Sword & Trowel 2018: Issue 1
A TAMIL HYMNBOOK T
REPORT BY CHRIS LAWS, TABERNACLE ELDER
HE churches in Tamil-speaking South India and Sri Lanka have not had a worthy hymnody for decades. The rich heritage of hymns in the West, forged in times of awakening and great doctrinal understanding, is lacking, although it was not always so. In July 2017, Dr
David Elangovan, pastor of the Re- formed Baptist Church, Salem, South India, addressed the Tabernacle School of Theology on the work of Tamil translation. A number of vital doctrinal and devotional books had been produced through his efforts and those of others, but during his visit Dr Elangovan drew attention to what he saw as the greatest litera- ture need of the Tamil churches – a
reformed hymnbook. Pastor Jeyakanth had also long desired a hymnbook for the 52 churches in Sri Lanka under his oversight, where a few hymns are sung from memory, unaccompanied as there are almost no musicians. Such hymn- books as there were contained few hymns of value, and the scene had been invaded by contemporary worship songs.
In Tamil Nadu, South India, espe-
cially, the need was for a bilingual hymnbook, as some sing in English and some in Tamil in the services, a trend increasing as young people learn English. To translate an entire corpus of
hymns would be a massive project, but fortunately earlier generations of missionaries in the 19th century had produced excellent, though long defunct, translated hymn- books. The Tamil edition of a Methodist hymnbook, for example, was traced to the John Rylands Library at Manchester University, home to the Methodist Archive. This contained many well- known hymns of value, to familiar English tunes. These, together with hymns from
A six-month-old church plant in Kalapadu, Sri Lanka.
A Tamil Hymnbook page 7
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