Robert Caldwell (7 May 1814 – 28 August 1891) was a

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

for

London Missionary Society The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational m ...

. He arrived in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

at age 24, studied the local language to spread the word of Bible in a vernacular language, studies that led him to author a text on comparative grammar of the South Indian languages. In his book, Caldwell proposed that there are Dravidian words in the Hebrew of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

, the archaic Greek language, and the places named by

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

. Caldwell married Eliza Mault, the daughter of another missionary posted in India. He served as assistant bishop of

Tirunelveli Tirunelveli (, ta, திருநெல்வேலி, translit=Tirunelveli) also known as Nellai ( ta, நெல்லை, translit=Nellai) and historically (during British rule) as Tinnevelly, is a major city in the Indian state of Tam ...

from 1877. The

Government of Tamil Nadu Government of Tamil Nadu is the subnational government for the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is seated at Fort St George, Chennai. The legislature of Tamil Nadu was bicameral until 1986, when it was replaced by a unicameral legislature ...

has created a memorial in his honor and a postage stamp has been issued in his name. A statue of Caldwell was erected in 1967 near to Marina Beach,

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, as a gift of the

Church of South India The Church of South India (CSI) is a united Protestant Church in India. It is the result of union of a number of mainline Protestant denominations in South India after independence. The Church of South India is the successor of a number of P ...

Early life

Robert Caldwell was born at Clady, then in

County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population ...

, Ireland, on 7 May 1814 to poor Scottish

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their n ...

parents. The family moved to

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

and there he began work at the age of nine. Mostly self-taught, he returned to Ireland aged 15, living with an older brother in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

while studying art between 1829 and 1833. He then returned to Glasgow, probably as a consequence of a crisis of faith, and he became active in the

Congregational church Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...

. Caldwell won a scholarship to

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...

only to find it rescinded when the authorities discovered that he had been born in Ireland. He responded by joining the

, who sent him to the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

for training. There Caldwell came under the influence of

Daniel Keyte Sandford Sir Daniel Keyte Sandford MP DCL (3 February 1798 – 4 February 1838) was a Scottish Greek scholar. He stood twice for parliament and briefly sat in the House of Commons from 1834 to 1835.Anderson (1863), p. 403 Early life Sandford was born at ...

, a professor of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and promoter of

Anglicanism Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

whose innovative research encouraged Caldwell's liking for comparative

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as ...

and also theology. Caldwell left university with a distinction and was

ordain Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform var ...

ed as a Congregationalist minister. At 24, Caldwell arrived in Madras on 8 January 1838 as a missionary of the London Missionary Society and later joined the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Mission (SPG). To further his missionary objectives, Caldwell realized that he had to be proficient in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

to proselytize the masses and he began a systematic study of the language. He was consecrated Bishop of

in 1877. In 1844, Caldwell married Eliza Mault (1822–99) in

Nagercoil Nagercoil, also spelt as Nagarkovil ("Temple of the Nāgas", or Nagaraja-Temple), is a city and the administrative headquarters of Kanyakumari District in Tamil Nadu state, India. Situated close to the tip of the Indian peninsula, it lies on ...

, with whom he had seven children. Eliza Mault, born in

, was the younger daughter of the veteran

Travancore The Kingdom of Travancore ( /ˈtrævənkɔːr/), also known as the Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor, was an Indian kingdom from c. 1729 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram. A ...

missionary, Reverend Charles Mault (1791–1858) of the London Missionary Society. For more than forty years, Eliza worked in

Idaiyangudi Idaiyangudi is a village , at Idaiyangudi panchayat in Tirunelveli district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It lies between Uvari and Thisayanvilai. The nearest railway station is Nanguneri and the nearest airport is in Thoothukudi. It is wel ...

and Tirunelveli proselytizing the people, especially Tamil-speaking women. Caldwell Church Infograph

Caldwell's ''Comparative Grammar''

Robert Caldwell wrote '' A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages''. He identified south Indian Brahmins with Indo-Europeans, which was partly based on his belief that the Indo-Europeans had "higher mental gifts and higher capacity for civilisation". Caldwell asserted that the low-caste Chanar were not merely Tamil speakers but an "indigenous Dravidian" people, distinct ethnically and, most critically for him, religiously, from their high-caste oppressors, whom he referred to as "Brahmanical Aryans" (in this case "Aryan" as an ethnic signifier for foreign and "Brahmanical" to signify the "Hinduism" of the high-caste). These wildly speculative claims, well outside the scope of linguistics, were intended "to develop a history which asserted that the indigenous Dravidians had been subdued and colonized by the Brahmanical Aryans". However, the first edition of Caldwell's grammar was "met with firm resistance" by the Chanars precisely because they "did not like the idea of being divorced from Brahmanical civilization", the very division Caldwell was hoping to exploit. The book has been described as being on occasion "pejorative, outrageous, and somewhat paternalistic. But on the whole, his studies represent a pioneering effort to understand religions completely foreign to the British mind". In the domain of Dravidian linguistics though, it remains a respected work today. RCaldwellRemains

Archaeological research

While serving as Bishop of Tirunelveli (alongside Edward Sargent), Caldwell (who was not a trained archaeologist) did much original research on the history of Tirunelveli. He studied palm leaf manuscripts and

Sangam literature The Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், ''caṅka ilakkiyam'';) historically known as 'the poetry of the noble ones' (Tamil: சான்றோர் செய்யுள், ''Cāṉṟōr ceyyuḷ'') connotes ...

in his search, and made several excavations, finding the foundations of ancient buildings, sepulchral urns and coins with the fish emblem of the Pandyan Kingdom. This work resulted in his book ''A Political and General History of the District of Tinnevely'' (1881), published by the Government of the

Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...

Legacy

Caldwell’s mission lasted more than fifty years. The publication of his propaganda into both the languages and the history of the region, coupled with his position in both Indian and English society, gave stimulus to the revival of the Non-Brahmin movement. Meanwhile, on difficult ground for evangelism, Caldwell achieved Christian conversion among the lower castes. He had adopted some of the methods of the Lutheran missionaries of earlier times, having learned German purely in order to study their practices. Caldwell the

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory o ...

scholar, Christian evangelist and champion of the native church, remains today an important figure in the modern history of South India. He is still remembered there, and his statue, erected eighty years after his death, stands near the Marina Beach at Chennai. The Indian historian Dr M.S.S. Pandian, visiting fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, recently commented that Caldwell’s "contribution to both Christianity in South India and the cultural awakening of the region is unmatched during the last two hundred years". A commemorative postage stamp on him was issued on 7 May 2010.

Works

* ''Lectures on the Tinnevelly missions, descriptive of the field, the work, and the results: with an introductory lecture on the progress of Christianity in India.'' Bell and Daldy, 1857 * ''The best means of promoting an interest in missions among our congregations : being a speech delivered by ... Bishop Caldwell at the Diocesan Church Conference on Thursday 20 March 1879.'' 1880 (Madras : S.P.C.K. Press) * ''Christianity and Hinduism. A lecture addressed to educated Hindus, etc.'' : S.P.C.K.: London, 879.* ''A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages.'' Harrison: London, 1856. * ''Evangelistic Work amongst the Higher Classes and Castes in Tinnevelly.'' Rev. Dr. Caldwell’s Third Journal. 876.* ''The Inner Citadel of Religion.'' S.P.C.K.: London, 879.* ''The March of the Unsaved.'' religious tract. G. Stoneman: London, 896.* ''Narkaruṇait tiyānamālai = A companion to the holy communion.'' Madras Diocesan Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1871. * ''The Prince of Wales in Tinnevelly, and "From Delahay Street to Edeyengoody.".'' London : S.P.C.K., 1876. * ''Observations on the Kudumi.'' J. J. Craen: adras?1867. * ''Report of the Edeyenkoody District for the year ending 30 June 1845.'' London : Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1847. * ''On reserve in communicating religious instruction to non- Christians in mission schools in India'' : a letter to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Madras. Madras : S.P.C.K. Press, 1879. * ''The Relation of Christianity to Hinduism.'' R. Clay, Sons, & Taylor: London, 885.* ''Records of the Early History of the Tinnevelly Mission, etc.'' Higginbotham & Co.: Madras, 1881. * ''The Tinnevelly Shanars : a sketch of their religion and their moral condition and characteristics : with special reference to the facilities and hindrances to the progress of Christianity amongst them.'' London : Clay for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1850. * ''The Three Way-marks.'' Christian Vernacular Education Society: Madras, 1860. * ''A Political and General History of the District of Tinnevelly, in the Presidency of Madras, from the earliest period to its cession to the English Government in A.D. 1801.'' Madras : E. Keys, 1881.

Notes