CRITIQUE
OF CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES
Although
many Christians attended the Chicago Parliament in a spirit of love and
fellowship showing utmost courtesy and goodwill to delegates from the East,
some of them spoke in derogatory terms about oriental religions. Christianity was
presented as the only true and universal religion, ‘the only complete and god-given revelation’.10 The Code of Righteousness revealed by God to
Moses, called the Ten Commandments, was described as superior to the ethical precepts
of Orientals. 11 It was argued that the idea of the unity of God and the brotherhood of man
as suggested in Paul’s great speech on Mars Hill was not found in ‘the Hindu Buddhistic Bible’. 12
Rev. Joseph Cook of Boston stated (September 14) that he regarded all faiths
except Christianity as ‘a torso’. Except
Christianity ‘there is no religion known under heaven, or among men, that
effectively provides for the soul this joyful deliverance from the love of sin
and the guilt of it’, he said. 13 As regards the antiquity
of Christianity Pentecost pointed
out that it does not date from the birth of
Christ. ‘ Christ crucified 2000 years ago was only the culmination in
time, and to our sense, of a revelation already ages old.’ 14 Besides, no ideal character ‘ever
satisfied the demands of the mortal
consciousness of the ancient world’ as did Jesus Christ.15
Like many oriental delegates to the
Chicago Parliament, like Kinza Riuge M. Hirai (Japan), Swami Vivekananda,
Hewavitarne Dharmapala, and others, Virchand
Raghavji Gandhi was
convinced that the Christian attitude
towards other religions based on
the interpretation of Saint Justin
Martyr (c. 100-165 CE), Saint Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215 CE), Tertullian
(c. 160-220 CE), Tatian (c.120-180 CE) and others, was that of hostility, condemnation and
intolerance. Justin Martyr, for example, interpreted non-Christian religions as
the work of demons and evil spirits, and dubbed them all as ‘crude
superstitions, demonic counterfeits and
caricatures of the true religion.’ 16
Both in America and Europe, Virchand Raghavji
Gandhi pointed out the Christian bias against
other faiths, based as it was on raw, tainted information from dubious
quarters. He disapproved of proselytism rooted in such theological assumptions as, all-non-Christians
were going to hell; there was no way to salvation except through Jesus Christ
who is the central and culminating point of
God’s salvific plan for mankind; and that Christianity is the fulfillment of all religions. He
rejected the view that some people are the chosen of god (Deutronomy 7:6) while
others are pagan; that if Jesus Christ is true, all other prophets must be
false. Without denying the purity of character of Jesus Christ and the nobility of his ethical
teachings he observed that he had
been preceded by many spiritual masters like him.17
‘I have to say that no Christian
minister can point to a single moral truth or ethical statement in his new
testament of Jesus the Christ that I
cannot duplicate a thousand times with even greater emphases from the
sacred books and teachings of our religion antedating as they do the Christian
era by thousands upon thousands of years.’ 18
In one of his historic lectures, ‘Have
Christian Missions to India been successful?’ delivered at the Nineteenth Century Club in America,
Virchand Raghavji Gandhi presented a critique of Christianity and missionary
methods.19 He argued that Christianity does not have fixed doctrines
as it has grown through the ages - from the times of Christ to that of the
Fathers of the Church to that of the Middle ages, to the Age of Reformation
down to the present times. Christianity has
not come ‘direct through Christ’ but through ‘the layers of superstition and
bigotry, of intolerance and persecution, of damnation and eternal hell-fire.’
It has thus lost ‘the standard of apostolic days. 20 The fact that Christianity has borrowed
its cosmogony, festivals, liturgies
and sacred paraphernalia, from previous
or older religious traditions, shows that it does not have a ‘divine
origin’. 21 Its doctrines of Original Sin and of vicarious atonement are not convincing.22 The gullible are made to believe
theological half-truths and miracles, like the immaculate conception of Mary
and the resurrection of Jesus after crucifixion. The Church has been offering
inducements to convert the poor with foreign money. It has used education and social work as means of proselytisation,
something ‘repulsive to our conscience.’ 23 Instead of improving moral standards, or raising the
position of women and the masses, Christianity
has introduced social evils with its western lifestyle and values, which overemphasize the gratification of the
senses, its ideas of marriage and of social
relations . 24 He noted that Christians being non-vegetarians and
wine-takers seem to the Hindus to represent a religion bereft of humanitarian
or spiritual ideals. 25
He wondered how the ‘dogmatic aggressiveness’26
of Christian preachers elevate the spiritual state of a nation. He argued that
the missionaries were so trained as to detest other religions. They preached an
insular creed, and spread ‘a false theology’ , ‘not only false
but positively injurious to the best interests of mankind.’27 They
were ignorant about Indian history, culture and philosophy, and saw nothing
positive in non-Christian traditions.28 They were systematically spreading
false information about other faiths to
erode their credibility.
Like Swami Vivekananda, he goaded the
Christian missionaries to put their theology into action – to live a virtuous
life like that of Jesus Christ, and not
indulge in calumny, hypocrisy, drinking
and other vices. He felt that dogmatic Christianity cannot take root in India.
DEFENDER
OF HINDUISM AND INDIAN CULTURE
Virchand Raghavji Gandhi saw historical
and cultural affinity between Hinduism and Jainism since both have emerged from
the same soil. At the Chicago Parliament he had the honour to read Manilal N Dwivedi’s detailed essay on Hinduism, in his absence.
He defended the Hindu tradition against
missionary attacks as can be seen from his response to George
T. Pentecost’s vitriolic observations (September 24).29
Pentecost had spoken derisively about the Hindu deities by observing that to compare ‘the peerless
Christ’ ‘to any of the gods worshipped
by the Hindus ‘is to mock both them and
him.’30 He had lampooned the traditional Hindu History by saying
that orientals were destitute of the historical sense and could easily manage
millions of years as decades.31 He had dubbed the claim about the eternity of the Vedas and
the antiquity of Puranic heroes antedating ‘all other faiths’ as
irrational.32 Above all, he had cast aspersions on the chastity
of women who served in the temples of India.33
Virchand
Raghavji Gandhi explained why Christian missionaries painted a negative image
of India:
‘They go to India to convert the heathen in a mass but when they find their
dreams melting away, as dreams always do, they return back to pass a whole life
in abusing the Hindu.’ 34 He
argued that the ‘present abuses’ in Hinduism, were not from religion, but in
spite of it, as in every other country. Hindu society had been so virtuous in
the past that a Greek historian remarked : ‘ No Hindu was ever known to tell an
untruth, no Hindu women ever known to be unchaste.’ He gave the example of emperor Akbar (1542-1605) who showed utmost respect to the Bible when a ship of Christian traders was captured with
the copies of their holy book, unlike
the Portugese Christians who had defiled
the Koran in a similar situation.35
In another lecture, Virchand
Raghavji Gandhi referred to ancient and
medieval travelers and scholars like
Hieun Tsang (602-664 CE) Marco Polo (1254-1324 CE) and Mohammad
al-Idrisi (1099-1161), who showered rich encomiums on the Hindus for their high
character, truthfulness and honesty.36
As regards the superstitious nature of Hindus, he had this to say in a
lampooning way :
'These holy men talk of the Hindu superstitions. They had better examined their own religion. A religion whose beginning is in blood, whose salvation is in blood, whose purity is in innocent blood, whose hope of saintship is in a dream of a sea of blood, whose revivals are brought about by preaching and a vision of the sea of blood afresh, would do better by talking less of the superstitions of other nations.’ 37
It appears that the caustic
observations of Rev. T. E. Slater of the London Missionary Society, Bangalore, made
in his Paper, read at the Chicago Parliament by Frank M Bristol, were lurking in the mind of Virchand Raghavji
Gandhi when he uttered these words. The Paper stated inter alia that ‘no literature, not even the jewish,
contains so many words relating to sacrifice as Sanskrit. The land has been
saturated with blood.’ 38
The concept of India as a unique, hoary civilization
and vibrant culture, with multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-religious, and
multilingual traits, finds articulation in the discourses and writings of Virchand Raghavji Gandhi. To him India was not just a geographical entity but the land of gods
and holy men. He regarded the quintessential Indian values as timeless and
eternal. He saw the different schools of Indian philosophy as flowers of
various hues, all emitting fragrance. He regretted that while India was ‘the
mother of religions and ‘the cradle of civilization’ it was dubbed as the land of
heathens, ‘both materially and spiritually’ in Christendom due to ignorance.39
On the testimony of Greek writers
like Strabo, Pliny, Arrian and Megasthenese he argued that India had
become a familiar topic with the western people long before the birth of Jesus. He quoted from the writings
of scholars like Max Mueller (1823-1900),
Sir Thomas Munro (1761-1827), H.H.
Wilson( 1786-1860) and others to show that India had a glorious past.
Hinduism
to him was not a religion in the western sense of the term but a way to achieve
all-round perfection. He spoke of Hinduism’s antiquity and
its superiority to European knowledge in many spheres of activity. He rejected
the view that Hindus have no history ‘worth considering’ prior to the Muslim
invasion of India. The fact is that historical events were transmitted ‘with
particularity and exactness from generation to generation, from century to
century.’40
Like
Swami Vivekananda, he provided the raison d’être of caste, image worship, rites of marriage, and of religious symbols
like AUM, swastika, forehead-marks , chakras – wheels or lotuses – in the
subtle body, etc. He described Sanskrit - deva-vani
- ‘language of the gods’, ‘the oldest language in the sisterhood of
languages’,41 as essential for an understanding of Indian history,
religion and culture, a fact vouchsafed by western philologists.
Yet he was not a revivalist in the
narrow sense of the term. He disagreed
with Abbe Dubois’s description of Hinduism as a pagan religion and argued that
modern science has come to accept the value of some ancient rites and
ceremonies. Contrary to the western belief that Hindu women were ‘abject
slaves’ of their husbands, and enjoyed a
lower status in society, he observed that the wife in India is regarded as the
queen of the household and never kept in seclusion or subjection, denied education
or excluded from holding a high position
in society.42 He quoted Sir
Thomas Munro (1761-1827) who said that ‘the Hindus are not inferior to the
nations of Europe, and if civilization is to become an object of trade between England and India, I
am convinced that England will gain by
the import cargo.’43
CONCLUSION
Virchand Raghavji Gandhi had a short but
eventful life marked by prominent social, religious and legal activities, for which he was
honoured by Jainas as well as
non-Jainas, both in India and abroad. The
triumph of his mission in the west raised the image of India and restored the confidence
of the Jaina community in its ethos. He brought about an inner resurgence in
Jainism by upholding its precepts against all odds, thereby saving its soul
from the growing impact of the West.
He was successful in stimulating
interest in Jainism both as faith and as a way of life, which is evident from
the fact that Herbert Warren and Mrs
Howard adopted the culture of the
Jaina community. While the former took
notes of his lectures and expatiated on the Jaina faith, the latter served as
Secretary of the Society for the
Education of Women of India, founded by him.
He showed that Jainism can provide answers
to the ultimate existential questions, and help one to take a quantum jump from
ignorance to supreme knowledge, from conflict to peace. His understanding of Buddhism, Indian mysticism which he regarded
as synonymous with the Yoga School, the
six systems of Indian philosophy, and comparative religion, was superb , and for this reason, he was invited to a
number of religious, spiritual and
philosophical societies in important American cities like Chicago, New
York, Boston and Washington DC. He also made a mark in England by his
insightful talks and his success in winning an appeal.
His lectures on concentration,
meditation, hypnotism, dietetics, the art and science of breathing , and the occult, generated much
interest, and continue to be meaningful.
44 He taught how one can
strengthen will, nullify negative propensities, expand consciousness, and
awaken inner powers. His views on
spirituality are well suited to this age of scientific enquiry and
rationalistic criticism.
As a crusader for the Jaina
causes he succeeded in obtaining tax exemption for pilgrims (1886
) to the sacred Mount Shatrunjaya (Gujarat),
through a compromise with the ruler of
Palitana, by using the good
offices of Lord Reay, Governor of Bombay
(Mumbai). He filed a case for the closure of tallow factory of Mr Boddam on Sammed-Shikhar (Shikharji ), the
venerable peak of Jainas
in Jharkhand, and won it after
great effort. He was a great patriot, and his concern for the masses grew out
of his sense of identity with humanity. While in the USA he could raise forty
thousand rupees for the famine stricken people of India and arrange to send a
steamer full of grains (1896). He
remained a pure vegetarian throughout his life, sometime surviving on raw or
boiled vegetables in the cold climate of America and Europe,45 thus
becoming a living legend for the supporters of vegetarianism, in his time.
Like Swami Vivekananda, he wanted a
synthesis of tradition and modernity, of science and spirituality, so that
mankind could have peace as well as prosperity. He left his mortal coil on August 7,1901,
in Mumbai.
About
Author: Ex-British Council Scholar. Registrar, DAV University, Jalandhar.
This article was first published in the January
2010 issue of the Prabuddha Bharata, monthly journal of The Ramakrishna Order
started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896. This article is courtesy and copyright
Prabuddha Bharata I have been reading the Prabuddha Bharata for years and found
it enlightening. Cost is Rs 180/ for one year, Rs 475/ for three years, Rs
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References
1. See The Jaina Philosophy. Speeches and Writings
of Virchand R. Gandhi. Edited by Kumarpal Desai. Mumbai: World Jaina
Confederation,2009, pp. 105-7, 271-76.(Hereafter cited as The Jaina Philosophy).
2. Walter R. Houghton(ed.) , Neely’s History of the Parliament of religions and Religious Congresses
at the World’s Columbia Exposition. Chicago and New York: F. Tennyson
Neely, 1894, pp.61-62,853-54,732-36. (Hereafter cited as Houghton).
3. The
Chicago Daily Tribune, September 26, 1893.
4. Ibid.
5. Houghton,
pp.61-62.
6. Ibid.,
pp, 732-36.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Houghton, pp.853-54.
10. Houghton, p.683.
11. Ibid.,pp.686-87.
12. Ibid.,p.689
13. Ibid.,pp.,220-21.
14. Ibid.,pp.,p.684.
15. Ibid.
p. 686.
16. M.V.Cyriac, Meeting of Religions. A
Reappraisal of the Christian Vision(with a foreword by Prof. P. Fransen),
Dialogue Series,Madras-Madurai, 1982, pp.138-39.
17. The
Jaina philosophy,p.111.
18. Ibid.,pp.,111-12.
19. Ibid.,pp.88-113.
20. Ibid.,pp.90-91,101.
21. Ibid.,p.92.
22. Ibid.,pp.,101,110.
23. Ibid.,p.109.
24. Ibid.,p.101.
25. Ibid.,p.105.
26. Ibid.,p.110.
27. Ibid.,p.90.
28. Ibid.,p.95.
29. Houghton,pp.,682-90.
30. Ibid.,p.685.
31. Ibid.,p.683.
32. Ibid.,pp.683-84.
33. Ibid.,pp.,701-2.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. The
Jaina Philosophy,pp.94-95.
37. Ibid.,p.108.
38. Houghton,p.166.
39. The
Jaina Philosophy,pp.88-89. See also,The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ. From
an ancient manuscript recently discovered in a Buddhist monastery in Thibet by
Nicholos Notovitch. Translated from the
French and edited with an introduction
and illustrations by Virchand R. Gandhi.
Revised by Prof G. L. Christe of the University of Paris. Edited by Kumarpal
Desai. Mumbai: World Jain Confederation,2009. P. 50.
40. Ibid.,p.254-55.
41. Ibid.,p.255.
42. Ibid.,pp.261-63.
43. Ibid.,p.96.
44. See for these lectures, Virchand Gandhi, The Yoga Philosophy, Edited by Kumarpal Desai. Mumbai: World Jaina Confederation, 2009.
45. In a communication to Diwanji
(November 1894), Swami Vivekananda wrote thus: ‘ Now here is Virchand Gandhi,
the Jaina whom you well know in Bombay. This man never takes anything but pure
vegetables even in this terribly cold climate and, tooth and nail, tries to
defend his countrymen and religion. The people of this country like him very
well, but what are they doing who sent
him over? They are trying to outcast him.’ The
Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. VIII, Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama,
1964, pp.328-329.