Bible translations into Nepali

The Bible has been translated into the Nepali language several times. Beginning in 1821 with the first New Testament translation, these were historically translated and published in India. More recently, translations like the Nepali New Revised Version in 1997 have been translated and published in Nepal. Other recent versions like the Trinitarian Bible Society edition continue to be made in India specifically in the dialect of Nepali spoken in India.^[1]

Early history

The first translation of any Christian Scriptures into the Nepali language was done by William Carey's Serampore Mission. The Serampore missionaries started a New Testament translation in 1812 and published it in 1821.^[2] In January 1822, two officials from Kathmandu reviewed the text while visiting Serampore and “declared it to be the language current at Kathmandu, the capital, and throughout the country, with the exception of the mountaineers, who speak a language peculiar to themselves.” Little is known about how these New Testaments were distributed or used.^[3]

The Church of Scotland established their Eastern Himalayan Mission in 1870, through which Scottish missionaries including Start, Niebel, and MacFarlane worked to translate individual books of the New Testament.^[3] One Nepali translator enlisted to work on these translations was Ganga Prasad Pradhan, who later became the first Nepali ordained as a pastor.

In 1894, Ganga Prasad Pradhan was appointed as the official Nepali translator of the British and Foreign Bible Society, which had taken on responsibility for the Nepali translation.^[3] Working together with Scottish missionaries Turnbull and Kilgour, Pradhan completed a New Testament translation in 1902 and the first Old Testament in 1914. The publication of this Old Testament marked the first time the complete Bible was available in Nepali, but by the 1950s there were apparently fewer than 10 copies of the Old Testament remaining in existence until the Revised Version was published in 1977.