Influence Of Christianity In India 4i7150

○ ○ ○ ○

The Impact of Indian Christianity on Indian Society

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

#

○

205

Indian Christians and the Freedom Movement INDIAN CHRISTIANITY, ALTHOUGH A minority religion, played a very significant role in the freedom movement of India. The main instrument of political nationalism common to all Indians was the Indian National Congress, founded in 1885. One of its important features was the separation of religion and politics. The second annual session of the Congress declared that it was ‘a community of temporal interests and that their general interest in the country being identical, Hindus, Christians, Mohammedans and Parsees may as fitly as of their respective communities represent each other in the discussions of the public secular affairs’. The Indian Christian community played an important role in the early phase of the Congress, evident at the third session of the Congress (1887) where, out of 607 participants, there were fifteen Indian Christian delegates who actively participated in the deliberations. Some of the outstanding Indian Christian delegates were Madhu Sunder Das of Orissa who addressed the Congress on the question of expansion of legislative councils, and N Subramaniam who proposed a resolution that pleaded for complete separation of judicial and executive functions by government officials. The Indian Christian delegates continued their contributions in the four subsequent sessions of the Congress. Special mention should be made of Pandita Ramabai Saraswati and Kali Chandran Banerjee. 205

206

Christianity in India Through the Centuries

Panditha Ramabai Saraswati (1858-1922) was an outstanding Indian Christian woman. In the 1889 Congress session there were ten Christian delegates of which Pandita Ramabai Saraswati was one. She was one of the first Indians who championed the right of women to participate in national politics, eloquently articulating the pitiable history of Indian womanhood. Ramabai also played an important role in the third session of the National Social Conference in 1889 at which she ed a resolution condemning the practice of disfiguring the Hindu widows. Kali Charan Banerjee is considered one of the great leaders and founders of ‘the movement for emancipation’. A writer of the third session of the Congress in 1887 noted, ‘Perhaps the finest orator in the whole assembly was Babu Kali Charan Banerjee, who is a Bengali Christian’. He regularly addressed the Congress annual sessions, moulding the policy of the national movement and putting a number of proposals before the British government for istrative reforms. In the 1889 session, he was responsible for a resolution demanding improvement in the educational systems particularly university education. He was also instrumental in 1889 in protesting against the prohibition imposed by the government on teachers participating in political movements. Among his main contributions in 1896, Banerjee again presented a resolution demanding improvement in the educational system, especially the university education in the country. A further turn of events took place in the first decade of the 20th century during which Indian nationalism became polarized on a communal basis. The Muslim League was formed in 1906 and the backward classes and minority communities started pursuing independent lines of expression of their patriotic activities, actively pursuing independent political goals. Another feature of the political scenario was the Swadeshi Movement started in 1905 when the plan for the partition of Bengal was mooted. The movement entered a new phase with the formal declaration of a boycott of foreign goods at a public meeting in Calcutta on 7 August 1905. Their cry for ‘Boycott and Swadeshi’ soon spread along the political, economic and cultural fronts, which took the form of a multifaceted boycott of British goods, educational institutions and courts of justice. This movement also tried to establish national independence in economic, political and cultural areas. Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, the ‘Hindu Catholic’ sadhu and


207

theologian was a leading player in the Swadeshi movement, and he was prosecuted on a charge of sedition in 1907. During the trial he refused to take any part, as he would have nothing to do with what he saw as an alien power that happened to rule India. By 1920, the social and political forces in India launched another confrontation against foreign rule, promoting nation-wide non-co-operation with the British Government of India. There were many Christians taking part in the Non-Co-operation Movement, and the Christian community’s solidarity with the movement was clearly manifested in a statement made at a conference of leading Christians from all over India, held in Ranchi in 1923, which declared that ‘swaraj, nationalism, or self-determination helped the self-realization of a people: that it is consistent with the Christian religion and helpful to the Christian life’. The Civil Disobedience Movement (1930) authorized people ‘whenever it deems fit, to launch upon a programme of Civil Disobedience including non-payment of taxes’, and the beginning of this movement was Gandhi’s historic Salt March from Sabarmati ashram to Dandi on the sea on 16 April 1930, when he picked up a pinch of salt from the sea, thus symbolically violating the salt law. Among the 78 of the Ashram who accompanied Gandhi was Thevarthundiyil Titus. Titus, a young disciple of Gandhi who was an agriculture student and a member of a Christian family in Travancore. Boycott of British cloth and picketing of liquor shops were followed by a series of mass demonstrations in many centres. The government dealt with the situation with a stern hand by imprisoning people in thousands, imposing strict censorship on the press, and exercising special powers. The Indian Christians were not just ive listeners or witnesses in this whole scenario. The Indian Christian Association of Bengal at its executive meeting ed a resolution pledging full to the freedom movement. A conference of Christians in Bombay declared its complete sympathy with the national aspirations. The Indian Social Reformer, a leading national weekly of the time reported on the meeting thus: ‘The first resolution stated that the of the Indian Christian community…were one with other communities in their desire to win for India complete swaraj at the earliest possible moment, and were of the opinion that absolute non-violent salt satyagraha was in no way

208


against the teaching of Jesus Christ and was capable of achieving great moral victories.’1 A meeting of the Christians in Palayamcottah and Tinnevely revealed how intensely they had embraced the national spirit. The addresses made it clear that ‘the Indian Christians were not behind any other community in their desire for freedom and in their readiness to work and suffer for it’. Furthermore, in 1930, the All India Christian Council, which is the executive body of the All India Council of Indian Christians, met and adopted a resolution which, while not subscribing to the civil disobedience movement as such, declared solidarity of Christians with the thrust of the national movement.2 The Quit India Movement (1942) was a landmark in the history of the Freedom Movement of India. Those Christians who expressed themselves in complete solidarity with the demand for immediate Indian independence included the All India Conference of Indian Christians, the National Christian Council of India, Christian leaders and student groups related to such institutes and movements as the United Theological College (Bangalore), Serampore College (Bengal), Youth Christian Council of Action (Kerala), and the Student Christian Movement of India. Many Indian leaders publicly acknowledged the valuable contribution of Indian Christians. In December 1944, C Rajagopalachari said: Does not the national world in India know that the Indian Christian community has distinguished itself at every conference by giving the fullest to the National Movement and by never giving to anti-nationalist trends?3

However, one has to recognize the fundamental conflict inherent in the politics of nationalism and the freedom struggle, and later in the nationbuilding process. This conflict is between religion and ethnicity on the one hand and nationhood and state on the other, and this struggle remains a critical one even today. During the period of freedom struggle, the Christian community ed through a conflict within itself between two opposing self-definitions; one, a closed religious community, and the other, an open community, which participates in secular civil society. From 1927 onwards the All India Conference of Indian Christians refused to identify them as a closed communal political entity. So they rejected communal electorates, which the British rulers ‘awarded’ at first to the Muslims and then to the Christians and other religious communities as


209

well. The All India Conference of Indian Christians in 1930 stated their understanding of the Christian community: The place of a minority in a nation is its value to the whole nation and not merely to itself. That value depends on the quality of its life, the standard of its preparation for life’s various activities, the strenuousness with which it throws itself into all avenues of useful services and the genuineness with which it seeks the common weal.

So, when in August 1947, the Interim Report of the Minority Advisory Committee of the Constituent Assembly proposed the constitutional provision of reservation for Indian Christians in central legislature and in the provincial legislatures of Madras and Bombay, Christian leaders like H C Mukerjee and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur were from the beginning against this reservation of seats on a communal basis as it would be detrimental to the national interest. However, after much deliberation, the constituent assembly finally decided to provide statutory reservation of seats in the legislative assemblies only for the scheduled castes and a few other depressed communities for a limited period. It is interesting to note the enlightened patriotism of Indian Christian leaders manifested in moulding the self-image of the Christian community as part of the national civil society, which certainly was a significant contribution to the nation-building process in India. No doubt, Christians in India were very active participants in the freedom struggle for independence from the very beginning of western domination of India. Certainly, they were one of the pioneering forces, which shaped the goals of Indian nationalism and strategies in the struggle for independence of India. The Christian community in Travancore (South India) played a key role in the pro-democracy movement in the State. The role of the Christian community in the Quit India Movement of 1930 and the t Political Congress, which determined the direction of the Travancore politics, was commendable. Some historians would recognize T M Verghese as the father of the democratic system of Travancore. There are a number of outstanding Indian Christian women who played a significant role on behalf of women and the pro-democracy movement. Two of them were Anne Mascarene and Accamma Cherian. These women leaders came from the St Thomas Christian community. The number of Christians in leadership positions in the Travancore State Congress and the agitation for responsible government in the State

210


are demonstrations that the Christian community pioneered nationalism and the struggle for democracy. Out of the 12 of the first working committee of the Travancore State Congress, five were Christians. On 31 May 1938, a committee of the Travancore State Congress leaders affixed their signatures to the petition submitted to the Maharaja. Seven of them were Christians. In the freedom struggle movement in Travancore, the church leadership especially the bishops played a very significant role. Special mention must be made of the pro-democracy position taken by Metropolitan Abraham Mar Thoma in the context of the agitation for responsible government in 1938, and Bishop Mar James Kalaserry of Changanacherry Diocese in the heroic resistance against the attempt of the Travancore Government (1945) to bring the Christian school system under its control. In the 1930s and the following decade there was the Youth Christian Council of Action (YCCA), a movement of young people who saw in the Christian gospel resources that could be directed towards the struggle for freedom, secular civil society, socialism and democracy. They were courageous enough to express their ideas to the authorities of state and church because they were gripped by the Christian gospel, the quest of which is the creation of human freedom, protection of human dignity, and the promotion of human welfare. This group is very similar to the political witness of the Confessing Church in during the Second World War. Going through the pages of history from 1880 to 1950, it is evident that the Indian Christians have played their rightful place in the struggle for Indian independence. Unfortunately during the last decade or so, a number of of fundamentalist groups of the majority religion in India made a false allegation that Indian Christians do not belong to India and they should return to their country of origin. They seem to have forgotten that Christianity is an Asian religion and it remains so. Christians are part and parcel of the wider Indian community, and not an imported product.

The Impact of Christianity on Other Indian Religions Hinduism is based on the Vedic myths concerning gods and epics of


211

Ramayana and Mahabaratha and emphasizes a mythical meaning of time rather than chronology and actual events. Buddha and Mahavira were historical figures and their followers concentrated much on their moral teachings as well as handing down of traditions. But when it came down to locating them in history, they gave free rein to mythology. Christianity, however, insists on the historical events of the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus, and only in encounter with Christianity did Hinduism come to emphasize places like Ayodhya and Dwaraka. Buddhism, on the other hand, stresses the importance of places and events in Buddha’s life. Indian religions were not very much concerned with ideology and doctrines, but emphasized the contemplation of the inexpressible reality of the ultimate. On the other hand, Judaism, Christianity and Islam believed in the exclusive teaching they wanted to preserve at any cost. Each of them—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—had recourse to a sacred book. Indian religions, which were very tolerant of doctrinal differences with a great many puranas and more than a hundred Upanishads developed academic consciousness, feeling the need for disciplines like logic, psychology and metaphysics only after the arrival of these religions in India. All the three religions—Buddhism, Christianity and Islam—were based on particular historical events—Buddha’s attainment of Enlightenment under the bodhi tree, Christ’s death and resurrection and the revelation of the Quran to the Mohammed. Although Hinduism insisted that each one had to achieve realization by oneself, they felt the need for evangelization. So people like Sankaracharya travelled from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and made many converts from Buddhism and Hinduism to sects like Vaishnavism to his Saivite Advaitism. From the early centuries itself, Hinduism showed positive responses to Christianity. When St Thomas Christians established themselves in South India, they became an integral part of the Indian caste system, forming an intermediate level between the higher caste and the lower strata. The Bhakti movement, a devotional tradition of South India, was a social phenomenon that involved a close relation between the St Thomas Christians, the Muslim Sufis and the Hindu ascetics of Tamil tradition like Thiruvalluar. Another example of a positive reaction to Christian missionaries is the Hindu reform movement of Bengal in the 19th century. The missionaries

212


spoke strongly against idolatry and social evils like child marriage and practice of sati by which widows were forced to immolate themselves on the funeral pyre of their husbands. Some Hindu leaders were convinced by these arguments, and as Christianity inspired them they started a reform movement in Hinduism. Leaders like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshub Chandra Sen and Pratap Sunder Majumdar remained Hindus and tried to change Hinduism from within. But many like Kali Charan Banerjee, Chenchiah and Vengal Chakkarai embraced Christianity, taking with them real Hindu values they had treasured. Some of the leaders of Hinduism took an aggressive approach against Christianity. Swami Vivekananda, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and many great Hindu and Buddhist scholars went to the West and fought against materialism, imperialism and colonialism. They pointed out the inherent materialism of Greco-Western thinking that saw matter as the ultimate stuff out of which all things evolved and spirit as an outside controlling agent, a prison. They held the view that India saw spirit or atman as the final principle from which all things emerged as manifestation and expression. However, they all agree that Indian religions cannot deliver the goods they promise without tackling the problem of the widespread economic poverty of the Indian masses through adequate material progress with the help of science and technology, and fighting the corruption in public life that widens the gap between the rich and the poor. Nobody can deny the fact that the root of Indian backwardness is religion. The karma-samsara theory of Hinduism is the Achilles’ heal of Indian spirituality. It is the theory of karma that makes people take a positive and fatalistic attitude toward their lot in life. So also, belief in rebirth encourages people to take the easy path in the present life with the expectation that one will get another chance in the next life. But, for the Christians, there is only one life to live and what he does here will determine his eternity.

The Christian Contribution to Modern Indian Civilization Jawaharlal Nehru in 1946 said, Indian Christians are part and parcel of the Indian people. Their traditions go back 1,500 years or more and they form one of the many enriching elements in the country’s cultural and spiritual life.


213

Nehru was referring especially to the earliest Indian Christianity, which has been in existence in Kerala continuously since the first century. No doubt, they were and are very much part of the culture and social reality in Kerala. Early Kerala Christians were predominant in agriculture, commerce and warfare. They excelled in pepper production, which was an attractive commodity in pre-industrial markets in Europe. They established a very strong commercial relationship between India and other foreign nations. St Thomas Christians were considered a community, which maintained high standards in the art of war. The kings of Kerala regarded them as a prominent social group and respected and protected their rights and privileges. With the conversion of some of the untouchables, outcastes and lower caste groups to Christianity there arose from the 16th century the modern social awakening of the oppressed groups in India. Their entry into the Christian communities provided opportunities for education, new occupations and a life with personal dignity and social acceptance. The Madras Native Christian Association in its report in 1893 stated: Christianity has wrought miracles in our midst. It has lifted many of us from the mire of social degradation; it has enlightened us, liberated us from the trammels of superstition and custom and has planted in us the instincts of a free and noble humanity.

Although caste spirit and caste loyalties exist among many of the Christian groups, these groups projected a model of a new kind of human fellowship where Brahmins (the high caste) and other castes came together with the ‘outcastes’ for worship. These Christian congregations exploded the spiritual sanction of the caste structure and proved to be a source for humanizing the cultural ethos and liberating the social structure with the result that the Hindu community itself started the process of re-interpreting its cultural values and liberating its own social structure. The Christian gospel was a source for humanization. One of the important things that the Christian missions emphasized was the humanization of life in all aspects of all people. They struggled to arouse public opinion on the condition of the orphans, widows, lepers, untouchables, infant girls and women. The Serampore trio, for example, struggled to concretise the Bengali intelligentsia about the evils of infanticide and sati. This led to the work of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, which

214


strengthened the reform bill of Governor General William Bentick to abolish the practice of sati in 1829. Christian missionaries were instrumental in the cultural revitalization of the country for which the Serampore Mission played a pivotal role. India had a great culture and the cultural philosophy of the Serampore Mission was to revitalize and modernize Indian civilization and languages and assimilate Christian values into the Indian cultural complex. In order to achieve this aim, the Serampore mission studied the popular languages of India and translated the whole or part of the Bible into them. Carey completed the Bengali translation of Mahabharata and Ramayana in 1802, and in 1818 published Samachar Darpan, a Bengali newspaper. Carey was also the pioneer in advocating a modern education system for India through the Indian languages and in 1814 he proposed a plan for imparting the knowledge of European sciences among the Indians. His plan was to introduce primary and higher education in Indian languages and to make them accessible to all Indians. The cultural renaissance of Bengal in the 19th century marked the beginning of the awakening of the people of India to a new sense of human dignity and the emergence of a new cultural identity. The Orientals and the Serampore missionaries appreciated the ancient values of Indian culture and they emphasized that Hinduism and Hindu society could be rejuvenated from within, creating a viable atmosphere for the new intelligentsia of Bengal to come into positive interaction with Christian values and tradition and to search for a new cultural and spiritual identity for Indian society. Hinduism, with its numerous gods as a manifestation of the Divine, was confronted by the Christian tradition of radical monotheism, and this Christian-Hindu encounter started happening in Bengal and other places from the 18th century, which challenged Hinduism to re-emphasize and bring to the front the affirmation of the Ultimate Reality behind the plurality of manifestation and representation of the Divine in the complex tradition of Hinduism as depicted in the Upanishads. The cultural interaction between Christianity and Hinduism came to fruition in Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) who started a debate on society and religion in the full awareness of the rich heritage of India. He manifested a spirit of emancipation from the social and religious bondages, and also infused a sense of creativity into the modern intellectual history of


215

India. He put aside the exclusive appeal of traditional Hinduism to mystical spirituality and metaphysical reasoning. He incorporated reason, logic and openness into his discussions on religion and society, and tried to demolish the dogmatic approach of religion. Therefore Roy inaugurated the onset of renascent Hinduism, which tries to fulfil the human instinct for spirituality not by renunciation and withdrawal from the society but by the moral and social dimensions of human community in their temporal existence. To Roy, religion became an instrument for regeneration; he felt the irresistible challenge of Christianity, and affirmed that the ‘doctrines of Christ’ are more conducive to moral principles and better adopted for the use of rational beings than any others. In 1820 Roy published, The Precepts of Jesus: The Guide to Peace and Happiness, which contained extracts mostly from the first three Gospels of the New Testament covering the ethical teachings of Christ. So, Roy began to acknowledge Jesus as part of the spiritual foundations of modern Indian civilization. Roy makes morality the essence of religion, and the commitment to moral principles as part of the adoration of God. So, in Roy, Hinduism was beginning to formulate its self-image as the basis for the ethical existence of human life. Keshub Chandra Sen (1838-84), one of the greatest Indian reformers of his time, had a different contribution. He emphasized that for political, social and moral regeneration, India should look to Christ. For Sen, ‘forgiveness and self-sacrifice’ are the two cardinal principles of Christian ethics. He said: ‘To stimulate you to a life of self-denial, I hold up to you the cross on which Jesus died.’ Mahatma Gandhi emphasized the cross of Christ and its principles of forgiving, suffering and redeeming love as the path toward the fulfilment of human destiny of individuals and nation. Christianity challenged the renascent Hinduism in the social visions of Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekanda, Mahatma Gandhi and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan who sought to integrate to the core of Hinduism the concept of human person, equality among the individuals and groups irrespective of caste or sex. To many, Christianity became a part of the new historical process in India. K M Banerjee, Pandita Ramabai Saraswati, Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya, N V Tilak and others mainly sought in Christ and Christianity the fulfilment of their social values for India. Pandita Ramabai Saraswati (1858-1922) was the first liberated woman

216


in modern India and the first woman reformer of Indian renascence. After her conversion she said, I was comparatively happy that I found a religion which gave its privileges equally to men and women, there was no distinction of caste, colour or sex in it. Pandita Ramabai, like Goreh, was a Chitpavan Brahmin. As a child she became a noted Sanskrit scholar through the teaching of her father Anant Sastri. After his death, she rapidly achieved fame as a woman pandit. After a happy, but tragically brief, married life she became even more famous as a pioneer of women’s rights The friendship she formed with Keshub Chandra Sen and other leading reformers enabled her to become a member of Prarthana Samaj when she went to Poona. In Poona she came in with the Wantage Sisters, and in 1853 she visited their community in England. While in England, she received baptism and became convinced that the position of Samaj was untenable and only in Christ she could find certainty.4

The Christian Renaissance

Gospel

and

the

Indian

During the period of renaissance, there emerged a number of outstanding Hindu leaders who were strongly influenced by the teaching of Jesus Christ, and they considered Jesus as the key to India’s progress. However, many of them were reluctant to the Christian faith, and they had their own views and opinions about Christianity. These individuals fall into three categories: first, those who ired Jesus Christ, but were not personally committed to Him; second, Hindus who were intensely committed to Christ, but did not become Christians; and third, Hindus who became Christians, but held the view that by becoming a Christian, they did not cease being Hindus. Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) It is interesting to note that we do not turn to any Christian to find the pioneer of a line of theological enquiry, but a famous Hindu who came into with the Serampore missionaries. Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a Bengali Brahmin who has been called the prophet of Indian nationalism and a pioneer of liberal reform of Hindu religion and Hindu society. Finding no satisfaction at home for his religious desire, he set off at an age of fifteen and wandered as far as Tibet. He had studied Persian and Arabic and became familiar with the faith of Islam; this strongly influenced him in the direction


217

of the unity of God and the meaninglessness of idol worship. A turning point took place in 1811 when he was the unwilling witness of the sati of his brother’s wife. This incident made him vow to devote his life to overthrow this and similar abuses in society. Two main sources of inspiration were the Upanishads and the moral teaching of Jesus. He instinctively felt that love of God and love of one’s fellow men are the two pillars for a noble life. He felt that love of God was not sufficiently evident in the Hindu practice. He turned to the study of the Bible and found in Jesus’ teaching which, in its simplicity and beauty, appeared ideally suited to transform the minds and hearts of people, in particular the words, “Do to others all what you would have them do to you, this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

In 1815 he wrote a letter to Marshmann, one of the Serampore trio that, The consequence of my long and uninterrupted search in religious truths has been that I found the doctrine of Christ more conducive to inculcate moral principles and better adapted to the use of rational beings than any other that has come to my knowledge.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s study of Christianity led him to publish, The Precepts of Jesus’, the Guide to Peace and Happiness, a book in 1820 to help people avoid getting side-tracked by historical and dogmatic questions, and separate the moral teaching of Jesus in the New Testament from other matter contained therein. Marshmann, of Seramapore responded to the book in the editorial page of his journal, The Friend of India No XX (February 1820), commenting critically on the manner in which only a part of the Gospels was published, and said that it ‘may greatly injure the cause of truth’. In reply to this, Roy published an Appeal to the Christian in Defence of the Precepts of Jesus by a Friend of Truth. Responding to this, Marshmann published in Friend of India No. XXIII (May 1820) his ‘Remarks on Certain Observations in an Appeal’ and followed it in the Friend of India Quarterly Series No I (September 1820) with his ‘Observations on Certain Ideas contained in the Introduction to the Precepts of Jesus etc. Roy replied in a Second Appeal to the Christian Public in Defence of the Precepts of Jesus. In 1822 Marshmann came out with A Defence of the Deity and Atonement of Jesus Christ in reply to Ram Mohan Roy of Calcutta.5 To this, Roy responded in 1823 with his Final Appeal to the Christian Public in Defence of the Precepts of Jesus. The first appeal is 18 pages

218


long, the second 112 and the third nearly 200.6 In 1830 Ram Mohan sailed for England, which brought him great fame and popularity. He hoped to return to India but died in Bristol in 1833. The exchange between Marshmann and Roy may be seen partly as the struggle of modern India to define the truth and meaning of Jesus Christ in of Indian life and thought, and partly the witness of Christ to a segment of the Indian mind.7 Mahatma Phule (Jotiba Phule) (1827-90) Jotiba Phule was another person who was attracted by the teaching of Jesus, but not committed to Him. Jotiba was a mali by caste; he was a Shudra. His father had become famous for raising flowers (Phule means: flowers). During his student days, he came in with Christian missionaries. He came to know that Jesus taught that by birth all human beings are equal and that a man’s rank and position are not determined by his birth and his caste, but by his virtues and vices. He saw that the great distinction was not between Brahmins and non-Brahmins, but between men and animals. He realized that the first rule of truthful behaviour was to it that all men and women are born equal and free and entitled to enjoy equal rights and privileges. From then on, he spent his time in the promotion of truth as seen in the teachings of Christ. Phule founded the Society of Truth-Seekers (Satyasodhaka Samaja). He was a man of action; he started the first school for Hindu girls in Pune in 1851. Phule fought the Brahmanism system, but he was never hostile to Brahmans personally. His ideas and programmes were later taken over by Karmavir Bhaurao Patil who in 1819 founded an education society for the uplift of Shudras and Untouchables, the Rayat Shikhan Samstha.8 Keshub Chandra Sen (1838-84) Keshub Chandra Sen belonged to one of the most prominent families in Calcutta. At the age of 22, he ed the Brahmo Samaj and soon became its leader; later becoming a full-time missionary of the Brahmo Samaj, living a life of ‘utter dependence on God’. Sen was a man of spiritual fervour and had great oratorical powers. He was a born leader, a champion of India, and became one of the greatest orators. He was not only a spokesman for India, but for the whole of Asia, against the brutalities of the British colonialism and against the contempt with which they treated


219

India and the East. When a Scottish merchant, Scott Moncrief, made a speech in 1866, and depicted the Indian people as congenial liars, Keshab took up the challenge and retorted in the same fashion.9 As Keshub became the leader of the Brahmo Samaj, he became increasingly convinced that Jesus Christ could supply the spiritual foundation on which the progress, not only of India, but also of the whole of Asia could be built. Yet to him, the Christian religion, in the form in which it had been imported from the West, was unacceptable. Owing to his great enthusiasm for Christ, many missionaries thought that he would seek Christian baptism and would be a great influence on the side of Christianity, while the Hindus thought that he had already become a Christian. Sen organized Brahmo Samaj very much along the lines of a Christian church. After the ing of the Brahmo Marriage Act of 1872, the Samaj stepped out of Hindu society. Sen introduced ritual practices into the Samaj. Ram Mohan Roy had been strongly opposed to ritualism. But Sen in his later Christ in the New Dispensation developed a system of asceticism, rituals and sacraments, including baptism and a form of Holy Communion in which the elements were rice and water. Sen was a controversial figure in his own time. Many Hindus considered him as a Christian while most Christians thought of him as eclectic. Many considered him as the greatest Indian of his time, who came more and more under Christ’s spell and responded to him in his own way. Christ became the centre of his life, but he steadily refused to allow that thinking to be forced into the western mould. Sen conforms to an identifiable pattern of a Hindu seeker, who is like the one who found a pearl of great prize but was unwilling to sell all that he had in order to buy it.10 K C Sen made a distinctive contribution to the religious thinking in India. He came to Brahmo Samaj leadership and was the founder of the Church of the New Dispensation. Sen represented within neo-Hinduism a movement away from the rationalism of Ram Mohan Roy and the Vedic Brahmanism of Debendranath Tagore to a new appreciation by Bhakti mysticism, yogic discipline, invocation of divine names and incarnational theology.11 He was also convinced of the harmony of religions. His was a devotion to Jesus Christ dissociated from historical Christianity and interpreted it as the source of a creative religion of the Spirit. The theological contribution of Sen was, first, to lead the country and

220


Hinduism itself in some degree into the discipleship of Christ;12 second, to introduce Jesus Christ to many Indians, some of whom came to a fuller vision and commitment to him while going along the line laid down by Keshub; 13 and third, to produce some original seminal ideas like his doctrines of Divine Humanity and a National Church, later finding fuller expression in the search for an indigenous Christology and ecclesiology by Indian Church leaders.14 Nehemiah Goreh (1825-95) Nilakantha Sattri Goreh, who adopted the name Nehemiah Goreh, belonged to a Chitpavan Brahman family from Maharashtra but grew up in Benares where he was carefully trained in the strict ways of Saivite orthodoxy. His theological independence led him to transfer his loyalty to the Vaishnavite tradition, thus showing his capacity for bold action in search of religious truth. It was through William Smith, a CMS missionary, that Goreh made with Christianity. After a long and difficult period of reasoning, doubting, and much opposition from his family including beating, drugging and abduction of his wife, he was baptized in 1849 as Nehemiah and was itted to the church.15 Nehemiah Goreh’s conversion to Christ was the culmination of a process which began with his being ‘much struck by the beauty of Christ’s teaching, and example, especially the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount’. Goreh visited England in 1853 as tutor to the young Maharaja Dhulup Singh, and while in England he attended some theological lectures at the CMS Institution at Islington. On his return to India in 1855 he was directly instrumental in ing a number of highly educated young men— Hindu, Muslim and Parsi. He was also instrumental in the conversion of Maulavi Safdar Ali from Islam to Christianity. Two years later, he moved further in an Anglo-Catholic direction and in 1867 he severed his connection with CMS. In 1869 he was ordained a deacon, and the following year he became a priest. He believed that the most effective way of carrying out evangelistic work in India was through an ascetic religious brotherhood. In 1876, Goreh sailed again to England in order to serve his novitiate at Cowley. He never became a professed member of the Society, St John the Evangelist (SSJE), but remained as a novice of the society till his death in 1895.16 Goreh published his best-known work, Shaddarshan Darpan, or Hindu


221

Philosophy examined by a Benares Pandit. The title literally means ‘Mirror of the Vedanta’, i.e, the six traditional Hindu systems of philosophy— Samkya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Mimamsa, Vedanta. The English translation, modified to A Mirror of the Hindu Philosophical System, A Rational Refutation of the Hindu Philosophical System, was published in 1862. This book has remained the best Christian critique of Hindu philosophy and apologetic for the Christian doctrine of the Triune God over against monism and pantheism and of sin and redemption against ignorance and liberation through illumination.17 As a Christian, Goreh founded the Bhakti cult of Krishna, both in its traditional form and in the form received by Tukaram and Chaitanya, quite inadequate in his view in providing a path to God, and the basis for moral regeneration of human persons and society. In this, as well as in other matters, he was fighting against the tendency of the Brahmo Samaj under K C Sen to revive the bhakti cult of Vaishanvism within its religion of Hindu theism. Through his tracts, Theism and Christianity, the Brahmos: Their Ideal of Sin, and Atonement, and the letter he wrote to Pandita Ramabai who was settling down into Brahmo theism as her spiritual home, Goreh enters into disputation with the Brahmo Samaj as a system in order to show its inadequacy. His thesis, like that of Lal Behari Day of Bengal, is that Brahmo faith in one Creator God with a personal moral purpose for the world is not present in Hinduism, nor is it the result of rational thought but is derived from biblical revelation: that therefore the Brahmos have to choose between accepting in full the revelation of Christ as well as the ethics of Christianity on the one hand and reverting to the monism, polytheism and moral corruptions of traditional Hinduism on the other.18 Just as he moved from Saivism to Vaishnavism in his early Hindu period, as a Christian believer he shifted his loyalty from the Low Church doctrines of CMS to the High Church doctrines of Anglican Catholicism. Goreh was critical of extreme Protestantism and Catholicism. The call to the ascetic life of religious communities captivated his mind. He took an almost totally negative approach to the teachings of Bhagavad Gita , Bhagavada, etc, but he says, Yet they have taught us something of ananyabhakti (undivided devotion to God) of vairagya (giving up the world), of namratha (humility), of kshama (forbearance) etc, which enable us to appreciate the precepts of Christianity.19 The dialogue and encounter with K C Sen and others continued till the

222


end of his life. At first he had great hopes that Brahmos might yield to his arguments, but results were disappointing. Goreh was, however, instrumental in the conversion of the greatest of all Indian Christian women, Pandita Ramabai. Pandita Ramabai Saraswati (1858-1922) Pandita Ramabai has done more for the emancipation of women in India than any other person The Indian Church has had many women of faith. Although a great number of them were involved in Christian ministry, very little is known of them. Ramabai is one of the most popular Indian missionaries; she is considered a ‘builder’ and ‘mother and a missionary’ model person of modern India. Ramabai was a high caste Brahmin woman. Brahmins are privileged Hindus, and the religious communicators and upholders of Hindu faith, and are believed to be at the end of their incarnations. She was born at Mulhanjee near Karkal in South Kanara State in India in April 1858. Her father was a good scholar in the Sanskrit Shastras, gave his daughter a good education in Sanskrit and taught her the Dharma Shastras. Ramabai spent most of her childhood and youth in pilgrimages with her parents, brother and sister. In 1874, her parents died within two months of each other due to great famine while they were living in Madras Presidency; a few months later her sister too died due to cholera. Ramabai and her brother travelled for six years to various parts of India, and in 1880 her brother too died leaving her alone in the world. Ramabai became known as a reformer and lecturer all over India. She was honoured with the titles ‘Panditha’ and ‘Saraswathi’ by the senate of Calcutta University. Ramabai married Babu Bipin Dshari Das Madhavi, a Sudra (low caste) man, who possessed a Master’s degree in arts and a degree in law. By this time she had lost her faith in traditional Hinduism and had become a Brahma Samajist (a reform movement in Hinduism). Her husband died two years after her marriage, leaving her with a baby, Manorama. She then moved to Pune and settled there. Ramabai was touched by the miserable condition of thousands of child widows who never knew their husbands, and she was determined to ameliorate their condition and suffering. She established an institution known as Arya Mahila Samaj in many large cities of India, the purpose of which was to


223

educate Hindu women in Hindu scriptures and liberate them. She wrote a book called Sthree Dharma Neeti (morals for women) to instruct Hindu women how to help themselves and be educated to become women of worth. In 1883 Ramabai went to England for studies so as to become eligible for social work among women. There she met the Sisters of Wantage (Roman Catholic Sisters) through Miss Harford in Pune, and became a Christian. It was when she was with the Wantage sisters that she got the idea of a rescue home for women, and started raising funds for establishing a school in India for high caste Hindu women. While she was in England, she ed the Cheltenham Ladies College as a student and a lecturer in Sanskrit. In 1886 she proceeded to America, studied the Kindergarten system, and travelled to many cities in the United States. She founded the American Ramabai Association, and returned to India via China and Japan. Ramabai landed in Calcutta in 1889, soon moved to Pune, and opened the Sharada Sadan in Bombay the following year, which was then shifted to Pune. Sharada Sadan was an institution for the sole purpose of sheltering, training and educating child-widows from the high caste Hindu community. Sharada Sadan continued to prosper, and she visited a number of North Indian cities and rescued child widows and orphan girls and women. Later she established a vast settlement known as Mukti Mission, at Kedgaon, and continued to work for the welfare of women in India. She died in April 1922. Panditha Ramabai was a social worker at heart; physical, mental, emotional and spiritual emancipation of Hindu women was her goal. Ramabai was a woman of great Christian maturity. One sees her change in attitude to the caste system. Although she started an educational mission initially for high caste women, as her faith grew she brought all types of women from all castes and creeds. Ramabai was a woman of great courage. She had the courage to marry a Sudra man, which was unthinkable in those days. Crossing the sea was another taboo, and she went to England and America in this background. Ramabai Mukti Mission was one of the rare missions where foreign missionaries worked under an Indian, which was a very difficult proposition in those days. Mukti was and is an ashram; the mode of worship in the ashram church was with Indian food served to both Indians and foreigners alike seated on low wooden stools in the dining hall, the Indian dress made of lowly cotton woven mostly by mission women of Mukti.

224


The Indian Church: Its Spiritual Values and Theology Many ancient Christian churches had developed their own particular individuality, with a worship form, structure and discipline peculiar to each, especially in the theological and spiritual vision that emerged in each of these churches in the course of time. The Indian Church is one such ancient church. It developed its own way, with its long tradition and life in India. In the early Indian Church there was the ‘Archdeacon of All India’, and the yogam (an assembly of the clergy and the laity). It also had a unique theological vision in which it developed an implicit incarnational theology, a lived theology of other faiths and a distinctive practical theology. Unfortunately this theological vision was lost with the arrival of the Portuguese in India and their conquering concept of theology. They saw the work of the missions and evangelism in of military operations, line of defence, plans for attack as if we were waging war against other believers20 as seen in the missionary reports of the 16th and 17th centuries. The 17th century saw the advent of Robert De Nobili in 1606, who began his great mission in the very heart of Tamil literature and the seat of Hindu culture. It was his keen desire to present Jesus Christ and His gospel to the high caste Hindus. He started an experiment of what we may call ‘indigenization’. He learnt two of the Dravidian languages, Tamil and Telugu, and classical Sanskrit as well. He adopted the Indian Sanyasi attire, shaved his head, leaving only a tuft, pierced his ears and wore earrings and allowed his followers to have on their head a kudumi (tuft) and sacred thread. Although his experiment soon lost its effect, it should be considered a great adventure of zeal in the propagation of the gospel in India. Robert de Nobili was the first to seriously take the initiative for a positive encounter with Hinduism. He pioneered the study of Sanskrit and Tamil and started the essential task of evolving a theological vocabulary for Indian languages. Although some of his successors (especially Constantinneous Joseph Beschi, the Italian, who mastered the Tamil language and succeeded in writing some Tamil books and literature) tried to carry the work forward, the approach of other missionaries, both Roman Catholics and Protestants, questioned his methods and followed a much more conservative and apologetic approach, and their general attitude was


225

a one-sided appreciation of one’s own religion and culture. A second approach, which has been dominant since the 18th century, was the descriptive or neutral attitude of the handful of Oriental scholars who translated the scriptures and established the basic foundation for a widespread understanding of the Hindu and Buddhist faiths. A third approach is that of the syncretists whose inclusiveness contrasted with missionary exclusiveness and polemics. For quite a long period many missionaries confused the Christian gospel with western ideas and thought of Indian Christian theology as nothing but a translation of western doctrine using Indian languages or categories. There was little recognition of the fact that Hinduism itself would help provide a new understanding of the gospel, an attitude that started changing only toward the close of the 19th century. National awakening and Indian Renaissance paved the way for many missionaries and Indian Christians to come forward as champions of indigenous movements. So some of the indigenous movements like the Calcutta Christo Samaj and National Church of Madras gave great impetus to indigenous theology and spirituality. There were a few pioneering Indian theologians. K M Banerjee published his Arian Witness 8 in 1875, which highlighted the striking parallel between the Old Testament (particularly the Book of Genesis) and the Vedas, which he believed demonstrated that Christianity far from being a foreign religion was really the fulfilment of original Hinduism. A S Appaswamy Pillai found in Rig Veda an unmistakeable proclamation of one God ‘behind the many’ and he was also able to point out what he believed to be clear predictions of Christ in the Vedas. Bengali Catholic nationalist Brahmabandhav Upadyaya followed the same line of thought at the beginning of his theological thinking, and he proceeded to lay the foundations for a Vedanta-based Christian theology, which scholars like Johanns and Danday developed later. Another prophetic Christian, Sadhu Sunder Singh who appeared at the beginning of the 20th century made a tremendous worldwide appeal as the prophet of Indian Christian mysticism. Bishop A J Appaswamy, a versatile scholar and churchman was attracted to the mysticism of the Sadhu, which he promoted through his scholarly writings. India has produced a number of outstanding Hindu Renaissance thinkers in the area of Christianity during the early 20th century. They

226


were R M Roy (the moral reforming Christ of the West for reform in India), K C Sen (Navavidhan or ‘The Church of the New Dispensation’, reformed Hinduism with Christ as centre), P C Mazoomdar (‘Oriental Christ’), Ramakrishna and Vivekananda (advaitic experience of the avatar of Christ), Mahatma Gandhi (Christ the karmayogi offering himself for others), S Radhakrishnan (Christianity subjected to the advaitic world religion) and Subha Rao (Christ-centred Hinduism).21 Some of the Christian pioneers of indigenous Christianity are K M Banerjee, Parani Andi, A S Appaswamy (Vedic Christianity, National Church), Nehemiah Goreh (Rational refutation of Hinduism), Brahmabandhav Upaddyaya (‘Vedantic’ Thomism and ‘Hindu’ Church), Sadhu Sunder Singh and A J Appaswamy (Bhakti Marga and Yogic vision). There were liberal Christian thinkers including Slater, Farquhar (‘Crown of Hinduism’), W Miller, Bernard Lucas (Simultaneous evolution of religions, conversions or not); Catholic Vedantists including P Johanns, G Dandoy (‘The Christ through Vedanta’), Protestant neo-orthodoxy thinkers including Karl Barth and Kramer’s ‘discontinuity ideas on evangelism; the dissident voices (‘Rethinking Group’) in Madras, including P Chenchia (‘New Creation’), V Chakkarai (‘Christology of the Spirit’), and radicals including M C Parekh, ‘Hindu Christianity’ and ‘Churchless Christianity’.22 During the last four or five decades a new spiritual theological consciousness has gradually surfaced in Indian Christian literature. It was the Protestants who took the initiative in launching the contemporary movement, and they formed societies to promote this kind of study, particularly emphasizing aspects of religion and society and started publishing journals like ‘Religion and Society’. Another movement which helped to boost Indian Christian literary effort was the Christian Ashram Movement, which owes its origin to the Protestant initiatives, but the Roman Catholics have since associated with it in a big way. Some important names associated with it are S Jesudason, Murray Rogers, Sadhu Mathaichen (K I Mathai), K K Chandy; Sisters Carol Graham, Edith Neve and Rachel Joseph; and Roman Catholics like Monchanin (Parama Arubi Anandam), Le Saux (Abishiktananda), BedeGriffths, Francis Acharya, and Sisters Vandana and Amalorpavadas. Contemporary Indian Christian literature reflects different currents and undercurrents. Three major trends and approaches stand out—the


227

spiritual-contemplative, the philosophical-theological, and the sociopolitical. The late Swami Abhshiktananda was the Acharya of the first of these trends and the Ashram movement as whole, and people like Jesudason and Sadhu Mathaichen have contributed immensely to this particular aspect of Indian Christianity. Raymon Panikkar seems to take the lead in the second approach, the philosophical-theological. Paul Devanadan, and the Christian Institute of Study on Religion and Society represent the third approach. M M Thomas and Sebastian Kappen were powerful prophets of this. It is gratifying to note that a number of both Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians have taken such bold steps and Indian theology has certainly shown signs of maturity.

Christian Saints and Sages of India India is a nation of saints and sages who originate from many different religions. This is the case with Indian Christianity as well. There are a number of saintly persons from different backgrounds who have become well-known household names like Sr Alphonsa, Fr Chavara, Mar Gregorios of Parumala and Mar Gregorios (the pioneer of ‘Jacobitism’ in India), Mar Ivanios (the founder of the Syro-Malankara Catholic community), and Mariam Thresia, all from Kerala; Aaron, Samuel Azariah, Devasahayam Neelakanta Pillai (all from Tamil Nadu); and, of course, Mother Teresa. One of the important names that come to our mind is that of Mother Teresa who in her lifetime became a one-woman relief agency. She was able to gather around her all the openhearted of the world in maintaining groups to help the old, the hungry, the crippled, the homeless, the debilitated, the rejected, and she succeeded in enlisting their . She has become the symbol of the world for all those selfless nuns and social workers in India who devote their time, day and night, to aid and protect the helpless and the needy. St Thomas, the Apostle of Christ, has become as much a part of India as any other saint. His life and work in the northwest, southwest, and southeast of India were very beneficial to both the rulers and the ruled, as can be seen in the many books on Indian Christianity especially in the Acts of Thomas or the Ramban Song. Many a foreigner has come to India and chosen this country for their motherland. Among these was Thomas Kinayi, the pioneer who arrived on the Malabar Coast and won the trust

228


and praise of the king in the early centuries. He was considered the forefather of the Knanaya community of Kerala. There were a number of holy men who came to India from the Middle East before the western church established its hold on the Kerala church. Some great pioneering men of goodwill and scholar-soldiers for God such as St Francis Xavier, Rudolph Acquaviva the martyr, Robert de Nobili, St John de Brito and William Carey arrived in India during the latter half of the second millennium. St Francis Xavier, considered by many the most zealous, the most generous, and the most world-beloved of the long line of Jesuit saints was yet another St Paul, changing the destiny of Christianity in the whole of the East. De Nobili had a bold and unique method in his missionary work. His appearance clad in the saffron robe of the sadhu with sandal paste on his forehead and the cord on his body from which hung a cross was the starting point of a new era of missionary enterprise. With his extensive study of Hinduism, he was convinced that Christ should have a place in India without the benefit of hat, tros and boots. St John de Britto, another Jesuit, was acclaimed a great student of Tamil writers. Ringeltaube was one of the greatest missionaries India has seen. When the great famine broke out in Myladi, he was able to get orders from the government exempting Christians from taxes. When hundreds of Shanars wanted to become Christians to gain from these taxes, Ringeltaube refused to accept them into the Christian fold, which throws light on his character. Although William Carey, the man with great missionary dreams was persecuted by the British and had to starve, along with his wife, sister, and five children for long periods, he achieved so much, in translating and printing the Bible in several languages, in spreading secular education, in setting up Serampore College and community, to mention some of his achievements. He is often called the father of Indian missionary work. The Roman Catholic Church has started beatification processes in India. When Pope Paul John Paul visited India in 1986, he declared Fr Chavara Kuriakose Elias ‘Blessed’, the co-founder of the congregation of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI), who is ed for his pioneering efforts in starting religious houses, seminaries, institutions for secular education, printing and publishing. So also, Sister Alphonsa, the Clarist nun whose brief lifespan of thirty-six years was characterized by


229

love, service, sacrifice, illness and suffering. The saint Parumala Kochuthirumeni (Geevarghese Mar Gregoris) has a special place in the hearts of the people of Kerala. His work of evangelization, education and social work spread beyond Malankara to British Malabar, Goa and Ceylon. Thousands of devotees throng to his tomb on 2nd November every year. There are a number of other names as well. It would be unfair to omit the names of Pandita Ramabai Saraswati, the pioneer of social service and female education; and Sadhu Sunder Singh of the Sikh community; one of the most well known and most travelled Indian evangelists whose Himalayan excursions to Nepal and Tibet to carry on the message of Christ remind us one of the first apostles of Jesus. The tireless reformer, Abraham Malpan whose zeal led to the founding of the Mar Thoma Church; Sadhu Kochu Kunju, the quiet and unassuming servant of God in Kerala; Graham Staines and his two boys and wife and daughter; and those Telugu, Tamil, Bengali and Ranchi-based holy men and women, Indian by birth or by choice, who have acquired a special place in the hearts of Indian Christians. Although this listing of saints and sages of Indian Christianity is neither representative nor exhaustive, the lives of these people reflect the mental anguish, joys and struggle with the moral order of the Indian Church through the centuries. The Emerging ‘Indian’ Church The emergence of India’s nationalist movement was the most prominent feature of India’s history in the first half of the 20th century. Seeds of this movement took roots during the later years of the previous century, primarily due to the spread of English education and western civilization. With the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1888 it became an organized movement. But with the exception of a man such as Kali Charan Banerjee, a lawyer from Bengal who was both a keen Christian and a prominent member of the Congress in its early years, not many Christians took a direct and active role in the political struggle. However, a few Christian leaders felt the stirrings of national pride. Lal Bahadur Dey (an ordained Presbyterian minister in Bengal during the period of Duff ) demanded equal status with the Europeans. A similar tendency was expressed in the south of India in 1857, when three young converts in Tinnevelly, Muthiah Pillai, Dhanukoti Raju and

230


Manakavala Perumal Pillai, refused to be parted from their kudumis (hair tufts) before baptism, in spite of severe pressure from the missionaries.23 We also find in the second half of the 19th century a greater inclination among the converts to find ways of expressing their Christian faith. Krishnaras Sangle’s composition of Marathi lyrics in Indian metre and Vishnupant Karmarkar’s Christian use of Indian oratorio form are some examples.24 The most outstanding literary fruit is seen in Narayana Vamana Tilak (1862-1919). His Marathi poetry inspired by personal devotion to Jesus Christ and also intense love of his country begins with Priyankara Hindusthana.25 In his specifically Christian work he baptized into Christ the lyrics he had inherited from Tukaram and the Hindu bhaktis. The early 20th century also saw the emergence of independent sanyasis. Tilak himself resigned his position in the America Marathi Mission and spent the last twenty months of his life as a sanyasi, as he felt it would be a more natural way of bringing the Christian message to the Hindus than the conventional method. B C Sircar of Bengal (who worked in the Young Men’s Christian Association) practised yoga in his later years and set up a Christian shrine at Puri (one of the seven sacred places of Hinduism)26 . But the most famous Christian Sadhu who caught the public imagination both in India and abroad was Sadhu Sunder Singh. The early 20th century also saw the emergence of yet another type of work though voluntary organizations such as the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the Student Christian Movement (SCM). The contributions of V S Azariah, K T Paul and V Santiago cannot be overestimated. Several Indian missionary societies such as the Indian Missionary Society of Tinnevelly (1903) and the National Missionary Society, an interdenominational society (1905), came into existence. Another development that took place during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century was the revival of the ashram movement, an ancient Indian institution. Originally, it meant a hermitage or a group of ascetics living their religious life together in some quiet place, usually under the leadership of a sage. The ashram seemed to be an institution which Christians could use to express their religious ideas, one which Indians would appreciate. In fact there were already such religious communities of the Western type existing in India such as the Society of St John the Evangelist (Cowley Fathers) at Pune (1870), and the Oxford Mission Brotherhood of the


231

Epiphany at Calcutta (1881). Since the First World War, a number of ashrams sprang up in different parts of India such as Christu Kula Ashram at Tirupattur in the North Arcot district in the Madras Residency (1921), Christa Seva Sanga (1921) and Christa Prema Seva Sangha (1934) in and around Pune, and Christavashram Manganam(1934) in Kerala. We may also note that an attempt is being made to use Indian style of architecture in building churches,27 which are but few and far between. Attempts are also being initiated for indigenization of worship. The Church and the Electronic Media Print media had made early inroads into the church in India, but electronic media, cinema, radio, television and other modern communication techniques are only late entrants in this field. As is the case with electronic media like radio, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting controls television. The involvement of the church in these areas has remained mostly at the level of training and production of audio and video cassettes. It seems that among all the religious denominations, Christians alone have attempted to set up media centres. The very institutional set-up of the church and its interest in the proclamation of faith in modern ways led the church to establish media centres. Chitrabani, Calcutta and the Xavier Institute of Communications (XIC), Mumbai were the first to focus on training personnel for the electronic media. In the late 1980s, Chitrabani with St Xavier’s College, Calcutta ventured into the Educational Research Programme and ed the Countrywide Class Room (CWCR) of the University Grants Commission. Kalabhawan of Kochi, Kerala started off as a cultural centre in the mid 1990s under the guardianship of Fr Abel CMI. This centre excelled in songs, drama, mimicry, comics, and various other popular art forms and contributed many a star to the Malayalam film screen. It has recently turned to the electronic media playing a vital role in the cultural and electronic media scenes in Kerala. A number of regional centres mushroomed rapidly in the early 1970s, but none of these centres have made any major contribution to filmmaking in the country. However, several of the centres produce regularly for radio stations in India and other stations in Asia. Jeevan TV channel is probably the biggest, the most ambitious and latest venture by the Indian Church in the field of electronic media. Although it was started initially as a

232


Roman Catholic venture, later it was expanded into an organization incorporating all Episcopal churches in Kerala. A number of other Christian TV channels have also sprung up in recent times. The efforts of the church in media education are commendable, and the purpose of such education is to make the public critically conscious of the ways in which the media can influence values and lifestyle. The church may be the only group involved in it in a somewhat organized way. A recent achievement of the church in India in the media field has been the founding of the National Institute of Social Communication, Research and Training (NISCORT) by the Catholic Conference in India, to give professional training to the clergy and the laity in the media scene.

Introduction of English Education in the Early 19th Century The 19th century saw the consolidation of British rule and the impact of western ideas on the social, political and religious life of India through the medium of English language. Indian civilization as we know it today is the effect of English education on Indian culture. Until 1829 Persian languages continued to be the language in courts of law. When after 1813 funds were set aside for public education there were heated arguments as to how it should be expended; whether on the classical education in Sanskrit, Persian or Arabic or on a modern western type of education in the English language. The prevailing opinion till 1830 was on the side of the old classical learning. However, there were some who argued that the old learning was indeed outdated and unsuited to the modern age, and the only possible medium should be English. As a result, in 1817 in Calcutta, some Indian and European Anglicists opened a vidyalaya, which later became known as the Hindu College. Teachers who taught in this institution were men who had learned rationalist, atheistic philosophy propounded in 18th century Europe. During this period, the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society who arrived in Travancore (Kerala) started teaching English in the Kottayam Syrian Seminary in 1815. Eventually they started CMS College in Kottayam. In 1830, Alexander Duff, a young missionary of the Church of Scotland, was sent to Bengal on an educational mission. Having been given a free hand to choose his own mode of operation, he decided to put this to


233

Christian use. He wanted to open a school, which would in due course become a college where all subjects would be taught through the medium of English, not from a secular point of view as in a Hindu college, but definitely from the standpoint of the Christian faith, giving the Bible a place of honour and providing daily Scripture learning in every class. All but one of the missionaries disagreed with the plan. With the help of William Carey and the Hindu Reformer Ram Mohan Roy (the founder of Brahmo Samaj), he opened a school with five pupils. This school later became an institution of 150 to 200 boys, organized in two departments, one, English and one Bengali, and the school became very popular. The boys then ed out to college classes, which became known as the General Assembly’s Institution. Outside his own school Duff made s with students of Hindu College and entered into discourses on various topics, the result of which was that in 1833 Mohesh Chunder Ghose, Krishna Mohan Banerjea, Gopinath Nandi and Arundo Chund Mozomdar, young men of education and high caste, were brought in. The success of Duff ’s educational work was a powerful argument to all those who were trying to persuade the government to promote English education. It was a turning point in the history of education in India that in 1835, when the Governor General, Lord Bentinck, issued a decree reversing the previous policy and declaring that ‘in future Government funds would be mainly used for imparting… a knowledge of English literature and science through the English language’. Another famous statement of policy was the Educational Despatch of Sir Charles Wood (1854), which laid down the main lines of the modern system of public education. The Despatch also proposed a plan to establish a Department of Public Instruction in each province and universities in the capital cities. Connected with these there was to be a co-ordinated series of schools, some maintained by the government, while most were under private management receiving grants-in-aid from the government, provided that the schools satisfied certain stipulations. Meanwhile, a number of Christian schools without government grants carried on secondary education and they followed their own policy. Following the example of Duff ’s school in Calcutta, schools were established in other cities, and this endeavour of the Church of Scotland was the pioneer, Wilson High School (1832), started by John Wilson, which later grew as Wilson College. John Anderson founded an institution in (1837), the

234


ancestor of Madras Christian College and its High School. Stephen Hislop started another one in Nagpur (1844), which later became Hislop College. Noble College, Machilipatnam (CMS 1842) and St John’s College, Agra (CMS 1853) developed out of schools founded during this period. Many other schools and colleges also emerged in various places. The middle years of the 19th century saw a continued movement towards Christian unity among the educated classes. Nehemiah Goreh, the Brahmin Shastri became a Christian (baptized in 1848) and helped many others to the faith by his books, lectures and conversations. The mathematician Ram Chandra of Delhi (1852); Vishnupant Bhaskar Karmakar of Ahmadnagar (1853); Babu Panji of Belgaum and Bombay, an able Christian writer in Marathi (1854); Ganpatrao Raghunath Navalkar, church leader and outspoken critic of missionary methods in Bombay (1860) were among others who were part of this movement.28

The Christian Church and Women’s Education One of the activities of the Christian missionaries in the second half of the 19th century was the work among women. Very little had been or could be done before that period. Child marriage, female infanticide, sati and (in North India) the purdah system were the order of the day. There was very little thought given to the emancipation of women. Moreover, since reading and writing were almost entirely confined to professional dancing girls, it was not a relevant idea to consider education for respectable women. When, therefore, Calcutta students in 1831 debated the subject of education it was considered a revolutionary idea. Some schools existed through the efforts of missionary women. Mrs Marshmann of Serampore (1818) and Mrs Wilson of Bombay were ed by committees of well-wishers, such as the Calcutta School Society (1819) in India and the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East,29 formed in London (1834). Miss Cooke, an English lady who later became Mrs Wilson (not to be confused with Mrs Wilson of Bombay) came from England to organize schools for girls in Calcutta. Initially there was great prejudice against female education, which gradually withered. A number of fathers desired education for their daughters. The earliest were the Parsees of Bombay. Drinkwater Bethune, a public-spirited civilian and president of the government Council of Education, together with Pandit


235

Ishvara, Chandra Vidyasagara of the Brahmo Samaj, founded the first school for high caste girls. In 1854, the missionaries started sending Christian women to teach girls in the Zenana Hindu families, among whom Mrs Mullens and Miss Toogoord (an Anglo-Indian lady) played a prominent role. This was the beginning of permanent Zenana schools, which spread to other towns, and it became a regular feature of the educational system. These schools received grants-in-aid from the government, who appointed female inspectors as well. In 1857, Duff opened a Christian day school for girls. Two years later, the American Presbyterian Mission started a girls’ boarding school at Dehra Dun, from which came the first female matriculate to Calcutta University.30 With the progress made through Zenana visitation, a number of mission societies have established special societies such as the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission and the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (1881). Isabella Thobourn of the Methodist Episcopal Church of America came to Lucknow in 1870 and founded a school, which eventually developed into Isabella Thoburn College. Gradually, Zenana schoolwork came to be carried on in schools in the ordinary sense of the term, and the number of girls’ schools increased. Two Christian girls in Bombay, Miss Malabe Kukde and Mrs Shervantibai Nikambe, became in 1884 the first Indian girls to the matriculation examination to Bombay University. By the end of the 19th century, women’s education was well under way.

Early Pioneers of Christian Writing in Indian Languages An English Jesuit Thomas Stephens had the honour of being the pioneer in Christian writing in Indian languages. He had arrived in Goa in 1579 and settled in the peninsula of Salsette near the present city of Mumbai. Having realized the importance of popular vernacular Puranas in the minds of people, he composed a purana, a long poem narrating the Old and New Testament stories, in colloquial Marathi mixed with Konkani. Bearing this example in mind, De Nobili composed in Sanskrit verse, a Life of Our Lady, canticles for marriage and funerals and a summary of the Christian doctrines in a hundred Sanskrit slokas. More important were his writings in Tamil, the most important of which was the large catechism known as Gnanopadesam (teaching of Knowledge). It is a summary of the Christian doctrine, which

236


he kept revising and enlarging until it grew to five volumes. It is a veritable Summa Theologica for the Indians.31 Some of his other works included Gnana Sancheevi (Spiritual Medicine), and a number of controversial books in which the Hindu doctrines were discussed and refuted, the best known being Punar-Janmma-aakshepam (Refutation of Rebirth).32 De Nobili is to be greatly commended for his study and use of Sanskrit and Tamil. It is to be noted that his attitude to religious Hinduism was entirely negative and he wrote to refute.33 He further argued and ridiculed the doctrine of rebirth, karma of the avatar or divine incarnation, without making any attempt to give them a Christian reinterpretation.34 De Nobili held to a conservative exposition of the Christian faith. In his Gnanopadesam, twenty-six Prasangals, he repudiated Thomist arguments for the existence of God and devoted considerable attention to expounding a non-biblical Mariology and Purgatory, and touched only slightly on the death of Christ. He made no real attempt to use Hindu terminology and thought-forms to express the Christian faith.35 His great achievement was his understanding and adaptation of Hindu customs and ceremonies, his pioneering study of Sanskrit and Tamil and his initiation of the essential task of evolving a Christian theological vocabulary for Indian languages.

The Contribution of Missionaries to Indian Languages Mastery over languages was central to the spread of the Good News. Though Jesus preached only in a small geographical area, the church spread all over the Roman Empire and beyond within a short span of time after the crucifixion. It was a period when there were many over-enthusiastic Roman consuls who persecuted leaders of isolated communities, which eventually led to the need for preserving documents. Early documents from the second century that have survived all persecutions and war include The Seven Epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch, The Refutation and Overthrow of Gnosticism and Proof of Apostolic Teaching of St Irenaeus. Learning new languages promoted the spread of Christianity, and it also contributed significantly to the growth and preservation of many languages and literary works. A classic example is that of the Armenian language. In Armenia, shortly after CE 256, Christianity was declared the religion of the State. By 400 CE, St Mesrop invented the Armenian alphabet and translated the Bible and Greek writings to the Armenian language.36


237

Latin remained the lingua franca of Christianity for many centuries, and Greek was transmitted to the moderns through the medieval abbeys. There was no blind prejudice even against pagan literature. In fact, St Basil the Great (329-379) of Cappadocico addressed his discourse To our Young Men, How can they derive benefit from the study of Pagan Literature, absorbing the good from secular of pagan literature.37 The missionaries who reached India from the 16th century onwards were quick to learn new languages, and wrote books and standardized scripts, which evolved new methods of study. They were pioneers in the introduction of printing, lexicography and inter-linguistics in India. Modern printing techniques came to India much earlier than many countries in the West. The missionaries made significant contributions to practically every Indian language. The contribution of missionaries to the Tamil language It is universally accepted that the missionaries played a very active role in the revival of Tamil letters. It was on the southern and western coasts of India that many early Europeans landed. They evinced keen interest in learning the new language, Tamil, and tried to make it intelligible to future western missionaries. They simplified the script, introduced punctuation, encouraged writing of prose work, introduced the printing press, produced Tamil tracts and books, and set up societies for promoting Tamil work. It has been suggested that A Tamil Catechism (Lisbon c 1550) is the first known printed book of Tamil in Roman characters, and Franciscan Joao de villa de Corride is believed to have assisted in its production. In 1556 Jesuits brought a printing press to Goa for printing Portuguese tracts for the society and later a set of ‘Malabar’ characters was cut. In 1558 the first Tamil translation of Francis Xavier’s Doutrina Christi by Henrique appeared in Tamil script. He also produced a Tamil grammar and dictionary. Robert de Nobili studied Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit and he was the first European scholar of Sanskrit. He was one of the pioneers in the writing of Tamil prose. Father Constanco who adopted the Tamil name Viramaamunivar (1680-1747) was a linguist and a creative poet working towards the development of the language by reintroducing the pulli and the distinction between long and short ‘o’ and ‘e’. He composed a grammar of High Tamil, and was the first to write a grammar

238


of Low Tamil (the common dialect); he also compiled several Tamil dictionaries, a Tamil-Latin-and Latin-Tamil Portuguese dictionary. Beschi is, however, is the best-known Tamil poet. The arrival of the Lutheran, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and his colleague Heinrich Plutschau in Tranquebar in 1706 saw a further contribution of the missionaries to language and literature. Within eight months of their arrival they had mastered the Tamil language, and Ziegenbalg translated the Bible into Tamil, the very first translation of the Bible into any Indian language. In addition, he translated many moral books and a dictionary of Tamil studies was introduced in 1711 at what is now known as the Martin Luther University in Halle. He further encouraged the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in London to send a ‘Portuguese’ printing press to India and soon he was able to obtain a set of ‘Malabar’ letters from . Another German missionary, Christoph Theodosius Walter (1699-1751), compiled a Tamil-Hebrew dictionary. The contribution of missionaries to the Bengali language Christian missionaries contributed immensely in the field of Bengali language. A Portuguese missionary, Manuel de Assùmpsao, wrote Kripar Shastrer Orthobhed, which was printed in 1743 in Lisbon in Roman alphabets. The National Library at Calcutta has some of the earliest printed books in Bengali. Henry Forstar’s, A Vocabulary in Two Parts (English and Bengali) was published in 1799. William Carey (1761-1834) was a prolific translator, linguist and educationist. Carey library in Serampore contains plenty of archival material. He helped develop Bengali typefaces and established Serampore Mission (1800) and college in addition to publishing newspapers and periodicals. The mission also made contributions to Bengali literature. Carey translated and printed the Bible in Bengali. They also made a distinct contribution to education. In 1800 they established printing presses in the Oriental languages and the first printed Bengali prose book by a Bengali, Pratapaditya Carita. In 1818, the first periodical in any Indian languages Dogdarshar and the first newspaper in any Indian language Samachar Darpan were published. The Bible was translated into 41 languages, 28 by Carey. The contribution of missionaries to the Malayalam language


239

Portuguese missionaries, immediately on their arrival, established seminaries and schools and learned the indigenous language. In 1583, they established a press at the seminary in the Kochi area, and by 1580 two more at Vypeen fort and Kochi. The earliest prose work from the missionaries is supposed to be the translation of the decision taken at Synod of Diamper in 1599. Of the verse narratives extant, the Ramban Song (The Thomas Parvam) recounts the coming of Apostle Thomas to India, his travels and the founding of the many churches and ends with his martyrdom at Mylapore in the year 72 CE. Father Arnos who came to Kerala in 1599 was an accomplished Malayalam scholar. He composed a large number of religious works in Malayalam and produced a Malayalam-Sanskrit-Portuguese dictionary. He wrote a grammar text and some long poems. The Department of Printed Oriental Books and manuscripts (British museum) has a palm leaf manuscript containing eight Malayalam poems on gospel history, Christian doctrine and hagiology. One of the first Malayalam publications printed in Europe seems to have been an essay on the Granthe-Malayalam alphabets from materials supplied by Clemens de Jesu. The book appeared in Rome in 1772 and there is a copy in the British museum collection. Clemens, who died in 1782 and spent several years in Kerala, engraved a set of Malayalam types for the press of the Society of Jesus in Rome. Samkshepa Vedaratham is the first printed book in Malayalam using Malayalam fonts; the author Fr Clement Pianius brought a copy of this from Rome to Kerala in 1774. Robert Drummond wrote the first comprehensive grammar of the language, and a copy of it, printed in Bombay in 1799, is in the possession of the university library.

The Contribution of Christians to Indian Culture Christians in India have played a significant role in contributing to the Indian culture. As India is composed of various cultural traditions, their contribution to the Indian culture varies from one state to another. Christians and Kerala culture As Christians in Kerala have a good education and have played an active role in public life, they have been able to contribute to its culture,

240


particularly literature and fine arts. There is little doubt that their most important achievements were in the fields of linguistics and literature. As far as the 18th century is concerned, the credit of having started the development of literature in Malayalam goes to Carmelite Vicar Apostolic Angelo Francis of St Teresa who authored a grammar book in colloquial Malayalam, supplemented by a short dictionary,38 which was followed by a Malayalam-Latin dictionary. After settling down at Ambazakkad in 1662, he established a printing press and published a number of books in Tamil. A German Jesuit, John Ernest Hanxleden, who worked in Kerala near Trissur for more than 30 years and died there in 1782, did outstanding work in this area. He had a thorough knowledge of Sanskrit, Malayalam and Syriac, and is the author of a Sanskrit grammar in Latin, a Malayalam-Portuguese grammar and a Malayalam-Sanskrit-Portuguese dictionary. Hanxleden is known among the Malayalees as Arnos Pathiri. He wrote at least five poetical works, all of which were later sung by Christians. Some are still used, especially during the three days of Holy Week. Archbishop Emmanuel Carvalho Pimentel of Kodungaloor (1721-52), who was nicknamed Buddhi-Metran (brainy bishop) by his flock, had an excellent knowledge of Malayalam and Syriac. Some of the other Jesuits who left an impression in the same field were two Germans, B Bidcopinick (died in 1743) and J Hausegger (died in 1756). The former wrote two dictionaries (one in Malayalam and the other in Sanskrit-Portuguese). Some of the written works of Kerala Christians are also important landmarks, especially three of them, Malayalam manuscripts written on three palm leaves (olas). The first one forms a collection of sortilege; magical formulae and medical recipes ixed with many Christian names and prayers. There is also a prayer book with many Syriac words. The last manuscript, which is incomplete, has a poem in honour of St Alexus written by Jacob Mapilla (a Syrian Catholic priest) who was a friend of Paulinus. Mathew of Kollancherry, a Syrian Christian priest, authored a prayer book, which has morning prayers, a short catechism and prayers related to the mysteries of Christ. According to the two Germans mentioned above, there is a versified life of David by an Orthodox priest, Joseph. Another priest, George of Parur, is the author of a poem on Job, and also of a short ballad on the arrival of Syrian Orthodox bishops, Baselius Gregorios and Yuhanon. The work, Varthamanapustakam, is almost unique in the annals of


241

Malayalam literature before the 20th century. It is the work of Paremmakkal (1735-99), the friend and travel companion of Archbishop Kariattil.39 It is a travel narrative pertaining to the years, 1773-86; it also deals with the whole 18th century history of St Thomas Christians. It is exceptional as it is the very first prose narrative in Malayalam. Fr Placid J Podipara CMI published in 1971 a fully annotated English translation. The Carmelites also introduced a school of languages at Alangad in 1734 for the newly arrived Carmelite priests, thus helping them to produce many books and dictionaries: a Latin–Malayalam grammar, and a shorter Latin-Malayalam-Sanskrit grammar. They also produced two dictionaries, one being a Malayalam-Sanskrit grammar and the other a PortugueseSanskrit grammar. In addition, they also produced a Malayalam grammar with a small dictionary written in Sanskrit characters. There is also a collection of palm-leaf manuscripts kept at the Vatican library in which there is one in Malayalam, which among other items such as prayers, a confession rite and so on, contain selected ages from the Gospels. In 1768, Ildephonse of the Presentation wrote a Latin description of sorts on the Hinduism of his day. It is titled (in translation) Accurate Collection of All Doctrines and Secrets from the Puranas, which has as many as 618 folios, a work of apologetics. After his return to Rome in 1790, he wrote many books among which were System Brahamanichum Litugicum, published in 1791, with a German translation in 1797.40 It is on Hinduism and partly on the Indian antiques he had collected and which were kept in the Borgia museum at Velletri near Rome. He also published two books on the history and state of Christians in India, the first called India Orientalis Christiana, and the second, A Voyage to Eastern Indies. The original Italian edition came out in Rome in 1796, the German in 1798, the English in 1800 and the French in 1808. The voyage is much more than a mere description of his journeys. It describes South India, above all Kerala, in detail. Hindus, Christians and Muslims are described from different angles—social, religious, economic and political realities of the day. Protestant churches such as the London Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society and the Basel Mission Society played a very important role in Kerala. There were also considerable efforts in linguistics and lexicography. Benjamin Bailey (1805-70), Joseph Peet,

242


Rev George Mathan (1819-70) and Rev George Koshy, played a key role in developing the Malayalam language. The most important of the missionaries was Herman Gundert (1814-93) who wrote many books in Malayalam, the most important of which are a Malayalam English Dictionary, Keralappazhama (Kerala Antiquity) and Pazhamacholamala (A Garland of Proverbs). Bailey’s Malayalam-English Dictionary (1846) and English Malayalam Dictionary (1846) stand out. Father Gerad brought out the first work on rhetoric in Malayalam on the European model under the title Alankara Sastram in 1881. Missionaries started the first journals in Malayalam. Rajyasamacharam is the first in 1847, produced as eight cyclostyled sheets from a press at Ilikkikinnu near Thalassery. In Central Travancore in early 1848, Jnananiksepam, the first Malayalam magazine was printed. The first indigenous printing press was established at Mannanam in 1846, masterminded by the Blessed Chavara. Christians and Karnataka culture The Jesuit, Thomas Stephens was the first Englishman in India. He wrote a series of letters to his father, which held out ‘the strongest inducement which London merchants had been offered to embark on Indian speculations’ which subsequently led to the formation of the East India Company.41 He was the first to make a scientific study of Canarese. He also studied Hindustani, and in both these languages he published manuals of piety and grammar. The Christian Purana (1616), a long poetic work, shows that he must have acquired a complete mastery of Marathi, Konkani and Sanskrit. His Arte de lingua Canarin is a grammar of the Konkani language, and it is the first grammar of an Indian language by a European. He also wrote a catechism of Christian doctrine, which appeared in 1622. Coorg Songs, with outlines of the Coorg grammar by Graeter (Mangalore, 1870), and R A Cole’s Grammar of Karnataka Language (Bangalore 1867) are later contributions made by Europeans to linguistic studies. Christians and Telugu culture Veermamunivar wrote Gnanabodammu, ‘Spiritual Instruction’, in Telugu (Nellore 1753). Antony Kutty Annaviar (1710-30), a lay colleague of Beschi, wrote Anada Prasatam and Anu Vasagam. The missionaries have contributed


243

to the study of Telugu grammar and lexicography, including William Carey’s Grammar of Telugu Language (1819) and Brown’s vocabulary of Gentoo and English (1818). Some of the other contributions by the Europeans to Telugu literature include, The Prosody of the Telugu and Sanskrit Languages. The Vedanta Rasayanamu is one of the four Roman Catholic Prabandams, which is a poetical work on five joyful and five sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, composed by a Roman Catholic nyogi Brahmin. There is a manuscript entitled ‘Dialogue between a Christian and a Brahmin’ found at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. The Nistara Ratnakaramu (Ocean of Salvation) was printed before 1852. The Satyavede Sarasangrathasam, as a Sanskrit work by Calmette which was translated into Telugu by a Roman Catholic Brahmin. Anilya Nitya Vivastam or difference between the temporal and the eternal is considered to be one of the four Roman Catholic Prabandams, written both in prose and poetry by Samantapudi Mallyayya for a catechist Marianna working in Kondavidu. The Vedanta Saramu (‘Essence of Theology’) is of a higher order of writing. The Tobias Charitra or Sarveswara Mahatwam is a historical poem composed during the last quarter of the 18th century by a nyogi Brahmin poet, Pingala Ellana Rayadu, at the request of Thumma Anuandu Rayyappa Reddy, lord of the Bastala-Kavrapadu and grandson of Yelnati Rayyappa Reddy, the first of his family to become a Christian. One of the Roman Catholic Prabandams is Gnana Chintamani, which belongs to the same period, and is a poetic narrative of the Christianization of the first regional (Telugu) Roman Catholic, Gopu Reddi clan of Alamuru. Fr G L Coeurdoux (who died in 1779), is the author of a Telugu-SanskritFrench Dictionary, and a French-Telugu-Sanskrit and Telugu-French Dictionary, with greater emphasis on colloquial language. Fr Perre de la Lane (died in 1746) wrote in 1729 a Telugu grammar and also a Telugu dictionary entitled Amara Sinham.42 Christians and the culture of other areas Henry Martin translated the New Testament into Hindi and Persian, revised an Arab version of the New Testament and translated the Psalter into Persian and the Prayer Book into Hindi. He came to India in 1806 as a chaplain and left India for Persia in 1811 and died at Tokat in 1812. English Dictionary by A Manner (Mangalore 1886), Extensive Vocabulary English and

244


Hindoostanee by John E Gilchrist (1798) and Dictionary of Hindee and English by J T Thompson (1862) are further missionary contributions. As a result of the efforts of Serampore Mission, the first Hindi periodical Digdarshan appeared in 1810, and Herman Mongliv of the Basel Mission published the first newspaper available in the Kannada language. Illustrations of Grammatical Parts Guzeratte, Maratta and English Language (1808) by Rober Drummond, William Carey’s, Grammar of the Maharatta Language (1810), Vans Kennedy’s, A Dictionary of Maratta Language (1824), Rev Amos Sutton’s, Introductory Grammar of Oriya Language (1831) and his Oriya Dictionary–3 volumes (1841), William Carey’s, A Grammar of Punjabee Language (1812) and Samauel Starkey’s, A Dictionary of English Punjabee(1849) are also examples of missionaries’ contribution to the languages in India. Robert Caldwell is considered to be the first linguist who made a comparative research on the Dravidian languages; The Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Language was his masterpiece, which was published in the middle of the 19th century. No one can deny that the missionaries had a strong desire to serve the people of the country. They also brought to the local people a sense of pride in their own languages, using the simple style of the common man as a means of communicating new ideas. The printing press, no doubt, made books cheaper and made it possible to take literature to the masses.43

The Christian Contribution to Art and Architecture in India Nowhere in the world is there any fully local or indigenous art or architecture. Such is the case with the church art and architecture of India. To a certain extent all nations and cultures that came into with India have influenced the process. This process falls into certain specific periods in history. For convenience it can be condensed into three: first, the pre-European period; second, the17th to the 18th centuries; and third, the modern period. Christians and Kerala art and architecture in the 17th century Kerala, located on the west coast of India, was at the centre of the international highway of seaborne trade. It was a meeting point of many worlds from early times. The discovery of monsoon trade routes of Hippalus


245

in the first century BC/CE connected Muzuris (Cranganore) directly across the Arabian Sea with cities to the West (especially Alexandria and Aden). The western coastal route gave the ships ready access to the Indus and countries to the north and north-west in Asia and Europe. Kerala was also influenced much more by the trans-Arabian Sea visitors than her immediate neighbours. Christian art and architecture in Kerala were greatly influenced by the arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498 and visitors from Portugal, the Netherlands, and England. The pre-European period of Christian art and architecture must have developed through the influence of two sources: first, indigenous forms and techniques of art and architecture that already existed in the land; and second, nourishment received perhaps from countries in the Near East including Greece, Rome, Egypt and other Middle East countries through missionaries and traders. One can see a harmonious blending of East and West in Christian art and architecture. There are two s of church and church building activities of Christians of Kerala at the end of the 16th century. There is, first, an by Joseph the Indian and letters written by four bishops in 1504; and, second, there are documents of the Synod of Diamper in Malayalam found in many Kerala churches, in Portuguese in the work of Gouvea, and in English in the work of Geddes. 44 In the first, it seems that Vasco da Gama mistook a Hindu temple for a church and he venerated the idol of Bhaghavai mistakenly as an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This clearly illustrates the similarity between Hindu temples and Christian churches. Soon after, four East Asian bishops ‘were received by the faithful with great joy and they [the Christians of Kerala]went to meet them with joy, carrying before them the book of the Gospel, the cross, censers, and torches… And they [the bishops] consecrated them… ’.45 In the second, The ‘Journada’ of the Synod of Diamper throws light on the structures and arrangements of the churches visited by Archbishop Menezes. These churches and all their belongings were the property of the local parishioners of each church and they were built completely by the autonomous parishes. Almost all the churches had very similar structures to each other both inside and outside. The typical early Malabar Church had certain striking objects of significance in front, inside the courtyard or just outside it. One was an

246


open-air granite (rock) cross, sometimes called ‘Nazraney sthamba’, seen at Kaduthurthy, Kuravilangad, Kanjoor and Ollur churches. A second one is a Kodimaram, or flag staff, made of famous Kerala teak wood as at Parur, and often enclosed in copper hoses or paras as at Changanacherry, Pulikunnu or Chambakulam. A third one is the rock Deepa-sthamba, or lamp stand, as at Kallooppara, Kundara and Chenganur churches. One notices a variety of sthamba or pillars in other religious structures as among the Buddhists, Jains and Hindus. These pillars were part of the Christian heritage of Kerala well before the ascendancy of Vedic Hinduism. The rock cross of Malabar churches is usually tapering tall stone column, sometimes decorated. Rome, London, Paris and New York have many obelisks from Egypt and East, but have no original cross-bearing structures decorating piazzas and squares. The Asoka Pillar and other pillars were influenced by Graeco-Parthian design, under Parsi influence. The Nazraney sthamba is a direct descendant of the obelisk and much closer to it than the other Indian pillars—in shape, method of construction and transportation, method of erection and so on. These obelisk crosses continued to be erected mostly in front of churches, even after the establishment of western churches, although a few changes in the motifs on the pedestals can be noticed. These crosses were typically found in Portuguese colonies in India and elsewhere. The indigenous architecture of Kerala churches is immensely rich in symmetry and beauty because the open-air rock crosses (some more than thirty feet in height) include the intrinsically carved pedestals and monolithic shafts. It is to be noted that no other community in Kerala has such huge monumental structures. Furthermore, the indoor counterparts of these crosses, called ‘Pallavi’ or St Thomas crosses, have the earliest carvings in Kerala of the national flower, lotus, and the national bird, the peacock; and sometimes the national animal, tiger, is depicted in Kerala art in church sculptures. Even the Vedic Hindu Vigrahas appear in Kerala much later than these so-called Persian crosses. A closer examination of the supreme Bal, sacrifice, or Mahabali appearing on the Balikkallu or the sacrificial altar is an appropriate representation of the Calvary events. Probably it sheds light on the ideological mindset of the forefathers. Preservation of fire and oil-nerchers are linked to these crosses. The granite lamp stand or deepastamba at churches in Kalloopara, Kundara and Chenganoor are of great antiquity. Displays of rows of rock


247

lamps, and the traditional bronze lamps (some even with hundreds of wick holders) like the Aayiram Aalila lamps at Arthat or Angamaly speak well of the architecture of the churches. In front of the churches there is a third interesting object, the flagstaff. Every festival is ushered in with the kodiyettu or flag hoisting, a tradition which goes back to early Buddhist times at least. The typical old Kerala church has a special roofing pattern, a threetiered gabled wooden roofing pattern. The highest roof is for the Madhbaha or Sanctum Sanctorum and the lowest for the Mukhamandapam or portico with the nave or Hykala having a roof of middle height. The flagstaffs, the rock lamp stands, the baptismal fonts, and the three tiered roofing pattern, and the appearance of the inside of the churches have undergone radical changes after the arrival of the Westerners, especially the Portuguese. With the arrival of the Portuguese the ornate monumentality of the European churches came on to the scene and was introduced into the small temple-like Syrian Christian churches, which did not have windows. Then the Romano-Portuguese style was introduced. The local artists learned its finesse and assimilated it and created some of the finest pieces of artistry in the Nazraney school. One can see diverse art traditions (both Western and Eastern) superimposed one over the other, such as the Indian symbols like stone lamps, flag masts, stone crosses, arched entrances and so on, untouched by foreign hands and co-existing with Renaissance frescoes, and the Baroque art of Europe in the same churches. Some other changes since the arrival of Western Christianity are paintings and sculptures on a large scale, imposing altar pieces or reredos, rostra or pulpits, statues of different types and sizes, huge bells and belfries, frescoes, paintings on wood s and cloth, among others. The Portuguese put up facades between the portico and the nave in order to impart a ‘Christian’ (a non-Hindu) appearance to the churches. It is to be noted that the mural paintings depicted on the walls of the Kerala churches may be older than the well-known Mughal and Rajput paintings. Some interesting murals, using only pigments extracted from natural objects like leaves and laterite stones, are to be seen in the churches at Angamaly, Akaraparambu, Paliekkara, and Cheppad. The early paintings and iconography of Kerala churches strictly follow the concepts of Indian sages and craftsmen in these matters. Ancient wooden s are seen at Piravaom, Kottayam, Changanacherry and Ollur churches. There are also churches in

248


Kerala which adhere more or less to one or other of the classical Christian architectural styles like the Basilican, Romanesque, Byzantine, Gothi, Baroque and Rococco. But the churches built in the 20th century are combinations of various styles, both Eastern and Western. Christian art and architecture outside Kerala Two distinct patterns of Christian art have emerged since the Portuguese ascendancy in India, one within the areas of Portuguese influence, mostly along the coasts of the peninsula and the other at the Moghul court in the north. The Christian art of Goa reached its climax in church building. The churches were elaborately decorated expressing the Baroque ideal of making visible here on earth the heavenly darbar (centred round the Eucharistic presence of Christ among the people). But European Baroque in the hands of Indian artisans and craftsmen developed its own repertoire of skills, styles and motif and produced a unique locally developed style reminiscent of the Hindu temple and its companion lamp tower. By the end of the 16th century Goa is compared to Lisbon and was termed ‘the Rome of the East’. Something quite different happened in northern India at the court of Akbar (1556-1605). The Jesuits wanted to establish great influence at the cultural and intellectual level, and they made good use of paintings and engravings, which were easily available and transportable. Akbar was very appreciative of their artistic qualities and the religious content and he ordered his court painters to copy the new art. This continued even when the secular pictures reached India through officials of the East India Company. With the arrival of Protestant missionaries pioneered by William Carey, there was a stress on literature (the Bible) and education. They did not show interest in music, drama, feasts and festivals. Their church buildings showed the influence of their country of origin. There were more creative attempts during this modern period than ever before. Both groups of painters (non-Christian and Christian) expressed their search and insights in relation to Indian traditions. While the non-Christian painters expressed their search and insights in relation to the person of Christ, the Christian painters interpreted Christ through the means of Indian traditions. Nandalal Bose studied under Rabindranath Tagore and he exercised great influence on the Bengal School. Christian painters like Angaelo da Fonseca and Vinayak S Masoji studied under them. One of the recurring themes of


249

Nandalal Bose’s Christian paintings is the cross. For several years, Jamini Roy chose Christ as the main theme of his paintings. K C S Paniker carried on the spirit of India in a modern form, and during recent times several Christian artists have come forward to express their Christian faith through the medium and form of Indian art.46

The Christian Contribution to Healthcare in India The Census Report of 2001 points out that Christians in India is just 2.3 per cent of the total population. Despite the small percentage of the population of this minority community, their contribution in the field of healthcare in this country is unique and praiseworthy. The church from its very beginning followed the mandate Christ Himself gave to His disciples to go about doing good and cure all infirmities and restore life to its fullness. So, from the outset the church considered service to the sick as an integral part of her mission. From the early centuries, one finds the establishment of inns alongside churches to look after the sick, the suffering and the needy. The decrees of the Councils of Carthage (309 CE) and Tours (567 CE) testify to this. In 370 CE, St Basil, Bishop of Caesarea founded a complex called Basiliades to take care of the sick. This can be considered the prototype of institutions for the care of the sick. By the 4th century there existed different types of such institutions like xenodoquim (an inn designed to take care of pilgrims and those in exile, noxocmium (hospital for the sick), orphanotrophium (to take care of children separated from their parents), gneronotocomium (asylum for the leprosy patients) and so on. Later religious communities and ‘confraternities’ or brotherhoods started to emerge to take up the work of charity for the care of the sick, of the poor, orphans and needy. In 1498, the Holy House of Mercy (Santa Casa Miscericordia) was started. From the very beginning of the arrival of the missionaries from the West to India, the healthcare scenario in different parts of the country started a new phase. The Portuguese missionaries started the ‘Holy Houses of Mercy’ in Cochin and Goa. Later in 1527, the Cochin site was further developed as a hospital, Cruz de Cochin, which is probably the first Christian hospital in India. Later Fr Henry Henriques started a Christian hospital in Punnaikayal, in Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu. With the

250


arrival of various religious congregations, more healthcare institutions developed in different places. The congregation of Daughters of St Anne founded healthcare centres in Ranchi and Calcutta. So also the Presentation Sisters who came to Chennai in 1842 started dispensaries attached to schools and also the South Indian Railway Hospital. More hospitals and healthcare centres were established in various parts of India such as Visakapatnam (1849), West Bengal in 1860, and a Holy Child Hospital in 1883 in Bhoborpura, Krishnagar, and Shimuiana in 1886. They initiated their healthcare apostolate in Kerala under the Vicariate of Verapoly. Later they extended their work to different parts of Kerala. With the dawn of the 20th century, hospitals and health care centres were found in many parts of the country. The Protestant churches in India began their contribution in the field of healthcare in the middle of the 19th century. One of the most important contributions is through Vellore Mission in Tamil Nadu, which was started along the lines of the visionary plan of Dr Ida S Scudder (1870-1959) that began in the late 1880s when she arrived in India to assist her father. The humble beginning of her vision was a one-bed hospital in 1900, which became a 40-bed hospital by 1902. Thus began the internationally prestigious Christian Medical College, which stands now as one of the best health institutions in the whole country. There are a number of other outstanding Christian hospitals run by the Protestant missions such as those at Ludhiana and Oddanchatram. According to The Directory of the Catholic Healthcare Facilities in India (2003), the Catholic Church in India has 764 hospitals, 2575 dispensaries and health centres, 70 rehabilitation centres, 107 mental health centres, 61 centres for alternative systems of cure, 188 centres for the disabled, 162 non formal health institutions and 115 medical training centres that include six medical colleges.47 Under the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI) there are 328 health institutions belonging to various other sister churches and denominations. Doctors, nurses and health workers provide yeoman service for the welfare and health of the masses of India. Down through the centuries, one of the distinguishing contributions of the church’s involvement in healthcare is primarily due to the dedicated services of so many religious sisters, and nurses and paramedics. Statistics reveal that 85 per cent of the health care institutions run by


251

Christian community are in the villages. It is a known fact that most of these areas are totally or partially deprived of adequate healthcare and other infrastructure and services. The World Health Organization defined health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, instead of the former negative conception of the absence of disease or infirmity. In this age of super speciality, the care of the whole person is often forgotten. A true Christian understanding of healthcare should be a holistic approach, which includes one’s emotional and spiritual care. Respect for life and regard for Christian ethical principles should be borne in mind in the whole process of healthcare. Life is to be protected from the moment of conception to the moment of its natural end. The sacredness of life should be the primary concern of Christian healthcare institutions. The presence of chaplains and the possibility of having regular spiritual need to be provided in Christian health centres. As health is the core of all human development, it should include physical, mental, spiritual and social dimensions.48

Endnotes: 1

op. cit., ICD , Dr George Thomas, p 65. ibid. 3 ibid. 4 op. cit., Boyd, p 45. 5 M M Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of Indian Renaissance, CLS, Madras, 1970, p 2. 6 ibid. 7 ibid. 8 Hans Staffner, S J, The Significance of Jesus Christ in Asia, Gujarat Sahatya Prakash, Anand, 1985, p 10. 9 ibid, p 29ff, ‘I believe, and I most boldly and emphatically declare, that the heart of a Native is not naturally more depraved than that of a European or any other nation in the world. . . .The fact is, human nature is the same everywhere—in all latitudes and climes; but circumstances modify it, and religion and usages mould it in different forms…’ (David C Scott: Keshub Chandra Sen, CLS Madras, 1979. 10 ibid. 11 ibid., p 58. 12 J N Farquhar, Modern Religious Movement in India, New York and London 1915, p 222. 13 M C Parekh, Bramarash Keshub, Chander Sen, Rajkot, 1931 p v. 14 op. cit., MM Thomas, p 58. 2

252


15

op. cit., Boyd, p 41. ibid. 17 op. cit., MMT, p 40. 18 ibid. 19 ibid. 20 A M Mundadan, The Church in India: Its Theology and Spiritual Vision, op. cit., ICD, p 73. 21 ibid, p 74. 22 ibid. 23 Sir David Devadoss, Life of Poet H A Krishna, Pillai, p 29. 24 E G K Hewat, Christ and Western India, pp 220-222. 25 ibid, p 300. 26 op. cit., Latourette Vol VI, p 211. 27 Also refer to the section on Christian Art and Architecture on page 232 28 op. cit., Firth, p 185. 16

29 30

ibid., p 187. J L Miranda, The Introduction of Christianity into the Hearts of India, Father Robert Mission, Trichinopoly 1923, p 22. For further information refer to D Yesudhas, ‘Indigenisation or Adaptation? A Brief Study of Robert de Nobili’s Attitude to Hinduism’, in Bangalore Theological Forum, September 1967, p 39ff. 32 op. cit., Robin Boyd, p 13. 33 ibid. 34 ibid. 35 ibid. 36 ‘Church History: Rev. John Laux: Second Period’, chapter I, taken from op. cit., ICD, p 82. 37 op. cit., ICD, p 82. 38 E R Hambye, History of Christianity in India, Vol III, 18th century, p 94. 39 ibid., p 98. 40 ibid. 41 Catholic Encyclopaedia. 42 ibid., p 341. 43 Jacob Punnose, Indian Christian Directory, 2006, p 84. 44 ICD, 2006, p 66. 45 ibid. 46 George Menacherry, Indian Christian Directory, p 70. For a longer treatment of the subject and many references on ‘Christian Influence in Indian Art’ George Menacherry, in Christian Contribution to Nation Building, CBCI, KCBC, 2003. 47 Christian Medical Association of India, Directory of Member Institutions, 2002, p 3. 48 Fr Alex Vadakumthala, Indian Christian Directory, 2005, p 74. 31

Influence Of Christianity In India 4i7150

Overview 4q3b3c

More details 26j3b

Related Documents 171j1w

Influence Of Christianity In India 4i7150

Future Of Christianity In India 5e4c2h

History Of Early Christianity In India 1k4u45

The Influence Of Christianity On English Literature 533d3v

History Of Christianity In Nagaland 4t5t2e

The Christianity In Japan.pdf 174b2w

More Documents from "Sajeev Koshy" 1s3u2v

Influence Of Christianity In India 4i7150

Brain-tumour-extraction-from-mri-images-using-matlab 3l482j

Modern Bread Enterprises 3i3x4y

Automatic College Bell 3 315w18