The Veda may not seem to be the best candidate for a study concerned with the history of print and print culture. Unlike the Bible in Europe, the Veda was not the first book to be printed in India, but rather the last. And, also unlike the Bible, it has never—as had happened to Luther's Bible in the hands of 16th century German Protestants—aspired to become the agent of mass reformation through its literal translation into the vernacular. Even the project of the late Bengal reformer, Ram Mohan Roy, which had envisaged such a conception of the Veda, stemmed from radically different circumstances and attempted social reform through rationalizing Hinduism, using the philosophy of the Veda. Others aimed at the rebirth of an imagined nation rather than a religion, though a redefined form of the latter was believed to have become a vehicle for the former. A case apart here may be found in Dayānanda Sarasvatī's interpretation of the Veda in the second half of 19th century, which even earned him the nickname of ‘the Luther of India’. His basic approach to Vedic textuality, however, appears to have been altogether different from that of the early German Protestants. Dayānanda preferred his readers to accept the message of the Veda as explained by him rather than allowing the Veda speak by itself. However, neither the Veda as a whole, nor any specific Vedic text, ever aspired to be the object of mass reading consumption when the first native modern editors took it to print. What were the motifs behind the indigenous (native) Indian printer-publishers choosing to edit the Veda in print?

And what were the consequences: can they be looked at in isolation from the opinions, ideas, and images of the Veda formed by others? These are some of the questions that remain at the background of the present study. A history of the early printed Veda, as attempted in the present study, remains, by necessity, part of the history of the book in India and should be seen against its background. Writing a history of the printed Veda, to some extent, becomes part of writing a history of the book.