Hinduism 35
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800-500 B.c.). The age of creative poetry when new prayers were composed and sung to please the gods had come to an end. Having ceased to produce poetry the priests spent their energies in elaborating the sacrificial ceremonial. They had schools where priests were trained for this work. The Brahmanas give us the sacerdotal learning as taught in the Vedic schools of this period.
They explain in prose the mutual relation of the sacred text and the ceremonial, as well as their symbolic meaning with reference to each other. Each Brahmana is a handbook to one of the Vedas and was meant to enable the priest to do his part in the sacrifice accurately and intelligently; but, besides sacrificial directions and explanations, they also contain a great deal of mythology, philology, literary lore, grammar, theology, mysticism, magic, and such like. They are said to be the most tedious, absurd, and uninteresting books in the world. The beginnings of the doctrine of transmigration of the soul make their appearance about this time.
The system of the four castes also assumes shape. The Aryans probably had by now advanced eastward as far as Allahabad.
The third period is the Upanishad period. This represents the last stage of development in the Brahmana literature. After a long period of the most cumbersome and intricate ritual, "reflection led to the perception of the great truth that the kernel of religion is not the ritual act but the heart of piety behind it." This discovery is represented by the Aranyakas or Forest Treatises of a theosophic character meant to be imparted or studied in solitude in the forests. The word Upa-ni-shad (sitting down beside) may have originally meant "confidential session" and came to signify "secret or esoteric" doctrine. As they generally came at the end of the Brahmanas, they are also called Vedanta (end of the Veda) a term later interpreted to mean "the final goal of the Veda." The Upanishads consist of philosophical inquiries on the nature of the world-soul and the way in which man may find release from rebirth and union with the world-soul. "They are a mixture of half-poetical, half-philosophical fancies, of dialogues
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and disputations dealing tentatively with metaphysical questions.
The pantheistic groundwork of their doctrine was later developed into the Vedanta philosophic system."
These three sets of books, then, form the Vedas and are the revealed literature, Sruti, of Hinduism.
The fourth period of the religion is the Sutra period (500-200 B.c.). The verbose character of the Brahmanas, and the difficulty of storing such vast masses of diffuse language in the memory led to a new style of composition. All the knowledge which a student had to acquire was expressed in strings of aphorisms of the briefest and most pregnant description. These when collected in treatises were called Sutras. In fact this style of composition became the chief literary characteristic of the age. The three chief classes of Sutras are Crauta Sutras dealing with ritual, Grihya
Sutras dealing with household affairs, and Dharma Sutras dealing with social and legal usage.
This period saw the rise of the great sectarian systems of Vishnu and Siva and an enormous development of ascetic religious exercises, now known as yoga. Philosophic study increased in the schools and the five verse Upanishads were also written. The Sankhya system seems to have received definite form. The Jain and Buddhist movements also belong to this period.
The fifth is the Dharmasastra period. As the Sutras grew out of the Brahmanas, so the Dharmasastras grew out of the Sutras, mainly out of the Dharma Sutras. Chief among these is the Manava Dharmasastra which has exercised such great influence over the social life of the people. These metrical law books are usually dated 200 B.c. to a.p. 500. Manu seems to have reached its present form not later than a.p. 200. It was also during this period that the earlier of the short Upanishads of Atharva Veda made their appearance. They fall into four great groups according as they teach pure Vedantism, yoga practices, the life of the Sannyasi, or sectarianism. These sectarian treatises interpret the popular gods
Siva and Vishnu as personifications of the Atman. The different
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Avatars of Vishnu are here regarded as human manifestations of the Atman. The Epics fall between 500 B.c. to a.p. 500. In their present form and shape, they represent the growth of about a thousand years. The Bhagavadgita which is incorporated into the Mahabharata belongs to the Dharmasastra period.
The Puranas follow this period. These are eighteen in number.
They are didactic in character and sectarian in purpose. The object of most of these legendary compilations is to recommend the sectarian cult of Vishnu, though some of them favor the worship of Siva.
The Bhagavadgita requires more than a passing mention. Towards the beginning of the Christian era a nameless worshiper of Krishna, a man of culture, conversant with the best religious philosophy of his age, conceived the idea of interpolating into the Mahabharata an episode setting forth in the form of a dialogue the supremacy of Krishna, and the theory of Karma Yoga.
At the opening of the great battle between the hosts of the Kurus and Pandavas, he represented Arjuna as overcome by sudden remorse at the sight of the armies which he was about to plunge into fratricidal strife, and put into the mouth of Arjuna's divine charioteer Krishna a series of sermons for his comfort and enlightenment. The result was the Bhagavadgita, which for well nigh two thousand years has swayed with ever growing power the mind and heart of India. It has attracted also the attention and admiration of many scholars in Europe.
Out of these centuries of Hindu thought, as represented by these numerous treatises, have come the beliefs and practices of the Hindu of today.
Through all the varied phases of Hindu philosophy and Hindu practice, two general tendencies of thought may be traced.
Among the more intelligent, on the one hand, the philosophy of the Upanishads, especially the Vedanta philosophy is uppermost, with a constant tendency to develop in one of three directions; toward pantheism, toward agnosticism, or toward athe-
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ism. Among the ignorant masses, on the other hand, polytheism is uppermost with an invariable pantheistic background. Pantheism with its corollary the transmigration of souls is thus common to all. As common is idolatry, at least the tendency toward it and apology for it. The bond that unites popular and philosophic Hinduism is the system of caste. Pantheism then as a creed, grossest idolatry as the expression of religious instinct, and caste as a social system constitute the real triad of Hinduism today.
To understand modern Hinduism in practice it is not sufficient to know the development of Hindu religious literature;
Hinduism in the world of today must be studied.
To the educated Hindu who is really religious and who wants to practice his religion, Bhagavad Gita is the only Bible, and the only book of meditation. Any one may come across men in all walks of life who daily read a portion of this philosophic poem, either in the original Sanskrit or in the vernacular. Great men like Mahatma Gandhi have declared that the Gita brings them solace and guidance in all perplexities of life. There are many expositions of the Gita written by modern religious leaders, trying to make the Gta answer all questions about sin, temptation, victory, and man's duty to his fellow man. It is therefore well to examine its main teaching and its defects.
The Gita makes the first clear statement of the doctrine of Avatara which is very akin to the Christian doctrine of Incartion. Avatara means descent. It is used to signify the descent of the Supreme God into the world to help man.
Though I am not subject to birth or decay [says Krishna in the fourth chapter], and am the Lord of all created beings, yet in presiding over Nature which is mine, I am born by my own mystic power. Whenever there is a decline of dharma (virtue and duty) and an increase of adharma
(vice-impiety), then I create myself. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the establishment of dharma from age to age, I am born.
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In these and other sayings the claim is made that the Krishna of the Gita is the Supreme God—the ultimate one goal of all separate souls. Krishna is made to say, "At the end of many births the man of knowledge finds refuge in me" (vii:19). In another place, Krishna compares the worship of the great Supreme
God and of himself and says:
Their labor is greater whose thoughts are directed to an object which has no manifest form; for the path which is not manifest is with difficulty attained by those who are attached to their corporal frames. Those who offer up to me all their actions intent on me, and meditating on me with exclusive devotion worship me,—I become presently their extricator from the ocean of the world of mortality (xii:5, 6).
The teaching is, that Krishna is the Supreme God manifest in human form; and that it is easier for man under present conditions of life to fix his mind on a manifest God than on the Unmanifest God; and such a contemplation of a personal, manifest God brings peace now and release hereafter. Krishna says:
Place thy mind on me, fix thy understanding on me, and thou shalt dwell in me alone after this life (xii:8).
But the ordinary man will ask: Who is Sri Krishna that I may set my mind on him? What is his example, his achievement for mortal man that will enable me intelligently to contemplate him?
The very meagerness of such information has driven later writers to supply those Puranic stories which are most unworthy of Sri
Krishna and an Incarnate God. What a contrast to the life of the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, and to His teaching as de picted in the Gospels! Is there anything equal to the power that that revelation has exercised on countless millions? St. Paul's words will be reéchoed by men of all times, and all races:
The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that one died for all therefore all died, and He died for all that they which live should no longer live unto themselves,
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but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again (2 Cor. v:14, 15).
Is there anything like the story of the Cross to inspire man's love and devotion?
The other important doctrine of the Gita that is fascinating to many is that of Karma Yoga. The traditional Hindu teaching was that every deed performed by man, whether good or bad, must produce its corresponding effect and will necessitate rebirth into the world. The logical conclusion of such a doctrine is that inasmuch as all action binds the soul to repeated rebirths, release can only come by complete cessation of all activity. The Gita, on the other hand, taught the doctrine of right action and thus provided a healthy corrective to the prevailing tendency among the thoughtful men of that age to aim at complete withdrawal from the world to attain to the state of no-action.
Do thou the work thou art obliged to do [says the Gita], for work is better than no work; not even thy body can win its sustenance from no-work. ... This world is bound by bonds of work, save where that work is done for sacrifice: work to this end perform, freed from attachment.
. Without attachment ever perform the work that thou must do: for if without attachment a man works, he gains the highest
(iii:8, 9, 19).
The earnest seeker may ask two questions: What is the work I must do without attachment? How is one to do that work without any attachment? A man's duty, answers the Gita, is the duty enjoined on the caste in which he is born. Caste is of divine institution. "Every man therefore must carry out the works appropriate to his caste. Even though a man should fancy that he could fulfill more excellently the duties of another caste, he should in no case renounce his own; to do so is sin, and can but lead to destruction and the ruin of the social order."
1 Hill, Bhagavad Gita.
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If this doctrine is accepted, there can be no hope for the outcaste, and no peace for the world. For the outcaste must only do the duties of the outcaste and should neither learn nor teach nor fight nor trade; and the martial castes must, like Arjun, give themselves to war and engage themselves in the work of killing others!
And again, how is he to know what is right and what is wrong work?
A man belonging to a thief caste was not born into it by his own choice, but it is open to him to decline to engage in plunder and murder against his conscience. Discussing this, a Hindu thinker recently wrote:
It was fortunate for Arjun that the Incarnate God was by his side to tell him that his dharma was not to indulge in sickly sentimentalism but to fight and kill his uncles, cousins, and grandfathers, in order to reap the bitter fruits of victory.
But all are not so fortunate. Each one of us, according to his lights has to decide between conflicting claims, selfish and unselfish impulses, what our real dharma is in a given situation.
Yes: that is the practical question. How can a man know what is right and what is wrong? Are there ideal standards to which he may look for guidance? Is the Incarnate God by one's side always, to guide him day by day and moment by moment, and enable feeble man to follow what he knows to be right?
Christianity answers these questions. The life and teaching of Christ give the enquirer an irreproachable standard of conduct: and the Spirit of Christ is available to guide him into all truth.
It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that alone answers satisfactorily the questions raised by the Gita.
The fact that the Gita is read and studied by many an educated follower of Hinduism shows the hold religion has on the Indian mind. It is, therefore, the duty of all Christian workers to study this remarkable book, in order that they may be able to
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point the people of India from Lord Krishna to the Lord Jesus Christ, and from the Gita to the Gospel.
There is a class closely akin to this, consisting of men whose scientifically trained minds refuse to follow the religious codes of the past its traditional practices, or its social conventions.
They claim personal freedom to believe and practice what alone appeals to their intellects and experiences. They interpret all old religious injunctions in the light of modern knowledge and read into the words of the ancient writings the latest religious ideas they have gathered from Western thought and Christian literature. These men may not be seen in the temples or on the river banks, engaged in religious contemplation or visiting places of pilgrimage. They disdain all these as unworthy of the man of true religion. The philosophic lectures of the Hindu University of Benares, or the learned treatises of Prof. S. Radhakrishnan, that brilliant South Indian thinker and philosopher—these appeal to them, and they are considered by others as followers of modern
Hinduism.
No doubt there is a certain amount of genuine patriotism in this love of the past and nominal conformity to the ancient religion. It also indicates intellectual honesty in appraising what has come by tradition and harmonizing them to the best thinking of the day. But absolute honesty would require the acknowledgment of this artificial grafting of the new ideas upon the out-of-date assumptions of old Hinduism and a fearless confession of the source from which this new light has come, namely from Christ and His religion, and the complete satisfaction He gives to all honest questions of the mind and the spirit. We may yet hope that the intellectual honesty of this class of Indian thinkers will lead them to the fountain of all Truth, even to Christ.
There is yet a third class of educated Hindus whose number is, alas, growing every day, who are fast losing all hold on religion. Secularism, is the right name to give to the religion of this class.
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There is no doubt that this phase in Hindu thinking is absolutely novel to India. Religion is natural to India and the Indian is incorrigibly religious. And yet the national aspirations that have taken possession of men and women in the present generation have had the effect of banishing all other thoughts from their minds. Religion, they say, is responsible, for all the ills of India. It has divided Indian society. It is the source of the social and economical woes under which India is laboring. It has tyrannized over the children of India, and has made them effete, submissive, and dependent. The remedy is: Down with all religion. No temples, no worship, no priests, and no God—seem to be their slogan.
A Brahmin writer in a recent weekly paper characterizes the religion of the modern Hindu as materialism. After describing the devout life of the old Hindu in his allegiance to caste obligations and religious observances he says:
Contrast this with the present-day condition. Caste, the binding force of Hinduism, is losing its virtue with the open advent of outsiders into the Hindu fold through Shuddhi, the progress of intermarriage and interdining, the removal of untouchability, and the open flouting of caste laws. The holy places are slowly becoming to the educated classes mere places of beautiful scenery or historic associations; idols, pieces of carved stones; fairs, occasions for tamasha; the holy rivers, mere streams; doing sraddha in Gaya for ancestors, a farce; the Brahmin, an anachronism; and the Vedas, books made by superstitious priests.
The writer then goes on to narrate how the old Brahmin spent his day in ablutions, prayers, studies and poojahs for himself and others.
But now [the writer goes on to say], even the foremost of these shastric injunctions, Sandhya Vandana (prayers at sunset), is not attended to. Some boys have cast off even the .
Upanayana threads from their persons, as these have no 4—INDIA
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significance for them. Women have all along been the greatest asset of the Hindu religion, from the point of view of tenacious observance of religious formalities in the home, and their constant dinning into the ears of their family of the importance of these observances. Here also we see a gradual change. With the education she has obtained, woman is asserting her right and importance, and the home is accordingly being fashioned on her new ideals which have no place for blind religious fervor. Thus the last touch of religion is vanishing from home, and religion is being rapidly supplanted by materialism."
A definite anti-religious stand is taken in South India by the members of a new organization called Self-respect Society. This organization advocates boycott of temples, priests, and all worship, and is engaged in raising the outcaste people to equal status with others as citizens of India.
This phase of irreligion cannot last long. India will sooner or later revolt against such an open negation of God, and the natural heart of the Indian will run to seek its solace from religion alone.
The blind fight against all religion is bound to cease. It will, on the other hand, direct its antagonism to that which is false and degrading in the religious beliefs and observances of the country, and examining all the religious systems that are available choose that which is good, satisfying and uplifting.
But no sketch of Hinduism, however brief, is complete without some consideration of the Reform sects which have appeared in modern times—Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, theosophy, and the social reform movements.
The Brahmo Samaj founded in Bengal in 1830 by Raja Ram Mohun Roy, has 5,378 adherents. Belief in the unity of the Godhead, the brotherhood of man and direct communion with God in spirit through prayer and worship without the intervention of any mediator, seem to be the main tenets of the Brahmos. The 1 The Illustrated Weekly of India, July 28, 1935.
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Brahmos have been avowed reformers, and by their teachings and writings they have made a marked impression on the educated Hindus of the country. In spite of a number of Brahmo missions, they do not make any converts. Between 1911 and 1931, they decreased by 126. The very eclectic character of the sect and the broadness of the creed, says the Census Commissioner, have militated against its growth.
The Arya Samaj was organized in 1875 by Swami Dayanand Sarasvati of Kathiawar. The leading tenets of the sect are:
1. Only the Samhitas of the four Vedas are inspired 2. There are three eternal substances: God, spirit, and matter
3. A soul is incorporeally and always perfectly distinct from God 4. The soul is subject to rebirth in human, animal, or vegetable form
5. Salvation is the state of emancipation from pain and from subjection to birth and death, and of life, liberty, and happiness in the immensity of God.
The Arya Samaj is theoretically opposed to the caste system, to idolatry, to child marriage, and to pilgrimages, and during the past twenty-five years has done much to rouse opinion against these in North India.
The Aryas number 990,233, or about four times their number twenty years ago. Eighty per cent of these live in the Punjab and the United Provinces. During the past decade the Aryas increased from 23,000 to 94,000 in the Kashmir State. During the previous decade there had been similar phenomenal increase in the Punjab and the United Provinces. This rapid increase is due to the elaborate missionary organization founded by Dayanand, and to special missionary activities among the depressed classes all over India. The Census Report of 1911 said:
A large proportion of the new adherents of the Samaj are Meghs and other men of low castes, who are admitted as clean after going through a ceremony of purification known
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as Shuddfi. In certain districts of the Punjab three-fifths of the Meghs returned themselves as Aryas. There is a special society with works under the auspices of the Samaj for raising the depressed classes in this way.
In another place the Report said:
Caste restrictions among the Aryas are becoming far less rigid than they were even a few years ago. Restrictions in eating and drinking with members of other castes are dying out and intermarriages between members of different castes is becoming increasingly common.
Here is again a great warning and an urgent call to the Church of Christ in India.
The Theosophists hold that all religions have elements of truth which spring from the one Fountain of Truth and that Theosophy is the synthesis of all religions. Theosophy, as seen in India today, is best described as Hindu pantheism modernized.
The best points of Hinduism may be summarized:
1. It has emphasized the superiority of the spiritual over the material side of life.
2. It has cultivated the passive virtue of patience, gentleness and submission.
3. It has introduced religion into everyday life.
When the races which have developed these characteristics are "summed up in Christ," they will assuredly enrich His Body with new graces.
Social Reform Movements is the term used to designate all the new reform movements for combating the social evils that have grown out of Hinduism. Besides the Sarda Act, an attempt to penalize infant marriages, other movements to rid the country of the baneful effects of the religion of the land, include:
The Harijan Uplift Movement. The word Harijan means the people of God, and was introduced by Mr. Gandhi in the year
1932, as an honorable name for untouchables.
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About this time [says Mr. P. O. Philip, in an article on the subject in The International Review of Missions], there came into existence an important organization whose members were pledged to self-sacrificing service: the Harijan Sevak
Sangha, Association of the Servants of Untouchables.
Its activities are directed along the lines of persuading caste Hindus to open temples for worship to the Harijans and to remove the disabilities imposed on them, of conducting day and night schools for Harijan children and adults, of establishing hostels for Harijan students and giving them scholarships, and of improving the economic and sanitary conditions in which Harijans live.
While it is true that this program of service has not so far appealed to any considerable section of the population, and that the movement has not penetrated much into rural India, it is a noteworthy sign of the times.
The Temple-entry Movement. Throughout the country individuals have been agitating for opening the temples to exterior castes. Legislation was attempted, but was withdrawn, but the movement itself is still going on. It is reported that eight shrines in Bombay used by the Telugus have been opened to untouchables since 1930. A temple in the city of Nagpur is said to have been opened to untouchables. It is also reported that a pan-Hindu temple has been endowed at Ratnagiri with a view to providing a common place of worship for all castes. In the Dacca division in Bengal, the temple doors were forcibly opened by a band of high caste Hindu women who sympathized with this movement. It is, however, reported that after five months it was found that the temple had been deserted by all high caste Hindus. It is doubtful if this reform will improve the relationships between caste Hindus and untouchables. The exterior castes have for ages past had their own shrines, their own worship, and their own sacrificial rites. To introduce this worship into Hindu temples appears quite novel and strange. The movement, however, is sympto-
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matic of the times. There are numbers of caste Hindus who have begun to feel that the position allowed in Hinduism to the Hartjans is indefensible.
3. A third movement of reform is the one against prostitution in all forms. Social legislation has been brought about against brothels and their keepers. Vigilance societies have been organized in the great cities of India. Rescue homes are being instituted to save the unfortunate girls from permanent degradation. With such attack on the social evil, the institution of Deva-dasis in connection with Hindu temples cannot continue long. In 1927, the Council of State discussed the need for legislation to prevent the dedication of girls as Deva-dasis in temples, on the ground that such dedication inevitably entailed a life of prostitution. A Bill was also brought into the Madras Council in 1930 to prohibit the performance of the dedicatory ceremony in any Hindu temple, and to enable dedicated women to contract legal marriage.' The action in this regard taken by the rulers of the Mysore and the Travancore States was noted in chapter two. This whole new attitude to moral evils is characteristic of the times. Abuses long connected with the Hindu religion are now repudiated and disavowed as having nothing to do with the religion and bold action is now taken to rid society of evils that have thrived for ages under the shadow of the temple walls.
Christians cannot but rejoice in all these movements towards righteousness and equity; and there is no need for fear, that such movements would hinder the progress of the religion of Jesus
Christ. All true efforts to advance the social and moral well-being of humanity must be believed to be directed in the interest of the Kingdom of God. While therefore eagerly recognizing every lofty aspiration and every tendency for good in this complex religion, it would be untrue to truth and untrue to Christ if endeavors to bring the full Gospel of Christ to bear on all the problems of India were relaxed. Let us point our brothers from the 1 The Census of India, 1931.
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many gods of Hinduism to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the One living God, from the divisive tendencies of caste to the unity in the brotherhood of Christ and from the burdensome system of salvation by self-effort to the free grace of forgiveness and power provided in the crucified and risen Saviour— in Christ the fulfillment of Hinduism.
Vi Carly Christianity in Onvia HE. history of Christianity in India may be divided into four periods: the Syrian period, the Roman period, the Lutheran period, and the Modern period.
THE SYRIAN PERIOD
The oldest Christian community in India is in the Native State of Travancore. Its members are commonly known as Syrian
Christians; they number 1,180,546, that is, about a fifth of the entire Christian population in India. Tradition connects the introduction of Christianity into Travancore with the Apostle
Thomas. Most scholars are now agreed that there is no historical proof to discredit this tradition. After a careful study of the results of recent research the late Dr. Farquhar wrote, "Thirty years ago the balance of the probability stood absolutely against the story of the Apostolate of Thomas in India: today the balance of possibility is distinctly on the side of historicity."* Some have connected the establishment of the Church with one Thomas,
Bishop of Edessa, in the year a.p. 345. There is certainly no doubt that the community was a flourishing one in the sixth century.
It is known, however, that about the eighth century the Christians of Malabar were so numerous and influential that they acquired from the rulers of the land a certain political status, including the right of self-government, in token of which they received two copper-plate charters, Sasanams. These are dated ap.
774 and 824.
1 The John Ryland's Library Bulletin, on The Apostle Thomas in South India.
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gI The history of the next six hundred years is enveloped in obscurity. Through all the vicissitudes of history they seem to have held themselves together under the Syrian liturgy and ceremonials, though probably they entirely lacked spiritual vigor and missionary zeal. When in the fifteenth century the Portuguese obtained a footing in India, they endeavored to bring these Christians under the rule of the Pope, and to substitute the Latin rite and dogmas for the Syrian. For the time being they succeeded in doing so by force. But when in the sixteenth century the power of the Portuguese was broken by the Dutch, many of the Syrians threw off the Papal yoke and placed themselves under a Bishop consecrated for them by the Patriarch of Antioch. A large number, however, still clung to the Roman Church, and their descendants are the Romo-Syrian Christians of the present day, numbering about 655,000.
In 1816 the Church Missionary Society sent missionaries to Travancore. They started schools and colleges, and these began to leaven this ancient community. A small number of Syrians joined the Church of England, and a larger number, who were in favor of reform separated themselves from the old Jacobite
Church and constituted what is called the Mar Thoma or Reformed Syrian Church. This Church uses in its worship a revised form of the old Syriac liturgy translated into the vernacular. Both sections are presided over by Indian Bishops, and have always been independent of any foreign support. They are the only self-supporting and self-governing Christian bodies in all
India. If these ancient Churches would but unite and give themselves to the evangelization of India what a power they could exert in the land! In such activity they would surely find their own fullest spiritual life. Within the past few years the Reformed section of the Syrian Church has undertaken to support a mission of its own through the National Missionary Society of India.
1 See Chapter IX.
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THE ROMAN PERIOD
This may be said began about the year a.p. 1500. Though the missionaries of the Roman Church were in India in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it was only after the arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498 that its influence began seriously to be felt.
The greatest missionary of the Roman Church we know was Francis Xavier. He landed in India on May 6, 1543, and in many respects he was a model missionary. His missionary enthusiasm, self-denial, and aspirations after a holy life are lessons for all time. Noble by birth and educated as a scholar, he gave up all that was dear to him to go to the ends of the earth out of love to Jesus Christ and zeal for the salvation of his brethren of mankind. Often he was houseless and homeless, traveling on foot without a servant, suffering from cold and hunger, fording rivers and forcing his way through unbroken forests, exposed to perils from sickness and robbers. All his trials, instead of discouraging him, made him only rejoice the more to undergo them for the name of Christ. Before he became a missionary, once while asleep he uttered the words, "Of suffering and of labors for the Cross, yet more, O Lord, yet more!" These might well have served as his motto to the last moments of his life.
For nearly two hundred years the Roman Church held undisputed sway over a large portion of South India, and penetrated even to the court of Akbar. Robert de Nobili and Beschi—the Tamil scholar, Viramamunivar—are amongst a great number of European missionaries who helped to establish and strengthen the Roman Catholic Church in this land.
According to the census of 1931, there were 2,113,000 Roman Catholics, thus forming nearly a third of the entire Christian community. They are found in large numbers in Madras, Bombay, Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. They have some large institutions for the higher education of Indian youths. The Loyola College in Madras and St. Joseph's College in Trichinopoly are instances.
BART Y GH RIST
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They do not recognize any comity arrangement with other Christian bodies and assert their right to enter any field throughout
India. This indiscriminate invading of the territories of other Churches and missions, often interferes with the discipline of these other Churches, and sometimes makes it very difficult for the others to entertain feelings of Christian friendliness towards them.
THE LUTHERAN PERIOD
The eighteenth century saw the beginnings of Protestant missionary work in India. Ziegenbalg and Plitschau, two godly
Germans, were the first Protestant missionaries. They were sent out by King Frederick IV of Denmark to preach the Gospel in the Danish possessions in India, and arrived at Tranquebar on July 9, 1706. Later, they were joined by a noble band of missionaries, such as Griindle, Schultze, Kiernander, Gericke, Schwartz, and others. Griindle and Schultze translated the Scriptures into Tamil and completed the first vernacular Bible in India in the year 1727. Kiernander was the first Protestant missionary to Bengal. Fabricius gave the Tamils their first hymn book.
The greatest of these early missionaries was Christian Frederick Schwartz, the father of the Christian Church in Tanjore and Trichinopoly. He arrived in South India on July 16, 1750, and for nearly half a century worked unceasingly in these districts until his death in 1798. Several lengthy journeys were undertaken to Madras, Ceylon, Madura, and Tinnevelly. Indian workers were trained and sent forth from Tanjore to take charge of these outlying stations, and churches were founded in all the important centers of South India. Of this "brightest star in the constellation of the Danish missionaries," Richter says:
Schwartz was by no means a brilliantly gifted man; even in his missionary labors he never struck out any new lines of work. He did not bring the Tranquebar Mission to a higher state of development, he simply extended its operations. While other missionaries in the course of years suf-
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fered from the withering influence of the natural and still more mental and moral climate of their environment, every fresh task seemed to fill Schwartz with yet greater vivacity and to help him to some inward victory; he grew perceptibly along with his growing ideals and at the same time the purity of his heart, his insusceptibility to flattery, his incorruptibility in money matters, his unassuming and simple faithfulness, the frank straightforwardness of his relations with both the great and the humble were so self-evident that he enjoyed the general confidence of the community as perhaps no other missionary in India has ever done.
Schwartz never married; and when he died he left nearly $50,000 to the Indian Church. Schwartz and the other early Lutheran missionaries have left an undying fame in South India for attractive piety, whole-hearted devotion to the Master, and selfsacrificing love for the people.
Though first sent out by the King of Denmark these continental missionaries received a considerable amount of support from England and finally they and the churches established by them were taken over by the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge and the Leipzig Missionary Society. The work of the S.P.C.K. was in the year 1825 transferred to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and since the Great War, the Church of Sweden has taken over practically the whole work of the old
Leipzig Mission. In the year 1919 the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church was organized and now includes in it the churches founded by the Leipzig Mission and the Church of Sweden Mission, totaling (in 1934), 31,400 persons.
Since those early days, other Lutheran Churches have entered India from Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and the United States, and have founded flourishing churches. The largest among these are those in the Tamil and the Andhra countries and that in Chota Nagpur.
The century when the Lutherans were the only Protestant missionaries in India is called the Lutheran Period.
VII.
C/Vineteerntl, Century (Missions HE nineteenth century saw great developments in the work of Christian missions in India. It falls into two distinct sections: the Pre-Mutiny Period, when most of the Protestant missions saw the beginnings of their pioneer operations; and the Post-Mutiny Period, when they were strengthened and developed.
For nearly a hundred years after the first Protestant missionary set his foot in India, missionary work was slow, partly because of the general apathy of Christians in the West and partly also because of the unsympathetic attitude of the East India Company.
A little was attempted by some of the saintly chaplains of the company in opening schools for Indian children and in providing portions of the Bibles in the vernaculars. Among these the names of Daniel Brown, Claudius Buchanan, Henry Martyn,
Thomas Thomason, and Daniel Corrie will forever shine with peculiar luster.
The first English missionary to India was William Carey, who landed at Calcutta on November 13, 1793. At this time the East
India Company forbade any European not in its service to set his foot on the company's territories without special license. Arriving in a Danish ship, Carey had to register himself as an indigo planter, and at Mudnabatty, 150 miles north of Calcutta, he went to work as superintendent of an indigo factory on seventyfive rupees (about thirty dollars) a month.
There and in that capacity lived for six years the one representative in India of the missionary zeal of Christian Eng- [ 55 ]
INDIA AND THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT
land, and in that obscure—one may say ignominious—way began English missions in her great dependency.'
Carey was later joined by Marshman and Ward, and all three settled, in 1800, on the more friendly soil of Serampore, a Danish settlement, fifteen miles north of Calcutta. In the words of their own principles, they here gave themselves up unreservedly to the glorious cause of evangelization. Never thinking that their time, their gifts, their strength and their families were their own, they sanctified them all to God and His cause. How they did this must be studied in the biography of William Carey. Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God was his motto.
Through the Serampore College, through the translation of the Holy Scriptures (or portions) into thirty-six languages, through the girls' schools, and through the printing press, he not only attempted but accomplished great things for God.
Another great missionary of the same period was Adoniram Judson, the apostle to the Burmans. Judson arrived in India in 1812 and, being refused entrance, found himself in Burma in 1813. George Smith, calling him "the greatest of all American missionaries," says:
Adoniram Judson is surpassed by no missionary since the apostle Paul in self-devotion and scholarship, in labours and perils, in saintliness and humility, in the result of his trials on the future of an empire and its multitudinous people.
When the East India Company's charter was renewed in 1813, the restrictions against missionaries were removed and consequently missions and missionaries came to the country in rapid succession. The growth of missions during this period and the gradual opening up of the entire country may be seen in this table:
1793. William Carey, English Baptist Mission.
1806. L.M.S. in Travancore. Ringletaube.
* Stock's History of the Church Missionary Society, vol. i, p. 96.