Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Entertainment | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

A boon for researchers

As Tranquebar (Tarangambadi), Thanjavur, Madras and other centres get ready to celebrate in early July the 300th anniversary of the arrival in Tarangambadi of Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg from Halle in Germany, there'll no doubt be plans drawn up to also remember the contribution he and his fellow members of the Danish Halle Mission made to modern education in India. And much of that remembrance could well be in Madras.

The benefits or otherwise of a modern, Western-style education, originally in the English medium but commenced almost simultaneously in Tamil and then in other local languages, is something that could be debated till the cows come home. But the fact is that generations of us have studied in that fashion and the pattern still continues. And we haven't done too badly for ourselves. So perhaps it's a system that could do with a bit of commemoration.

The earliest of those schools was St. George's, now on Poonamallee High Road but with its roots in St. Mary's Charity School established in Fort St. George in 1715. Celebrating its 290th anniversary this year will be St. Paul's, the second oldest school in the city, but in many ways the one which introduced a more formal style of education. And that was thanks to the missionaries from Halle who had come to Tranquebar at the invitation of the Danish King and to Madras at the invitation of the Council of Fort St. George, which did not want British missionaries getting in their way.

Johann Grundler was the first of the German missionaries to make his way from Tranquebar to Madras, arriving here in 1716. Putting down roots in Vepery, he established two schools — one in the English medium, mainly for the Portuguese and mestizos, the other in the Tamil medium. These developed into the Vepery High School in 1862 and as St. Paul's in 1912. Others from Tranquebar who established schools in the same area were Benjamin Schultze who came to Madras in 1728, E.L.M. Fabricius who came in 1742, Gericke who came in 1788, and the Tamil lexicographer and scholar, Johann Peter Rottler who came in 1808.

This history and much more can now be traced thanks to the Francke Mission in Halle which has just informed me that it has catalogued the complete records of the Danish Halle Mission, some 35,000 manuscripts and additional supplements. A message from the Foundation says.

'Please visit our website to get an impression of this work. You will be surprised by the large database presented there. Apart from the manuscripts, we are also presenting a digital full text version of the complete 'Hallesche Berichete' from 1709 to 1772. All this is now available for researchers around the world via internet:

http://www.francke-halle.de/main/index2.php?cf=3_1_3_3_2 http://192.124.243.55/cgi-bin/dhm.pl?t_maske http://www.francke-halle.de/francke.htm/archiv/tamil/index.html”

Indeed, this cataloguing and digitising of the records will prove a boon to Indian researchers in a wide variety of fields. A complete set of the digitised records will be presented during the Ziegenbalg celebrations in Madras to the Gurukulam Lutheran Theological College & Research Institute's archives in Kilpauk. And that will make life even easier for local researchers.

S. MUTHIAH

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail