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Print Culture and the Modern World — Part 2: India and the World of Print

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Lesson

India and the world of print

Part 2 — from palm-leaf manuscripts to newspapers that worried an empire.

In this lesson you will

Explain how print spread in India and how it shaped religious reform debates
Describe new forms of publication and visual culture
Explain how women, poor people and workers became readers and writers
Analyse print and censorship under colonial rule

Part 2 at a glance

Concept

Before print: the manuscript tradition

Table of the manuscript tradition: written in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and vernaculars on palm leaves or handmade paper, often illustrated; costly, fragile and hard to read; and in Bengal village schools pupils learnt to write from dictation
Feature	Detail
Languages	Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and many vernaculars
Materials	Palm leaves or handmade paper; often illustrated; bound between wooden covers or sewn
Limits	Costly, fragile, hard to read because of varied scripts; little everyday use
Village schools in Bengal	Pupils learnt to write from dictation; pupils could write well yet had never handled a book

Diagram

Print arrives in India

Table of early print in India: the first press in Goa in the mid sixteenth century, the first Tamil book at Cochin in 1579, the first Malayalam book in 1713, Hickey's Bengal Gazette in Calcutta in 1780, and the first Indian-run weekly by Gangadhar Bhattacharya in 1816
When	Where	What
Mid-1500s	Goa	First press, brought by Portuguese missionaries; Jesuits print in Konkani
1579	Cochin	First Tamil book, printed by Catholic priests
1713	South India	First Malayalam book
1780	Calcutta	James Augustus Hickey's weekly Bengal Gazette
1816	Calcutta	Gangadhar Bhattacharya, close to Rammohun Roy, brings out a weekly Bengal Gazette, the first Indian-run newspaper