Book Title: Unknown Life of Jesus Christ New Edition 2009 Publication
Author(s): Nicholas Notovitch, Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation
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The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ
may as well say-that Chicago is a city existing only in the imagination of the Americans, or the inhabitant of the Fiji islands may say he does not find Palestine on his own list of Christian holy places. We can excuse these persons for their ignorance, but not a Doctor of Divinity like Rev. Dr. Hale.
M. Notovitch, having in his journey broken his leg, was obliged to stay for a short time at the monastery of Himis, where he received medical aid. This hospitality of the Buddhist monks is interpreted in a half sneering, half sarcastic way by Dr. Hale, thus: "It was as if a Buddhist delegate to the Parliament of Religions had been wounded in watching a Princeton foot-bail match and Dr. McCosh had received him to his hospitality. What more natural than that Dr. McCosh should give his guest a New Testament?” To a person educated to think that he is insulted if a stranger happens to talk familiarly with him, without an introduction, Oriental hospitality may seem an improbability; but. Despite the gratuitous assumptions of Western scholars who have never visited India, that hospitality is still there. It is in the hundreds of Dharmashalas (inns) erected by the Jains of India at most of their important towns, in which travelers can rest for a time free of charge, and at several places even meals can be had on the same terms. H is found, in the words of Sir William Hunter," hi that gentleness and charity to all men, which take's the place of a poor law in India and gives a high significance to the half satirical epithet of the mild' Hindu."
I shall not dwell on other points misrepresented in Dr Male's article, dismissing them simply with the remark that it has been a sad fatality that Orientals and their religions, manners and customs have always been misconstrued by people who have no right to speak thereon without making a thorough study of them.
India has been the dreamland of many scholars. Students, philosophers and antiquarians, see visions of India. More than a
