and Father Diogo Ribeiro (whose Declaraçam da Doutrina Christam, or Exposition of Christian Doctrine in Konkani was printed in 1632). Despite the efforts of Father Stephens and the general familiarity of the Devanagari script, it was found easier to cast not Devanagari, but Roman types for Konkani. This was one of the major factors that alienated Konkani from other Indian languages, since the Roman script failed to fix a number of Konkani sounds that the Europeans faced difficulty in pronouncing. It was, however, this adoption of the Roman script for printing in the vernacular helped printing to flourish in Goa till 1684, when the official decree suppressed the vernacular languages and printing suffered a setback. Printing in Tamil stopped after 1612,and the last books printed in Latin and Portuguese before printing fairly died were published in 1674.
It was as late as 1821 that printing was revived in Goa with the starting of a weekly called Gazeta de Goa, later known as the Chronista Constitucional de Goa (1835) and still later, the Boletim de Governo do Estado da India (1837).
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
first entered India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
through Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
. In a letter to St. Ignatius of Loyola, dated 30 April 1556, Father Gasper Caleza speaks of a ship carrying a printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
setting sail for Abyssinia
Ethiopian Empire
The Ethiopian Empire also known as Abyssinia, covered a geographical area that the present-day northern half of Ethiopia and Eritrea covers, and included in its peripheries Zeila, Djibouti, Yemen and Western Saudi Arabia...
from Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, with the purpose of helping missionary work in Abyssinia. Circumstances prevented this printing press from leaving India, and consequently, printing was initiated in the country.
The arrival of the first press
There is evidence that the use of the concept of mass duplication in India dates back to the time of the Indus Valley CivilizationIndus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that was located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India...
. Grants of land were originally recorded by engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
the information on copper plates and etchings on different surfaces like wood, bone, ivory and shells. However, printing arrived about a hundred years after the Gutenberg Bible
Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press, and marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status...
was first printed.
Many factors contributed to the necessity of the initiation of printing in the subcontinent, the primary being evangelization
Evangelization
Evangelization is that process in the Christian religion which seeks to spread the Gospel and the knowledge of the Gospel throughout the world. It can be defined as so:-The birth of Christian evangelization:...
and the Jesuits were solely responsible for this. Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier, born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary born in the Kingdom of Navarre and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a student of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits, dedicated at Montmartre in 1534...
is known to have been teaching the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
in Tharangambadi (Tranquebar), Tamil Nadu around 1542. Also, when the Viceroy of Goa, on behalf of the King Joan III of Portugal, opened schools for Indians, Francis Xavier pressured Portugal to make printing presses available to India, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Meanwhile, the Emperor of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) also requested Portugal to send a press along with missionaries. Consequently, the first batch of Jesuit missionaries, along with the printing press, left for Ethiopia on March 29, 1556 on a Spanish ship. The Patriarch designate of Abyssinia, Joao Nunes Barreto, as well as a team of technicians accompanied the press.
The prevalent route from Portugal to Abyssinia then required ships to round the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
, touch Goa and reach Abyssinia. The press thus reached Goa, but soon after, news reached Goa that the Abyssinian Emperor was not keen on receiving the missionaries. Around the same time, the clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
in Goa felt the need for a printing press and on their request to the then Governor-General
Governor-General
A Governor-General, is a vice-regal person of a monarch in an independent realm or a major colonial circonscription. Depending on the political arrangement of the territory, a Governor General can be a governor of high rank, or a principal governor ranking above "ordinary" governors.- Current uses...
the press was made available to them. Thus, the press stayed in Goa. This was after Mexico had seen its first printing press, but preceded the press in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
. The Patriarch designate Barreto was detained in Goa and it appears he never left India, but died in Goa on 22 December 1562.
Saint Paul's College and the first works printed
Printing operations began in Goa in 1556 (with the first printing press being established at the Jesuit Saint Paul's CollegeSaint Paul's College, Goa
St. Paul's College was a Jesuit college founded circa 1542 at Old Goa. It was once the main Jesuit institution in India. It housed the first printing press in India, having published the first books in 1556...
in Old Goa
Old Goa
Old Goa or Velha Goa is a historical city in North Goa district in the Indian state of Goa. The city was constructed by the Bijapur Sultanate in the 15th century, and served as capital of Portuguese India from the 16th century until its abandonment in the 18th century due to plague...
), resulting in the publication of Conclusiones Philosophicas. 1557 saw the posthumous printing of St. Francis Xavier’s Catecismo da Doutrina Christa five years after the death of its author. No extant
Extant literature
Extant literature refers to texts that have survived from the past to the present time. Extant literature can be divided into extant original manuscripts, copies of original manuscripts, quotations and paraphrases of passages of non-extant texts contained in other works, translations of non-extant...
copy of this work is however, available.
Juan Bustamante and the early days of printing in India
The individual responsible for the initiation of printing in India was one Joao De BustamanteJoao De Bustamante
Brother Joao De Bustamante also known as the Indian Gutenberg, was a Spanish Coadjutor who was influential in pioneering the art of printing in India, specifically in Goa.-Contribution to the beginning of Printing in India:...
(rechristened Joao Rodrigues in 1563), a Spaniard who joined the Society of Jesus in 1556. Bustamante, who was an expert printer, along with his Indian assistant set up the new press and began to operate it. Among others, 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.
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
Gaspar Jorge de Leão Pereira
Gaspar Jorge de Leão Pereira, or simply Gaspar de Leão Pereira or Gaspar de Leão was the first Archbishop of Goa....
, the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa. It was printed by Joao Quinquencio in 1561 and re-edited by Manuel de Araujo in 1600, and was embellished with ornate woodcut initials on each opening chapter. This was followed by the printing of Garcia da Orta’s Colóquios dos simples e drogas he cousas medicinais da Índia on 10 April 1563 by Joao de Endem. 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 Arcebispado De Goa.
Printing in the vernacular
Another Spaniard to play a major role in the history of printing in India was Joao Gonsalves, who is credited with preparing the first printing typesTypeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
of an Indian script- Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
. However, since they were not satisfactory, new casts were made in Quilon
Quilon
Quilon may refer to,* Venad, a former state on Malabar Coast, India* Kollam , Kerala state, India* Kollam district, Kerala state...
(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
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
in 1554 in Romanized Tamil script.)- Henrique Henriques
Henrique Henriques
Henrique Henriques , was Portuguese Jesuit priest and missionary who spent most of his life and missionary activities in South India. After initial years in Goa he moved to Tamil Nadu where he mastered Tamil and wrote several books including a dictionary...
’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. Though no extant copies of the first edition are available, MSS copies dating 1548-1614 are preserved in Lisbon and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. It should be mentioned here that Henriques was inducted into the Society of Jesus with the express intention of sending him to India to assist Francis Xavier. After the first press, a second press was set up. Not much is known about it save that it belonged to John Quinquencio and John Endem. The third press was set up in the St. Ignatius College, Rachol. Though Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
types were cast in 1577, the Christa Purana- an epic poem on the life of Jesus Christ written in the literary form of the Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
puranas
Puranas
The Puranas are a genre of important Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religious texts, notably consisting of narratives of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography.Puranas...
- was published not in Devanagari, but in the Roman alphabet in the College of Rachol (1616 and 1649) and the College of St Paul (1654). This was primarily because of the clumsy shapes of the Devanagari types. In 1626, Diogo Reberio compiled the Vocabulario da lingoa Canarim (A Vocabulary of Konkani language) a Konkani
Konkani language
KonkaniKonkani is a name given to a group of several cognate dialects spoken along the narrow strip of land called Konkan, on the west coast of India. This is, however, somewhat an over-generalisation. Geographically, Konkan is defined roughly as the area between the river Damanganga to the north...
-Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and Portuguese-Konkani dictionary.
The 17th century saw the beginning of a large-scale book-printing in Goa, egged on massively by the need to print Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
texts for the benefit of the newly converted Christians. This time also saw a shift from the use of coercion to that of religious education for conversions. Thus, a number of books were printed in Konkani and Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
due to the initiative of, among others, Father Thomas Stephens (who, in 1640, produced the first Konkani Grammar- the Arte de Lingua Canarin and in 1622, published Doutrina Christam em lingoa Bramana Canarim, ordenada a maneira de dialogo, pera ensinar os mininos, por Thomas Estevao, Collegio de Rachol or Christian Doctrines in the Canarese Brahmin Language, arranged in dialogue to teach children.) which was the first book in Konkani and any Indian language), Father Antonio Saldanha, Father Etienne do la Croix, Father Miguel do Almeida and Father Diogo Ribeiro (whose Declaraçam da Doutrina Christam, or Exposition of Christian Doctrine in Konkani was printed in 1632). Despite the efforts of Father Stephens and the general familiarity of the Devanagari script, it was found easier to cast not Devanagari, but Roman types for Konkani. This was one of the major factors that alienated Konkani from other Indian languages, since the Roman script failed to fix a number of Konkani sounds that the Europeans faced difficulty in pronouncing. It was, however, this adoption of the Roman script for printing in the vernacular helped printing to flourish in Goa till 1684, when the official decree suppressed the vernacular languages and printing suffered a setback. Printing in Tamil stopped after 1612,and the last books printed in Latin and Portuguese before printing fairly died were published in 1674.
Ziegenbalg and the revival of printing
It was not till 1706 when Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, a Danish missionary, arrived at Tharangambadi that printing in India could flourish again. A printing press arrived around 1712-13 and the Tranquebar Press produced its first publications. On Ziegenbalg’s insistence, the first Tamil publication from the press reached the mass in 1713, followed by the New Testament in 1715.It was as late as 1821 that printing was revived in Goa with the starting of a weekly called Gazeta de Goa, later known as the Chronista Constitucional de Goa (1835) and still later, the Boletim de Governo do Estado da India (1837).