Johann Ernst Hanxleden

Johann Ernst Hanxleden (b. at Ostercappeln, near Osnabrück, in Hanover, Germany, 1681; d. at Velur, in Trichur, Kerala, 20 March, 1732), known as Arnos Paathiri in Kerala, was a Malayalam/Sanskrit poet, grammarian, lexicographer, and philologist.

He volunteered for service as a Jesuit missionary in India, and after travelling through Italy, Turkey, Syria, Armenia, and Persia, set foot in India at Surat on 13 December, 1700; he would spend the rest of his life in Kerala.

The Puththenpaana, a Malayalam epic on the life of Christ, is his most celebrated poem. This is one of the earliest poems written in simple Malayalam. It has been an inalienable part of Christian (not restricted to Catholic) life in Kerala since the time of its composition; its cantos are sung in a characteristic manner in Christian households on various occasions, the most notable ones being Good Friday and evenings preceding funerals.

He was the first to construct a Malayalam dictionary. His lexicon describes Malayalam words in both Sanskrit and Portuguese (the then predominant European language in India). He also wrote a short grammar (the earliest) for the Malayalam language.

Hanxleden and his predecessor, Heinrich Roth, were the pioneering European Sanskrit scholars: he was the first European to write a Sanskrit grammar (ca. 1725), and also the first European to compose Sanskrit verse.

He died in Velur, the village where he had worked for over three decades, of a snake-bite.

His home, and the church he built, are preserved as historical monuments in Velur.

References

• Joseph J. Palackal: Puthen paana: A Musical Study, Master's Thesis, Hunter College of the City University of New York, 1995. Christian Musicological Society of India