James Herbert Lorrain, or Pu Buanga, (6 February 1870 – 1 July 1944)[1][2] was a Scottish Baptist missionary in northeast India, including Mizoram, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh.

He and Frederick William Savidge reduced the Lushai language (a Colonial British name, present Mizo language) to writing—devised an alphabet using Roman lettering and phonetic form of spelling based on Hunterian system translation; compiled grammar and dictionaries for missionary activities and clerical administration.

As a gifted lexicographer, Lorrain single-handedly was responsible for the origin of written language and hymns in Mizo.

When Lorrain saw a portrait the hapless girl in captivity in a newspaper, he prayed and planned to work as a missionary to the remote tribes.

Savidge arrived in November 1891, and they met at an evangelical campaign at Brahmanbaria organised by the New Zealand Baptists.

Since Lushai Hills was still under tribal chieftainships with constant warfare, their application was deferred and were allowed to stay at Kasalong village, the nearest possible location.

[8][9] They made camp at Thingpui Huan Tlang ("tea garden"), MacDonald Hill, Zarkawt.

After completing a short on medicine, they formed their own Assam Frontier Pioneer Mission, and they returned to India in 1899.

Since mission was fledging well and the church was growing immensely, they handed the southern field to Baptist Missionary Society of London.

This marked the establishment of Baptist Church in Mizoram and Serkawn remains the centre of its administration to this day.

[4] Lorrain also remarked saying:We have a very great difficulty in the South Lushai in obtaining pupils for our Girls Boarding School...Down here female education is regarded as being of very little worth compared with the works which the girls are able to do at home in helping their parents and apparently, it will be many years before public opinion alters very much.

Much of the credit goes to Lorrain and Savidge for their efforts to build on a small Christian community planted by Welsh Calvinistic missionaries.

The efforts of missionaries and their education had a lasting effect on the Lushai tribes, and consequently submitted to conversion in large numbers, once their fear and dislike of aliens was overcome.

By the time of Lorrain's retirement in 1932, the status of Mizoram as one of the most Christian states of modern India, was already anticipated.

[3][6][13] According to Lorrain:A new day dawned upon the Lushai Hills, giving to the hardy inhabitants just the opportunity they needed to develop, their latent powers of heart and mind hitherto held in check by the deadening weight of the animistic belief and fears...The God blessed labour of many missionaries both Wales and English...has gradually through the years transformed this once wholly illiterate and semi-savage tribe into one of the most loyal, literate and progressive communities in Assam province.

[4] The missionaries also laid the foundation for the development of indigenous leadership for the purpose of creating a wholly autonomous church.

Their schools also imparted the prerequisite skills essential to function in the western world introduced through the British administration.