Tharangambadi

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  ?Tharangambadi
Tamil Nadu • India
Coordinates: (find coordinates)
Time zone IST (UTC+5:30)
District(s) Nagapattinam
Population 20,841 (2001)

Tharangambadi (or Tranquebar) is a panchayat town in Nagapattinam district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It was a Danish colony in India from 1620-1845. It is spelled Trankebar or Tranquebar in Danish, which came from the native Tamil, Tarangambadi, meaning "place of the singing waves".

It is located in Nagapattinam district, about 100 km south of Pondicherry, near the mouth of a distributary of Kaveri river.

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[edit] History

Fort Dansborg
Fort Dansborg

It was founded by the Danish East India Company in 1620 when the main fort in Trankebar city, known as Fort Dansborg, was built by a Danish captain named Ove Gedde as the residence of the governor and other officials for about 150 years. It is now a museum hosting a collection of artefacts from the time of Danish presence in the region. A Danish factory (commercial settlement) was opened here as early as 1620.

The first Protestant missionaries to set foot in India were two Lutherans from Germany, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Pluetschau, who began work in 1705 in the Danish settlement of Tranquebar. Their first step was to translate the Bible into local Tamil language, and afterwards into Hindustani. They made little progress at first, but gradually spread to Madras, Cuddalore and Tanjore on the subcontinent.

Tranquebar was taken by the British in 1801, but restored in 1814, and finally purchased, along with the other Danish settlements in India, in 1845.

In Danish times Tranquebar was a busy port, but it lost its importance when the railway was opened to Nagapattinam. It was the first settlement of Protestant missionaries in India, founded by Ziegenbalg and Pluetschau (Lutherans) in 1706. The churches as well as the fort and the city gates are being restored for tourism. Moravian Brethren missionaries from Herrnhut , Saxony established the Brethren's Garden at Porayar near Tranquebar as a missionary center for a number of years. The Catholic Father Constanzo Beschi, who worked from 1711 to 1740, found himself in conflict with the Lutheran pioneers of Protestant missionary enterprise at Tranquebar, against whom he wrote several controversial works. Today bishop of Tranquebar is the official title of the bishop in Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC) in South India. This Church is founded in 1919 as a result of the German Lutheran Leipzig Mission and Church of Sweden Mission. The see of the Bishop, the Cathedral and its Church House ("Tranquebar House") is in Tiruchirappalli.

[edit] Gallery

Danish and other colonial settlements in India

Tranquebar, about 1600.

Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg monument in Tranquebar

[edit] Sources, references and external links

[edit] Demographics

As of 2001 India census[1], Tharangambadi had a population of 20,841. Males constitute 48% of the population and females 52%. Tharangambadi has an average literacy rate of 74%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 79%, and female literacy is 69%. In Tharangambadi, 10% of the population is under 6 years of age.

[edit] See also


Coordinates: 11°01′57″N, 79°51′11″E

[edit] References

  1. ^ Census of India 2001: Data from the 2001 Census, including cities, villages and towns. (Provisional). Census Commission of India. Retrieved on 2007-09-03.