________________
xvi
INTRODUCTION
and himself became a staunch devotee of God Visņu1 in supersession of that Deity. This aroused adverse criticism among his acquaintances, some of whom went so far as to forecast that N would convert himself into a Christian some day!
The Christian Mission of Great Britain was allowed to land on the soil of British India only about the first decade of the nineteenth century. But since then within a very short period it spread the network of its multifarious activities throughout the country. The authorities of the East India Company that had gradually swallowed the various parts of India one after another by 1818 were now finding it hard to digest them calmly on account of their religious, social, linguistic and other sorts of foreignism to the country, mutual differences in all these respects prevailing among people of different provinces and obstinacy of members of government service, especially of military service, drawn from the two major communities against obeying new laws and orders violating their age-long religious customs and practices. The Company therefore decided to put an end to the nationalistic individuality of the Indian people and generate among them attachment to Britain and the British by adopting all possible measures, many of which were incompatible with the Company's previous policy of non-intervention in religious and social affairs of the subjects. Thus, in supersession of all the Indian
Company Government and Christian Mission
1. Cf I. 1, 3, VIa. 136ff., VIb. 165, etc., which bear testimony to N's close attachment to Vinu or Krena.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
