Marwari New Testament (India)
Overview
The Marwari New Testament is the complete New Testament (27 books) in the Marwari language of Rajasthan, India, with a translation date of 1820, making it one of the earliest scripture translations into a Rajasthani language — and one of the oldest vernacular translations in India's northwest. The 1820 date places this translation in the era of the Serampore Mission — the translation initiative led by William Carey, Joshua Marshman, and William Ward at Serampore (near Calcutta) — and the parallel work of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), which together produced New Testament translations into dozens of Indian languages between 1800 and 1840. New Life Computer Institute (NLCI, Lahore) serves as the current digital publisher on YouVersion/Bible.com (ID 4382), likely having digitized or reformatted this historical text. Marwari (ISO 639-3: rwr) is a major Indo-Aryan language of the Rajasthani family, with millions of speakers in Rajasthan and a large global diaspora known for commerce and trade.
Language and People
Marwari (ISO 639-3: rwr; autonym: मारवाड़ी / مارواڑی) is an Indo-European language: Indo-European → Indo-Iranian → Indo-Aryan → Central Zone → Rajasthani branch. Marwari is the largest of the Rajasthani languages, named after Marwar — the historical region around Jodhpur in western Rajasthan. It is written in both Devanagari script and the traditional Mahajani merchant script, as well as Nastaliq for Marwari communities in Pakistan.
The Marwari community inhabits:
- Rajasthan, India — especially the western Marwar region (Jodhpur, Barmer, Jaisalmer, Nagaur districts)
- Pan-Indian diaspora — Marwari merchants (the "Marwari business community") have spread throughout India, making Marwari speakers present in every major Indian city
- Pakistan (especially Sindh) — a related variety of Marwari/Dhatki is spoken across the border
Estimated speakers: 6–13 million depending on classification (Ethnologue lists ~7.8 million for rwr), plus diaspora communities. Marwari is one of the larger minority languages of India.
Cultural Context
The Marwari business community is among the most commercially successful communities in modern India, with merchant families traditionally originating in the Marwar region having expanded to dominate trade, banking, and industry across the subcontinent since the 18th century. Major Indian industrialist families (Birla, Bajaj, Mittal and others) are of Marwari origin. The 1820 New Testament translation reflects the early 19th-century missionary effort to reach India's trading communities and to provide scripture in the vernacular languages of Rajasthan. The Serampore Mission and the BFBS together catalyzed translations into over 40 Indian languages by 1830, of which Marwari was among the more ambitious given its large speaker base and dispersed diaspora population.
Publishing and Organizations
Digital edition published by New Life Computer Institute (NLCI, Lahore, Pakistan). The original 1820 translation was produced through the early 19th-century Protestant missionary translation movement in India (likely Serampore Mission / British and Foreign Bible Society).