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Early Germans in India - This article which I had found on the Internet made me very curious. It was about a man from Chennai who spent his life discovering the earliest roots of Indo-German relations. He had been to Germany several times. He found out about the first German missionary to set foot on Indian soil: Bartholomaeos Ziegenbalg, as well as about plenty of other missionaries who followed him. His book 'German Tamilology' makes it clear that German Indology is actually rooted in Tamil Nadu…

The author and researcher is C S Mohanavelu. The 59-year-old man lives with his wife in a small, modest, but very friendly-looking apartment in Tambaram. The cool drinks and the biscuits that Mohanavelu put on the table in front of me remained almost untouched during our conversation, as we both seemed to be equally interested in the other's life and experiences. In addition, the retired Reader of History from Presidency College (University of Madras) couldn't wait to make use of his knowledge of German again, "after so many years!"

At the age of 21, he had signed up for three years of German classes at the Max Mueller Bhavan in Chennai. It was also there that he found a book called 'India and the Germans', by Walther Leifer. The second chapter was about the early activities of Germans in India - and this chapter kindled Mohanavelu's interest and can be seen as the beginning of a long, restless search for the roots of Indo-German relations.

He registered himself for a part-time Ph.D. in University of Madras. Although his dedication to a scholarship meant hard, full-time studies, Mohanavelu still found some time to do research on the connection between India and Germany.

After graduation, he applied for the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and in 1986 went to "the very cold" Germany as a scholar for three months. There, he visited the Frackener's Foundation Archives in Halle and found more than two lakhs of diaries, reports and observations, mostly written on palm leaves, and sent by Germans from Tamil Nadu 300 years ago.

Mohanavelu was fascinated by this unique collection. Back in India, he used the information from Halle, did research at the Indian Institute of Technology, and finally published his book 'German Tamilology' in 1993.

Since then, he has been invited to present his work in Germany already three times, just recently in 2003, after he retired from Presidency College.

"Both Indians and Germans should never forget about the early history we shared," says Mohanavelu. And so he's still engaged in sustaining the memory.

I decided to buy his 'German Tamilology' and started to read it on the train back to where I was staying. It tells the Indo-German story from the very beginning - although skipping Hans Meyer, a merchant, who in 1505 was the first German to set foot on Indian soil. Mohanavelu says he found this out only recently.

During the following decades, traders and sailors conveyed a wrong idea about India in Europe. They didn't know the language of Tamil Nadu, probably didn't understand the culture at all and therefore branded the Tamil people as a primitive, inferior race.

"Malabarians (former European expression for the Tamilian people) were not reasonable, sensible and clever but wild, untamed and coarse folk whom one could never bring under human order…" It took the Europeans more than two centuries to reverse this prejudice.

One German missionary who was sent to Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu, by the Danish East India Company, was probably the first one to discover that Indian people were much more than good, cheap trading partners. His name was Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, a Lutheran Protestant missionary who was following his own as well as his King Frederick IV's desire to spread the Christian faith in India.

However, Ziegenbalg found little acceptance with the ruling class in South India, but he claims in his letters to Germany, that "although the leaders persecute us greatly, on other hand, the common folk loves us and refuses to be ruled against their conscience, that they should remain away from our services and prayer meetings because of angry threats."

And even he, who arrived in South India in 1706, full of enthusiasm and the strong will to fulfil this mission, had some doubts about the level of civilisation in the foreign country, as he admitted in one of his several letters to Germany: "I must acknowledge that when I first came amongst them, I could not imagine that their language had proper rules, and that their life had a loss of civil order…"

It took Ziegenbalg some time and efforts to understand that the Tamilian culture was everything but inferior to the European. First of all, like almost every European who arrives in South India, he, as well as the other missionaries who followed him later, suffered from the climate, saying that even "the greatest cold in this country is scarcely as cool as the greatest heat in our land of Germany. Then, of course, there was no way to understand the Tamilians, despite learning the local language, which for Europeans ears initially sounds like a big mess of half swallowed letters and strange sounds…

However, Ziegenbalg not only managed to learn Tamil, but even roughly wrote down its grammatical structure and a dictionary to be used by other German missionaries as a preparation for their future tasks in Tamil Nadu.

Only a few years later, another German missionary called J E Gruendler described Tamil, the most important and literature-rich of all the Dravidian languages, as "worth of being taught in European universities" - a suggestion that has been put into practice in many European countries for many years now.

Although Ziegenbalg was a devoted missionary, he not only concentrated on converting the locals to Christianity, he ran a Christian school, he constructed a church, he and his followers translated several cultural, poetic and scientific Tamil books into German and sent them all to the archives in Halle.

In short: he did his very best to convince the Europeans that their opinion about the Tamilians was based on prejudices and ignorance. As a proof, he took young Tamil scholar Peter Malleiappen to Norway where he introduced him to his king. On July 26, 1715, the young man from Tamil Nadu gave a speech in fluent German in front of the royal court which was surprised and deeply impressed by the intelligence of the so-called "barbarians".

Thus, what had been started as an attempt to rescue the "very barbarous" and to lead them to the right, civilised part of Christianity ended up not at all in the dissemination of the superior European knowledge and faith but in a cultural exchange and even in a lecture for the ignorant western scientists.

During the following decades and centuries, several missionaries and scientists, such as Benjamin Schultze and Karol Graul, were sent to India in general and Tamil Nadu in particular. They sent back to Europe several (mostly stolen) indigenous artefacts, translated Tamil works and more than two lakhs of letters, observations and diaries, many of which were written on palm leaves.

For the average citizen, probably the most interesting part of this collection is the letters and the diary notes describing Chennai, or rather Madras, as it was 300 years ago, from the viewpoint of foreigners.

Missionary Benjamin Schultze, for example, published his observations and diary notes as a book called, 'Madras Stadt' (Madras City). In his 'German' Tamilology', Mohanavelu provides some excerpts from this collection of observations and experiences.

For instance, the role of the women is described and commented upon by Schultze like this: "The Malabarian wives here have the best character in the world, so that it was to be wished, their own husband would come up to the same continence, too. They take one piece of fine cotton dash cloth at the measure of ten to twelve yards long and this they know so fitly to wrap around their body from the very legs to the top of the head that you will observe here nothing but decency in the whole apparel… These wives in the East Indies do so far greater regards to their husbands as any woman in the old world. In the first place, they keep clean the rooms every day… Thus will they outdo a good, honest, sober European wife, that surely minds her husband to please and cherish him."

Furthermore, Schultze's observations also concern the city of Chennai in general. He describes a "high hill" in "Ekkimore (probably Egmore) Castle" with a "big mountain snake" and other wild animals. He talks about special Indian food like a "pepper potage" which might be rasam or "cream and pot herbs" that could stand for payasam.

Mohanavelu's book is worth reading even for just this single chapter: 'Civilization and Lifestyle of Tamil People, Three Hundred Years Ago, as observed and reported by the German missionaries' by Indians and Germans.

For Indians, because they will recognise so many aspects of their own country, and for Germans, especially for those who visit Tamil Nadu, because they might recognise similar difficulties as the first missionaries had to face when arriving in Madras. "He, who, in this area of Tamil learning, has tried himself has to appreciate and admire Graul's eagerness and success (to learn the language perfectly) with due regard. "

Considering all the treasures that are stored in the Franckener's Foundation Archives in Halle, it is a shame that hardly anybody from Germany or from Tamil Nadu seems to know anything about this exciting period of time when the first Germans started to build up a connection between India and Germany.

Since then many things may have changed in both countries and, fortunately, also the relations between the two of them. But there seems to be one point which the Germans realised 300 years ago that will probably (and hopefully) never lose its validity: "India is an uncomfortable country. You can love India, you can succumb to it, you can reject it, but you can never be indifferent to this land and its people, never escape its fascination."

All these documents were stored in the Halle archives - where 300 years later Mohanavelu found and used them for his research on 'German Tamilology'.

In 2006, it will be exactly 300 years since Ziegenbalg set foot in Tamil Nadu. This anniversary will be celebrated in Germany and Chennai. However, the religious aspects won't be the centre of attention during the festivities. The organizers want to celebrate Ziegenbalg's arrival in Tranquebar as the first step in "German Tamilology" and the first step towards a cultural exchange between India and Germany. "The celebrations of this crucial development in the Indo-German relations are definitely mostly important. But we should not forget that Ziegenbalg was not the first German in India! The trader Hans Meyer arrived in Kerala already more than 200 years earlier in 1505! We should celebrate this crucial event also."

Mohanavelu hopes that many people, in India and Germany, will take part in this celebration. It hopefully will be more than only a commemoration of the past. It should be seen as a chance for a cultural exchange in the present times because although India and Germany are economically closely linked to each other today, there are still many things which the people in both countries can and should learn from each other.

Ania Zymelka

(Ania, born in Poland, now lives in north Germany with her family. She has just completed her schooling and is waiting to go to university. In the meantime, she decided she would also visit a country and learn about it. She will be exploring the economic, political, cultural, social and other links that Chennai has with Germany during her three-month stint in Chennaionline. Ed)