Hinduism as a Missionary Religion

Chapter VI: Hinduism as a Missionary Religion: The Evidence from Modern India

Chapter VI Hinduism as a Missionary Religion The Evidence from Modern India I One of the early representative figures of modern Hinduism is Raja Rammohun Roy (1772/74–1833). He is actually called a missionary by Richard Church, when Church writes that “Rabindranath Tagore carried on the great work begun 150 years ago by Rammohun Roy, your first missionary to England.”1 Although the sense of the word here is obviously much more refined, and different from the usual one, it does serve to indicate that some sense of missionary zeal has to be associated with the work carried on by Rammohun Roy, although it was primarily directed toward reforming Hinduism2 itself, rather than toward converting other people to it. As U.N. Ball has pointed out: “He felt the call within and would not deviate from his course in spite of the threats and frowns of others. He never despaired of his mission for want of support of others.”3 In this sense too, he was a missionary—also in the sense that he took the prime purpose of missionary activity to be moral rather than theological. This attitude he shared with his American Unitarian friends. As Rev. Robert Loring has remarked: The American liberals then, as now, did not share the orthodox zeal for missions, because they did not share the belief that the heathen needed a theological type of salvation . . . They entirely agreed with Rammohun Roy when he spoke of ‘common-sense in religion,’ of ‘practical’ religion, and when he explained that he omitted certain doctrines of Christianity in his selection of verses form the Gospels, ‘first, that they are subjects of disputes and contentions; 111 112 Hinduism as a Missionary Religion secondly, that they are not essential to religion.’ Neither Rammohun Roy nor the American Unitarians denied the value of speculation, of philosophy, or argument in religion , but both wished to transfer the emphasis in religion from theological salvation, to moral salvation, from church creeds to personal character, from speculative knowledge to ethical and social inspiration.4 But what about Rammohun Roy as a missionary of Hinduism? Several points need to be noted here. First, inasmuch as it is not the goal of Hinduism to convert people necessarily to itself but to a more liberal and tolerant approach to religious pluralism in general, clearly Rammohun Roy was a missionary in this sense.5 That he did indeed regard such tolerance as a vital element of Hinduism is clear from what he wrote in 1821: “It is well-known to the whole world, that no people on earth are more tolerant than the Hindoos, who believe all men to be equally within the reach of Divine beneficence, which embraces the good of every religious sect and denomination.”6 Second, that he did conceptually concede the possibility of formal conversion to Hinduism is clear from the speech he gave when Rev. Alexander Duff opened a school for imparting Western education in 1830. In relation to the fear that familiarity with the Bible may result in conversion to Christianity, he remarked: “Christians like Dr. H.H. Wilson have studied the Hindu sastras and you know that he has not become a Hindu.”7 Third, that he may have actually done something in the direction could perhaps be inferred from an interesting fact mentioned by Sir Brajendra Nath Seal—that he had adopted a Mohammadan child and called him Rajaram!8 It must, however, finally be noted, that already in Roy, one finds a clear anticipation of the standard neo-Hindu position that real conversion is vertical and not horizontal—that it consists in a Hindu becoming a better Hindu and a Christian a better Christian rather than in a Hindu becoming a Christian or vice versa.9 Thus Roy wrote in the introduction to the Kena Upanisad: I have often lamented that in our general researches into theological truth we are subjected to the conflict of many obstacles. When we look to the traditions of ancient nations, we often find them at variance with each other; and when, discouraged by this circumstance, we appeal to reason as a surer guide, we soon find how incompetent it is alone to conduct us to the object of our pursuit. We often find that, 113 The Evidence from Modern India instead of facilitating our endeavours or clearing up our perplexities, it only serves to generate a universal...