Peter Percival was a British born missionary and educator who opened religious schools in Sri Lanka and South India during the British colonial era.) During his stay in Jaffna, he led the effort to translate the Authorized King James Version of Bible into the Tamil language, working with the Tamil scholar Arumuka Navalar – a Shaiva Hindu. Percival's work influenced Robert Bruce Foote. Percival began his career in British held Sri Lanka and Bengal as a Wesleyan Methodist missionary. He was instrumental in starting and upgrading a number of Christian schools within the Jaffna peninsula. After returning to England, he converted to Anglicanism. Subsequent to his posting in South India, he severed his association with the Anglican Missionary Society that had sent him to India and worked as an educator in Presidency College in Madras Presidency. He published English-Tamil and English-Telugu dictionaries as well as a number of books on Indian culture and religion. He died in 1882 in Yercaud in present-day Tamil Nadu.

Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna District located on a peninsula of the same name. With a population of 88,138 in 2012, Jaffna is Sri Lanka's 12th most populous city. Jaffna is approximately six miles from Kandarodai which served as an emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical antiquity. Jaffna's suburb Nallur served as the capital of the four-century-long medieval Tamil Jaffna Kingdom.