“Theology is the distinctive contribution and concern of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Christianity it has been taken to such stratospheric heights that for an outsider at least it is hard to see what it is that keeps it afloat. In the currently fashionable interfaith dialogues, Christian scholars often begin by telling Hindus that theology is to Christianity what Vedanta is to Hinduism. Nothing could be further from the truth though gullible Hindu intellectuals are easily flattered by the comparison.” — Dr. N.S. Rajaram
R.S. Sugirtharajah is a Sri Lankan Christian scholar who until recently was professor of Biblical Hermeneutics at the University of Birmingham in England. This probably makes him a hermeneutician—something like a beautician perhaps or better still a politician. For those unused to hair-splitting exercises of Biblical hermeneutics, exegeses and exegetes, it is easier to think of him as a theologian engaged in analysing interpretations of the Bible with reference to history and philosophy.
Theology is the distinctive contribution and concern of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Christianity it has been taken to such stratospheric heights that for an outsider at least it is hard to see what it is that keeps it afloat. In the currently fashionable interfaith dialogues, Christian scholars often begin by telling Hindus that theology is to Christianity what Vedanta is to Hinduism. Nothing could be further from the truth though gullible Hindu intellectuals are easily flattered by the comparison.
Vedanta is an open-ended exploration of the meaning of the universe and our existence that acknowledges only the universal truth contained in the Vedas. Theology on the other hand is a closed system which is bounded by the text of the Bible and the dogmas of Christianity. All the resources of logic and sophistry are used to justify Christianity as the only truth. One challenges theology at one’s peril as Galileo and Giordano Bruno found out. The freedom of Vedanta often brings it close to metaphysics which explains why great physicists like Opperheimer, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, David Bohm and others were drawn to it. Theology may be hermeneutics, but it certainly has no metaphysics.
This background is necessary to understand what the author is trying to achieve in his sad little book. As he correctly points out Christianity is Asiatic in origin, more specifically West Asian, but “its influence in Europe and the Americas has received far more attention than its complex career in the East.” Even in India it has a longer history than in Europe beginning in the fourth century or later with the arrival of the merchant Thomas of Cana— not the mythical St. Thomas who supposedly came to Kerala in 58 AD when neither Christianity nor the Christian Bible existed. Fortunately the author is a serious scholar and does not peddle this nonsense.
Add to this the fact, which the author does not stress, the decline of Christianity in the West amounting almost to a collapse in Europe, forcing the churches to recruit Asians to fill its emptying seminaries, churches and hospitals. These could not exist without massive infusion from countries like India and the Philippines. For all practical purposes Christianity today is a third world religion. The Catholic Church at least has recognized this in electing the Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the latest Pope.
For all this Christian institutions have failed to treat Asian theologians as equals. They may be useful and even indispensable but as the author points out they are repeatedly told “only the West matters,” meaning they should toe the line set by their Western masters. By ‘Western’ they don’t mean African-American, Hispanic or anyone else but white European and American. This is racism in all but name though they dare not display such attitudes towards outsiders—to individuals and groups outside Christianity. In interfaith dialogues they make a great show of the ‘equality’ of the churches.
This is a carry-over from colonial days during which Asian and African converts and missionaries wholeheartedly cooperated with the ruling Christian powers. They are being repaid for this loyalty with contempt and ingratitude. As the author observes, in pre-colonial days the Bible was receptive to Asian sources like the Upanishads and the Lao Tzu, but European colonization of Asia and Africa changed all that:
“With the emergence of modern colonialism the Bible was introduced as an artifact of modernity in the form of the King James Bible, the ‘national Bible’ of the English people. In this incarnation, the Bible became a very European book, lost all its oriental traits, and became less Asiatic. … The imported ‘white man’s book’ was seen as a strange instrument, an entrapment to lure them away from their own traditions.” As a result, an Asian reading of the Bible is always a contrived one and not as natural as a Hindu reading of the Bhagavad Gita or a Buddhist reading of the Dhammapada.”
As a result, all that Asian servants of Christianity have earned for their decades of loyalty is life in a limbo with no independent identity except as courtiers and camp followers in an essentially colonial, even racist institution in the post-colonial world. It is to these lost souls that Bible and Asia is addressed. And this is what makes it particularly sad reading.
The author’s advice to his fellow Asian theologians is to reclaim Christianity for Asians by going back to its Hindu and Buddhist sources. Curiously he makes no mention of Gnostic sources that had at least as great an influence on the growth of Christianity as Hindu and Buddhist thought. Perhaps as an Asiatic the author finds Gnosticism to be alien while finding Hindu and Buddhist thought more congenial. Perhaps he believes other Asian Christians will share the same feeling.
How sound is his advice to claim Christianity as their own by invoking their ancestral Asian sources? Here is a pointer. For at least a century, Western Indologists have been telling Indians, Hindus in particular how to read and interpret their history and tradition by creating interpretations based on the Aryan invasion bringing Vedic ideas from Europe. When Hindu scholars contested this by pointing out contradictions from the Sarasvati River to the Harappan archaeology, Western scholars fought a fierce academic and propaganda battle until they could no longer sustain them against mounting evidence.
Will such people yield control of their Bible to Asians? Based on personal experience with scholars like Michael Witzel of Harvard it is a pipe dream. When logic and evidence failed they resorted to personal attacks. Theologians will be no better, perhaps worse.
Here is a more practical option. Instead of using Hindu and Buddhist scripture to gain control of Biblical theology, make the Gita, the Upanishads and the Dhammapada your own. There will be no opposition for they belong to everyone. Who in this day and age needs theology and dogma anyway? Why be satisfied as someone else’s courtiers and camp followers when you have the matchless philosophic treasures of your own—which you gave up in return for small gains and false promises? Why beg when you can be the owners of the richest philosophical treasures the world has ever known?
» Dr. N.S. Rajaram is a scientist, historian and contributing editor to Folks Magazine.
Filed under: india | Tagged: asia, asian theologians, bhagavad gita, bible, biblical hermeneutics, buddhism, buddhist scriptures, christian theology, christianity, christianity and colonialism, church, dogma, gnosticism, hermeneutics, hindu, hindu scriptures, india, philosophy, psychological warfare, r.s. sugirtharajah, religion, roman catholic church, theology |
BHARATA BHARATI 
There is a lot more. Much more. But Hindus posting in Internet forums should be familiar with the contents of sources such as these. Read every word.
The Buddhist Influence in Christian Origins
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/buddha.html
http://jesusisbuddha.com/thundy.html
http://www.jesusisbuddha.com/
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Parallel Teachings in
Hinduism and Christianity
Click to access ParallelTeachings.pdf
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Hare Jesus: Christianity’s Hindu Heritage
http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/3hare94.html
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Hindu Asceticism
Click to access Hindu_Asceticism.pdf
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Parallels between Buddha and Jesus
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THE POPE IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE BUDDHA
http://jesusisbuddha.com/pope.html
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Tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and Wisdom Spanning Continents and Time About India and Her Culture by Sushama Londhe
http://bookos.org/book/963824/2476f0
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The Bible in India
Hindoo origin of Hebrew and Christian revelation
Translated from La Bible dans l’Inde, by Louis Jacolliot.
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7066708M/The_Bible_in_India
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Foreign-returned Indians are like circus dogs who have learned to walk on their hind legs. They come back to Bharat and want us to walk the same way!
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Dr. Rajaram writes good history and science articles and these are to be appreciated. But when it comes to Hindu religion, he falls down and his lack of understanding becomes glaringly evident. We have had a run-in before when he disparaged Hindu rituals. He knows nothing at all about Hindu rituals and the science behind them, and declares them a waste of time and precious goods. If he had ever spent a day within a yagna mantap, he would be all praise for the performance and its dedicated priests even if he did not know what they were doing and what caused his subtle change of mind.
Dr. Rajaram apparently thinks Hindu philosophy is a kind of free-for-all intellectual bazar where one can pick and choose what one wants and apply it as one likes anywhere, without guidance, commitment or discipline. He would like to apply the principles of Advaita Vedanta to one of his pet projects, hoping in the process to net the Templeton Foundation prize for clever scientific theories that answer the Big Questions (theories that are used by the Templeton Foundation authorities to validate the Christian superstition, the Templeton Foundation being a leading financier of Protestant missionaries around the world). It won’t work. Advaita Vedanta cannot be twisted and turned to his profane desires so easily. Nevertheless, Dr. Rajaram is a man to be watched—for more reasons than one.
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Swamiji
The problem is people like Rajaram suffers from the ignorance that their knowing some English, studying some modern science and staying a few years in America make them competent to pass comments on the vast, complex and subtle Darshan of Vedanta. The only way how one can fathom the depths of Vedanta Darshan is by sitting at the feet of a true master who has realized the meaning and import of the Vedanta Darshan in a traditional manner. But the kind of arrogance (emanating from modern English education) that people like Rajaram suffer it is just impossible that they can ever surrender themselves before such masters and without that no one can understand the science of Hindu philosophy.
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Read these sources. There are too many others like them.
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/
http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
http://www.evilbible.com/
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Dr. Rajaram, why did you review this book at all? By doing so you are helping Asian priests get their message of alleged persecution by the White Church across.
It appears that you have made a u-turn after reading my comment below (though it made you angry and abusive and you rejected the points I made).
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Thank you. I regard any comparison of Christianity with its dogma and the straight jacket of theology and Vedic-Vedantic thought as degrading and having ulterior motives. I therefore refuse even to consider the two on the same plane.
The Sri Lankan theologian in question wants to use Hindu and Buddhist thought to help fellow Christian theologians. I see no reason to help them. If they want to come back to their ancient traditions by discarding Christianity then I may consider help. Not to get a better deal from their white Christian masters.
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I had some comments on your article. It is about a point I feel you may have missed. When Christian scholars compare the Theology with the Vedanta, there is much more a fundamental mistake. The Vedanta as you would be knowing constitutes the “Antha” of most vedas, which are the Upanishads themselves. So as per traditional vedic adhyayana they form a proper part of the Veda shaaka and are considered “Apaurusheya”(A point on which you may not agree. But nonetheless that is how the entire Veda has been preserved in the “Karna parampara”). The Hermeneutics you mention can be equated to the Purva mimaamsa sutra of Jaimini which is paurusheya, where similar methods like the above mentioned name exists. The PM sutras are very rigorous and scientific and are used to arrive the meanings of the vedic text. Sayana in his Vedic Bhaasya uses the above approach. So theology is nothing new to ancient Bharat and also it is much more palatable to scientific minds of the present day than theology. Also there is the Nyaya and the Tharka shaastra, which i feel are more rigorously scientific than Hermeneutics.
The Brahma sutras which constitutes the “Uttara mimamsa” or “Enquiry” into Vedanta are also very scientific and are based on the principles of Tharka (Purva paksha, siddhanta etc) and to some extent the PM sutras.
The point is these scholars are comparing the proper Upanishadic scriptures (Apaurusheya) to the man made “Theology”. If you could bring these points up in an article or could send these points to the above said Sri Lankan scholar, it would be great.
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If Jesus was born in Asia, why most Europeans are christians but not asians.
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Yes as usual IS is spot on and there is hardly anything in even first century christianity to resemble hinduism. Christianity is nothing but a judaic fanatic sect stealing some of nice stories from egyptian, iranian and greek communities with buddhist element a fringe thing.
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IS, you are right spot on Advaita Vedanta. Advaita is not easy to explain. Just hijacking this pure Advaita metaphysics into Semitic coffee is like adulterating Advaita.
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The fact that Jesus was an Asian Jew and that Christianity had its birth in Palestine, a West Asian country, is a geographical technicality of no historical consequence whatsoever.
Inculturation theologians and missionaries—is Sugirtharajah one of them?—use this geographical fact to soften up their Asian targets for conversion and make Jesus more palatable to them.
Apostle Paul had begun to Romanise Christianity—i.e. to westernise it; it was his conflict with James in Jerusalem who wanted to keep the Jewish character of Christianity—by the 30s CE. He had travelled to Greece and Rome, and intended to visit Iberia and perhaps Gaul—where Christianity had gone before him—by the 40s CE to encourage the Christian communities there. So Christianity was already an established western religion within 40 years of the death of Jesus.
So it is misleading to say, “Even in India it [Christianity] has a longer history than in Europe …” This is what Indian politicians say when they are soft-soaping Kerala Christians, looking for votes. Christianity was well established in Europe long before it reached India in the 4th century (even if the St. Thomas tale is true and he arrived in India in 52 CE, Europe had already experienced the arrival of Christianity in the 40s, maybe even 30s CE, i.e. a decade or more earlier). Ancient Tamil records which are quite detailed, have no mention of Christianity at all. It is like it never existed in South Indian until the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century.
It is also misleading to claim that Christianity has Hindu and Buddhist “sources”. Christian thought was influenced by Hindu and Buddhist thought in Alexandria in the first two centuries, not “sourced” from Hinduism and Buddhism as stated above. The extent of this influence is a matter of debate. Misguided Hindu chauvinists who accept the Jesus-in-India tale regard Christianity as a kind of Hindu sect like Buddhism. They believe that all religions that have existed have a Hindu source. In fact Christianity was more influenced by Gnosticism, Mithraism and Greek philosophy than anything Hindu.
Emperor Constantine had new, edited editions of the Bible produced a couple of years after the First Council of Nicaea (325 CE). It was a full-blown western Bible and is essentially the same one used by Christians of all denominations till today.
In 2008 the Mumbai Cardinal Oswald Gracias released a New Indian Community Bible which contained numerous quotations from the Vedas, Upanishads, and Puranas. It drew a lot of criticism from Hindus and traditional Christians. The Shankaracharya of Kanchi Jayendra Saraswati strongly disapproved of it and demanded its withdrawal. It was hidden from view for some time and Cardinal Gracias denied knowledge of it—a blatant lie from a personal advisor to the Pope!—but it is being sold in India and exported and promoted in Australia, targeting the Hindu diaspora there.
The whole effort to Indianise Christianity is an inculturation and conversion tactic that should be exposed and condemned.
If Asian theologians are being treated as second class members by the Church, then too bad for them. Having made their bed, they must now sleep in it. They are traitors to their own ancient culture and civilization and if they have any sense, they would abandon the Christian superstition and return to their Hindu roots.
Advaita Vedanta is pure metaphysics (SRG & RS would agree). It is curious that Dr. Rajaram is hesitant to identify Vedanta as metaphysics. Perhaps his western scientific bias does not allow him to see into the heart of Vedanta.
Dr Rajaram has responded to this comment with a wild personal attack on the commentator (so it is not being reproduced here). He feels free to comment and disparage the views of others on the subject of Hindu religion, but he is not able to accept even the mildest questioning of his own view of Advaita Vedanta here.
In fact Dr. Rajaram’s review is factually wrong in some places and, overall, too sympathetic to the Christian position. It does not serve the Hindu interest. It had to be countered, but, unfortunately, the countering has driven Rajaram into a rage against the commentator. His personal abuse is unacceptable coming as it does from an arrogant American besserwisser of his ilk.
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