<P> The place dates back to 14th century . Masilamani nathar (Shiva) temple was built in 1306, in a land given by Maravarman Kulasekara Pandyan I. As of now, this temple is the oldest monument . Until 1620, when the Danes came, the place was under Thanjavur Nayak kingdom . Danish admiral Ove Gjedde felt the place would be a potential trading centre, made a deal with Raghunatha Nayak and built a fort, which is known as Fort Dansborg . </P> <P> A Jesuit Catholic congregation in Tranquebar predated the arrival of the Danes by several decades . This congregation descended from Keralan fisherman converted by Portuguese missionaries from Goa . There was also a sizable population of Indo - Portuguese due to their presence nearby in Nagapattinam . The Catholic church was probably demolished to build the fort . This fort was the residence and headquarters of the governor and other officials for about 150 years . It is now a museum hosting a collection of artefacts from the colonial era . </P> <P> Among the first Protestant missionaries to set foot in India were two Lutherans from Germany, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Pluetschau, who began work in 1705 in the Danish settlement of Tranquebar . Ziegenbalg translated the Old and New Testaments into Tamil, imported a printing press, and printed the New Testament in Tamil in 1714 . </P> <P> The local people were forced to learn the broken Portuguese that was the lingua franca between Indians and Europeans at the time, and later on translated the Bible into the local Tamil language . They also established a printing press, which within a hundred years of its establishment in 1712 had printed 300 books in Tamil . At first they only made little progress in their religious efforts, but gradually the mission spread to Madras, Cuddalore and Tanjore . Today Bishop of Tranquebar is the official title of a bishop in the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC) in South India which was founded in 1919 as a result of the German Lutheran Leipzig Mission and Church of Sweden Mission . The seat of the Bishop, the Cathedral and its Church House ("Tranquebar House") is in Tiruchirappalli . </P>

Where was first tamil printing press established in tamilnadu