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{{Short description|Austrian Jesuit missionary to India (1710–1785)}}
{{no footnotes|date=May 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Christianity in India sidebar|collapsed}}
'''Joseph Tiefenthaler''' (or '''Tieffenthaler''' or '''Tieffentaller''') (27 August 1710 – 5 July 1785) was a [[Jesuit]] [[missionary]] and one of the earliest European geographers to write about India.

==Life and travels==
Tiefenthaler was born in [[Bozen]], in the [[county of Tyrol]], then in the Austrian empire. Not much is known of his early life and studies except that he spent two years in Spain. He entered the [[Society of Jesus]] on 9 October 1729, and went in 1740 to the East Indian mission.

Arriving in [[Goa]], he was soon sent to be the Rector of the Jesuit High School of [[Agra]]. Agra was then the center of the so-called 'Mission of the [[Mughal Empire|Grand Moghul]]'. In 1747 he went to [[Narwar]] where he stayed for about 18 years.

To escape Prime Minister [[Marquis of Pombal|Pombal]]'s order for all Jesuits to be expelled from [[Portugal|Portuguese]] controlled areas (in 1759), he left and travelled around North India.
He followed the entire course of the [[Ganges]] down to [[Calcutta]], which had been newly established as a city by [[Job Charnock]] as a commercial settlement of the English. On returning to Agra in 1778, he received the news that the [[Society of Jesus]], the religious order to which he belonged, had been suppressed by [[Pope Clement XIV]]. He stayed in India, and on his death in 1785 in [[Lucknow]] was buried in the mission cemetery in [[Agra]].

==Works==
[[File:1784 Tiefenthaler Map of the Ganges and Ghaghara Rivers, India - Geographicus - Ganges-teifentaller-1784.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Tiefenthaler's map of the [[Ganges]] and [[Ghaghara]] rivers, 1784]]
Besides his native tongue he understood Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, [[Hindustani language|Hindustani]], Arabic, Persian, and [[Sanskrit]].

In geography, he wrote a ''Descriptio Indiæ'', a circumstantial description of the twenty-two provinces of India, of its cities, fortresses, and the most important smaller towns, together with an exact statement of geographical positions, calculated by means of a simple [[Quadrant (instrument)|quadrant]]. The work also contains a large numbers of maps, plans, and sketches drawn by himself, and the list of geographical positions fills twenty-one [[quarto]] pages. He also prepared a large book of maps on the [[Ganges Basin]], entitled: ''Cursus Gangæ fluvi Indiæ maximi, inde Priaga seu Elahbado Calcuttam usque ope acus magneticæ exploratus atque litteris mandatus aJ. T. S. J.'' (1765). The original map of the lower course of the river measures 15',that of the middle course, from [[Benares]] to [[Patna]], measures 4' 3" square. In addition there is a map of similar dimensions of the Gagra, the whole accompanied by numerous notes, sketches of particular parts, and maps giving details. he also wrote a work on the regions containing the sources of the chief rivers of India.

In the field of religions he wrote ''Brahmanism'', a work directed against the writings of the Irishman [[John Zephaniah Holwell]] and the Scotsman [[Alexander Dow]]. Others of his writings were on Indian [[polytheism]], Indian [[asceticism]], the religion of the [[Parsees]], Islam, the relation of these religions to one another, etc. His writings in the department of the natural sciences are: astronomical observations on the [[sunspot]]s and [[Zodiacal light]], studies on Hindu astronomy, [[astrology]], and cosmology, and descriptions and observations of the [[flora]] and [[fauna]] of India. He also wrote in Latin on the origin of Hindus and of their religion, an account in German of the expeditions of [[Nadir Shah]] to India, the deeds of the [[Mughal Empire|Mughal]] Shah Alam in Persian, and in French in incursions of the Afghans and the conquest of [[Delhi]], and the contemporary history of India, 1757–64. In linguistics he wrote a Sanskrit-Parsee [[lexicon]], treatises in Latin on the language of the Parsees, on the proper pronunciation of Latin, etc.

Tiefenthaler sent these works in manuscript partly to the Danish scholar Dr. Kratzenstein in [[Copenhagen]], partly to the French [[oriental studies|orientalist]] and geographer [[Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron|A. H. Anquetil-Duperron]] (1731–1805). The latter praised the value and importance of the works, especially those on geography, in his address before the [[French Academy of Sciences]] (''Journal des Scavans'', Dec., 1776), and made the writing of Tiefenthaler partly accessible to the academic world in his ''Recherches hist. et géogr. sur l'Inde'' (1786), and also in his ''Carte général du cours du Gange et du Gagra dressée par les cartes particuliéres du P. Tieffenthaler'' (Paris, 1784). A part of the manuscripts in Copenhagen were obtained by the German scholar Johann Bernoulli of Berlin who used them in connection with the ''Recherches'' of Anquetil for the work ''Des Pater Joseph Tieffenthalers d. Ges. Jesu. und apost. Missionarius in Indien historisch-geographische Beschreibung von Hindustan . . .'' (3 vols., quarto, Berlin-Gotha, 1785–87). The greater part of the first two volumes is devoted to Tiefenthaler's writings, his maps, and sketches. the French edition, entitled ''Description hist. et géogr. de l'Inde . . .'' appeared in Berlin in three vols. (1786–91). A large part of his manuscripts are probably still extant in Paris and Copenhagen.

==See also==
*[[List of Catholic clergy scientists]]

== References ==
* {{Catholic|wstitle=Joseph Tieffentaller}} cites:
** NOTI. ''Jos. Tieffentaller, S. J., A Forgotten Geographer of India'' (Mumbai, 1906);
** SIN, S.N., Tieffenthaler on latitudes and longitudes in India, in ''Indian Journal of the History of Science'', Vol.17, 1982, pp. 1–17.

==External links==
{{Commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tiefenthaler, Joseph}}
[[Category:1710 births]]
[[Category:1785 deaths]]
[[Category:18th-century Austrian people]]
[[Category:18th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:18th-century male writers]]
[[Category:18th-century Austrian Jesuits]]
[[Category:Austrian Roman Catholic missionaries]]
[[Category:Austrian geographers]]
[[Category:Roman Catholic missionaries in India]]
[[Category:Explorers of South Asia]]
[[Category:Austrian expatriates in India]]
[[Category:Religious leaders from Bolzano]]
[[Category:Jesuit scientists]]
[[Category:Jesuit missionaries in India]]

Joseph Tiefenthaler - Revision history

Ellen248280 at 06:24, 5 April 2025