Of the German who took Tamil to Europeans

Daniel Jeyaraj: "Ijust wanted to study this man."-M. VEDHAN

Interview with Daniel Jeyaraj, Professor at Liverpool Hope University.

DANIEL JEYARAJ is the Director of the Andrew F. Walls Centre for the Study of African and Asian Christianity at Liverpool Hope University in the United Kingdom. His research on the writings of the German Tamil scholar and Lutheran student of theology Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg is well acclaimed. He presented a paper on Ziegenbalg's contribution to Tamil studies in general and grammar in particular at the World Classical Tamil Conference.

Several of Ziegenbalg's palm-leaf manuscripts are waiting to be researched, he says in an interview to Frontline. Excerpts:

How did your interest in Ziegenbalg develop?

It all started in 1991 when I was reading a small book on Tranquebar [Tamil: Tarangambadi] in Tamil Nadu. I was captivated by the narrative on Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg. I wanted to know more about this man, the young German who came here, learnt the Tamil language, wrote a lot about the positive aspects of the Tamil people, translated the Bible into Tamil and thus introduced new ideas and life-changing perspectives of common people, and introduced the printing press to this region. I just wanted to study this man and his contributions to the Tamil language and literature.

My first doctoral work was on the meeting between Germans and the Tamil people from 1706 to 1730. I chose Tamil religions on the basis of Ziegenbalg's Genealogy of Malabarian Deities for my second research work. I translated it as Genealogy of the South Indian Deities'.

What motivated Ziegenbalg to visit Tranquebar?

A few things motivated him to come to India, particularly to Tranquebar. Ziegenbalg was initially reluctant to undertake the visit as he was suffering from malum hypochondriacum [evil hypochondria]. However, his teacher Joachim Lange persuaded him to accept a new offer made by Friedrich IV, the King of Denmark, to become a missionary to work in Danish colonies. He was ordained as a missionary and he left for Tranquebar in November 1705.

Is it true that the European administrators at Tranquebar were hostile to Ziegenbalg?

The European administrators and merchants of the colony did not want him at Tranquebar though he had come there with the express authority of the Danish King. They wanted to keep him away from the Tamil people, as they were afraid of Ziegenbalg's empowering work among these marginalised people. The colonialists had been exploiting the local people economically and socially. Most of them were considered to be at the bottom of the social strata. He was moving with them, loving them and learning to speak their language. The more he interacted with them, the more he realised how intelligent they were and that they did not have the opportunity to develop their intellectual and social skills.

Can you throw some light on the presentation you made at the World Classical Tamil Conference?

I have presented an interpretative analysis of Ziegenbalg's Grammatica Damulica, the first book on Tamil grammar printed in Europe in 1716. The Tamil-Latin grammar book, printed in Halle [Saale], Germany, remained an important source of Tamil knowledge for several European scholars for more than two centuries. As the work is in Latin, it still remains unknown to many Tamil scholars in India. After much effort, I have now prepared an English version of this work.

My paper analyses the genealogy of this grammar, its textual structure and its impact on Europe and India until the middle of the 19th century and until the English missionaries began writing modern grammar. In short, my paper aims at recovering a forgotten aspect of Tamil grammar as seen, written and propagated by a German in the 18th century.

How was Ziegenbalg attracted to the Tamil language?

Ziegenbalg was only 23 when he reached Tranquebar. He lived with the local Tamil people for about 13 years. Whatever he understood of the Tamil people and their language and literature astonished him. His interest in Tamil grew because of three factors: his Lutheran beliefs, the richness of Tamil literature and the philosophical insights of the Tamils. As a student of Lutheran beliefs, he was of the view that every religious text should be available in the mother tongue of the local people so that they would be able to read, understand and interpret it in their own context without depending on others. In the beginning, he thought Tamil did not have any written literature. When he came to know about ethical works such as Ulaganeedhi, Konraivendan and Neethivenba, he was amazed at how people without biblical teaching could achieve such intellectual and ethical heights. So, he translated them as early as 1708 in order to dispel the prejudice of Europeans, particularly Germans, against Tamils.

Unfortunately, these translations were published only in 1930. He knew Tholkappiam and Nannool very well. He had referred to Gnanavenba and quoted Sivavakkiyar.

He was aware that his contemporaries, especially those at Martin Luther University in Halle, were studying the writings of Aristotle, Plato and a few other Roman and Greek philosophers. But Ziegenbalg realised that Tamils had their own philosophy, which was even superior to theirs. He also knew that Tamils had well-advanced social systems.

So, he invited his contemporary theologians in Europe to wrestle with the philosophical insights of the Tamil people. That was one of the reasons why he summarised 119 works of Tamil literature in 1708 and forwarded these to them.

His writings were published in Germany from 1708 onwards and they were read not only in cosmopolitan cities such as Berlin, Stuttgart and Halle but far beyond, in London and Boston.

Why and under what circumstances did Ziegenbalg write the Tamil-Latin grammar?

It all happened in 1715 when he sailed to Europe to sort out certain problems arising out of his work among the people of Tranquebar who were mistreated and exploited by the shareholders of the Danish East India Company. During his voyage, he evaluated the effect of the first Tamil language classes started by his former colleague, Henry Plutschau, and the Tamil student, Timothy Kudiyan, in Halle in 1711 on the German students.

He realised the need for a Tamil grammar text as more students started to evince interest in coming to the Tamil country. He is believed to have started the work on the grammar book on February 15, 1715, just as the ship left the Cape of Good Hope. The manuscript was ready in June and printing was over by December that year. His Tamil companion, Peter Malaiyappan, assisted him in bringing out the book. In all probability, Ziegenbalg might have creatively used the unpublished manuscript Arte Tamulica written by Jesuit Balthazar da Costa (1610-1673) of the Madurai mission, in his 128-page grammar book.

In his preface, Ziegenbalg confesses that he studied Tamil writings day and night so that he could become familiar with the content and phraseology. He concludes thus:

the Tamil language deserves from now on to be included by the learned in Europe among the Oriental languages that are worth learning'

He wrote the grammar not for the Tamil people but for the Pietist missionaries who would succeed him.

In your opinion, what is Ziegenbalg's significant contribution to the Tamil language?

First of all, he propagated it. Secondly, he enabled at least a few Europeans to learn it. This particular book, Grammatica Damulica, remained an important source book for the Tamil language until the middle of the 19th century. Even German intellectuals such as Friedrich Ruckert used it to learn Tamil.

Ziegenbalg often said it was one thing to learn grammar from books but it was quite different to learn it from the people. He learnt grammar from the people and read Cudamani nikandu [a Tamil dictionary of the 16th century] in the early stages to prepare a Tamil lexicon along with a team of poets. But the manuscripts were lost. However, the origin of the current lexicon of the University of Madras can be traced to Ziegenbalg's work in 1708.

What would you suggest to Tamil scholars and researchers with regard to their study of Ziegenbalg's works?

Instead of recycling what is already known, they should delve deeper. For example, Ziegenbalg's palm-leaf writings are languishing in many places, including Halle. They are waiting to be researched. The Mission archives of Francke Foundations house them as crown jewels. They are looking for Indians to decipher them. There is a collection of his ethical principles titled Darmavazhi', which is also a palm-leaf manuscript. I hope scholars will come forward to study that, too.

But Ziegenbalg is just only one of the several scholars whose works are waiting to be researched.