The art of printing first entered India through Goa. In a letter to St. Ignatius of Loyola, written on April 30, 1556, Father Gasper Caleza speaks of a ship carrying a printing press setting sail for Abyssinia from Portugal, with the purpose of helping missionary work in Abyssinia. Circumstances prevented this printing press from leaving India, and consequently, printing was initiated in India. And thus, the first mechanical movable-type printing press in Asia was established in Goa in 1556 by the Jesuits at St. Paul’s College, Old Goa.
The arrival of the first press
There is evidence that the use of the concept of mass duplication in India dates back to the time of the Indus Valley civilization. Grants of land were originally recorded by engraving the information on copper plates and etchings on different surfaces like wood, bone, ivory and shells. However, printing arrived about a hundred years after the Gutenberg Bible was first printed. Many factors contributed to the necessity of the initiation of printing in the subcontinent, the primary being evangelization and the Jesuits were solely responsible for this. Francis Xavier is known to have been teaching the Bible in Tharangambadi (Tranquebar), Tamil Nadu, around 1542. Also, when the viceroy of Goa, on behalf of King João III of Portugal, opened schools for Indians, Francis Xavier pressured Portugal to make printing presses available to India, Ethiopia and Japan. Meanwhile, the emperor of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) also requested Portugal to send a press along with missionaries. Consequently, the first batch of Jesuit missionaries, along with the printing press, left for Ethiopia on March 29, 1556, on a Spanish ship. The patriarch-designate of Abyssinia, João Nunes Barreto, as well as a team of technicians accompanied the press. The prevalent route from Portugal to Abyssinia then required ships to round the Cape of Good Hope, touch Goa and reach Abyssinia. The press thus reached Goa, but soon after, news reached Goa that the Abyssinian emperor was not keen on receiving the missionaries. Around the same time, the clergy in Goa felt the need for a printing press and on their request to the then governor-general the press was made available to them. Thus, the press stayed in Goa. This was after Mexico had seen its first printing press, but preceded the press in Lima. The patriarch-designate Barreto was detained in Goa, and it appears he never left India but died in Goa on December 22, 1562.
Saint Paul's College and the first works printed
Printing operations began in Goa in 1556 (with the first printing press being established at the Jesuit Saint Paul's College in Old Goa), resulting in the publication of Conclusiones Philosophicas. The year 1557 saw the posthumous printing of St. Francis Xavier's Catecismo da Doutrina Christa five years after the death of its author. No extant copy of this work is, however, available.
Juan Bustamante and the early days of printing in India The individual responsible for the initiation of printing in India was one João de Bustamante (rechristened João Rodrigues in 1563), a Spaniard who joined the Society of Jesus in 1556. Bustamante, who was an expert printer, along with his Indian assistant set up the new press and began to operate it. Among others, four books are known to have been printed by Bustamante:
Conclusões e outras coisas (Theses and other things) in 1556. Confecionarios in 1557. Doutrina Christa by St. Francis Xavier in 1557. Tratado contra os erros scismaticos dos Abexins (A Tract against the Schismatic Errors of the Abyssinians) by Gonçalo Rodrigues in 1560. The earliest, surviving printed book in India is the Compendio Spiritual da Vida Christãa (Spiritual Compendium of the Christian life) of Gaspar Jorge de Leão Pereira, the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa. It was printed by João de Quinquencio and João de Endem in 1561, and re-edited by Manuel de Araujo in 1600, and was embellished with ornate woodcut initials on each opening chapter. This was followed by the printing of Garcia da Orta's Colóquios dos simples e drogas he cousas medicinais da Índia on 10 April 1563 by João de Endem. In 1568, the first illustrated cover page (the illustration being done with the relief technique of woodblock) was printed in Goa for the book Constituciones do Arcebispado de Goa.
Printing in the vernacular
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