Tharangambadi

History

The place dates back to the 14th century. Masilamani nathar (Shiva) temple was built in 1306, in a land given by Maravarman Kulasekara Pandyan I. As of now, this temple is the oldest monument. Until 1620, when the Danes came, the place was under Thanjavur Nayak kingdom. Danish admiral Ove Gjedde felt the place would be a potential trading centre, made a deal with Raghunatha Nayak and built a fort, which is known as Fort Dansborg. In 1644, Dansborg was besieged, yet the siege became inconclusive.

A Jesuit Catholic congregation in Tranquebar predated the arrival of the Danes by several decades. This congregation descended from Tamil fishermen converted by Portuguese missionaries. There was also a sizable population of Indo-Portuguese due to their presence nearby in Nagapattinam. The Catholic church was probably demolished to build the fort. This fort was the residence and headquarters of the governor and other officials for about 150 years. It is now a museum hosting a collection of artifacts from the colonial era.

In 1639, experienced seafarer, Willem Leyel, was sent to Tranquebar on the order of Christian IV of Denmark to inspect the Danish East India Company's troublesome financial conditions. The Tranquebar Rebellion in 1648 may have started as a response to Leyel making a treaty with the Mughals to stop local Danish piracy. It was followed by a show trial that returned him to Denmark, and thus ending commercial oversight by the Crown. Two years later, Frederick III abolished the company. Although the company had been abolished, the colony was a royal property and still held by a garrison unaware of court developments back at home. As the number of Danes-Norwegians declined through desertions and illness, an illiterate commoner, Eskild Anderson Kongsbakke was loyal to his country and successfully held the fort until May of 1669; when the Crown dispatched the frigate Færø to re-establish an official outpost.

Among 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. Ziegenbalg translated the Old and New Testaments into Tamil, imported a printing press, and printed the New Testament in Tamil in 1714.

Bible translations into the Tamil language started with the arrival of Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg at Tranquebar in 1706. He was a member of the Lutheran clergy who responded to the appeal of King Frederick IV of Denmark to establish a mission for the natives of Tranquebar. They also established a printing press, which within a hundred years of its establishment in 1712 had printed 300 books in Tamil. At first they only made little progress in their religious efforts, but gradually the mission spread to Madras, Cuddalore and Tanjore. Today Bishop of Tranquebar is the official title of a bishop in the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC) in South India which was founded in 1919 as a result of the German Lutheran Leipzig Mission and Church of Sweden Mission. The seat of the Bishop, the Cathedral and its Church House ("Tranquebar House") is in Tiruchirappalli.

Demographics

According to the 2011 Census of India, Tharangambadi Town Panchayat had a population of 23,191, comprising 11,061 males and 12,130 females. The town had a sex ratio of 1,097 females for every 1,000 males. Children below six years of age numbered 2,665, accounting for 11.5% of the population.

Among residents aged seven and above, the literacy rate was 87.87%, with male literacy at 92.98% and female literacy at 83.27%. The town comprised 5,482 households at the time of the census.

Places and Monuments

Tranquebar Museum

The 17th and 18th century antiquities and relics from the Vijayanagara empire and Thanjavur Nayak kingdom, which authorised, allowed, and sanctioned the aforementioned Danish port township connected with the colonial period and Danish settlement at Tharangampadi are exhibited. The museum contains porcelain ware, Danish manuscripts, glass objects, Chinese tea jars, steatite lamps, decorated terracotta objects, figurines, lamps, stones, sculptures, swords, daggers, spears, sudai (stucco) figurines and wooden objects. There is also part of a whale skeleton, a giant sawfish rostrum and small cannonballs.

New Jerusalem Church

The New Jerusalem Church was built in 1718 by the Royal Danish missionary Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg in the coastal town of Tranquebar, India which was at that time a Danish India colony. The church is located on King Street, and church services are conducted every Sunday. The church, along with other buildings of the Tranquebar Mission was damaged during the tsunami of 2004, and were renovated at a cost of ₹ 7 million, and re-consecrated in 2006.

Fort Dansborg

Construction of Fort Dansborg started in 1620. Many parts of the fort have been reconstructed several times. Dansborg is the second largest Danish fort ever constructed, with Kronborg in Helsingør being the largest. The rampart wall is a fairly large four sided structure, with bastions at each cardinal point. A single storied building was constructed along three inner sides of the rampart, with barracks, warehouse, kitchen, and jail. The rooms on the southern side remain in good condition, but the rooms on the western and northern sides have been substantially damaged. On the eastern side of the fort, there was a two storied building facing the sea. It was the main building of the fort. The vaulted lower storey served as a magazine and a warehouse, while the vaulted upper storey contained the church and the lodgings of the governor, the senior merchants, and the chaplain. The sea on the eastern and western side protected the fort. The fort was surrounded by a moat, access to the fort being over a drawbridge. The moat has completely disappeared. Today none of the fort's door openings and windows have doors in them. It is believed that during the end of their colonisation period, the Danish ran into financial issues. To make ends meet, they pulled out the metal doors, molded them into weapons and sold them.

Notable people

Kavignar Meenavan (1933–2012), Tamil poet, writer and activist, born in Tharangambadi.

Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1683–1719), German Lutheran missionary and Tamil scholar; co-founder of the Danish-Halle Mission at Tranquebar and translator of the first complete New Testament into Tamil.

Johann Gerhard König (1728–1785), Baltic German botanist and physician who served as medical officer of the Tranquebar Mission and studied the flora of southern India.

Location

Tharangambadi is a coastal town in Mayiladuthurai district of Tamil Nadu, situated on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. It is the headquarters of Tharangambadi taluk and is administered as a town panchayat. The town lies about 30 km (19 mi) south of Mayiladuthurai and north of Karaikal, along the coastal route between Mayiladuthurai and Karaikal.

Transport

Road

Tharangambadi lies on the Mayiladuthurai–Karaikal road and is connected by bus services with Mayiladuthurai, Poompuhar, Sirkazhi and Chidambaram. Road connections continue southwards through Karaikal towards Nagapattinam and northwards along the Coromandel Coast.

Rail

Tharangambadi was formerly the terminus of a metre-gauge branch railway from Mayiladuthurai. The approximately 30-kilometre line opened in 1926 and connected several settlements including Sembanarkoil, Akkur, Thirukkadaiyur, Thillaiyadi and Porayar before reaching Tharangambadi.

Tharangambadi does not presently have an operational passenger railway station. Mayiladuthurai Junction, approximately 28 km (17 mi) away by road, provides the principal rail connection, while Karaikal railway station is another nearby railhead.

A railway branch formerly connected Mayiladuthurai with Tharangambadi. In 2026, the Ministry of Railways stated that a survey had been completed for a proposed 47 km (29 mi) Mayiladuthurai–Tharangambadi–Karaikal railway line, but that the project had not been taken forward because of low projected traffic.

Air

The nearest major airport is Tiruchirappalli International Airport, approximately 143 km (89 mi) from Tharangambadi by road.