Missionaries set the trend

          As we just saw, European travelers had been visiting India before Vasco da Gama's arrival in India. These were mainly traders and diplomats, sometimes both. At least one of them, the Russian trader Afanasy (or Athanasius) Nikitin, who was in India from 1466 to 1472 has left an account of his travels. This was before the Portuguese and before Babar and the Moguls. Nikitin, like others before and after him was weak and vulnerable and in no position to assert his ‘superiority' over the natives, even if he felt it. Elihu Yale (1649 - 1721), East India Company's Governor of Madras, later to have a famous university in America named after him, had to beg Emperor Aurangazeb for protection while acknowledging him as the sovereign.

          This means we must be careful not to project prejudices and notions of the colonial period to earlier times. It was only with the coming of colonialism, which combined Christian conversion with trade and colonization that we begin to see the sense of European superiority dominate the discourse between India and the West. Even here, it was religious dogma more than race that was the source of this notion of superiority. In this there was the pretence that conversion, even when forced was for the benefit of the heathens. The idea was later borrowed by colonial governments also and became known as the White Man's Burden.

          The change in relationship between India and the West, from one of equality to presumptive superiority can be attributed in part to the decline of the two major powers in India, the Moguls in the north and Vijayanagar in the south, accompanied by aggressive conversion activities of the churches that enjoyed the support of European powers. For more than two hundred years, this cooperation between the churches and the ruling powers was to define the pattern in Indology. Churches continue to enjoy privileged positions in former colonies.⁴

          An interesting development during this period was the Indianization affected by some missionaries who presented their scripture as the fulfillment of Indian spiritual tradition. One of the more interesting specimens of this breed was Roberto de Nobili (1577 - 1656), a Tuscan Jesuit missionary to Southern India. He pioneered new methods of evangelism (indigenization or inculturation), adopting many Hindu customs like saffron robes and vegetarianism in order to present Christianity as a long lost purer form of Hinduism. When he arrived in Madurai in South India, he observed that the Sadhus (Hindu monks) are respected in the society, which made him assume their dress and mores.

Last update : 03-10-2009 15:59

Keywords : Rise and Fall of Indology - II, NS Rajaram

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