Ram Mohan Roy’s successor Debendranath Tagore (father of the more famous Nobel Prize Winner for Literature [1913] Rabindranath Tagore) founded a school for Brahmo missionaries with the explicit purpose of checking the spread of Christian missions. He openly broke with orthodox Hinduism by declaring the Vedas as neither free from error nor inspired.
While the Brahmo Samāj did not become a Hindu religious movement in the West, it prepared the way for such movements: it gave rise to a new Hindu self-confidence, it modernized Hinduism and it established the opinion that Hindu philosophical religion was superior to that of the West – that Hindus could indeed interpret the true meaning of the Bible for the West.
A more radical parallel Hindu reform movement, the
Ārya Samāj,
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founded by Swāmi Dayananda Saraswatī (1824–83) went one step further: it not only resented and resisted Christian missionary activities in Hindu-India, it introduced a
śuddhi-(purification)
ceremony whereby Christians and Muslims who had Hindu ancestry could become Hindus again, and it sent missionaries abroad. The appeal of this Vedic fundamentalism was not large in India; less so in the West. But the dam had been breached. Hinduism, for centuries a non-proselytizing religion, began to proselytize again. Dayananda Saraswatī, who was convinced that the Veda was the source of the original and only true
Sanātana dharma
for the whole of mankind, believed he had a worldwide mission.
After his death the movement split into a more conservative and a more progressive wing. The former established a Sanskrit-based traditional
gurukula
system, whose flagship, in Kangri near Rishikesh, has recently been given University status by the Indian Government. The progressives wanted a blend of traditional Vedic, modern English, and scientific education. They established the first “Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College” at Lahore in 1886. The model proved so successful that today there are about 500 D.A.V. colleges and schools in India and some other countries. They have dedicated teachers who consider it their mission to instill in their students not only secular knowledge but also love and respect for the Vedic tradition. The Ārya Samāj also runs the Vishveshvaranda Vedic Research Institute in Hoshiarpur (Panjab), which claims to be the largest of its kind. The Ārya Samāj, according to its own sources, today has over 10 million members worldwide.
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The best known of all the Hindu reform movements is the Rāmakrishna Mission, founded by Swāmi Vivekananda (1863–1902), favorite disciple of Paramahamsa Rāmakrishna (1836–1886). Sent as Hindu delegate to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, Swāmi Vivekananda became a sensation in the West. He was invited to tour America and Europe to lecture on Hinduism. His Vedānta Ashrams are still centers of Hindu culture and religion, arranging lecture series and distributing Hindu literature. Swāmi Vivekananda inspired Hindu-India with immense pride and a sense of mission. He articulated the rationale for the new Hindu Religious Movements in the West in the following manner: “We Hindus have now been placed, under God’s providence, in a very critical and responsible position. The nations of the West are coming to us for spiritual help. A great moral obligation rests on the sons of India to fully equip themselves for the work of enlightening the world on the problems of human existence.”
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And: “Once more the world must be conquered by India. This is the dream of my life. I am anxiously waiting for the day when mighty minds will arise, gigantic spiritual minds who will be ready to go forth from India to the ends of the world to teach spirituality and renunciation, those ideas which come from the forests of India and belong to Indian soil only. Up India, and conquer the world with your spirituality ... Ours is a religion of which Buddhism, with all its greatness, is a rebel child and of which Christianity is a very patchy imitation.”
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The Ramakrishna Mission, as is well known, not only promotes a non-sectarian (Neo-) Hinduism but also a kind of religious universalism. Ramakrishna is the source of the widely accepted “all-religions-are-the-same” theory. Accordingly, the Ramakrishna Mission does not only spread Hinduism in the West but also invites representatives of other religions to its temples and centers in India to speak about their own traditions.
HINDUISM AFTER INDEPENDENCE
As the movement for India’s independence from British colonial rule accelerated after the Second World War, it became clear that the tensions between Hindus and Muslims were so strong that the country had to face a division along the lines of religious affiliation. Eventually both British and Indian politicians agreed to create two successor nations to the British Indian Empire.
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While Pakistan chose to become an Islamic theocracy, the Republic of India (Bhārat) decided to give itself a constitution as a secular democracy. Not all Hindus were happy about that and many continued agitating for a Hindu Rāṣṭra, a state based on traditional Hindu principles, as well as a reunification of the two Indian nations.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister, came from a nominally Hindu background but repudiated all religious affiliations. His ideal was Democratic Socialism after the European fashion. Nevertheless, the majority of the population of the Republic of India were Hindus and Hinduism began to reassert itself in many ways. Hindu nationalist parties like the Jana Sangh, the Hindu Mahāsabhā and the Ram Rajya Parisad, as well as Hindu activist associations like the Rāstrīya Svayamsevak Sangh and later the Viśva Hindū Parisad, became more and more articulate and visible in public life.
Even the “secularists” in government had always insisted that “secularism” in India did not mean hostility or even indifference toward religion, but equal respect for, and recognition of, all religions. In spite of this, the history of the past fifty years of independent India has been marred by numerous violent conflicts between Hindus and Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, Hindus and Christians. And today a militant Hindu minority is pushing towards the creation of a Hindu state to confront the neighboring Muslim state.
The moderate majority of Hindus follows traditional Hindu principles of tolerance, non-violence, and cultivation of genuine religiosity. The great model for this kind of Hinduism had been Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of Independent India, himself a victim of Hindu fanatism. One can justly count Mahatma Gandhi among the great Hindu reformers whose work had considerable impact on the West. Gandhi never left any doubt about his Hindu identity. Thus he declared early on in his Indian career:
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I call myself a
sanatani
Hindu because
I believe in the Vedas, the Upaniṣads, the Purāṇas, and all that goes by the name of Hindu scriptures, and therefore in
avatārs
and rebirth.
I believe in the
varṇāśrama dharma
in a sense, in my opinion, strictly Vedic, but not in its present popular and crude sense.
I believe in the protection of the cow in its much larger sense than the popular.
I do not disbelieve in idol worship.
He qualified and explained all these points in a lengthy article which began as follows:
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“I have purposely refrained from using the word ‘divine origin’ in reference to the Vedas or any other scriptures. For I do not believe in the exclusive divinity in the Vedas. I believe the Bible, the Koran and the Zend Avesta to be as much divinely inspired as the Vedas. My belief in the Hindu scriptures does not require me to accept every word and every verse as divinely inspired ... I do most emphatically repudiate the claim (if they advance any such) of the present Shankaracaryas and Shastris to give a correct interpretation of the Hindu scriptures.”
Gandhi’s
satyāgraha
has inspired many people outside India.
Sarvodaya
movements have formed after his death in a number of countries. One can hardly call them Hindu religious movements any more, although they do take their inspiration from Gandhi and his understanding of Hinduism.
The great Hindu writers and philosophers of our time – Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo Ghose, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan – have spread an appreciation of the Hindu view of life among thousands of educated Westerners. While of these three only Aurobindo can be associated with a specific movement in the West which bears his name, the writings of the others have not failed to make a major impact especially on the religious scene in the West. It was Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan who pleaded first for a “dialogue of religions” to replace the unedifying competition and mutual denigration between the major religions. While some of his views may be closer to liberal Christianity than to orthodox Hinduism, he projected an image of Hinduism which not only Westerners but also modern Hindus found attractive and appealing.
A brief extract from his autobiographical sketch gives us an insight into the making of this eloquent modern missionary of a universalized Hmduism:
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At an impressionable period of my life I became familiar not only with the teachings of the New Testament, but with the criticisms levelled by Christian missionaries on Hindu beliefs and practices. My pride as a Hindu, roused by the enterprise and eloquence of Swāmi Vivekananda, was deeply hurt by the treatment accorded to Hinduism in missionary institutions. The challenge of Christian critics impelled me to make a study of Hinduism and find out what is living and what is dead in it. I prepared a thesis on the ethics of Vedānta. That little essay indicates the general trend of my thought. Religion must establish itself as a rational way of living. If ever the spirit is to be at home in this world and not merely a prisoner or a fugitive, secular foundations must be laid deeply and preserved worthily. Religion must express itself in reasonable thought, fruitful actions and right social institutions.
HINDU TEACHERS GOING WEST
In the last few decades the number of Hindu religious movements either imported from India to the West or initiated in the West has proliferated to such a degree that it is impossible to give a complete account or an adequate assessment of them. An Indian writer quipped that nowadays the
abhiṣeka
(ordination) of a Hindu Swāmi consists of a jet-trip to America. The movements are so diverse and of such varying significance that a global assessment is impossible. Some are extensions of Indian
saṃpradāyas
, not primarily aimed at Western audiences, others have been specifically designed for the West.
Coupled with a declared policy of non-proselytizing, mainstream Hindu movements have always maintained claims of universality. The hagiographies of several great Hindu leaders carry the title
Dig-vijaya
, conquest of the four quarters of the earth, and the heads of the five recognized Śaṅkara
maṭhas
bear the official title of
Jagadguru
, world-teacher. The word “universal” comes naturally to many Hindus who assume that their religion, the
sanātana dharma
, is by definition the universal religion of humankind. Thus also relatively obscure new movements like the
Bhārata Sevāsbram Sangha
(founded by Swami Pranavanandaji) aim toward “Universal Awakening – Universal Re-Adjustment – Universal Unification – Universal Emancipation.”
Even pointedly nationalist militant Hindu organizations like the Rāṣṭrīa Svayamsevak Sangh (R.S.S.) uphold universalist claims for Hinduism. As M. S. Golwalkar, a former leader of the R.S.S. wrote:
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“The mission of reorganizing the Hindu people on the lines of their unique national genius which the Sangh has taken up is not only a process of true national regeneration of Bhārat but also the inevitable precondition to realize the dream of world-unity and human welfare ... It is the grand world-unifying thought of Hindus alone that can supply the abiding basis for human brotherhood. This knowledge is in the safe custody of the Hindus alone. It is a divine trust, we may say, given to the charge of the Hindus by destiny ...”
A great many well-known, respected and popular representatives of Hinduism of the more charismatic type, who have their major audience in India, have also attracted Western followers, who often establish centers in their own countries, propagating the words and works of their masters.
Ramana Maharsi (1879–1950) has been among the most lasting and deepest spiritual influences coming from India in recent years. He was not educated in the traditional sense but he intuited Advaita Vedānta and became something like a Socrates among the Indian yogis. Even after his death the place where he lived is said to be somehow charged with spiritual power, emanating from him.
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Swami Sivananda (1887–1963), the founder of the Divine Life Society with headquarters at Sivanandasram in Rishikesh, began as a physician before he turned
saṃnyāsi
. His interest, however, continued to be devoted to body and soul. In Rishikesh his followers collect herbs to produce Āyurvedic medicines. Disciples from many countries live a religious life in Sivanandashram, which intends to synthesize the teachings of the great world religions.
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Guruji Maharaj – a still living hereditary
ācārya
of the Vallabhas in India – became an overnight teenage celebrity through his Divine Light Movement in the seventies.
J. Krishnamurti (1895–1990), groomed by Annie Besant of the Theosophical Society to be the
avatāra
of the twentieth century, developed into quite an independent man, denouncing his God-mother. He became known in his own right as a lecturer and writer on spiritual topics.
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He may have refused to be labeled a Hindu but his roots were clearly Hindu and he found his most attentive audience among Hindus.
Among the better-known women-saints of our time was Anandamayi Ma (1896–1983), with establishments in Benares, Vrindaban and Bombay, and abroad. Her quite considerable following considered her during her lifetime the incarnation of a deity.
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