Muktiveda as the Foundation
Kings: J. R. H. O’Regan, Master of the History Sixth at Marlborough College, was Irish. Warren commented:
…For Pat O’Regan the past was the clue to the present, with signals pointing to the future. A medievalist himself, he insisted on us understanding the forces making the world into which we ourselves were to play our part.
Warren picked up from O’Regan this ‘sheer enthusiasm’ for history, which involved imaginatively taking himself back into particular periods of the past. This ‘movement backwards into history’ brought it to life and, having been ‘there’ and relived particular moments, it allowed those moments to be recognized as part of the wider context of his own personal history. This movement thus provided the impetus for historical interpretation. The above quotation also shows how this led on to a sense of ‘historical interpenetration’. He was encouraged by his schoolmaster, in a typical mentality engendered by Independent Schools in Britain at that time, that he himself had a part to play in making the ‘history’ of the future. The study of history provided the understanding for proper participation in ‘making history’….—p. 55
DB’s Reflection: This analysis by Kings helps me not only to understand Warrens’ interest in history but also playing our part in making future history. This is also true in my life. Walking back in history is important to understand our present so that we can make not only our own future but do our part in making future history—however insignificant our part might be and may not be recognized by others. Particularly in my understanding about the Lord, his life and mission, I walk back in history depending upon both Muktiveda and the church history62 to understand my bhakti in him. Though several things remain unclear and unacceptable to me, yet it provides a strong foundation for me to construct the super structure according to my need and context. Though I have the freedom with the super structure, I should be careful to construct the foundation of Muktiveda. This is my conviction that without Muktiveda one cannot understand anything about the Lord, though one cannot limit him within the frame of Muktiveda alone. At least one should begin from there. Otherwise all our understanding about the Lord will become another mythology.—db
62 For me without considering Church history, only depending upon Muktiveda alone won’t help a Hindu bhakta to understand the various doctrines in proper context. About this Sudhakar says:
The convert is confronted with the problems of this situation. He is likely to reject outright the entire body of accumulated wisdom, gathered around Christianity historically in the West due to his rejection of Western culture, and interpret Christian faith not on its own terms but in terms of another faith and thereby syncretise Christianity by seeing it as a variant of some other approach to God. Or he will complement the wisdom of Christianity through his own insights into the body of the Christian truth by his contribution of understanding gained through his cultural heritage. —Sudhakar, op. Cit. pp. 274-75
Hooker: …For our students here the bible is still a set of divinely inspired propositions which are sufficiently obvious to be applied to life straight off usually in a moral sense. The work of God is in words and not in events interpreted by words. (Hooker to Warren 1 February 1969).—p. 230
DB’s Reflection: This is true not only to the bible college students but most of the (Indian) evangelicals who also hold similar views. They conveniently forget that history is nothing but an event record through words by people who interpreted that event in that given time. An Interpreted event is history not merely an incident that happened in the past. That is why I always believe that the so called ‘biblical’ is nothing but our own re-interpretation of the interpreted events recorded by the disciples of the Lord according to their perspective.—db
Warren: …I take the line that there are no facts which exist outside of a particular context and that with rare exceptions a fact is never just a fact (historically speaking) but always fact plus interpretation…. (Letter 284 24 June 1971)—p. 268
–Yes.–db
Hooker: ….Indeed I think that to regard Christ as the one who transforms the O.T. is a much more fruitful line of thought than mere fulfillment. (Hooker Letter 8 February 1976).—p. 371
DB’s Reflection: I too have my own doubt about this term ‘fulfillment’ by the Lord of all that was written in the O.T. As far as I know, fulfilling62a means ‘carrying forward’ ‘came to complete’ etc. in the sense in which some evangelicals claim that Muktinath came to fulfill not only all that was recorded about him in the O.T. but also in Hinduism (Crown of Hinduism by J. N. J. N. Farquhar)
Warren: …J I Packer’s Knowing God {Knowing God, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973} which I found quite horrifying…I do so profoundly distrust a certain type of theological schematization into which schema everything has to be found. You can really only do this if you are a literalist of the most rigid fundamentalist type, and this Packer is. And yet he has moments of tremendous insight, and he has things to say which one easily overlooks. It is quite an experience to read a book which really does, as far as I can see, accept the verbal inspiration of the whole Bible, virtually saying like the Muslim about the Qur’an, that it came down from heaven and was in no way mediated through a human mind. I’ve not met anything quite like this before, from the pen of an immensely able man….(Letter 533 28 February 1976).—p. 372
DB’s Reflection: Here comes the help from a scholar like Warren. All these years I thought that it was a great book and I read it. But to understand it critically, we need the help of such scholars like Warren.–db
61a. …the term `fulfil’. There has been a great deal of confusion with regard to its meaning, so we must point out at once that it does not mean to complete, to finish; it does not mean to add to something that has already been begun. This popular interpretation is an entire misunderstanding of the word. It has been said that the Old Testament began a certain teaching and that it carried on so far and up to a point. Then our Lord came and carried it a stage further, rounding it off and fulfilling it, as it were. That is not the true interpretation. The real meaning of the word `fulfil’ is to carry out, to fulfil in the sense of giving full obedience to it, literally carring out everything that has been said and stated in the law and in the prophets.–Martyn Lloyd Jones. Studies In The Sermon On The Mount. Inter-varsity Fellowship. London. Reprint. Jn. 1966. Vol. One. Ch. 17. Christ And The Old Testament. pp. 185-86.
Religions
Hooker: …Is it in fact possible to start from a position of ‘equality of all religions’? I think one could argue that commitment for a Christian is a precondition of openness and not a barrier to it…Yet this is a very tentative judgement. (Hooker Letter 30 June 1973)—p. 323
DB’s Reflection: I would prefer for ‘uniqueness of all religions’ as all religion cannot be equal as the followers of every religion has her own commitment for her faith.—db
Warren: …To talk about the ‘equality of all religions’ is quite frankly a construct without meaning. To whom are they all equal? (Letter 425 25 October 1973)—p. 331
DB’s Reflection:–Yes. That is why I prefer ‘uniqueness of every religion’.—db
Cross or Evil
Warren: …I see the cross as God aggressively assaulting evil & smashing it. And the anthropomorphisms of the OT is really a crude attempt to see history, all history, as God’s assault on evil. (Letter 326 19 February 1972).—p. 287
DB’s Reflection: is this the only way to see the Cross? Traditionally even people of other faiths, like Hindus see the cross as a symbol of love and sacrifice rather than an attack on evil by God. Gandhiji’s favourite Christian song was ‘When I survey the wondrous cross (something like this). Though evil is a reality, like Indian Christians who are obsessed too much with the devil, I think Christians in other countries are obsessed too much with evil alone –db
Failure of Jesus
Warren: Address III p. 2 par 4. The failure of Jesus. This is a tremendous thought to bring to the Cross.
If we really take the Incarnation seriously then surely we must see that while Jesus was ready for failure he didn’t invite it. It gave him no joy to be rejected by his own people. He appealed to them most dramatically in the ‘symbols’ of his life and action and speech. He wasn’t play-acting his way to crucifixion.
I’m all the way with you in what you are saying. But I’ve not before seen it put so clearly, which is why I want to do a lot of thinking of ‘Jesus and his failure’. We with hindsight claim the victory was on the Cross. But we sometimes do it, at least I do, far too easily. A defeated Jesus has something very great to say to me, a so often defeated man! (Letter 389 2 March 1973).—pp. 313
DB’s Reflection: –I don’t understand this point very clearly. However, the phrase ‘defeated Jesus’ as a defeated man looks very interesting to me.–db
Just acts of God:
Kings: Warren insisted here that God can, and does, act, in the actions of human beings: not in all actions (which would also be to equate them all), but in those which are just. An example of his was the British movement for the abolition of the slave trade, which had been led by the evangelical, William Wilberforce and others. They agitated, researched and argued against the laws of the State, which allowed the slave trade and in the end they succeeded. Warren was insisting that God was involved in this movement, which itself was justified.—p. 64
DB’s Reflection:–What about other such ‘just’ acts done in other countries initiated not by evangelicals but people of other faiths? I think Warren would agree that they too are the acts of God as he never accepted any split between sacred and secular history as given below p. 64. According to Lutheran theology:
In the Lutheran analysis of God at work in both the Kingdom of the Right (church, Body of Christ) and the Kingdom of the Left (other religions, government, culture, etc.), we would understand that the allegiance to and involvement with Christ is only among those who know and follow Him (Kingdom of the Right). In the Kingdom of the Left, God is at work for good with all people. Of course, Christians are participants in both Kingdoms. (Dr. Hoefer, personal correspondence)
Liberal
Kings: In terms of particular traditions within the Church of England, he gloried in the word ‘evangelical’ and in his published work refused to qualify it, as conservative or liberal.63 Yet in his correspondence with Hooker he is unashamed of being more liberal than conservative. (Letters 21, 75 and 173) His daily devotion to a regular early quiet time of Bible study and prayer, was the foundation of all his work, yet he was also keen to use the constructive results of biblical criticism.—p. 45
63 See the excellent article by Yates, Timothy ‘evangelicalism without Hyphens: Max Warren, the Tradition and Theology of Mission’, Anvil, (1985), pp. 231-45’. See also Max Warren, The Sevenfold Secret (London: SPCK, 1962), p. 1 ‘I am an Evangelical. I have never felt under any constraint to apologize for that designation, one of great and lofty lineage, not least within our Anglican Communion. I like the word in it simple form, unhyphenated with others whose more usual association, in Britain at any rate, is with the platforms of political parties.’(i.e. Conservative or Liberal).—Notes, 102, p. 45
DB’s Reflection: –I find no contradiction here in Warren. One can hold a particular image in public, but when she wrestles with several issues in life she might find it difficult to remain confined within some definition based on such technical terms like ‘liberal’ ‘evangelical’ etc. Fortunately a Hindu bhakta of the Lord need not struggle with such identity as Hinduism accepts plurality in life. Though we have the term ‘orthodox’ in our religious traditions, hardly one can say that a Hindu is a liberal. She will be both orthodox and liberal at the same time. It depends upon with whom she interacts. Personally, I feel that it is better to be a liberal and bhakta of the Lord than mere fanatic in the name of orthodoxy.–db
Hooker: …I think if Michael Green for instance could admit that we do not yet see all there is to be seen in Christ and that the meeting with other faiths is going to help us to see it, and if he would further agree that we must ask what God is doing ‘outside the covenant’ I could be ready to die in the ditch next to his if not quite in the same one. (Hooker Letter 6 March 1976) {After Hick’s Visit Realising His ‘Conservativism’.)—p. 372 {John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths (London: Macmillan, 1973). See Hooker Letter 25 January 1976. Hooker’s Report on John Hick’s Visit to them, p. 369}
DB’s Reflection: –It is very difficult not only to live with fundamentalists but also die with them—in the same ditch. I agree with Hooker.–db
Redemptive acts of God:
Kings: From what we have already seen, it is not surprising that Warren wrote a perceptive comment underneath this passage {in Kar Lowith Meaning in History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949}:
…Our bodies, our material environments, are temples of the Holy Spirit. The indwelling spirit who fills all things also fills all history. This is a truth which is easily lost sight of if too great a distinction is made between sacred and secular in history as in life.
…The Spirit ‘fills all history’ by being ‘active within all of it’. This is not in the sense that ‘everything that happens is the will of God’ (for that would soon drift into determinism) but in the sense of ‘being creative in the good and redemptive in the wrong.’—p. 65
DB’s Reflection: –I cannot still understand this ‘being creative in the good and redemptive in the wrong’. If I understand Warren’s view on history correctly, he endorses only what he sees as ‘good’ and ‘wrong’ in other history from his Christian perspective. For example, most Indians see ‘love marriage’ particularly outside caste as ‘wrong’, whereas Westerners might see ‘arranged marriage’ as wrong. Caste is another example. While we Indians understand that there is evil in the Caste system, it also provides some social harmony and we have yet to find an alternative system for it in India.
Some evangelicals say that they need to ‘redeem’ certain aspects and concepts with which they agree in Hinduism for the Lord. I always question such slogans of ‘redeeming’ that which they find acceptable and reject the rest. Even those aspects and concepts (including events) cannot be selectively separated from the overall socio-religious contexts. Once the gospel incarnates in a particular culture and tradition, the transformation will come within those contexts; there is no need for any selective redemption by the outsiders.
There is a pond in Varanasi in which childless couples will take a dip with a belief that after that ritual they will get a child. After the bath the woman has to leave the sari which she wore when she took the dip. I know one ‘missionary’ couple in Varanasi. They took a dip after a few years of their marriage. They told me that they have done that ritual in order ‘to redeem’ both the pond and the ritual for the Lord! Of course they got two lovely children one after the other. But till this day, I cannot understand what actually they have redeemed. In my worship, I use Indian symbols. But I never think that I am redeeming them for the Lord. I am just using what already belongs to me. Do I need to redeem them exclusively for the Lord or for my bhakti? Is this the sense in which the word ‘redemption’ is used in Muktiveda, particularly in the Uttaraveda (NT)?—db
See my article Faith and Festival in the blog under Dialogue with Christians more on redeem.
Spirituality and Social responsibility:
Kings: …Warren’s own copy of Manning’s The Making of Modern English Religion (1929)….The only passage marked is in the last chapter headed ‘The Historical Approach to Ecclesiastical Problems’. The following passage was marked with a line in the (p.57) margin and also square bracketed in the text for emphasis. It underlined, and undergirded, Warren’s own historiographical tendencies very well:
….The seed is the Word of God, but the field is the world. To know the world, to measure and use its forces, is not to dishonor the seed, but to care for it. High-minded ignorance about soils and a fine contempt for the fowls of the air may pass for evidence of a spiritual mind, but result in poor husbandry. {Bernard Lord Manning, The Making of Modern English Religion (London: SCM Press, 1929), p. 136}—pp. 57-58
DB’s Reflection: I like the sentence ‘ignorance about soils and a fine contempt for the fowls of the air may pass for evidence of a spiritual mind’. Because spirituality is not to remain away from the world but involved in it. As Manning rightly pointed out, the result will be ‘poor husbandry’. We cannot measure our spirituality by ignoring the world but only by involving in it. Rather that is the furnace to test the purity of our spirituality. As Kings further says, ‘This stress on the secular setting for religious history may be seen throughout Warren’s writings, especially in his book Social History and Christian Mission. {London: SCM Press, 1967}–db
World view
Kings: …Hooker read Thomas’ book The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance64 in 1971 (Hooker Letter 14 August 1971). His evaluation of the ‘danger’ and ‘advantage’ of this position was perceptive.
Second, I may adopt a more narrow, ethical approach (which though different from is not necessarily contradictory to the first). Here I start by claiming that Christ is God’s ideal pattern for humanity, therefore wherever I find Christ-like qualities there God is at work, even though the Christ of orthodox Christianity may be unknown, misunderstood or rejected. For example, many people who know Gandhi-ji recognised Christ-like qualities in him. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ (p.138)
I must confess that I find this approach easier to work out in theory than to apply in practice. I see in my Hindu friends much that I find attractive and admirable, but this often co-exists with much that I cannot admire….
…Hooker implied that the identifying of such people who are well known, but not personally known, may be easier than applying the theory to friends whom he knew well.—pp. 138-39
64 The tile of Thoma’s classic book The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance (Madras: Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society Bangalore/Christian Literature Society , Chennai, India, 1970), may suggest that it could have been written as a ‘secular’ response to Panikkar’s The Unknown Christ of Hinduism.—p. 138
DB’s Reflection: I confess that I cannot understand this statement by Hooker that, ‘I see in my Hindu friends much that I find attractive and admirable, but this often co-exists with much that I cannot admire….’ Because this analysis can be applicable to anyone. Even to the so-called born again Christian. It is well said that ‘beauty is in the beholder’s view’. If his evaluation about his Hindu friends is from his Christian point of view, he has to live with that tension. The same is the case with ‘Christ-like qualities’ that one wishes to see selectively in the life of others who are not Christians. The character of people is relative and it is subject to change according to the worldview of people. What one society accepts as good character another society won’t accept. Once we begin to see the world only from the prism of our particular faith, then such contradictions are inevitable. All that we know about ‘Christ-like qualities’ are those that are recorded in Muktiveda. But people living in another tradition which has different qualifies to measure should not be compared like this. For example, in India, dharma is more important than ethics. A good person is one who upholds his/her dharma in life. At the same time, this dharma is not static but relative. Till the end of life there will be ‘much in others’ life which we cannot admire’. This is true even with a born again Christian.–db
Imperialism
Kings: …On 29 November 1975, Hooker wrote a significant letter to John Ward of CMS setting out his vision for his work in North India: ‘Hinduism is changing and it is part of my duty to help it to change in a Christian direction.’….—p. 49
DB’s Reflection: This again shows the subtle British Imperialism (which he too agrees—see p. 96 and 320). They always came to India with a ‘white man’s burden’65 which indeed became a burden not only to them but also for us. Hinduism will always change. As a Civilization ‘change and continuity’ is the DNA of Hinduism. All those who thought that they could use it for their agenda miserably failed. One can understand this from the Mission history of the past few centuries. Of course, we Indians can never deny their influence on us since the reformation began from Raja Ram Mohan Roy. (The last word on the ‘Raj’ will not be written for centuries. But it played a part in Indian development.66 (Letter 561 9 September 1976, p. 380) But to think that one can use this ‘change’ to direct it towards a Christian direction never worked in the past and won’t work in future too. First of all, Christians don’t have any clarity about which direction they have to go (in all over the world). If they bring ten ‘converts’ to the church through the front door twenty are leaving through the back door.
Indian civilization has the capacity to observe any such approach by outsiders and make it part of our own Civilization. Indian Civilization has the capacity to accommodate all kinds of faith expressions without expecting them to compromise with their core values. Fundamental in core, flexibility in peripheral and charity in all is our Worldview.
Not understanding their limitation, when they carry any White man’s burden it not only looks funny but also hurts Hindus. Because Hooker thought that in a dialogue there is no possibility of meeting of heart ‘when at the intellectual level we cannot (yet) meet’ (Hooker Letter to Edward Hulmes, copied to Warren, 30 May 1975, p. 353). This was rightly corrected by Warren who wrote back: (Letter 493, 9 June 1975) ‘Is there not a danger that the word intellectual can too early be given a derogatory meaning in the sense that the other man is not my intellectual equal…’ (P, 355).67
When any non-Indian (even a non-Hindu) taking a ‘high intellectual ground’ thinks that they have some ‘duty’ to help Hinduism change in a Christian direction it only demonstrates their ‘hit and run’ evangelism. While the Indian evangelicals are involved in a ‘kabadi kabadi’ evangelism the White Missionaries coming to India involve in a ‘hit and run’ evangelism. No outsider can influence the insiders unless they give up their identity and mingle with the locals (or natives). Due to various reasons this is not possible for anyone who is involved in the so called ‘cross cultural evangelism’. So they should never have such ‘higher moral or spiritual burden’ to change others towards their ideology.
The reason for me to say this is this: with few exceptions, most of the Western Missionaries after spending a few years of their ministry return back to the country, though they try to keep in touch with India. Hooker returned back to England after 13 years (1965-1978) of his ministry in India. So let them not think that there are not enough Hindu intellectuals to change Hinduism according to the need and demands of the time. Hindus are not looking to such outsiders to guide them in which direction they should take.
But in order to show some charity to Hooker’s comment we need to read the entire context of this statement which Kings quotes (on page 49). Here is the full context of Hooker’s ‘duty to help Hinduism to change in a Christian direction’. Hooker wrote this to John Ward in his letter 29 November 1975 after attending two lectures by a local Hindu scholar at Varanasi who stressed three particular points”
- We now look at everything from a historical view-point. (p.366)68
- We stress the primacy of this world. Public benefactors nowadays build schools and hospitals instead of temples.
- We look for social salvation e.g. the removal of malaria, rather than the traditional salvation of release from this world.(pp. 366-37)
This local Hindu scholar of Varanasi said this back in 1975. Now it is 2018. No doubt that now history is also taken seriously, at least on scholarly level; but in which direction is a big subject for me to handle here (as I am not competent in it). Definitely more schools and hospitals were built but both of them ended up in commercialization. Now both become a menace for the common people. Without insurance one cannot step into any private hospital. Government’s insurance is manipulated as usual both by the public and authorities. Anything and everything from the government is treated only this way in India. Not only have more new temples been constructed but more and more money is spent in renovating old temples. Temple income has increased more than before. Now some of the famous temples like Balaji at Tirupati are richer than the government and Ambani. (See dainikbhaskar.com for this report, 17-08-2015). Now top Hindu leaders like Ram Baba also request people not to put their offering in the temple but to spend it for public welfare. Such tall claims by Hindus, (the Varanasi scholar) particularly by the armchair scholars are not new to us. Such rhetorical speeches were given on an elitist level rather than reflecting the reality on ground level.
If a missionary like Hooker thinks that it is his ‘duty’ to help to change Hinduism ‘in a Christian direction’ then the response also would be on the same elitist level without understanding the Hindu or Indian reality of ‘change and continuity’.
Regarding Hooker’s white man’s burden of helping ‘Hinduism to change in a Christian direction’, I never heard about him, in spite of my interest to read several ‘Christian Literature’ in the early walk in my bhakti in the Lord. He visited Delhi Brotherhood House several times to give lectures and conduct retreats for them. But none of the members of that house ever mentioned about him in my stay in the house more than six months in 1990 or in my talk with them about my interest in ‘Contextualization’ in those days. Even Fr. James Stuart of the Brotherhood House never mentioned Hooker or Warren to me as he knew well that I was staying in the House to read more books on Hinduism and contextualization. He knew them well. Fr. Stuart wrote to Warren as mentioned by Warren in his letter 25 October 1973 (letter 425, p. 330). Though I never interacted much with other members, I had the privilege to sit and talk so many times with Fr. Stuart who clarified several of my doubts and also shared about Swami Abhishiktananda. He even gave a personal copy of Swamiji’s Upanishad to me. But he never mentioned Hooker to me. The reason for me to give all this autobiographical information is to show how unpopular they remain in the main line evangelicals of that time in spite of his ‘duty’ to help change ‘Hinduism in a Christian direction’. Of course, they were well known among the Anglicans but how far the Indian Missions were well aware of them is my question. I never heard about them. Even Rev. Titus who was also interested in reading a lot on ‘Contextualization’ never mentioned about them to me during my stay in Sattal Ashram (1989-90) where he also was living at that time.
It is interesting to note that though most of the missionaries remained humble in their approach and understanding of Hindus and Hinduism, still cannot escape from their colonial mental makeup, even after the British left India. After the East India Company’s charter was renewed in 1813 by the British parliament, 69 the British official and missionaries got this burden and duty to help Hinduism to change towards Christianity. Though we hear about the ‘Anglicist vs. Orientalist controversy for two decades from 1813 when the colonial government assumed responsibility for education in India’ (Annamalai 134) and finally Anglicist won in giving English education, still all their agenda was this white man’s burden to help change ‘Hinduism in a Christian direction’. This is well stated by Annamalasi:
It was seen as logical, not ironical, that the Enlightenment ideology which sought to replace faith by reason to guide human action in Europe was to prepare the ground for Christian faith in India. The agenda of modernization of Indian society with Enlightenment ideology was inseparable to the colonial rulers from their perceived obligation to “civilize” Indian society with Christian knowledge. Separating these two, however, was part of negotiating the European encounter by the subjects in India. (E. Anamalai, Social Dimensions of Modern Tamil, Chennai, Published by Cred-A, 2011, p.131. Also see A. Mathew, Christian Missions, Education and Nationalism: from Dominance to Compromise, 1870-1930, Delhi, Anamika Prakashan, 1988.)
At the same time, as Annamalai rightly observed, ‘Colonial education also had political objectives besides the enlightening and evangelizing objectives mentioned above. The political objective was based on the belief of submissive acceptance of the Enlightenment ideology on faith by the natives, but the process actually turned out to be one of negotiation by the Indians, which also led to the emergence of nationalism’….—(ibid.) p. 131
I wonder how Warren as a historian failed to understand this and Hooker who came to India failed to remember when he made such comments ?70 I still remember the evangelical slogan of the early 1980s: Within ten years India will become predominantly a Christian country. And the strategy for this was: if one Christian manages to make one convert and that convert in turn makes another non-Christian as a Christian, within a decade India will be reached for Christ!!! Now almost four decades have gone and I need not tell the condition of Christianity in India. Of course such haste was even declared by their predecessors as Muller only needed a blink of an eye and not even a decade:
Muller takes upon himself the role of reforming and refining Hindus who are seen as still indulging in what Muller regards as idolatrous practices. In a letter to Bunsen, Muller speaks of his desire to go to India, to overturn Hindu priestcraft and to make room for the spread of Christian teaching (Muller, Max F. The Life and Letters of the Right Honourable Friedrich Max Muller edited by his wife. Vol. I. London: Longman, Green and Co. 1902: 182) – a clear indication of the reforming role that he attributes to Christianity. His hermeneutical intentions become demonstrably clear in his letter to Henry Acland, where he expresses his wish to see India and Hinduism Christianized. “If we get such men again in India as Rammohun Roy, or Keshub Chunder Sen,” Muller remarks, “India will be Christianized in all that is essential in the twinkling of an eye” (ibid. 378)….— Sharada Sugirtha Rajah, Imagining Hinduism: A Postcolonial Perspective. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, Reprint, Special Indian Edition, (2003) Reprint 2017
Not understanding the dynamic nature of Hinduism, any attempt by any non-Hindus will fail to change the nature of Hinduism.
65 Modern nations have not necessarily employed ancient religious terminology and imagery to express their feelings of historic mission and destiny, but how different are the Greek attitude towards the barbaroi and Roman concept of Pax Romana from the British imperialism of Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), when he wrote:
Take up the White Man’s burden
Send forth the best ye breed –
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives; need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild –
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.(italics original)—(Sharma, 2017, Sharm quoting Jospe , p. 85)
66 Democracy, Judiciary and even English are the British contribution to India. About this Sharma says: ‘…India’s political system of governance, one of parliamentary democracy, although happily adjusted to the Indian environment, is Western in origin and orientation. The same is true of its legal system (p.262)…India has thus become part and parcel of the extended Western civilization as a result of the British success in India’ (Sharma, 2017, pp. 262 and 263). But never in a Christian direction.
67 The other point which occurs is your use of the phrase ‘intellectual level’….I know you don’t mean that and the next page of the letter amply meets this by your emphasis on a common sinfulness. Yet, nevertheless I’m inclined to think you’d be on stronger ground if you paraphrased the word intellectual with its subtle overtones, by some such phrase as ‘our minds seem to work differently and mind so often can’t meet mind’. That is what you mean by not having ‘a set of common assumptions at the intellectual level’. But a paraphrase avoids even a hit that the other fellow’s intellect, as such, is defective.—p. 355 [Hooker writing back to Warren (Letter 6 July 1975) accepted this comments—p. 356).
68 see Arvind Sharma: Hinduism and its Sense of History and Decolonizing Indian Studies , USA, Oxford University Press, 2003. I haven’t read this book so far)
69 The missionary and anti-missionary parties in relation to the British involvement in India came to a head in the British Parliament in 1813, when the Company’s charter came up for renewal. Charles Grant (1746-1823), the former Governor-General of Fort William in Bengal, had urged the missionary position on the Company already in 1793. As Nicholas Dirks narrates:
…Bengal had seriously deteriorated under British rule, but the causes for this were not, Grant suggested, merely political and economic. Rather, even as the Company would take on a moral character by accepting its Christian obligations and duties, the people of India would find genuine improvement only through Christianization.( p.23)
While the British were a trading company in India and restricted themselves to commercial interests, the divergent orientations of the Christian and secular wings were quite marked. What Percival Spear wrote, ‘The British came to trade and went into politics to preserve their trade. They eschewed religion.’69a his statement held true, in an innocent way, only until 1813. Until then, ‘the policy of the East India Company was not to interfere in the religious beliefs of its subjects’.69b However, the Charter Act of 1813 not only explicitly asserted the sovereignty of the Crown over the dominions of the Company in India69c but also:
secured the admission of Christian missionaries, a church establishment of a bishop and three archdeacons, and a resolution ‘that it is the duty of this country to promote the interest and happiness of the native inhabitants of the British dominions in India and that such measures ought to be adopted as may tend to the introduction amongst them of useful knowledge and religious and moral improvement’.(p.25)69d
69a Percival Spear, ed., The Oxford History of India by the Late Vincent A. Smith, C.I.E, 4th ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004 [1958]), notes 13, pp. 332-33.
69b R. C. Majumdar, K.K. Datta, and V.N. Datta, ‘English Education,’ in R.C. Majumdar, ed., British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part Ii (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1965), notes 14p. 43.
69c Spear, ed., op. cit, notes 15p. 530 note 1.
69d Ibid., notes 16pp. 525-26
70 For more interesting information regarding the postcolonial critique of the study of Hinduism, and for an informed and critical understanding of how both Europeans and Hindus engaged with Hinduism see Rajah, 2017; Sharma 2017 in which he ‘examines Said’s fundamental thesis—that power invariably drives the production of cultural knowledge—in the context of India under British rule. Prof. Sharma argues that India’s cultural subjection occurred when its traditional cast of ideas was taken over by a new one that represented a new culture and possessed it like a ghost. The Ruler’s Gaze is an attempt to exorcize the ghost so that the spirit of India’s culture can speak for itself.’ (From inside cover)
Leave a Reply