In Tamil Nadu, Biographies were introduced in literary formats only from the 20th Century. But just as in English, a biography of monks was published in Tamil during the 16th Century. This book also happened to be the second book to be printed in Tamil. This book was the Tamil translation of a Portuguese book. In Tamil, U.V. Swaminatha Iyer 's "Meenatchi Sundarampillai Sarithiram" (Meenatchi.