means of obtain consent. The Mylapore Bishop however did not answer but Beschi’s work landed in Tranquebar “through a peculiar providential dispensation”. The Maharattas captured Trichy in 1741. The life of Beschi was at stake and he had to flee in disguise leaving his valuable works behind. Sometime later a soldier tried to sell two large palm leaf books at Tanjore. One of these was purchased by a Sērveicāren. Alagappan, the Tranquebar catechist, happened to see this and immediately recognised it as Beschi’s lexicon. The Tranquebar mission was briefed about it. The Sērveicāren however was unwilling to part with it and conceded to give only a few leaves at a time to be copied. The Tranquebar Missionaries who had earlier failed in their attempts to obtain Beschi’s dictionary were now happy. Obuch now planned to write Beschi’s dictionary into the old Tranquebar one. Hearing of this, Beschi pointed out to the Tranquebar Missionaries that the copy they had might be defective and therefore not ready for print. But Obuch was satisfied with it.

Beschi after some time was sure that the lexicon at Tranquebar was his and he conceded to give his latest prose dictionary also for print. The Tranquebar missionaries also agreed to print Beschi’s Caturakarāti separately. But due to Beschi’s refusal to permit any omission of his work, the Tranquebar mission could not print it. The dictionary by Ziegenbalg as a Tamil-Latin-German one was later improved and revised by later missionaries into a Tamil-Latin Dictionary. This unfortunately was never printed. The missionaries had to spend sometime daily to copy it. Fabricious was one of the young missionaries entrusted with the task of copying the lexicon. In 1775, Fabricious began to print the dictionaries - The Tamil - English and the English - Tamil dictionaries. By 1779, the printing of the former was complete and the printing of the latter immediately commenced.²⁴

Beschi is believed to have compiled a “Portuguese-Latin-Tamil Dictionary”, Tamil-Latin Dictionary, A Latin Dictionary of Common Tamil; a Tamil-French Dictionary, a Latin-Tamil Dictionary

24. W. German, Ibid. P. 16