Hinduism: A Short History (54 page)

   A complete list with a critical analysis is given in S. K. Belvarkar,

, Poona: Bilkunja, 1929, 218ff. See also R. T. Vyas, “Roots of Śaṅkara’s Thought,” in:

32, nos. 1–2 (September-December 1982): 35–49.

72.

   Swami Nikhilananda has brought out an English paraphrase of the

(Mysoṙe: Ramakrishna Ashram, 1955, 4th edn). See also T. Vetter, “Die Gaudapādīya-Kārikās: Zur Entstehung und zur Bedeutung von (A)dvaita,

22 (1978): 95–131.

73.

   For example,

VI, 15;

II, 2. 8.

74.

   Contained in H. R. Bhagavat, ed.,

(Poona Oriental Series No. 8), Pune: Oriental Book Agency, 1952 (2nd edn), 374–402.

75.

   Several complete English translations of the

are available: G. Thibaut

, vols. 34 and 38); Swāmi Gambhirananda, Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1965, makes use of some major classical commentaries. See also: E. Deutsch,

, Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1969; and E. Deutsch and J. A. B. van Buitenen, eds.,

, Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1971.

76.

   Sureśvara in his

refers to Śaṅkara as “the source of pure knowledge ... and of illumination,” he calls him “omniscient,” “the guru of gurus,” and compares him to Śiva himself. Śaṇkara, as is well known, is one of the name of Śiva has been edited and translated by K. K. Venkatachari, Adyar: Adyar Library Series, 1982. For Sureśvara’s teaching and his relationship to Śaṅkara see the Introduction to R. Balasubramanian, ed. and trans.,

, Madras: The Radhakrishnan Institute for the Advanced Study of Philosophy, University of Madras, 1984 (2nd edn).

77.

   A. Nataraja Aiyer and S. Lakshminarasimha Sastri, the authors of

(Madras: private publication, 1962), not only provide the lists of all the successors to Śaṅkarācārya relying on eminent scholars who “have already proved that the date of Śaṅkara is 509–477 B.C.” (Preface) but also bring excerpts from court cases which were initiated in the twentieth century in order to settle the claims of candidates and counter-candidates to some

(headships of

.

78.

   By R. Thangaswami (in Sanskrit), Madras University Sanskrit Series No. 36, Madras, 1980.

79.

   Translated by A. J. Alston, London: Shanti Sadan, 1959.

80.

   See K. Kimjunni Rāja, Preface to English translation of Chapter 16 of

in

, vol. 61 (1997), pp.

.

81.

   Extracts (in English translation) from the works of the above-mentioned authors are found in Elliot Deutsch and J. A. B. van Buitenen’s

(Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1971).

82.

   Published by the Radhakrishnan Institute for Advanced Studies in Philosophy, University of Madras.

83.

   Organized by R. R. Pappu from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

84.

   Edited by S. Radhakrishnan and published by Allen & Unwin, London, 1952

85.

, ed., by Daya Krishna, M. P. Rege, R. C. Dwivedi, Mukund Lath; Indian Council of Philosophical Research; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991.

10

A SHORT HISTORY OF MODERN HINDUISM

Although it should have become clear from the foregoing it has to be restated emphatically in connection with the history of “modern Hinduism” that neither the origin of Hinduism nor its varied histories warrant a periodization “pre-modern” and “modern.” What is presented here as “modern Hinduism” consists of sporadic and episodic new movements within mainstream Hinduism that arose in reaction to the presence of European colonial powers on Indian soil from the early nineteenth century onwards. Mainstream Hinduism as described above -Vaiṣṇavism, Śaivism, Śāktism, and a host of minor
saṃpradāyas -
continues to claim the allegiance of the majority of Hindus. As remarked in an earlier chapter when dealing with these branches of “mainstream Hinduism,” these too have in many ways changed and adapted to new circumstances and cannot be globally labelled “pre-modern”.

The reform movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were effective in transforming Hinduism not so much by attracting large followings – in fact, with few exceptions their followings remained very small and some died out completely – but by stimulating traditional Hindu religion to change and adapt. They were also instrumental for Hindu missions to the West, a reversal of the Christian missions that had established branches of dozens of denominations of Western Christianity in India.

So far the Western world has taken it more or less for granted that its own religious traditions, woven over more than a thousand years into its social and cultural fabric, would take care of its spiritual needs. No longer can we assume this to be the case. The present upsurge of new and mostly Indian religious movements has alarmed many people who consider it out of tune with traditional Western religion as well as with the scientific and rational temper of the contemporary West.

Almost sixty years ago Heinrich Zimmer, a respected scholar of Indian philosophy, art and religion, wrote:

We of the Occident are about to arrive at a crossroads that was reached by the thinkers of India some seven hundred years before Christ. This is the real reason why we become both vexed and stimulated, uneasy, yet interested when confronted with the concepts and images of Oriental wisdom. This crossing is one to which the people of all civilizations come in the typical course of the development of their capacity and requirement for religious experience, and India’s teachings force us to realize what its problems are. But we cannot take over the Indian solutions. We must enter the new period our own way and solve its questions for ourselves, because though truth, the radiance of reality, is universally one and the same, it is mirrored variously according to the mediums in which it is reflected. Truth appears differently in different lands and ages according to the living materials out of which its symbols are hewn.

BEGINNINGS OF MODERNITY IN INDIA

The modern West’s contact with India began with Vasco da Gama’s historic voyage around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498. Several European powers – besides the Portuguese there were the Dutch, the Danes, the English and the French – expressed their interest in India by establishing first “factories” (trading posts) and then colonies. Together with the merchants and the soldiers came the Christian missionaries. To their great surprise they discovered a large group of indigenous Christians, whom they promptly wanted to convert to their own variety of Christianity, since these had no knowledge of the Pope’s authority. While the attitude of many of the early missionaries was hostile and negative towards Hinduism, some seventeenth- and eighteenth-century works provided much useful information also about India’s religions.
²

Scholars who developed an interest in Indian religions were initially severely handicapped by the Brahmins’ reluctance to teach Sanskrit and to divulge the contents of their holy books. Far from being interested in contacts with the West, Hinduism by that time had become inward-looking, defensive and secretive. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), whose enthusiastic praises of the Upaniṣads are frequently cited even now, had to rely on a Latin translation made from the Moghul Prince Dara Shukoh’s Persian version of the original Sanskrit text. The situation improved dramatically with the encouragement given by the British East India Company to scholars to provide information about Hindu laws and customs. The first work so commissioned, a Sanskrit digest of Hindu law compiled by Hindu pandits under the title
Vivāda-varṇava-setu
had first to be translated into Persian (the “official language” of the court) before an Englishman could translate it into English. It was published in 1776 under the title
A Code of Gentoo Law
. Already by 1785 Charles Wilkins had acquired sufficient knowledge of Sanskrit to produce the first English translation of the
Bhagavadgītā
, which was eagerly received by the educated Europeans. Less than ten years later, Sir William Jones, the founder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, published a translation of the
Manusmṛti
. His successor Thomas Colebrook provided the first reliable modern account of the Veda in his paper “On the Vedas or Sacred Writings of the Hindoos.”

Soon chairs of Sanskrit and Indian studies were established at the major universities of Europe. Although the Boden Professorship in Oxford was founded in order “to promote the translation of the Scriptures into Sanskrit, so as to enable [our] countrymen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian religion,”
³
the real effects of such studies were a dissemination of genuine knowledge about India, especially its literature, philosophies and religions, on the basis of a study of original materials.

Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1903), to single out one of these early scholars, earned fame among Hindus through his monumental edition of the
Ṛgveda with Sāyanas Commentary.
⁴
Hindus called him
mokṣa mūla
(“root of salvation”). A number of Max Müller Bhavans, German cultural centers, keep his memory alive today in India. Since his time a great number of Westerners have taken up the study of Indian religions seriously, contributing to textual and thematic researches and making it accessible to large numbers of people.

HINDU REACTIONS TO CHRISTIAN MISSIONS

While the Moghul Empire was crumbling and was unable to withstand the inroads made by diverse European colonial powers, individual Indians were quite capable of resisting the efforts to Westernize and Christianize their homeland. Contact with Western ideas and institutions initiated the “Hindu Renaissance”: a restoration and reinterpretation of Indian tradition against the background of the predominant Western culture. Some traditional Hindus wrote defensive and apologetic tracts (in Sanskrit) against the foreign culture and religion.
⁵
But there also arose men and women who realized that India had to change if it was to survive in the new age and that it had to recapture its own identity if it was not to lose its own soul.

The early reformers risked a great deal: they had to break the Hindu rules which forbade contact with the
mlecchas
, the impure foreigners, they had to critically analyze their own tradition instead of simply submitting to the decision of their pandits, they had to give up much of what was thought a sacred and inviolable order of life.

One of the first and one of the best known of these early Hindu reformers may serve as an example. Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833), called the Father of Modern India, born into an orthodox Hindu family, but also conversant with Arabic and Persian, was one of the first brahmins to enter the service of the East India Company and to study English. After 1814 he devoted himself fully to religious propaganda and reform. He wished to purify Hinduism by leading it back to its Upaniṣadic sources. He sought connection with the English Baptist missionaries, who had opened a college at Serampore (Śrīrāmpur) – then a Danish possession – not far from Calcutta. He studied Greek and Hebrew in order to translate the Bible into Bengali. The publication of a little book
The Precepts of Jesus: The Guide to Peace and Happiness
estranged him both from his Hindu friends and the foreign missionaries. The former accused him of canvassing for Christianity, the latter objected to his “Hinduising of Christianity.” In the course of quite bitter polemics Ram Mohan Roy accused the missionaries of having misunderstood and misinterpreted the words of Jesus, a charge that has been leveled by Hindus against Western Christianity ever since.

Ram Mohan Roy won a triumph in his battle against the practice of
satī
, the more or less voluntary burning of widows together with their deceased husbands. As a boy he had witnessed the forced
satī
of a much-liked sister-in-law which had stirred him so profoundly that he vowed to devote his life to the abolition of this cruel custom, tolerated by the British administration as part of their policy of non-interference with local religious customs. Ram Mohan Roy succeeded in convincing the government that
satī
did not form part of the original and pure Hindu dharma. In pursuit of this cause he broke the rule which forbade Hindus to “cross the black waters” and went to England to defend his stance.

After several unsuccessful attempts to organize a group of people to begin a new religious movement he founded the Brahmo Samāj, combining Hindu metaphysics with Christian ethics. Ram Mohan Roy kept his sacred thread and intended to remain a Hindu; Hindu orthodoxy however excommunicated him. He also became instrumental in establishing English schools in Calcutta, emphasizing the value of modern, scientific education. Many Europeans in his day thought that the Brahmo Samāj would become the future religion of India.