Lutheran Churches in

Eighteenth-Century India
by P. DANIEL JEYARAJ

T HIS BRIEF ESSAY presents the history of the Lutheran churches in

India during the eighteenth century. It highlights only a few
areas that are relevant to the understanding of the Lutheran presence
and ministry in India. The Tranquebar missionaries understood them-
selves as Protestant missionaries and Lutherans.1 However, they taught
nothing but Lutheran doctrines. Their ordination pledge and mis-
sionary commission required them to teach on Lutheranism, follow
the rituals of the Danish Church and abide by the norms of the
Lutheran Confessions.2 For the sake of clarity, this essay therefore
uses the term "Lutheran" for these particular missionaries and
churches.
India is known as the land of many religions. Hinduism, which is
really a family of numerous religions and religious movements, has a
long history and a rich tradition. Buddhism and Jainism were estab-
lished in India in the sixth century BC. During the Middle Ages,
the Bhakti movements resented these two major religions, and their
significance began to shrink. Besides these religious traditions, there
were numerous religions of the tribal people in the hilly regions and
the Adivasis ("original inhabitants") in the hills and plains. After the
advent of Islam in India, some religious leaders sought to create a
religion that would combine Islamic and Indian religious views.
Sikhism is the result of such an attempt. Indian spirituality thus of-
fers a wide spectrum of diverse religious convictions and practices.
In India, the land of religions, Christianity has a history that is al-
most two thousand years old.

Christians in India before the arrival of the Lutheran Missionaries

Church historians are divided regarding the exact date of Chris-

tianity in India. 3 However, strong oral traditions mention that St.
Thomas, one of Christ s twelve apostles, came to Calicut in 52 AD,

77

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78 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, facilitated the conversion of sev-

eral influential families, established a few churches and was martyred
near Chennai (formerly: Madras) in 72 AD. Due to persecution in
the Persian Empire in the fourth century AD, several Christian fam-
ilies immigrated to the present area of Kerala and settled there. Their
influence in the spice trade was strengthened by another immigra-
tion of Christians in the ninth century. These "St. Thomas" Chris-
tians, also known as the Syrian Christians in India, owned land, traded
and enjoyed a high social prestige.4 When the merchants of the Por-
tuguese East India Company landed in India in 1498, they were very
surprised to meet Christians in India. They gradually took over the
spice trade, earlier carried on by the Jews and the Arabs in South
India. The Portuguese found that the Syrian Christians had a differ-
ent belief, church structure and lifestyle. In 1599, the Portuguese
Archbishop in Goa, Aleixo de Menezes, (1595—1610/12), converted
most of the Syrian Christians to Roman Catholicism. The power of
Padroado missions helped the Portuguese to carry out their plans for
some time. About sixty years later, the Syrian Christians changed;
some went back to their former church and the others remained
within. During the ensuing years, some famous Jesuit missionaries,
especially Francis Xavier (1506-1552) and Roberto de Nobili
(1577—1656) played an important role in establishing Roman Cath-
olic faith both along the East and West Coast and also in the main-
land of India. De Nobili's missionary methods were to be influen-
tial for a long time. His knowledge of Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Latin,
Portuguese, Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit enabled him to create a large
Indian Christian vocabulary. At that time, the power of the Mogul
Empire was beginning to lose its control over many parts of South
India. The Nayaks of Madurai, Tanjore and other South Indian king-
doms tolerated the Portuguese missionaries because they did not want
to lose their business with the Portuguese traders.5 However, with the
emergence of the British East India Company (EIC, 1600-18 5 7) and
the Dutch East India Company (DEIC, 1602—1799), the Danish East
India Company (1616—1845) and the French East India Companies
(1664-1769), the Portuguese power in India began to decrease. The
EIC did not favor missionaries in its territories because it wanted to
remain on good terms with the religious and political leaders of
 L U T H E R A N C H U R C H E S IN E I G H T E E N T H - C E N T U R Y INDIA 79

India. It perceived the missionaries as agents of change who might

damage the commercial interests. Some of the Chaplains of the DEIC
were active in mission work. Abraham Roger (died 1649) and Philip
Baldaeus (163 2-1671) took a keen interest in introducing the faith
and practices of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands.
Their books were useful to the Lutheran missionaries who came to
India later.6
Denmark was the first Lutheran country to establish an East India
Company. King Christian IV charged his officer Ove Gjedde
(1594-1660) on the flagship "Sánete Sophia" (1618) to help the King
of Kandy in present-day Sri Lanka. Gjedde s mission failed. O n his
way back home, he reached (1619) the shore of Tranquebar (Tamil:
Taramgambadi, 'hamlet on the seashore') in the Kingdom of Tan-
jore, on the Coromandel Coast, about 250 kilometers southeast of
the city Chennai. 7 Ove Gjedde negotiated with Ragunatha Nayak
(1600—1630), the King of Tanjore and rented Tranquebar to estab-
lish a Danish-trading center. In their treaty they agreed that the
Danes would be allowed to practice their "Augsburg Religion."
However, the Indians living on the colony would be free to follow
their ancestral religious traditions. Ove Gjedde authorized his sub-
ordinate Roland Crappe to build the fort "Dansborg." Until the
Danes built their first church in 1701, they worshipped in a room in
Fort Dansborg. The company chaplains did not have any recorded
interest in reaching the Indians with the gospel. At the beginning
of the eighteenth century, not a single trace of Jacob Worm (born
in Denmark in 1642), the supposedly first Danish missionary in Tran-
quebar could be found in Tranquebar. By 1702, Tranquebar pos-
sessed fifteen villages with about 30,000 people. About six thousand
people lived in the city of Tranquebar; of them twenty-four were
Danes, one hundred Portuguese, five hundred Roman Catholics
(mostly Indian converts), two thousand Muslims; and the rest belong
to different "Hindu" religious sects. Besides a Mosque and a Roman
Catholic Church, there were fifty-one "Hindu" temples in the en-
tire colony of Tranquebar.8
European Christians were surprised at the multiplicity of religions,
cultures and languages in the small colony of Tranquebar. The Eu-
ropean policy that "the religion of the ruler is the religion of the
80 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

people" was to fail in Tranquebar. Tranquebar was far away from

Denmark. The power of the Danish king in Copenhagen was
claimed, but not seriously adhered to. The local governors deter-
mined how the colony was to be administered so that their already
endangered commerce would not suffer any further deterioration.
In addition, Tranquebar was managed by a Board of Governors in
Copenhagen; the commandant (the chief civil, military and com-
mercial authority in Tranquebar) was not answerable to the King,
but to the Board of Governors. The Danish officials in Tranquebar
were careful not to help any person whose work would educate the
people to understand their rights and exercise their responsibilities.
The success of their trade, transportation, (secret) communication,
military and police services, and the management of food, water and
hygiene in the colony, was very dependent on the good will of their
Indian subordinates. If the foreigners disturbed the local social, reli-
gious and traditional affairs in any manner, this would affect the Dan-
ish administration adversely. Moreover, in 1701, some Jesuit mis-
sionaries at Pondicherry enacted the drama of St. George destroying
the deities of his day. When the Tamil religious leaders in the King-
dom of Tanjore heard of this event, they requested their King Sahaji
(1682—1711) to protect their ancestral religions in his kingdom. Con-
sequently, King Sahaji, who was at times known as the "Nero of Tan-
jore " treated the Christians harshly.9 He prohibited any effort that
might lead to the conversion of his subjects. There was little or no
social intercourse between the people living in the European quar-
ter of Tranquebar, and other Tamils. This deliberate separation deep-
ened their prejudices against each other, and made them suspicious
of each others beliefs, motives and actions.

The First Lutheran Missionaries to India

All the Protestant Reformers in Germany, Switzerland and Great

Britain had something to say about the need for mission. For exam-
ple, Martin Luther (1483—1546) identified mission with the preach-
ing of the Word of God. He compared it to a message of a ruler that
had been proclaimed, but had not yet reached all the people. He
 LUTHERAN CHURCHES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA 81

mentioned the need to acquaint the Turks and Jews of his day with
the message of Jesus Christ. Luther s teaching did not result in an
immediate eruption of fervent missionary activity. Luther's rejection
of monasticism, celibacy and asceticism on the one hand and his em-
phasis on married clergy, local parishes and territorial "State
Churches," on the other hand, continued to stabilize local congre-
gations. The religious wars between the Lutherans and the Roman
Catholics, between the Lutherans and the Calvinists, and the mani-
fold efforts of the Orthodox Lutheran theologians to formulate theo-
logically accurate doctrines and other ecclesiastical concerns con-
sumed the energy and resources of the Lutheran churches. Moreover,
many theologians believed that the Great Commission was given
only to the twelve Apostles and was no longer binding because the
office of the Apostles had ended long ago. Some theologians (e.g.,
Philipp Nicolai, 1556-1608), who knew of the state-funded mission
movements of the Jesuits among the inhabitants of South America,
believed that political rulers should initiate the mission work. These
and other reasons contributed to the fact that there were no signif-
icant inter-cultural Lutheran missionary efforts for almost two cen-
turies.
The life and work of Philipp Jacob Spener (163 5-1705), consid-
ered to be a "father of Pietism" and a "counselor of European
princes," produced a significant change. He was interested in a mis-
sion to the Jews living in and around the city of Frankfurt, Ger-
many. In his book of reforms Pia Desideria ("pious desires") of 1675,
he proposed that Christians should use the Bible as the primary
tool for personal and corporate transformation. All Christians,
clergy and laity, share the "priesthood of all believers" so that they
should get involved in Bible study and various kinds of mission
work; Christianity was more than an academic or intellectual
knowledge. Love of the neighbor should not only be preached, but
also demonstrated. His teachings influenced people in almost all lev-
els of social stratification across denominational limits, territorial
boundaries and language barriers. His close friend, August Hermann
Francke (1663-1727), founded an orphanage at Halle (Saale) with a
view to practice Pietism, and to educate poor and neglected chil-
dren. He believed that Jesus Christ was the center of the entire Bible;
82 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

God used the Bible to transform people s lives; every Christian had
the privilege to get actively involved in working for the betterment
of less privileged people. In order to improve the quality of people's
lives, Christians should disseminate biblical values in all walks of life
and all over the world. Though he did not think of cross-cultural
mission immediately, his various educational and philanthropic works
prepared his students to work in different cultural and linguistic back-
grounds. 10
The first two Lutheran missionaries to India, Bartholomäus
Ziegenbalg (1682-1719) and Heinrich Plütschau (1677-1746), were
Francke's students. Francke was not involved either in the establish-
ment of the Tranquebar Mission or in selecting the missionaries. His
friend and co-worker in Berlin, Joachim Lange (1670-1744), suggested
their names to Franz Julius Liitkens (1650-1712), the court chaplain
of King Frederich IV of Denmark. Ziegenbalg and Plütschau were or-
dained as Royal Danish Missionaries and sent to India in Novem-
ber of 1705. In their ordination vow, they promised that they would
keep the Danish liturgy in the mission church that they would es-
tablish, and they would teach only the doctrines of the Lutheran
Symbolic Books. The arrival of Ziegenbalg and Plütschau in Tran-
quebar on July 9, 1706, marked the beginning of the Lutheran
church in India.

Lutherans in India

After initial problems with the Danish government in Tranquebar,

the missionaries had to learn the most suitable methods of preaching
the Word of God in Tamil. Ziegenbalg concentrated on learning
Tamil. Plütschau was busy in learning Portuguese, the lingua franca of
the European colonists in India. The missionaries read Tamil books
written on palm leaves. Knowledgeable Tamils explained how their
belief and social systems functioned. Their Lutheran teaching did not
revolve around the "justification by faith," but rather, according to
the tradition of Halle Pietism, on personal, spiritual regeneration and
holy living. With the help of Indians who were well versed in Tamil,
Portuguese, German and Danish, the missionaries completed the
 LUTHERAN CHURCHES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA 83

translation of the Tamil New Testament in 1711. This enabled the

Tamil people to have the Christian Scripture in their own language.
For them it was a great amazement, that the persons mentioned in
the New Testament, knew Tamil and could express their message in
Tamil. It was a fascinating experience for those who read the Word
of God in their mother tongue. Ziegenbalg translated Luther's Large
and Small Catechisms and Spener s Catechism into Tamil. Gradually,
the Tamils were acquainted with Lutheran teachings. Slowly, the
church as an alternate social community with its own identity began
to emerge. In May of 1707, five adults were baptized. On June 14,
1707, the foundation stone was laid for a small church building which
was dedicated as the "Jerusalem Church" on August 14,1707. Within
two years this church enrolled 102 members.11 The membership grew
so fast that in October of 1718 a second church building, the "New
Jerusalem Church," was dedicated. This church building exists even
today and reminds every person of the beginnings of the Lutheran
church in India. In a way, the New Jerusalem Church has become
the mother of all "Protestant" churches in India. When the church
began to exercise its influence on the society, it provoked political, so-
cial and religious conflicts. About a generation had to pass away be-
fore these conflicts could be settled to some extent. At the same time,
the new converts brought with them their distinct cultural identities;
customs such as the habits of eating, greeting, social intercourse, dress-
ing in a particular way, rites related to birth, initiation, wedding and
burial and so on, became part of the church life. These elements were
utterly different from what the missionaries were used to in Europe.
The social life of the church exhibited an integration of biblical val-
ues brought in by the pietistic missionaries and some marks of the
Tamil way of conduct and life.
The Lutheran Christians felt the need for educating their children.
The Indian social system of caste with its long religious sanction em-
bracing every walk of life made it necessary that the Christians should
find ways to sustain themselves within this cultural framework. Con-
version meant a break with the dignity, social acceptance and other
privileges of the caste. Christianity was associated with the way of
the "Paranghis" (Europeans eating beef, drinking wine, having extra-
84 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

marital relationships with women, and desiring to have monetary

benefit at any cost). School education was designed to help the youth
to have a different set of values: hard work, access to knowledge, abil-
ity to reflect on certain themes independently, determination to avoid
unnecessary expenditure at the times of wedding and funeral, and so
on. After a school for boys was started in 1707, a separate school for
girls was established in 1710. The girls' school created a sensation be-
cause it was the first public school in South India meant exclusively
for the girls. In order to help the church members to be indepen-
dent, the missionaries provided them with a small loan to start a busi-
ness. Ziegenbalg was convinced that the body and soul of a person
belonged together inseparably, and influenced each other mutually.
Hence, holistic mission should be understood properly as the "ser-
vice to the soul and service to the body." Thus, a new generation of
Christian was growing with different values, work ethics and world-
views. The Danish East India Company in Tranquebar expressed its
unwillingness to appoint the students trained in the mission schools.
This made the youth immigrate to other cities and business centers.
Wherever they went, they tried to keep their new faith alive. They
became missionaries within their own country and cultural context.
Slowly, many small congregations began to emerge not only within
the Danish colony (for example in the village of Porraiyar), but also in
many parts outside Tranquebar. In 1727, Rajanayakkan (1700—1771),
a Roman Catholic and low caste soldier in the service of the Tan-
jore King, read the New Testament printed in 1714 in Tranquebar
and embraced the Lutheran faith.12 Rajanayakkan became the
founder of the Lutheran church in the Kingdom of Tanjore.13 In the
same year, Wedappen, a temple priest in the village of Anandaman-
galam, became a Lutheran and gave up his former way of life. His
witness to those who came to him for divination and magical rites
was powerful. Many became Christians. The growth of Lutheran
Christians necessitated another missionary method. Catechists
Aaron, Diago and their helpers toured throughout the Tanjore
Kingdom and looked after the Christians. However, they were un-
able to administer Holy Communion. Since no European mis-
sionary was allowed to enter the Tanjore Kingdom freely, the mis-
sionaries had to find a new way to meet the pressing need. In 1728
 LUTHERAN CHURCHES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA 85

they requested the Board Members of the Tranquebar Mission in

Copenhagen to grant them permission to ordain an Indian as a full
pastor to look after the growing church. In December 173 3, the mis­
sionaries ordained the Catechist Aaron as the first Indian Lutheran
Pastor. It was indeed a significant development. 14

Consolidation of the Lutheran Church in India

The New Jerusalem Church at Tranquebar was firmly established.

Indian Christians led the congregational life, evangelistic work and
all other extra-ecclesiastical ministries. The Lutheran church in the
Kingdom of Tanjore began to grow. The royal family in Tanjore
took note of this development; one of its members, Teluguraja, in­
vited the Tranquebar missionary Christian Friedrich Pressier
(ι697-173 8) to attend a marriage function in the palace in 1728. It
was a great move demonstrating the spirit of tolerance towards Chris­
tians. The reality of caste within the church was painful. In 1745, a
cross-shaped church was built at Porraiyar, in the neighborhood of
Tranquebar. The cross, although the symbol of unity and sacrifice,
was used to divide Christians of different caste backgrounds by mak­
ing them sit in different wings of the church. Toward the end of the
eighteenth century, caste divisions caused the celebrants of Holy
Communion to use two different chalices: one chalice was used to
give wine to Christians belonging to supposedly higher castes, and
the other one to the low caste Christians. When Ziegenbalg was
alive, he opposed the identities based upon caste; he taught that God
created all people as equals. Further, he quoted certain passages from
the writings of famous Tamil poets who had condemned caste prej­
udices. Ziegenbalg s successors, however, were not acquainted with
the literature of the Tamils; the social pressure imposed by caste, es­
pecially the desire to keep family lineage, dignity and code of con­
duct, seemed to have convinced the mission leaders of that time to
tolerate caste within the Lutheran church. They did speak against
the abominable practice of untouchability that was supposed to cause
ritual impurity. However, their teaching made little or no progress.
Yet, Lutheran churches were established in many cities.
86 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

Heinrich Wilhelm Ludolf (1655-1712), secretary to George, the

Lutheran Danish Prince Consort of Queen Ann of England, knew
August Hermann Francke and his orphanage in Halle. Ludolf rec-
ommended Anton Wilhelm Böhme (ι673-1722), a student of
Francke, to be the Lutheran chaplain to Prince George in London.
Böhme translated some writings of Francke into English and drew
the attention of his readers to the distinctive elements of the Halle
Pietism. After he had become a member of the Society for Pro-
moting Christian Knowledge (SPCK, established in London in
1698), he translated some selected letters and reports of Ziegenbalg
on the mission work in India. The leaders of SPCK took much in-
terest in the function of the Tranquebar Mission.15 They sent a print-
ing press to Tranquebar. They secured free travel and transportation
of letters and goods on the ships of the British East India Company
for the missionaries in Tranquebar. When Ziegenbalg visited Lon-
don in 1716, the leaders of SPCK introduced him to King George
I (who was from Hanover, Germany). King George I expressed his
great pleasure in the work of the Tranquebar missionaries. The
SPCK was aware of the co-operation between the Anglicans in En-
gland and the Lutherans in Germany. The Charter of the British East
India Company demanded that in all their colonies in India, a char-
ity school should be established for the education of children. For a
very long time, this need remained unfulfilled. In 1717, at the invi-
tation of the officers of the East India Company, the Tranquebar mis-
sionaries established a charity school in Cuddalore. Another Tran-
quebar missionary, Benjamin Schultze (1689-1760, from 1719 until
1725 in Tranquebar, from 1741 in Halle, Germany),became the first
Lutheran missionary in India to be sponsored by the Anglican
SPCK. Schultze established a school and a church in the Black Town
in Madras. At the request of the SPCK, the Lutheran Court Chap-
lain Ruperti in London ordained the German Lutheran, J.A. Sarto-
rius, as a missionary to the English colony Cuddalore (known as Fort
St. David). The results of the labor of Sartorius and his successors are
evident even to this day.
In 1757, Robert Clive won the Battle at Plassey and got the right
of collecting revenues from Siraj-ud-daulah, the Nawab of Bengal.
Thus he laid a firm foundation for British India. As an ordinary clerk
 L U T H E R A N C H U R C H E S IN E I G H T E E N T H - C E N T U R Y INDIA 87

he was acquainted with the Lutheran missionaries in Cuddalore and

in Madras. He knew the Swede, Johann Zecharias Kiernander
(1711-1798). Kiernander was a Lutheran missionary in Cuddalore,
when the French took over the city from the British. When the
Protestants found it difficult to remain under French occupation,
they left the place. Kiernander married Ann, a widow of a British
naval officer. At the invitation of Bartholomäus Lebrecht Ziegen-
balg, a son of Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Director of the Danish
East India Company in Serampore (1758—1760), Kiernander went
to Calcutta, the capital of British East India Company. Clive wel-
comed him and promised his assistance. Clive and his wife became
the godparents for the son of Kiernander at his baptism in Calcutta.
Kiernander built the first Lutheran church in Calcutta and named it
"Beth Tephillah" ("house of prayer"). At present, this church is
known as either as the "Lai Girja" ("red Church") or as the Old Mis-
sion Church. Kiernander s school had over two hundred students. In
1785, the SPCK sent C.Ch. Diemar (1745-1792) to be their mis-
sionary in Calcutta. Kiernander and Diemar could not understand
each other; their mission work lost its importance. Kiernander be-
came bankrupt, left Calcutta and spent the remaining years of his life
in Chinsura, a Dutch colony near Calcutta. 16 William Carey
(1761—1834), who is considered in most of the Anglo-Saxon world
to be the father of modern missions, reached Calcutta in 1793 and
did not find a flourishing Lutheran mission set up by Kiernander. It
is possible that some of the students, whom Kiernander trained,
would have assisted Carey in his initial work. With Kiernander's
work the Lutheran mission reached Calcutta, the capital city of the
British East India Company.
One of the most influential Lutheran missionaries in India was
Christian Friedrich Schwartz (1726-1798, from 1750 in South
India).17 In 1762, he visited the Christians in the city of Tiruchirap-
palli, the Residence City of the Nawab, who was the official repre-
sentative of the Mogul Empire of India. The Nawab had invited an
army of the British East India Company to assist him in collecting
revenues from local Tamil kings. Schwartz met Major Preston in
Tiruchirappalli. Preston requested him to minister to the spiritual
needs of the English soldiers. In 1763, the British soldiers started a
 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

school for those English children who had lost their fathers in the
wars. Major Preston assigned a small place to build the first Lutheran
church in Tiruchirappalli. The church was dedicated as "Christ
Church." Now it belongs to the Church of South India. In 1769
Tulasiraja, the King of Tanjore, invited Schwartz to settle down in
Tanjore permanently. Tulasiraja knew that Schwartz enjoyed the trust
of the Tamils, Muslims, Christians, and the British people in the
Tamil Country. He was also aware that Schwartz was not in need of
interpreters because he was fluent in Tamil (the language of the peo-
ple), Persian (the language of the Muslim administration), Marathi
(the administrative language of the Tanjore Kings), English (the lan-
guage of the British), Latin, Greek and Hebrew. O n his deathbed,
Tulasiraja entrusted his adopted son, Serfojee II, to the care of
Schwartz. Schwartz taught him English, the values of good admin-
istration, and the determination to collect manuscripts in different
languages. He never tried to compel him to change his faith. Thus
Schwartz has left behind him an indelible influence in South India.
The Saraswathi Mahal Library in Tanjore, which now houses several
thousands of manuscripts in many different Indian and European
languages, testifies to the abiding influence of Schwartz on the South
Indians.
Some of the converts and co-workers of Schwartz became out-
standing missionaries. He baptized Clarinda, a Maratha Brahmin
woman convert. She established the first Lutheran church at
Palayamkottai in the District of Tirunelveli. Schwartz ordained Sat-
tiyanathan, a catechist, in 1790 to be the pastor of the church at
Palayamkottai. Although Schwartz did not posses the ecclesiastical
authority of a bishop to ordain others for Christian ministry, no one
in India or in Europe questioned him. His life and service earned
him fame and acceptance. His contributions to the welfare of Indi-
ans are yet to be written.

Decline of the Lutheran Mission and Continuation

of the Lutheran Church

By the end of the eighteenth century, a number of changes took

place in Europe, especially in Germany. After the death of Gotthilf
 LUTHERAN CHURCHES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA 89

August Francke (1696—1769), the Director of the Orphanage in

Halle, his successors had different views about the mission work in
India. They were mostly under the influence of the Enlightenment
and wanted to recognize that each group of people had its own cul-
tural, social, religious and linguistic identity, which should not be dis-
turbed. Christian cross-cultural mission was perceived to impinge
upon the freedom of conscience of others. By this time, some of the
classical Sanskrit writings were available in English translation. Sir
William Jones (1746-94) played an important role in establishing
the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 and awoke the interest of sev-
eral Europeans to study Sanskrit literature. In 1785, Wilkins pub-
lished his English translation of the devotional book Bhagavad Gita.
In 1789, Sir William Jones published an English translation of the
fascinating Sanskrit drama Shakuntala, the masterpiece of Kalidasa.
It captivated the attention of the European intellectuals and created
an excitement for India and India's literature. With the financial help
and approval of the Asiatic Society, William Carey and his colleagues
translated parts of the famous epic Ramayana from Sanskrit into En-
glish (1806-1810), because they felt that their translation would in-
troduce European readers to understand Hindu mythology com-
prehensively.18 Moreover, the journal Asiatick Researches of the Asiatic
Society was translated into French and German. Consequently, the
editors of the Halle Reports had to find another way of keeping their
journal alive.19
The impact of Enlightenment theology was felt in Halle itself.
The Bible was not recognized as the primary source for knowledge
of God. As a result, it was not used to affirm the validity of the mis-
sionary enterprises in a non-European land. Johann Gottfried von
Herder (1744-1803), an influential German philosopher and Su-
perintendent of the Lutheran churches in Weimar, attacked the
practice of the Tranquebar missionaries and the publication of the
mission journal from Halle. Herder accused them of not having
considered the insights of the Brahmins into the being of God.
From 1776 onwards, the mission journal of the Halle Pietists did
not give much importance to articles on South Indian religion;
rather their interest shifted to astronomy, botany, zoology and so-
cial customs.
90 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

New missionary candidates for India were not readily available.

The request of C.F. Schwartz and his colleagues in South India for
more missionaries was not successful. August Frederich Cämmerer
(ι767-1837) was the last Danish-Halle missionary in Tranquebar.
The Danish Government asked the Danish clergy of the Zion
Church in Tranquebar to function as pastors and missionaries. The
last Danish clergy-missionary, Hans Knudsen, worked in Tranque­
bar for six years and returned to Denmark in 1843. It was evident
that the Danish interest in the mission work was deteriorating very
fast. The great malaria epidemic in Denmark, especially in Zealand
and Lolland (about 1830), the "Theatre War" of Denmark with
Sweden (1788—1789), the Napoleonic wars between Denmark and
other European nations (1812-1815) and the Danish wars with
Schleswig (1848-1850) drained Danish national resources. Denmark
was unable to concentrate on its colonies in India. In 1821, the Dan­
ish Missionary Society was founded. It began to operate its own mis­
sion work. In 1827, the King of Denmark recognized the Serampore
College established by William Carey in Serampore (1818) and au­
thorized it to confer academic degrees. Thus, this college was raised
to the status of the Danish University either in Copenhagen or in
Kiel. The King may have thought that instead of sending mission­
aries to India, Indian Christians themselves could be trained as mis­
sionaries, pastors and church administrators. Moreover, politically the
situation in India had changed. The British East India Company
emerged as a mighty power pushing away other European trading
companies. O n February 22,1845, the Danish India Company sold
all of its non-ecclesiastical properties in India to the British East India
Company for 1,250,000 Rupees. All the church-related properties
in Tranquebar were handed over to the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran
Mission (LELM) in Germany. 20 Thus, the "mother of the Lutheran
missions" was ended. But the church that grew out of this mission
continued further.
The LELM was happy to support the Tamil Lutheran Church in
South India. It sent its first official representative Johan Heinrich
Karl Cordes (1813-1892). Cordes stabilized the mission work in
Tranquebar. Karl Graul (1814-1864), the first director of the LELM
(1844-1861), visited India during 1849-1853 (via Egypt). He was
 LUTHERAN CHURCHES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA 91

attracted to the Tamil literature. He translated the most famous eth-

ical book of the Tamils, Tirukkural, into German (1856). He col-
lected a large number of Tamil books for the mission library in Leipzig.
His four-volume book entided Biblioteca Tamúlica (ι 854-1856) pro­
vides the result of an important cross-cultural study 21 With due re­
spect to this great scholar, two things need to be pointed out: when
he was in India, he encountered Tamil culture and Tamil literature—
with the help of N. Samuel, a Tamil Lutheran pastor in Madras.Yet,
Graul never acknowledged Samuel in his writings. Graul, a strict
Lutheran and proponent of Volkskirche ("people's Church"), knew
that the Protestant churches in Europe did not question the validity
of feudalism. He interpreted the caste system in India as a social sys­
tem that gave people the sense of belonging and dignity. He opposed
the totally negative view by the Anglo-Saxon missionaries (e.g.
George Uglow Pope and Robert Caldwell), who wanted to get rid
of the caste system. During the nineteenth century about ninety
German missionaries sent by the LELM were working in South
India. In 1919, the Lutheran church in South India changed its
name to the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC). In 1921
the Church of Sweden Mission offered its co-operation and intro­
duced a bishopric system of church administration. In 1977, the
Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Lower Saxony, Germany, joined
TELC as a partner. At present, the TELC has about five hundred
congregations with 110,000 members. Its headquarters are situated
in Tiruchirappalli.

Conclusion

One of the desires of Ziegenbalg was to portray the life of Indi­

ans and the new converts in such a way that his European Christian
readers would learn to take their Christian faith and life seriously.
This vision has not yet been fulfilled adequately. Most of the West­
ern Christians thought that giving a little money and praying for the
new Christians were sufficient. They assumed that they did not need
to learn anything from them. The importance of simplicity of faith,
daring Christian witness in the context of pluralistic society and their
92 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

desire to be recognized as fellow heirs in the Kingdom of God did

not appeal to them. The common understanding that economically
poor and intellectually naive people responded to the message of
gospel prevented them from appreciating the fact that they too, the
supposedly affluent and intellectual people, needed to appropriate
the values of the gospel of Jesus Christ in their daily life. The mis-
sionaries who returned to Europe wrote or spoke of their "heroic"
mission in India.Yet, they failed to mention the fact that the Indian
Christians had accepted them as their leaders, disclosed to them their
culture, spent days and months with them without proper payment
or any other compensation and yet showed them generous hospital-
ity. Moreover, the missionaries did not share either the mission re-
ports or their writings about the Christians in South India with the
South Indian Christians. They used the South Indian Christians to
gather information on their culture and society.Yet, they did not share
with them the result of their study. The contribution of the Indians
to the emergence of the Lutheran churches and the documentation
of the South Indian culture and society were not mentioned. In the
Lutheran mission reports of the eighteenth century, the Indian Chris-
tians were mostly nameless entities. The Western mission scholars
wrote their works in English, German, and Danish. Most of the In-
dian Christians could not read these texts in a foreign language. The
knowledge of Christian missions in India became a monopoly of the
Western scholars. The Western mission literature usually does not
deal with the economic gulf between the missionaries and their In-
dian co-workers. Generally, the Western missionaries lived in large
houses and kept servants for cooking, gardening and other work. On
the contrary, Indian Christian leaders were given small houses; their
salary was meager, barely enough to sustain their families. There was
a remarkable difference between the lifestyle of the European mis-
sionaries and their Indian co-workers. For example, Ziegenbalg s an-
nual salary amounted to two hundred Reichstaler. At the same time,
the annual salary of Aaron, the first Indian Lutheran pastor, was only
thirty-six Reichstaler. In the eighteenth century, Indian Christians
were aware of this disparity, but did not magnify the tension. They
seem to have been grateful to the missionaries for introducing them
to Jesus Christ. It is possible that their sense of thankfulness pre-
 LUTHERAN CHURCHES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA 93

vented them from demanding adequate payment for their services.

One of the Tamil proverbs reads: uppu ittavarai ullalavum ninai. It
means: "As long as you live, remain grateful to the one who has given
you salt" (food, help and benevolence, etc.). The European mission-
aries may not have understood this cultural mindset of many Chris-
tians in South India.
In some instances, the mission reports on the lifestyle and customs
of the South Indians tended to magnify the weak points of South
Indians. While printed reports had a tendency to record the hero-
ism of the European missionaries, the manuscripts of the missionar-
ies show that they too were human beings with selfish motives, su-
periority/inferiority complex, a basic tendency to blame others for
one's faults, and so on. For example, Ziegenbalg s disagreement with
his colleagues Plütschau and Johann Georg Bövingh (1676-1728,
arrived in Tranquebar in 1709 and sailed back to Europe in 1711),
his contention with Johann Sigismund Hassius, the Danish Gover-
nor in Tranquebar (1704—1716), were not publicized—for under-
standable reasons—by the editors of the Halle Reports. A closer
study of the unpublished manuscripts written by the proponents and
opponents of the Tranquebar Mission makes it clear that God used
frail human beings—both Indians and Europeans—to establish a
Protestant Church in India. The inter-cultural encounter influenced
these people in both directions.
Despite these limitations, the reports on the Tranquebar Mission
united several groups of Christians in India, Germany, Denmark,
Great Britain and in New England (especially Boston). They prayed
for the mission and helped the mission work in India. The Tran-
quebar Mission contributed either directly or indirectly to the es-
tablishment of several Western missionary agencies such as the
Moravian Mission (1730s), the Baptist Missionary Society (1792),
the London Missionary Society (1795), the Mission Seminary es-
tablished by Johann Jänike in Berlin (1800), the Basle Evangelical
Missionary Society Mission (1815), the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran
Mission (1819, 1848), the Danish Mission to Greenland and the
Danish Missionary Society (1821). These missionary agencies in-
troduced the Christian faith to numerous groups in many parts of
the world.
94 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

Currendy, the manuscripts of the Tranquebar missionaries are kept

in the Mission Archives of the Francke Foundations in Halle, the
Tranquebar Library of the LELM, the Royal Library and Royal
Archives in Copenhagen, the Oriental & India Office Collection at
the British Library in London, the Government Archives in Madras
and in many other institutions and family collections. Together with
the edited and published reports, the missionary documents form a
unique source of information for Indian studies. Besides informa­
tion on the churches, missionaries and Indian Christians, there are
detailed accounts on India, climate, flora and fauna, languages, poli­
tics, commerce, agriculture, psychology, ethics, education, music, med­
icine, mathematics, astronomy, cosmography, religion, cultic practices,
behavior patterns, temple architecture, and so forth. These docu­
ments, which differ much from the translations of Indian materials
by Matthias Christian Sprengel (ι745-1803), who was never in India,
offer first-hand information on India and Indians. The wide spec­
trum of material found in the missionary documents requires a team
of Indian and European scholars representing different fields of
knowledge for meaningful research. Christian missiologists or church
historians alone cannot uncover the wealth of these documents ad­
equately. Most of these documents are kept in Western archives and
libraries. Their conscious and consistent efforts to preserve these doc­
uments deserve respect and acknowledgement. However, in many
cases, they are not accessible to Indian scholars. European scholars
who do not know Indian languages and Indian scholars who do not
know European languages need to coordinate their research efforts
for maximum success and mutual enrichment.
In India, the legacy of the Tranquebar Mission was not limited to
the Lutheran churches alone. After the Danish government sold their
Indian colonies to the British East India Company, some important
Lutheran churches came under the jurisdiction of the Society for
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (established in London
in 1701) and the Church Missionary Society (founded in London in
1799). St. Matthias' Church atVepery in Madras with a tomb of the
Lutheran missionary Johann Philip Fabricius (1711-1791), the
Christ Church in Trichirappalli, the Schwartz Churches in Tanjore
(i.e., Christ Church in the Little Fort and St. Peter's Church), and the
 L U T H E R A N C H U R C H E S IN E I G H T E E N T H - C E N T U R Y INDIA 95

Clarinda Church at Palayamkottai in Tirunelveli lost their Lutheran

connection. After the Church of South India was established on Sep-
tember 27 of 1947, these churches automatically became the wor-
ship places for the Christians belonging to that new entity.
In the nineteenth century, several Lutheran mission agencies from
Europe and North America worked in India. In the course of time,
the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Arcot Lutheran
Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Madhya Pradesh, the
Good Samaritan Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Gossner Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church in Chhotanagpur and Assam, the India
Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Jeypore Evangelical Lutheran
Church, the Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church, the South
Andhra Lutheran Church and the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran
Church all emerged. Now they all belong to the United Evangeli-
cal Lutheran Church in India, the National Christian Council of
Churches in India, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ger-
many, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of
Churches. The year 2006 will mark the three-hundredth anniver-
sary of the arrival of B. Ziegenbalg in Tranquebar. It will offer a
unique opportunity for all the Protestant churches in India, Ger-
many, Denmark, Great Britain and other countries to reflect on the
three hundred years of Protestant presence and ministry in India. As
far as Europe is concerned, the legacy of the Tranquebar Mission is
history; but for Indian Christians it is a living legacy filled with vigor
and opportunities for further development.

NOTES

1. For a general survey of the Tranquebar Mission, see J. Ferdinand Fenger, History of
the Tranquebar Mission—Worked outfrom the original Papers—Published in Danish and translated
into English from the German ofEmil Francke—Compared with the Danish Original (Tranque-
bar: Evangelical Lutheran Mission Press, 1863); Arno Lehmann, Es begann in Tranquebar—
Die Geschichte der ersten evangelischen Kirche in Indien (Berlin: EvangelischeVerlagsanstalt, 1956);
Anders Norgaard, Mission und Obrigkeit—Die Danisch-hallische Mission in Tranquebar 1706-1845,
translated from Danish into German by Eberhard Harbsmeier (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1988); and
Daniel Jeyaraj, Inkulturation in Tranquebar—Der Beitrag der frühen Danisch-Halleschen Mission
96 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

zum Werden einer indisch einheimischen Kirche, 1706-1730 (Erlangen Verlag der e\ -luth Mis-
sion, 1996)
2 See Hans-Werner Gensichen, "Die konfessionelle Stellung der danisch-halleschen
Mission," Evangelische Misswnszeitschnft 13 (1956) 1-19
3 For an overview, see Stephen Neill, A History of Christianity in India—The Begin-
nings to AD 1707, Vol I (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1984), and A History of
Christianity in India i 707-1 #5 ¿?, Vol II (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1983)
4 For a detailed study of the St Thomas traditions in India, see A Mathias Mundadan,
History of Christianity in India—From the beginning up to the middle of the sixteenth century (up
to 1542) (Bangalore Theological Publications in India, published for Church History As-
sociation of India, 1984)
5 For a detailed studv of the R o m a n Catholic mission in India during the eighteenth
century, see Edward Rene Hambye, History of Christianity in India—Eighteenth century (Ban-
galore Church History Association of India, 1997)
6 Β Ziegenbalg and his successors studied the German version of the following book
Philip Baldaeus, A true and exact description of the most celebrated East-India coast of Malabar and
Coromandel and also of the Isle of Ceylon, translated from the High-Dutch printed at Amsterdam
1672 It was reprinted several times (e g , in 1745, 1752) There is a also a recent reprint
N e w Delhi/Madras Asian Educational Services, 1996
7 For a general introduction to Tranquebar, see Esther Fihl, "Some Theoretical and
Methodological Consideration on the Study of Danish Colonialism in Southeast India,"
FOLK26 (1984) 51—56, Hans-Werner Gensichen, Tranquebar Then And \ou>—A Guide to
the Historical Buildings and Sttes (Madras The Christian Literature Service, 1956), and Stephan
Diller, Die Danen in Indien, Sudostasien und China (1620-1845) (Wiesbaden Harrassowitz,
1999)
8 See Ole Feldbaek, " T h e Development of an Indo-European Tow η in Mughal
India—Tranquebar in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," in Changing South Asia—
City and Culture, ed Kenneth Ballhatchet & David Taylor (London The Centre of South
Asian Studies in the School of Oriental & African Studies at the Um\ersitv of London /
Asian Research Service, 1984), 11-20
9 See Leon Besse, Father Beschi of the Society of Jesus, His Times and His Writings with
a Portrait (Tnchinopoly St Joseph's Industrial School, 1918), 22
10 For the writings of Francke, see Erhard Peschke, [ed ] August Hermann Francke—
Werke in Auswahl (Berlin Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1969)
11 For the names of these 102 members and their background, see Wilhelm Ger mann,
"Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg als Bahnbrecher der lutherischen Mission," Allgemeine Misswn-
szeitschnjt (1883) 481-497 and especiallv pages 529-539
12 See Darnel Jeyaraj, "Early Tamil Bible Translation in Tranquebar," Dharma Deepika,
Madras 1/1 (1997) 67-77
13 See Heike Liebau, "Tamihsche Christen im 18 Jahrhundert als Mitgestalter sozialer
Veränderungen—Motivationen, Möglichkeiten und Resultate ihres Wirkens," Akteure des
Wandels—Lebemlaufe und Gruppenbilder an Schnittstellen von Kulturen, ed Petra Heidrich and
Heike Liebau (Berlin Verlag Das Arabische Buch, 19-44), P a g e s 24-29 deal with the life
and work of Rajanaikkan
14 See Daniel Jeyaraj, "The Ordination of the first Protestant Indian Pastor Aaron,"
Ordination of the first Protestant Indian Pastor Aaron, ed Daniel Jeyaraj (Madras Gurukul
Lutheran Theological College & Research Institute, 1998), 1-79
 L U T H E R A N C H U R C H E S IN E I G H T E E N T H - C E N T U R Y I N D I A 97

15. See Daniel L. Brunner, Halle Pietists in England—Anthony William Boehm and the So-
ciety for Promoting Christian Knowledge (Göttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993).
16. See Herman Sandegren,Jo/m Zacharias Kiernander—The First Swedish Missionary in
India, translated from the Swedish Original (1924) by E. Wimmercranz (Madras: National
Missionary Society Press, 1928); Johannes Sandegren, From Tranquebar to Serampore (Cal-
cutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1955); and Hans-Werner Gensichen, "Fernwirkungen der
dänisch-hallischen Mission," Lutherisches Missionsjahrbuch (1956): 54-65.
17. See Hugh Pearson, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of the Reverend Christian
Frederick Swartz, 2 Vols. (London: Hatchard & Son, 1834); Robert Eric Frykenberg, "The
Legacy of Christian Friederich Schwartz," International Bulletin of Missionary Research 23.3
(July, 1999): 130-135; and Daniel Jeyaraj, "Christian Frederick Schwartz and his Social
Concerns," Christian Frederick Schwartz—His Contributions to South India, ed. Daniel Je-
yaraj, Lutheran Heritage Series 2, (Madras: Lutheran Heritage Archives, 1999), 1-26.
18. See http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/turner/turner_on_ramayuna.htm (Septem-
ber 16,2002).
19. There are nine large volumes of the Halle Reports that were published from 1710
until 1766. T h e first volume bears the following title: Der Konigl. Missionarien aus Ost-
Indien eingesandter Ausfuhrlichen Berichten Erster Theil/ von dem Wercke ihres Amtes unter den
Hey den/ angerichteten Schulen und Gemeinen, ereigneten Hindernissen und schweren Umstanden;
Beschaffenheit des Malabarischen Heydenthums, gepflogenen briefflicher Correspondentz und
mündlichen Unterredungen mit selbigen Heyden; des einen Missionarius Heraus-Reise nach Europa,
auch glücklicher Zuruckkunft in Ost-Indien; und übrigen Merckwurdigkeiten, so von ihnen, seit ihrer
Abreise nach Indien bis zum August des I7i6ten Jahres heraus geschrieben und hier von von Zeit
zu Zeit in verschiedenen Fortsetzungen ediret sind; Vom Ersten ausfuhrlichen Bericht an bis zu dessen
zwölfter Continuation mitgetheilet [von August Hermann Francke]—Nebst einem vollständigen Reg-
ister (Halle: In Verlegung des Waysen-Hauses, 1728). Later, the mission reports were pub-
lished under a different title: Neuere Geschichte der evangelischen Missionsanstalten zu Bekehrung
der Heiden in Ost-Indien—Aus den eigenhändigen Aufsätzen und Briefen der Missionarien (Halle:
Waisenhaus, 1/1770-8/1848).
20. See D Paul Fleisch, Hundert Jahre lutherischer Mission (Leipzig: Verlag der Evange-
lisch-lutherischen Mission, 1936).
21. See Karl Grau, Bibliotheca Tamúlica—swe Opera praecipua Tamuliensium—Edita, trans-
lata, adnotationibus glossariisque instructa a Carolo Graul, Vols. 4, rpt. (Osnabrück: O. Zeller,
1969).
 ^ s
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