Jaina Philosophy

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation

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Have Christian Missions to India Been Successful ? O
how much ignorance prevails in Christendom. I grant that such wrong impressions about India are caused solely by the missionaries who are noted, if not for anything else, at least for ignorance and lack of discrimination.
In the first place, the men sent out to India on missionary duty are, as a European who has mixed with them says, “ usually utterly ignorant of the history of India except perhaps its most recent phases and what is still more, they know nothing of (even if capable of understanding) the Hindu religion and philosophy. The result is, that with a narrow dogmatic creed and an inability to see any good outside of it, they render themselves offensive and contemptible in the eyes of educated natives." Since coming to this country, I have been studying your educational, industrial and religious institutions and have endeavoured to know how the missionaries and clergymen are made here; and when I take into consideration the ways in which they are manufactured, I sometimes think the Missionaries ought not to be censured so severely on account of the odious doctrines they propagate.
I concede that some of them are frequently large-hearted and pious, but as a rule, they are narrow-minded and ignorant and are so devoid of spirituality that they are unable to recognize spiritual ideas or truths under other names or forms than those they have learned in their schools and colleges. I admit that the missionaries are generally affectionate husbands and good parents of frequently large families, and had they remained at home uncontaminated by the elastic business-morality, they would have turned out good tradesmen or faithful clerks; but we know that in this age of competition and under a system of centralization of wealth and creation of monopolies, many persons are forced from their natural spheres into the Church, open to them, and when there is a keen competition in the clerical ranks, an outlet must be found for the surplus; it becomes therefore, requisite to create a market for them in foreign countries.
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