The Missionaries in the Race for Putting the Veda to Print

Abstract

The early 1800s saw several competing projects of opening the hitherto guarded textuality of the Veda to a wider public, both in Europe and in India. Apart from those animated by the spirit of imperial control or allegedly pure academic interest, others situated themselves within broader goals of the new wave of missionary work in India. Among the Protestant missionaries to take active part in projects of that sort, the exceptional figure of Rev. John Stevenson of the Church of Scotland stands conspicuously unparalleled. The paper intends to follow the circumstances of the publishing and to offer an idea about the complex ideology that might have accompanied Stevenson’s pioneering work in editing and translating of the Veda, especially his work titled The Threefold Science that appeared in 1833 in Bombay.