The Holy Bible was translated into the Tamil language in the early 18th century by German \ Danish Lutheran missionaries working from Tranquebar (called in Tamil as Tharangampadi), a small coastal town. The missionary Ziegenbalg translated the entire New Testament and the first few books of the Old Testament till Ruth. After a few years, the missionary Schultze translated the remaining part, thus making the first available full translation of the Bible in Tamil.
These scholars used a version of Tamil called as the "Malabar Tamil", which was common among the learned scholars of Tamil at that time (most of them were Brahmins). The language is a more liturgical version of Tamil, and is a little different from the common day to day spoken version, but still intelligible by all Tamil learned people, and also archaic in nature. This "Old Version" of Tamil Bible is the one still used by most Christians at churches and at home.
The Anglican and English Protestant missionaries of the 19th century adapted this Lutheran translation, and thus it soon the became the de-facto standard for translating the Bible into Tamil. Also it was the first ever translation of the Holy Bible into an Indian language.
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