There is evidence that the use of the concept of mass duplication in India dates back to the time of the Indus Valley civilization.
Grants of land were originally recorded by engraving the information on copper plates and etchings on different surfaces like wood, bone, ivory and shells.
Many factors contributed to the necessity of the initiation of printing in the subcontinent, the primary being evangelization and the Jesuits were solely responsible for this.
Consequently, the first batch of Jesuit missionaries, along with the printing press, left for Ethiopia on March 29, 1556, on a Spanish ship.
Among others, four books are known to have been printed by Bustamante: The earliest, surviving printed book in India is the Compendio Spiritual da Vide Christãa (Spiritual Compendium of the Christian life) of Gaspar Jorge de Leão Pereira, the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa.
However, since they were not satisfactory, new casts were made in Quilon (Kollam) by Father João da Faria.
)—Henrique Henriques's Doctrina Christam en Lingua Malauar Tamul – Tampiran Vanakam, a Tamil translation of St Francis Xavier's Doutrina Christa.
It should be mentioned here that Henriques was inducted into the Society of Jesus with the express intention of sending him to India to assist Francis Xavier.
Though Devanagari types were cast in 1577, the Christa Purana—an epic poem on the life of Jesus Christ written in the literary form of the Hindu puranas—was published not in Devanagari but in the Roman script in the College of Rachol (1616 and 1649) and the College of St Paul (1654).
In 1626, Diogo Reberio compiled the Vocabulario da lingoa Canarim (A Vocabulary of the Konkani language) a Konkani–Portuguese and Portuguese–Konkani dictionary.
Thus, a number of books were printed in Konkani and Marathi due to the initiative of, among others, Father Thomas Stephens (who, in 1640, produced the first Konkani grammar—the Arte de Lingua Canarin—and in 1622, published Doutrina Christam em lingoa Bramana Canarim, ordenada a maneira de dialogo, pera ensinar os mininos, por Thomas Estevao, Collegio de Rachol or Christian Doctrines in the Canarese Brahmin Language, arranged in dialogue to teach children, which was the first book in Konkani and any Indian language), Father Antonio Saldanha, Father Etienne do la Croix, Father Miguel do Almeida and Father Diogo Ribeiro (whose Declaraçam da Doutrina Christam, or Exposition of Christian Doctrine in Konkani was printed in 1632).