Claudius Buchanan

After holding a chaplaincy in India at Barrackpur (1797–1799), Buchanan was appointed Calcutta chaplain and vice-principal of the college of Fort William.

Work on translation was started the same year by Pulikkottil Joseph Ittoop and Kayamkulam Philipose Ramban, with further assistance from Colonel (later General) Colin Macaulay.

As well as being a senior administrator, Macaulay was a gifted linguist with a keen personal interest in the Christian and Jewish heritage and communities of Travancore.

He actively supported Buchanan, attending meetings with senior church leaders as well as facilitating audiences with the Rajah of Travancore to secure his approval too.

He called hymns in the language he did not comprehend as "obscene stanzas", artworks on temple walls as "indecent emblems", and described "Juggernaut" and Hinduism to his readers as the religion of disgusting Moloch and false gods.

Buchanan's writings formed the "first images of Indian religions" to the evangelical audience in the early 19th century and were promoted by American magazines such as The Panoplist.

His writings led to many emotional sermons and mission advocates lectured on the need to "combat immorality and convert the unsaved" Indians.

[10] The writings of Buchanan and other missionaries constructed and exploited cultural and religious differences, which had a profound and lasting effect on how Americans saw non-Christian peoples.

Shortly before publication, in December 1810 Buchanan (whose health was failing) had asked Colin Macaulay (also recently returned to England) to revise any parts of the manuscript he thought appropriate.