Manuscripts Before the Age of Print
India had a rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts — in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and various vernacular languages. Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or handmade paper, often beautifully illustrated, and were pressed between wooden covers or sewn together.
But manuscripts were highly expensive and fragile, had to be handled carefully, and were hard to read because the script was written in different styles. So they were not widely used in everyday life. Even in pre-colonial Bengal, which had many village schools, students often learnt only to write, not to read — teachers dictated from memory, so many became literate without ever reading a text.
Print Comes to India
The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century. Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and printed tracts; the first Tamil book was printed in 1579 at Cochin, and the first Malayalam book in 1713.
From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began editing the Bengal Gazette, a weekly magazine — so private English enterprise began English printing in India. Hickey published gossip about Company officials, which so enraged Governor-General Warren Hastings that he persecuted Hickey and encouraged officially sanctioned newspapers. The first Indian newspaper was the weekly Bengal Gazette brought out by Gangadhar Bhattacharya, who was close to Rammohun Roy.
Religious Reform and Public Debates
From the early nineteenth century, intense debates around religious issues — such as widow immolation, idolatry and Brahmanical priesthood — were carried out in public and in print. Printed tracts and newspapers spread new ideas and shaped the debate, letting a wider public take part.
Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi (from 1821), and the Hindu orthodoxy replied with the Samachar Chandrika. In north India, the ulama used cheap lithographic presses to print religious texts; the Deoband Seminary (founded 1867) published thousands of fatwas. Among Hindus, print encouraged the reading of religious texts in the vernacular — the Ramcharitmanas was first printed in Calcutta in 1810, and presses like the Naval Kishore Press (Lucknow) and Shri Venkateshwar Press (Bombay) published many vernacular texts. Newspapers also connected communities, creating pan-Indian identities.
Questions and Answers
Q1. Describe India's tradition of manuscripts and its limits. Ans. India had a rich tradition of handwritten manuscripts in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and vernaculars, copied on palm leaves or handmade paper. But manuscripts were expensive and fragile, hard to handle and hard to read (as scripts varied), so they were not widely used in everyday life.
Q2. How did print come to India? Ans. The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century. The first Tamil book was printed in 1579 at Cochin, and from 1780 James Augustus Hickey's Bengal Gazette began English printing in India.
Questions and Answers (continued)
Q3. How did print shape religious reform and public debate in India? Ans. Debates over issues like widow immolation and idolatry were carried out in print. Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi (1821) and the orthodoxy replied with the Samachar Chandrika; the ulama and the Deoband Seminary (1867) printed religious texts and fatwas — so print let a wider public join the debates.
Q4. Who was Gangadhar Bhattacharya? Ans. He was the Indian who brought out the first Indian-edited newspaper, the weekly Bengal Gazette, and was close to Rammohun Roy.
Questions and Answers (continued)
Q5. How did newspapers help create a sense of connection across India? Ans. Newspapers conveyed news from one place to another, connecting communities and people in different parts of India. This shared flow of information helped create a sense of pan-Indian identity.