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Jesuits in saffron and Sanskrit?
Ashok Chowgule
President,
Vishwa Hindu Parishad,
Maharashtra
courtesy Gomantak Times, Goa
August 5, 2002
Cajetan Coelho’s article “Jesuits in saffron
and Sanskrit”, informing the readers of Gomantak Times (July 31,
2002) the various efforts by the missionaries to study Sanskrit
and translating the Hindu scriptures into European languages, is
quite informative. However, the readers should also know the
purpose behind this exercise by the Jesuits, so as to give them a
complete picture.
In his article, “The
Jordan, the Tiber, the Ganges”, Raimundo Panniker, the Catholic
theologian and a former Jesuit priest, says: “The first lesson
history makes us aware of is that all our disquisitions are
dependent on a temporal factor -that is, on historical
circumstances. Were it not for the fact of the political
decolonisation of the world, we would not be speaking the way we
are today. Dialogue has not sprung out of pure speculation. Praxis
conditions theory. Yet it is also wisdom to make a virtue out of
necessity.” (The Myth of Christian Uniqueness -Towards a
Pluralistic Theology of Religions, John Hick and Paul F Knitter (eds),
Orbis Books, New York, 1994, p 96.)
Today’s situation is
forcing the Christian churches to modify the language used, as
against the harshness of the past. However, the essential
philosophy of Christianity has not altered one bit. The Jesuits
are expected to believe that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God,
and hence the sole mediator between man and God. He is also
expected to proclaim the ‘good news’, namely that “The Kingdom of
God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1: 15).”
And this message is continually propagated at every available
opportunity.
Even the proceedings of
Vatican Council II more than amply makes it clear the there is to
be no deviation from the exclusivism which is the founding
principle of Christianity. Thus, we have: “The reason for
missionary activity lies in the will of God, ‘who wishes all men
to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there
is one God and one Mediator between God and men, himself a man,
Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all’ (1 Timothy
2:4-5), ‘neither is their salvation in any other’ (Acts 4: 12).
Everyone, therefore,
ought to be converted to Christ, who is known through the
preaching of the Church, and they ought, by baptism, become
incorporated into Him, and into the Church which is His body.”
(Vatican Council II, p 722, St Paul’s Publications, Bombay.) Three
pages prior to the above, we have: (Cf. John. 20:21): Just as he
had been sent by the Father, so he sent the apostles into the
world, and (Cf, Mark. 16:15): “Commanding them: Go into the whole
world, preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is
baptized shall be saved; but he who does not believe, shall be
condemned. “
It is in line with these
pronouncements, that Pope John Paul II, during his visit to India
in November 1999, asked for the conversion of the whole of Asia
(including India) to Christianity in the third millennium, just as
in the first Europe was, and in the second America was.
Given this unchanged
exclusivist position, it is clear that the reason for the Jesuit
study of Sanskrit and the Hindu scriptures was not enlightenment,
but to find out ways to continue with what they believed is their
God-given mandate. Flaws had to be found to ridicule the Hindu
scriptures, or give perverted messages to the writings of the
sages.
Or even project that
Christianity as the ultimate form of salvation is what the Hindu
scriptures are actually saying. The essential spirit of Hinduism
is pluralism as expressed in the sloka “Ekam Sad, Viprah Bahudda
Vandanti”. (Rigveda 1.164.46.) What this says is that there is one
eternal truth, but that there are many ways to reach it.
Each person has to find
his/her own unique path towards salvation. A guru is at best a
guide, who helps the person to work out for himself/herself the
path to be followed. However, the guru does not take the ultimate
responsibility for the success or the failure, since the guru
cannot be expected to understand the totality of the situation the
person is in.
Furthermore, in the Hindu
philosophy, if a person makes a mistake, it does not mean that
he/she is eternally damned. The soul gets reincarnated into
another body, and thus the search continues. This enables the
Hindu to experiment without fear.
Without an acceptance of
this concept of pluralism, any study of Sanskrit and/or the Hindu
scriptures implies a shallow understanding of the greatness of the
oldest surviving civilization. But an acceptance of the pluralism
would clearly mean that the Jesuits would be betraying the
teachings of the Church. A truly Catch-22 situation indeed.
An attempt to go around
this was to pretend to be Hindu sadhus, and so use the attire and
symbols that these sadhus were recognized with. De Nobili claimed
that the Bible was the fifth Vedas, a document that was lost but
recently discovered by the Roman Catholic Church. He said that he
was a Brahmin from Rome. He set himself up away from the
traditional structure of a Christian church, and in an edifice
that sought to look like a Hindu temple.
The fraud could not last
long. In his editor’s introduction to Hindu Manners, Customs and
Ceremonies, (by Abbe Dubois, Rupa & Co., New Delhi, 1994, p
xxvii), Henry Beauchamp observes: “The chief cause (of Abbe
Dubois’ disillusionment with the lack of success of his missionary
effort) undoubtedly was the invincible barrier of what we may call
nowadays `intellectual Hinduism’, but which the Abbe called `Brahmanical
prejudice’. He refers regretfully to the collapse of the Church,
with its hundreds of thousands of converts, many of them of high
caste, established by the Jesuits Beschi and de Nobili in Madura;
but at the same time he made no concealment of the real causes of
their failure. ‘The Hindus soon found that those missionaries whom
their colour, their talents, and other qualities had induced them
to regard as such extraordinary beings, as men coming from another
world, were in fact nothing else but disguised `Feringhis’
(Europeans), and that their country, their religion, and original
education were the same as those of the evil, the contemptible.
Feringhis who had of late invaded their country. This event proved
the last blow to the interests of the Christian religion. No more
conversions were made. Apostasy became almost general in several
quarters, and Christianity became more and more an object of
contempt and aversion in proportion as European manners became
better known to the Hindus.’’’
The Hindus more than
welcome a genuine and sincere study of the Hindu philosophy.
However, any attempt to pervert it, or to give a wrong rendering
of the historical events, will be resisted not only by the Hindus,
but also by all to whom truth is dear.
Santosh Helekar
responds
August 5, 2002 :
How
predictable! This man, Chowgule, who decries Christianity for
preaching that it is the better religion, shamelessly and stupidly
commits the same error when it comes to his own religion,
Hinduism.
In the above
(highlighted) paragraphs and the rest of his article, he shows how
he believes and wants others to believe that Hinduism is the
better religion.
If there is one thing that unites all religious fundamentalists
and fanatics, it has got to be hypocrisy
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