________________
86
or to their country? You may think these men to be messengers of God; they may cheat with their smooth tongued words the men and women of America into subscribing largely to misson funds and thus bribe their passage to heaven. But India knows them,
The many learned missionary gentlemen who have written or who have exhausted their oratorical powers in denouncing India can only prove their claim to be an authority when they show their knowledge of the Hindu religion, and this can only be proven by their knowledge of Sanskrit. No man can know a bit of Hindu religion until he knows perfectly the Sanskrit language. When they can converse with me in this language, I shall consider their words worthy of consideration and not before. And if they cannot do this I would ask-what have they been doing so many years in India.
These missionaries pose as friends of the poor; but did they ever tell you that the average income of a Hindu is about fifty cents per month ? One half of the population of India have only one meal per day and with all this the pressure of taxation is increasing every day till the nation is almost driven to the verge of dispair.
Millons live habitually upon wild flowers. The year in which Queen Victoria was proclaimed the Empress of Iudia and whilst the government was
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org