Malayalam Bible Audio - The first attempt to translate the bible into Malayalam was done by Pulikkottil Ittoop (Joseph) Katthanar (later enthroned as the Malankara Metropolitan H.H. Joseph Mar Dionysius) and Kayamkulam Philipose Ramban with the support of Mor Dionatius the Great and Rev. Claudius Buchanan. Buchanan, a missionary who visited Kerala in the early 19th century, persuaded church leaders to translate the manuscripts into Malayalam and gave guidance to local scholars. At that time Syriac was the liturgical language of Christians in Kerala. Pulikkottil Ittoop (Joseph) Katthanar and Kayamkulam Philippose Ramban who were Malankara Syrian Christian monks initially translated few books of the Holy Bible from Syriac to Malayalam. They were assisted by Timapah Pillay in language editing. Using the Tamil version translated by Johann Philipp Fabricius, they made a Malayalam copy. Bible Society of India (then an Auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society) paid for 500 copies to be printed in Bombay in 1811. Timapah completed the New Testament in 1813, but this was found to include vocabulary known only to the Syriac Christian community and not to the general Malayalee population. Now this Bible is known as the Ramban Bible.
Malayalam Bible for Android
First Unicode Malayalam Bible for Android with English KJV and ASV versions.
After the Ramban Bible, it was Benjamin Bailey who continued the effort to translate the Bible into Malayalam and finally succeeded in accomplishing a complete translation. His translation of the New Testament was finished and published in 1829 and the Old Testament followed in 1841.
Hermann Gundert updated Bailey's version and produced the first Malayalam-English dictionary (1872). Other sources record that a Phillipose Rampan (c. 1780-1850) also translated parts of the Bible into Malayalam.