The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & MissionarySmith, George
Religion
The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary
Smith, George
Carey, William, 1761-1834; Missions -- India
In 1814 the Serampore Bible translation college, as we may call it,
began the preparation of the New Testament in Maghadi, another of the
languages allied to the Bengali, and derived from the Sanskrit through
the Pali, because that was the vernacular of Buddhism in its original
seat; an edition of 1000 copies appeared in 1824. It was intended to
publish a version in the Maithili language of Bihar, which has a
literature stretching back to the fourteenth century, that every class
might have the Word of God in their own dialect. But Carey's literary
enthusiasm and scholarship had by this time done so much to develop and
extend the power of Bengali proper, that it had begun to supersede all
such dialects, except Ooriya and the northern vernaculars of the valley
of the Brahmapootra. In 1810 the Serampore press added the Assamese
New Testament to its achievements. In 1819 the first edition appeared,
in 1826 the province became British, and in 1832 Carey had the
satisfaction of issuing the Old Testament, and setting apart Mr. Rae, a
Scottish soldier, who had settled there, as the first missionary at
Gowhatti. To these must be added, as in the Bengali character though
non-Aryan languages, versions in Khasi and Manipoori, the former for
the democratic tribes of the Khasia hills among whom the Welsh
Calvinists have since worked, and the latter for the curious Hindoo
snake-people on the border of Burma, who have taught Europe the game of
polo.
Another immediate successor of the Bengali translation was the Marathi,
of which also Carey was professor in the College of Fort William. By
1804 he was himself hard at work on this version, by 1811 the first
edition of the New Testament appeared, and by 1820 the Old Testament
left the press. It was in a dialect peculiar to Nagpoor, and was at
first largely circulated by Lieutenant Moxon in the army there. In
1812 Carey sent the missionary Aratoon to Bombay and Surat just after
Henry Martyn had written that the only Christian in the city who
understood his evangelical sermon was a ropemaker just arrived from
England. At the same time he was busy with a version in the dialect of
the Konkan, the densely-peopled coast district to the south of Bombay
city, inhabited chiefly by the ablest Brahmanical race in India. In
1819 the New Testament appeared in this translation, having been under
preparation at Serampore for eleven years. Thus Carey sought to turn
to Christ the twelve millions of Hindoos who, from Western India above
and below the great coast-range known as the Sahyadri or "delectable"
mountains, had nearly wrested the whole peninsula from the Mohammedans,
and had almost anticipated the life-giving rule of the British, first
at Panipat and then as Assye. Meanwhile new missionaries had been
taking possession of those western districts where the men of Serampore
had sowed the first seed and reaped the first fruits. The charter of
1813 made it possible for the American Missionaries to land there, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account