Service And Contribution Of Naval Kishore Press To Persian

If we throw a glance over the history of printing press in Asia, we see that India was very advanced and active in the ground of printing books and news papers rather than other Asian countries and the books printed in India were sent to the countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Yemen and other central Asian countries. The reason behind the prominent publishing industry of India was the endeavors of a person named Naval Kishore. Naval Kishore, who firstly got training of printing at Lahore started the work of printing, publishing and distributing predominantly books when he was only 22 years old by establishing his printing press named ‘Naval Kishore Printing Press and Book Depot’ in Lucknow city in 1858. He was the pioneer of his era in promoting Indo-Islamic culture throughout Indian subcontinet as well as central Asian countries. He published more than 35,000 titled books in Arabic, Persian,Urdu and Hindi languages as well as the religious books and cultural texts of extreme importance and official materials. In addition to this, even despite of being a Hindu by religion, Munshi Naval Kishore took special interest and care in the printing, publishing & distributing of the Holy Quran, Hadith and other books of Islamic values. Nawal Kishore played extra-ordinary role in intellectual outlook and understanding of common people of India and that is why he published books on different topics of literature, culture and civilization etc. Here, in this research paper, a critical analysis over the famous printing press of British era ‘Naval Kishore Printing Press’, its achievements and service to Persian would be discussed.

Keywords

Naval Kishore, Printing press, Persian, British Era, India…