Thomas Stephens (Jesuit)

Thomas Stephens (c. 1549 – 1619) was an English Jesuit priest, missionary, writer, and linguist of Marathi and Konkani in Portuguese India.

He did philosophical studies at the Collegio Romano before departing for Lisbon, en route for Goa which he reached on 24 October 1579, likely considered to be among the earliest English settlers in India.

[citation needed] It is very likely that Roberto de Nobili, SJ, met Thomas Stephens upon landing in Goa, and before proceeding to the Madurai Mission.

[7] Saldanha also notes that Monier-Williams renders the name 'Thomas Stevens', while also pointing out that Dodd's Church History speaks of Stephen de Buston or Bubston.

Before the end of the century he was already known in England thanks to a letter written to his father, and published in the 2nd volume of Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations (in 1599) in which he gives a description of Portuguese India and its languages.

Segunda Impressão, correcta e annotada, a que precede como introducção A Memoria sobre a Distribução Geographica das Principaes Linguas da India por Sir Erskine Perry, e o Ensaio historico da lingua Concani pelo Editor.

[citation needed] Thomas Stephens devised many orthographic conventions used in Romi Konkani, like the doubling of consonants to represent retroflex sounds.

[13] More than technical language books, what earned him the title of Father of Christian Literature in India is his Krista Purana, an epic poem on the life of Jesus Christ written in a mix of Marathi and Konkani.

The fourth printing was that of Joseph L. Saldanha in Mangalore (1907); this was a collation of at least 5 manuscripts, one of them in Devanagari script, together with a substantial life sketch and introduction.

In 1923, however, Justin E. Abbott discovered two Devanagari manuscripts (parts 1 and 2) of the Khristapurana in the Marsden Collection of the School of Oriental Studies, London.

[16][page needed] In 2009 Nelson Falcao published the seventh edition of the Khristapurana, providing for the first time the Marsden version in Devanagari script, together with a prose translation into contemporary Marathi.

Tadkodkar has attributed two of the three Passion poems found in the Goa Central Library MS of the Khristapurana to Thomas Stephens.

[19] The Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr, run by the Society of Jesus, is an institute dedicated to the study and propagation of the Konkani Language; it was founded in 1989 and located in Goa.

The Father Stephens Academy educational trust was founded on 31 December 1994 in the village of Giriz, Taluka Vasai (Bassein), Palghar District.