page_title: Christianity in India
section_title: William Carey and the Baptists
hierarchical_section_title: Christianity in India / Modern period / William Carey and the Baptists
caption_attribution_description: Polski: William_Carey Nederlands: nl:William_Carey, Brits zendeling
context_page_description: Christianity is India's third-largest religion after Hinduism and Islam, with approximately 28 million followers, constituting 2.3 percent of India's population. According to Indian tradition, the Christian faith was introduced to India by Thomas the Apostle, who supposedly reached the Malabar Coast in 52 AD, although no written work seems to have survived from this period. According to another tradition Bartholomew the Apostle is credited with simultaneously introducing Christianity along the Konkan Coast. There is a general scholarly consensus that Christian communities were firmly established in the Malabar Coast of India by the 6th century AD, including some communities who used Syriac liturgies.
  Christians in India are members of different church denominations though some are also non-denominational. The state of Kerala is home to the Saint Thomas Christian community, an ancient body of Christians who according to tradition trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. They are now divided into several different churches and traditions.
context_section_description: In 1793, William Carey, an English Baptist Minister came to India as a missionary but also as a man of learning in economics, medicine and botany. He worked in Serampore, Calcutta, and other places. He translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and numerous other languages and dialects.  He worked in India despite the hostility of the British East India Company until his death in 1834. Carey and his colleagues, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, blended science, Christianity, and constructive Orientalism in their work at the Danish settlement of Serampore, near Calcutta. Carey saw the dissemination of European science and Christianity as mutually supportive and equally important civilizing missions. He also supported a revival of Sanskrit science. Carey played a key role in the establishment of the Agricultural Society of India. Ward, beginning in 1806, published important commentaries on ancient Hindu medical and astronomy texts. In 1818 Carey and his fellow missionaries founded Serampore College to nurture a uniquely Indian variety of European science.
caption: William Carey, 1761-1834.
exif: {}