Print Culture-6 Flashcards
how was literature carried out in india before printing press was introduced
India had a very rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts –
in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, as well as in various vernacular languages.
Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.
Pages were sometimes beautifully illustrated. They would be either
pressed between wooden covers or sewn together to ensure
preservation. Manuscripts continued to be produced till well after
the introduction of print, down to the late nineteenth century
why weren’t manuscripts used as much?
Manuscripts, however, were highly expensive and fragile. They had
to be handled carefully, and they could not be read easily as the script was written in different styles. So
manuscripts were not widely used in
everyday life.
how were children taught in bengal
Even though pre-colonial
Bengal had developed an extensive network
of village primary schools, students very
often did not read texts. They only learnt
to write. Teachers dictated portions of
texts from memory and students wrote
them down. Many thus became literate
without ever actually reading any kinds
of texts.
explain the first printing presses in india
The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries
in the mid-sixteenth century. Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and
printed several tracts. By 1674, about 50 books had been printed
in the Konkani and in Kanara languages. Catholic priests printed
the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin, and in 1713 the first
Malayalam book was printed by them. By 1710, Dutch Protestant
missionaries had printed 32 Tamil texts, many of them translations
of older works.
when did english press grow india
The English language press did not grow in India till quite late even
though the English East India Company began to import presses
from the late seventeenth century.
explain the story of james augustuc hickey and the bengal gazette
From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal Gazette,
a weekly magazine that described itself as ‘a commercial paper open
to all, but influenced by none’. So it was private English enterprise,
proud of its independence from colonial influence, that began English
printing in India. Hickey published a lot of advertisements, including
those that related to the import and sale of slaves. But he also
published a lot of gossip about the Company’s senior officials in
India. Enraged by this, Governor-General Warren Hastings
persecuted Hickey, and encouraged the publication of officially
sanctioned newspapers that could counter the flow of information
that damaged the image of the colonial government.
were there any indian newspaper
By the
close of the eighteenth century, a number of newspapers and
journals appeared in print. There were Indians, too, who began
to publish Indian newspapers. The first to appear was the weekly
Bengal Gazette, brought out by Gangadhar Bhattacharya, who
was close to Rammohun Roy.
