(St Thomas) Christians and other faiths
Nehru was calling attention to the very early advent of Christianity to southern India, through the agency of St Thomas or those associated with this apostle in the first two centuries of Christianity. Christianity in Kerala was not the introduction of Western colonial mission; it came from Syria, and it has always remained independent of such missions. Its history was a remarkable example of survival without help from outside for more than a thousand years. The change came with the coming of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, when parts of this Church became part of the Roman Catholic Church. But many were allowed to keep the Syrian rite and customs. Others remained within the Syrian Orthodox traditions completely. They have survived all these centuries surrounded by Hinduism, and in some areas by Islam, by becoming a kind of high caste, and being accepted by other high Hindu castes as equals. Their relationship was one of mutual respect, with strict rules against intermarriage with those ‘lower’ than themselves. They were also clear they were not to evangelize other faiths around them. These were ways of survival, and this led to fossilizing of life and liturgy.
In the nineteenth century, some of these St Thomas Christians felt this fossilization. They felt there should be a sense of mission and theological development. They asked the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) to send missionaries to help them. The result was not what they expected. The vigour of the two missionaries sent led to a split in the Church. The Mar Thoma Church was formed, which still maintained the Syrian rite, but engaged actively in mission and evangelism to Hindus. It believed in a vigorous relationship with those around, and became a major Christian Church in terms of influence up to the present day. It holds the largest annual evangelistic convention in the world. At the same time, another mission – that which later became the Church of South India in Kerala – worked with the low caste, and formed the Diocese of Madhya Kerala. Hinduism indirectly or directly was the reason for these church divisions. If mission was to be successful, in practice it seems it had to live within the caste system. By this route, casteism became endemic in the Kerala Church, as it was to become within all the main churches, by various routes.
The Roman Catholic Church
Meanwhile, the major Roman Catholic missionary engagement had come further up the coast, beginning from Goa and spreading at speed around all of coastal southern India. The intrepid missionary Francis Xavier converted so many that individual baptism was impossible, as crowds of fishermen and their families sought the protection of the Portuguese navy and their religion. The relationship with the Hindu communities around was that of conquest, and the creation of little Portugals in southern and western India, centred on Goa. Baptism meant in some ways deculturization, and the adoption of a new way of life, as well as obedience to a foreign ruler. Churches were built according to Portuguese architecture, and Hindu festivals were replaced by Christian festivals, with statues of Mary and the saints replacing Hindu deities as they were carried round the streets in procession.
The Roman Catholic missions penetrated inland from the coasts, and the challenge of how to do mission was at its sharpest in Madurai, in what is today Tamil Nadu. Here the well-known Jesuit mission of Di Nobili (1577–1656) followed a model of indigenization that ring-fenced the high-caste status of Brahmin converts or potential converts.3 Himself of noble birth, he felt that in the interests of spreading the gospel it was legitimate to develop a community that lived by caste rules, and enabled new converts to remain unpolluted by close contact with Christians from lower castes. In particular, he employed Brahmin cooks to serve pure Brahmin food. Marriage was strictly within the caste. He himself learned Sanskrit, as well as Tamil, and wore the saffron robes of a Hindu holy man. At the same time, other missionaries worked among the lower castes and so-called untouchables, where they were more successful numerically. But he argued that only by beginning at the top could Christianity penetrate deeply into Indian life. He engaged also in dialogue with Hindu pandits (scholars), looked for commonalities and differences, and coined new words in Tamil to explain Christian concepts such as grace, church, Bible, mass and so on. In the end, he went too far for Rome, and his mission was derecognized.
It can be argued that any attempt to enshrine caste distinctions in the Church, even for the best of motives, has disastrous consequences, since it is a denial of the essence of the body of Christ where there should be no hierarchical social distinctions. Moreover, such one-caste communities tend not to last. A similar attempt was made to create a Brahmin Christian community in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu, in the early part of the twentieth century. Again, there was some success, but before long the need for marriages outside the closed community led to its breakdown. One negative consequence of these experiments was that, until comparatively recently, there were separate graveyards for different castes within some Catholic cemeteries, divided beyond death. Moreover, in Tiruchi itself, as late as the 1920s, a new bishop refused to take up his place unless a wall was removed in the cathedral, separating high and low caste. Worshippers could see the same altar when mass was celebrated, but could not mix when coming forward to receive the sacrament of unity!
A British anthropologist, David Mosse, studied one large village in Tamil Nadu in the 1990s.4 It is half Catholic and half Hindu. He found that the arrangements for the annual festival for the female deity, and for Mother Mary, were remarkably similar. Who does what were in both cases organized on caste lines. And adherents of both faiths participated in both festivals, though some Christians would not do so. I myself visited a similar village in Tamil Nadu, and here the Roman Catholic Christians were keen to emphasize that their statue and festive cart were bigger than those of their Hindu counterparts!
At the same time, the most effective and creative examples of indigenization have also been within the Roman Catholic Church. The National Biblical and Catechetical Centre in Bangalore has been in the forefront of movements in music, liturgy, art and dancing. It has had some effect on the wider Church, enabled through the networks of religious orders, as well as dioceses. Nearby has also developed the ashram of Jyoti Sahi. He is the Indian artist best known in the West, and his painting has developed stylistically. His earlier work was influenced by classical work, then by the mandalas of Buddhism. In recent decades his style has centred on Dalit and tribal cultures. His art is seen in churches, as well as murals and paintings. He also taught many sisters, from North India in particular, to develop their own style of art coming out of interaction with tribal religion.
The wider ashram movement has featured both Anglican and Roman Catholic communities. The Christ Seva Ashram in Poona is a protestant example, though this has now ceased to exist as an ashram. Two prominent examples of Catholic ashrams have been the Kurisumala Ashram in Kerala, with a Syriac rite, founded by Francis Acharya and Bede Griffiths in 1958, and Shantivanam in Tamil Nadu, to where Bede moved in 1968 and where he died in 1993. He began as an associate of the founder of Shantivanam, which I know well, Father Le Saux, and developed a thoroughly Catholic ashram in a thoroughly indigenous style. In so doing, he attracted many Westerners who were on a spiritual search in India, and led them back to Christianity. The ashram follows the architecture of a Hindu temple. The worship practices within the mass are evocative of Hindu puja practices, with much symbolism introduced, including the offering of flowers and arati over the bread and cup. Moreover, a reading from Hindu scripture is included before the Bible readings. Bhajans are sung in a range of languages, particularly Sanskrit.
Meanwhile, Le Saux had gone much further, as he took the name Abhishiktananda, and journeyed to Rishikesh, in North India, after a long period in the Hindu ashram in Tiruvanamalai, Tamil Nadu.5 Here he struggled to integrate Christianity and Vedantic Hinduism, and went as far as anyone ever has in this, achieving what he defined as the ultimate Vedantic experience of unity. By its nature, such an example could never become popular, but it provides an important symbol of the possibilities of integration between the two faiths. Bede never went this far, though he encouraged the teaching of yoga in his ashram, and led many courses on meditation within the two traditions.
Protestant and Anglican churches
These entered India along with colonialism, from the eighteenth century. They came with a reformation zeal, and
