By Maria de Lourdes Bravo da Costa Rodrigues
THE BACK STORY
In 1579, Fr Thomas Stephens, an English Jesuit priest, arrived in Goa. He worked for 40 years in the mission of Salcete, Goa from 1579, and died in 1619 in the city of Goa. And it was he who was probably the greatest promoter of the Konkani and Marathi languages and their literature.
Personally he authored three books in the local languages of Goa scripted, however, in the Latin script, which were posthumously published.
Of his three books, it was his immortal Purana that was published in Marathi albeit in Latin script, making it the first printed book in Marathi.
His Arte da lingoa canarim (1640 and 1857) and his Doutrina Christam em lingoa bramana canarim (1622), of which there is also a facsimile in 1945, were written in a local language and published in Latin script.
However, Fr Stephens was very keen on having literature printed in Devanagiri script for better dissemination of the word of the Lord among natives. It was his dream to print the Purana in Devnagari script.
TOWARDS MAKING MARATHI PUBLICATIONS A REALITY
Therefore, in 1608 he wrote to the Superior General of the Jesuits saying that he wished to see books written in the local language, in the local script, like that which was being printed in Malabar by the Jesuits. He was referring to books in Tamil printed in the Tamil script, the printing fonts for which were created by the Jesuits.
He further told the Superior that this dream of his could not be put to practice for two reasons: First, because creating so many matrixes (more than 600) in the case of Marathi would be impossible as characters in the language were syllables and not letters. Second, was the requirement for permission and the Jesuits in Goa were too busy to even consider his request.
The first difficulty could be tackled as the number of matrixes could be reduced to 200. But, in the case of the second reason, Fr Stephens told the Superior he would have to deal with the Provincial in that regard.
Not that an attempt was not made to cast Devnagiri prints by local Jesuits earlier. A Jesuit Brother João Gonçalves had, by the end of the year 1577, cast 50 letters, but, unfortunately, he died in 1582. His partner, Fr João de Faria also passed away, and with these two deaths there were none capable of taking this work forward.
A DREAM FULFILLED, YET UNFULFILLED
Due to the abovementioned limitations cited by Fr Stephens, his Stephens’ Purana was printed in Latin script in the College of Rachol in the years 1616 and 1649, in the college of São Paulo de Goa in the year 1654, and in Mangalore in 1907. The title of the first edition of the Purana was Discurso sobre a vinda de Jesus Cristo Nosso Salvador ao Mundo. Eventually, Fr Stephens’ dream of having the Puranas printed in Devanagiri did materialise in 1956. The Jesuits of Poona mission, and publishers Prasad Prakashan, Poona, published the Purana in Devnagiri. The edition used for this publication was the Mangalore edition, prepared by Bandelu of the College of Ahmednagar and P H Staffner S I of De Nobili College of Poona.
ENTRY OF PRINTED DEVNAGRI SCRIPT IN GOA
The Jesuits were expelled from Portugal and its colonies by Marques de Pombal, which lead to the closure of printing activity in Goa. Printing in Goa restarted in 1822 when the Gazeta de Goa was published by the Imprensa Nacional, the then government printing press.
The Devnagiri press made its appearance in Goa only in 1853.