Trip To India
He left Germany at the age of 22 for missionary work in Calcutta (Kolkata) India. While travelling in the ship he mastered Bengali, Hindustani and Telugu. Instead of Calcutta he reached Madras (Chennai) in 1836. There he learned Tamil. He worked in Chittor and Tirunelveli. While he was there he published a book in Tamil. Then he joined the Basel Mission and went to Mangalore for missionary work. But on his way to Mangalore he passed through Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) and had an audience with His Highness Sree Swathi Thirunal Maharaja, the ruler of Travancore. Most probably it was here he heard Malayalam for the first time.
Read more about this topic: Hermann Gundert
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