Religions View Religions: Explorations in Pursuit of Understanding (Currents of Encounter 25)

Religions View Religions

CURRENTS OF ENCOUNTER STUDIES ON THE CONTACT BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS, BELIEFS, AND CULTURES GENERAL EDITORS REIN FERNHOUT JERALD D. GORT HENRY JANSEN LOURENS MINNEMA HENDRIK M. VROOM ANTON WESSELS

VOL. 25

Religions View Religions Explorations in Pursuit of Understanding

Edited by

Jerald D. Gort Henry Jansen Hendrik M. Vroom

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006

Cover design: Pier Post The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 90-420-1858-5 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006 Printed in the Netherlands

Contents Religions View Religions: General Introduction JERALD D. GORT

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PART I: RELIGIONS VIEW OTHER RELIGIONS IN GENERAL The Religion of Self-Awareness: The Co-existence of Religions from the Perspective of Shinto HARUO SAKURAI

Is “Theology of Religions” Possible in (Pure Land / Shin) Buddhism? The “Shock of Non-being” and the “Shock of Revelation”

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SHINRYO TAKADA

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Emulating Their Good Qualities, Taking their Defects as a Warning: Confucian Attitudes toward Other Religions MARGARET W. IZUTSU

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Hinduism: A Descriptive and/or Prescriptive Appraisal of Other Religions in General by Hinduis G.C. NAYAK

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Judaism Views Other Religions AVIEZER RAVITZKY

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Theologia Religionum: The Case of Christianity from the Perspective of Ecumenical Thought JERALD D. GORT

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Classical Attitudes in Islam towards Other Religions JACQUES WAARDENBURG

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PART II: RELIGIONS VIEW OTHER SPECIFIC RELIGIONS “The Hen Knows When It is Dawn, But Leaves the Crowing to the Cock:” African Religion Looks at Islam JOHN MBITI

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Hindu Perspectives on Islam CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD

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Muslims’ View of Hindus in the Past and Present ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER

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Hinduism and Buddhism as Ways of Faiths: A Reappraisal NITIN J. VYAS

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Nepalese Buddhists’ View of Hinduism KRISHNA B. BHATTACHAN

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When Hindus Become Christian: Religious Conversion and Spiritual Ambiguity JOHN B. CARMAN

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Christianity’s View of Confucianism: An East Asian Theology of Religions HEUP YOUNG KIM

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Buddhism and Christianity from a Christian-Buddhist Perspective EIKO HANAOKA-KAWAMURA

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Muslims and Christians between Confrontation and Dialogue ANTON WESSELS

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Secular Views of Religion KEITH WARD

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AFTERWORD: QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS Theology of Religions: Observations HENDRIK M. VROOM

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Indices

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Index of Names

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Index of Subjects

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Contributors

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Religions View Religions General Introduction Jerald D. Gort “Welcoming others is not merely good manners and a sign of civility, but ... is an expression of faith and an act of worship of God.” (Michel: 68)

In his novel, At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, Alexander McCall Smith has the Master of a college at the University of Cambridge address a group of colleagues, students and guests as follows: Dear guests ... William de Courcey [the founder of the college] was cruelly beheaded by those who could not understand that it is quite permissible for rational men to differ on important points of belief or doctrine .... There are amongst us still those who would deny to others the right to hold a different understanding of ... fundamental issues .... Thus, if we look about us, we see dogma still in conflict with rival dogma; we see people of one culture or belief still at odds with their human neighbours who are of a different culture or belief; and we see many who are prepared to act upon this difference to the extent of denying the humanity of those with whom they differ .... Here, in this place of learning, let us remind ourselves of the possibility of combating, in whatever small way we can, those divisions that come between man and man, between woman and woman ... so that each may find happiness in his or her life, and in the lives of others. For what else is there for us to hope for? What else, I ask you, what else? (McCall Smith 2003: 56-57)

What else, indeed! In the present situation of tense intercultural and interreligious relations and even outright conflict, what else is there to hope for than the discovery and application of effective ways to heal these divisions which continue to tear at the fabric of 1

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our societies and the world community. What we must try to achieve in our pluralist societies is at the very least the realization of paradigms of coherent and intelligent “convivance,” living together in sensible, peaceable and, if possible, cooperative harmony. Such situations of convivance require the head to be brought to the aid of the heart and the heart to the aid of the head. But as the Master of the college laments, religion often stands in the way of convivance. Because religion is so central to the lives and experience of the vast majority of people in the world, it figures very strongly in interhuman relationships: it can and often does play a role in the genesis of conflict and can also be used to inflame existing dissension and strife.1 But another potent cause of the kind of intolerance, suspicion and aggressive rivalry to which the Cambridge Master refers is lack of knowledge concerning the religious other. People, even educated people, are often woefully untutored about religious and faith traditions other than their own. And even if they possess some factual knowledge about other religions, they often have little understanding of them and of the perceptions of their adherents relative to the world and life. Learning both to know and understand people of other faiths and their religions is absolutely requisite to the restoration and preservation of peaceful coexistence in the intolerant, discordant and often even violent pluralistic societies in which vast numbers of people throughout the world live today. An effective agency for fostering such knowledge and understanding is the discipline of theologia religionum or theology of religions, which examines how religions have and ought to view other religions. One of the most popular models of theology of religion at present is that of relativizing pluralism, which maintains that all religions are just so many paths all leading to one and the same goal or end; this means that there is no essential difference between the various religions. Notwithstanding their popularity, however, these models of great-equalizer pluralism are unsatis1

Religion also has the potential to help resolve conflict. For a wideranging and varied discussion of this possible role of religion cf. an earlier symposium volume in the series Currents of Encounter, entitled Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation: Multifaith Ideals and Realities, ed. Jerald D. Gort et al. (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2002).

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factory on at least three important counts. The first reason they are unacceptable is that they are in the end colonialist in nature: what others think religiously is in essence no different from what I think and hence, though it may seem otherwise, in reality he or she thinks what I think, which actually means they think what I want them to think. Second, and closely related to the first objection, the refusal or failure on the part of relativist pluralism to recognize genuine religious differences and uniqueness constitutes a refusal and failure to take people of other faiths and their religions seriously. And third, this type of pluralism renders serious interreligious dialogue unnecessary: if the various religions bear no essentially distinctive features, what would be the point of investing time and energy in the pursuit of dialogical encounter? It is only full and honest recognition and acceptance of genuine diversity and difference that make real dialogue possible and meaningful. What is needed, therefore, is a theology of religion that accepts and appreciates the essential diversity of images and models of the good life held up by the various religions and that recognizes and reverences the distinctive religious ends they seek to attain. A pluralist theology of religion of this kind will not try to arbitrate diverse truth claims by appeals to revelation2 but will strive, through dialogue, debate, study and observation, to gain authentic knowledge and understanding of the religions and the hopes and fears, the beliefs and convictions, the faith and spirituality of their adherents and the moral and ethical imperatives to which they subscribe.3 2

Such appeals to revelation to settle truth claims are useless since they convince no one besides those who share the religion of the one making them, as Jean Bodin saw already in the sixteenth century: “Who can doubt that the Christian religion is the true religion or rather the only one? Almost the whole world;” “Who will be the arbiter of such a controversy?” “All are refuted by all.” (Cited in Plantinga 2004: 286) 3

With respect to one of the perennial problems in connection with this matter of perceptions of moral and ethical life, namely, human rights, one might find it instructive to examine the essays on this topic in yet another previous volume in the Currents of Encounter series: Human Rights and Religious Values: An Uneasy Relationship? ed. Abdullahi A. AnNa’im et al. (Amsterdam/Grand Rapids: Editions Rodopi/ Eerdmans, 1995).

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This type of theology of religion does not of course preclude the possibility of necessary interreligious criticism. All religions are subject to critical examination as to whether they are “good” or ‘bad” for people and society, whether they make people happier or more anxious, less or more afraid, freer or more subject to bondage, more or less integrated, more or less hopeful and helpful, whether they encourage or hamper transformation of life, whether they enhance or hinder salubrious relationships, whether they bring healing and salvific well-being or cause anxiety, distress and suffering. A religion can be tested on various touchstones such as inner coherence, straightforwardness, accessibility, comprehensibility, compatibility with the deepest intentions of its holy scriptures and the traditions in which it stands. Religions can be said to be “sound” or “unsound,” depending on whether they are creative and adaptive, open to cultural changes and new contextual developments, whether they seek to convince by means of moral authority or to coerce by means of any form of force. But criticism is certainly not the first order of business in theology of religion. What is required first and foremost is the kind of approach outlined above, a model of acceptance that leads to mutual understanding which “asks of us not only that we understand others but also that we improve the understanding our own ... religion by other religions” (Bulhof 1999: 7). And one of the most promising method of realizing this kind of understanding is that of the practice of comparative theologies of religion. That is what the present symposium volume represents. It consists of essays which together constitute the end-product of an international, interreligious workshop organized by members of the Encounter of Religious Traditions Research Group within the Faculty of Theology of the Free University of Amsterdam. The papers in the volume, written by representatives of the major world religions, were first presented at the workshop and then amended on the basis of the discussion of them that took place there. The articles in the first half of the volume provide descriptive and prescriptive appraisals of other religions in general from the perspective of a particular religion. Those in the second half of the book offer similar appraisals of a single religion from the perspective of one other religion. The essays deal with the theological content and approaches and the historical realities

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of the various faith traditions, along with their views of the world and the religious solutions they offer to the problems and challenges of human life and interreligious relations. Some of the articles are more theoretically oriented and others are more directed toward contextual practice. The following position paper from the present writer’s hand was sent to the participants for use in preparing their papers for the workshop and this volume.

Theology of Religion A Brief Definition It should be noted at the outset that the field of study designated by the term “theology of religion” differs fundamentally from the strictly descriptive disciplines of history of religion, phenomenology of religion, comparative religions, sociology of religion and psychology of religion, though at certain important junctures theology of religion will certainly make grateful use of the findings and insights of these other five areas of inquiry. Theology of religion differs from these other academic domains in that the investigative and critical reflective efforts of its practitioners often (though not necessarily) converge on their own religion, and more significantly in that it consciously and intentionally goes beyond empirical analysis and reportage alone. Two Branches of Investigation Theology of religion consists of two main lines of study, the one having a chiefly descriptive character, the other bearing a primarily prescriptive complexion, each of which can have either a general or particular focus. The first of these, the descriptive arm of inquiry, deals with the issue of the attitude taken by one’s own (or another given) religion in relation to other religions in general or, as the case may be, a single other religion in particular. “Historically all religions have had to decide ... what stance to adopt vis-à-vis the differing belief systems with which they have come into contact” (Gort 1989: 36), What positions have Christianity or Islam or Judaism, for example, taken relative to their counterparts in the past and how do they view them in the present? How did these attitudes come about? On what foundation were they built? Though it cannot be doubted that social, economic, political and psychological

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factors contributed to the emergence of the postures religions have assumed in respect of other religions and it is obvious that full account must be taken of such agents,4 theology of religion’s core concern is to seek an answer to these questions from the perspective of theology and spirituality and religious praxis. What religious convictions, doctrinal tenets and practices influenced and continue to influence these historical and contemporary attitudes toward other religious traditions and, by extension, those who adhere to these traditions? In short, the first major question for theology of religion is: How have the religions judged or how do they presently assess other religions and on what creedal-dogmatic and praxeological grounds was or is this appraisal made? Second, in its prescriptive mode theology of religion submits these (often predominantly negative) theories, perceptions, attitudes and practices to the scrutiny of historical criticism and seeks a reevaluation of them on the basis of fresh cultural and social analysis, contemporary contextual experience, and particularly the reexamination of scriptural and theological sources. In its investigations within this historical framework, theology of religion will likely discover an overwhelming negativity on the part of religions with respect to other religions. Often the posture religions have adopted relative to other faiths has been one of repudiation, rejection and confrontation. How did this come about? And why did they not rather bend their efforts to the cultivation of interreligious respect, recognition and reconciliation? Frequently, religions, notably Christianity and Islam, have attempted to displace other religions from without. What caused this? Why did they not rather seek to transform other religions from within? Habitually, religions have set themselves off in isolation from other religious traditions. What are the reasons for this? Why did they not instead endeavor to link and ally themselves with these other faiths? Religions have regularly viewed 4

These factors must also be kept clearly in mind owing to their potential role in creating internal theological and religious inconsistencies such as that between the Christian and Muslim concept of God as the Creator and Merciful Ruler and Judge of the entire world and the whole of human history, on the one hand, and the often tribal, communal attitude of these religions toward other faiths and their adherents, on the other.

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their relationship with their opposite numbers solely or primarily in terms of discontinuity. For what reason did they do this? What kept them from trying to perceive this relation more in terms of continuity and connectivity? And further, does this posture of rejection and opposition continue unaltered in the present time? Are these negative attitudes becoming even more intense and emphatic? Or can one descry a change of mood among the religions relative to other faith traditions, an opener spirit, a more appreciative outlook, a more charitable mien? And if so, what occasioned this change, what were its contributory causes? What factors can be adduced as important catalysts in the evolvement of new dispositions in respect of other faiths? Thus, the second main question for theology of religion is: What is the proper attitude of a religion toward other religions and people of other living faiths in general or toward a specific religion and its adherents in particular? There is a strongly felt desire among students of religion, and also a gradually increasing number of ordinary believers of various religious persuasions, to come to terms with prevailing interreligious attitudes through fresh appraisal of existing religions and religiosity, including one’s own. How does what we see and discover in each other’s religious systems, beliefs and practices affect our own religious self-understanding? What challenges to one’s own faith are yielded by this open assessment of the other’s faith? What does such an exercise reveal about the theological content, the spirituality and the practice of one’s own religion? It must be emphasized, finally, that it is not and may never be the object of theology of religion, properly understood, to deny or explain away the real differences or genuine discrepancies that exist between religions and religious beliefs. It was with an eye to discovering answers to the kinds of questions and problems posed in the above position paper that the workshop was organized and this collection of essays has been put together. It may be assumed that a volume such as this, whereby various religions are given the opportunity to see themselves as reflected in the mirrors held up to them by other religions, will be of great importance for the construction of theory in

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the area of theologia religionum. It is hoped and expected that this kind of unique exercise in comparative theology of religion will not only advance the self-apprehension of the religions represented at the workshop and in this volume but will also generate insights and new forms of understanding that can be used by theologians, religious and ecclesiastical leaders and other educators to help correct unacceptable contemporary tendencies such as religious haughtiness, insularity, communalism and exclusivism —or, in the opposite case, extreme, uncritical religious relativism. Bibliography Bulhof, Ilse. (1999). “Mutual Interreligious Understanding: Some Suggestions,” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 9: 5-26. Gort, J.D. (1989). “Syncretism and Dialogue: Christian Historical and Earlier Ecumenical Perceptions.” In: J.D. Gort et al. (eds.). Dialogue and Syncretism: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Grand Rapids/Amsterdam: Eerdmans/Rodopi. Pp. 36-51. Plantinga, Richard J. (2004). “God So Loved the World: Theological Reflections on Religious Plurality in the History of Christianity.” Calvin Theological Journal 39 (2004): 275-302. McCall Smith, Alexander. (2003). At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, Edinburgh: Polygon. Michel, Thomas. Reflections on Said Nursi’s Views on Muslim-Christian Understanding. Istanbul: Söz Basim Yayin.

Part I

Religions View Other Religions in General

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The Religion of Self-Awareness The Co-existence of Religions From the Perspective of Shinto Haruo Sakurai Abstract In this paper I will present two points. The first is the self-understanding of Shinto through interaction with other religions and the second is the effects of such interaction. And I will pursue these points through the historical and idealistic viewpoint of Shinto in the first part and that of a secular and local community-based association with the kami or deities in the second. My conclusion is that when Shinto views other religions, it is always associated with the degree of self-awareness, as with accepting the presence of other religions, where it echoes the same nature of non-confrontation as when interacting with the kami on a personal level. It can be said that the term Shinto emerged when the concept of kami and the structure of the traditional system were made conscious on a national level. With the aforementioned concept of kami in mind, a concern arises as to the kind of dialogue foreign religions will be able to engage in with Shinto, the religious and cultural identity of Japan, which in turn, may serve to provide opportunity for Shinto to reflect on its nature in respect to other religions.

Introduction In pursuing the theme of Shinto’s view of other religious traditions, it is crucial to examine first the concept of Shinto and its perception by other religions. In a typical characterization of religion Shinto is often considered to be the indigenous religion of Japan, an ethnic religion. However, to many Japanese people, Shinto is thought to have characteristics that are not usually perceived as religious. For example, religions possess clear, organized philosophies and doctrines used in propagation, with the intent of sav11

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ing the human soul. Since this is not true of Shinto, this religion is a separate case with respect to the typical ideals in religious thought and practice. Nevertheless, Shinto expresses its sacred presence as kami and has an institution called a jinja, a shrine, where people assemble and ceremonies are performed that acknowledge and evoke religious sentiment. It can be said of Shinto that, through comparison with other religions, a framework appears and its character and individuality come into view. How would this, then, be the case in other religions? In modern Japanese society there is a multitude of religions: those that were introduced to Japan as organized religions at an early period from abroad and new religions that evolved within the country itself. Throughout the course of history a foreign religion that has had great influence on the lives of the Japanese is Buddhism. In addition, Confucianism, Taoism and Christianity have all contributed to the various customs, philosophies and cultural influences of the Japanese people. Moreover, it has been long established that the various religions have coexisted without conflict within Japanese society. Therefore, by my understanding of Shinto as the ancient religious tradition of Japan, I would like to introduce two points worthy of attention. The first is how Shinto perceives itself through interaction with other religions and the second is the effects of such interaction. Shinto is often explained as a religion that is “indigenous to Japan” or the “religious, cultural identity of the Japanese people.” In spite of this, the term Shinto rarely and does not consciously appear in the daily lives of the Japanese people (Ishii 1997). Nevertheless, words such as matsuri (festival), kami (deity) and jinja (shrine) that are used to convey the concept of Shinto seem to appear quite frequently. Also, it is often said that the reason for the Japanese acceptance and practice of more than one religion is that Shinto has an intrinsic nature of accepting other religions within its structure. In fact, in Japan a newborn baby is taken to a Shinto shrine for a blessing, weddings are often performed by a Christian minister in a chapel and funerals are done according to the Buddhist tradition. The use of religion in this way is not thought to be peculiar but poses difficulties as to the placement of emphasis in the analysis of these unique circumstances.

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Moreover, its polytheistic nature is said to contribute to Shinto’s tolerance of other religions. When considering this point, it is vital to place importance on the actual observances interwoven into the lives of the people and not solely on hypothetical speculation. I would like to pursue this theme through the historical and idealistic viewpoint of Shinto in the first part of this paper and that of a secular and community-based association with the kami in the second part. Shinto’s Perception of Itself In recent times the term “Shinto” has often been taken to refer either to Shrine Shinto or Sectarian Shinto. The former is considered mainstream Shinto, the native, ethnic religion preserved and perpetuated through the jinja or shrine. The latter refers to religions that evolved from Shinto after the nineteenth century with an organized set of doctrines and rituals, frequently referred to as a sect. Although I am not a priest serving at a shrine, I would like to elaborate on this further through four loci. The Origins of Shinto First, Shinto is said to have evolved naturally from obscure beginnings, having no founder, written scriptures or body of religious law, and was eventually called “Shinto” through its interactions with other religions throughout the course of history. Japanese history is roughly divided into two phases: ancient and modern, both deeply associated with the development of Buddhism. The term Shinto first appears in Nihonshoki, an official compilation of historical events written at the beginning of the eighth century. This historical book was written out of a sense of rivalry towards the more culturally advanced nation of China. There are three ways of referring to Shinto in this book, with slight differences in its connotations as we know it today. The first is the reference to the indigenous religion established by ethnic traditions (Nishida 1978); the second is a term given to a religion based on local customs (Kuroda 1983); the third is that of a regional adaptation of Taoism that spread throughout East Asia (Fukunaga 1987). The first analysis is that of a researcher on Shinto, the second is a historian and the third is a researcher into

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Taoism, all reflecting the varied interpretations of Shinto based on their realm of research. These three examples are linked collectively with the nature of three emperors and the teachings of Buddhism. The understanding derived from the utilization of the term Shinto is that it has a traditional element which differs from foreign religions such as Buddhism and that its usage in the Nihonshoki is one that appears in situations pertaining to the emperor. The expression Shinto emerges apparently in the context of the traditions and cultural identity of Japan and its relationship with other religions. Thus it can be said that it possesses a framework that differs in tradition from foreign religions, where the existence of the emperor is intricately interwoven with the identity of the nation. Conveying the Philosophy of Shinto The second point is the means by which the philosophy of Shinto is to be communicated. It is said that Shinto is a religion that rejects specific doctrines and rational argumentations. It has also been said that through the ages Shinto has expressed its own philosophies through the teachings of Buddhism, Confucianism, the philosophies of Laozi and Zhuangzi and even that of Christianity. It is like a dress-up doll, changing its clothing to correspond to the needs of the period (Ishida 1970). For example, from the seventh to the ninth centuries it was believed that the kami (deities) of Japan were intended to protect the hotoke (Buddha) and, in turn, the hotoke was instrumental in assisting the kami. However, in the eleventh century, the notion of the kami attaining enlightenment and becoming a hotoke was no longer current and a new theory that the hotoke appeared in the form of the kami gained popularity. In addition, with time the Shinto philosophies were no longer expressed in association with the hotoke but a new approach was established. The priests of Ise Jingu incorporated the Buddhist teachings of a pure mind and body and the moral value of honesty by using the terms and concepts of Taoism and the philosophies of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Yoshida Shinto, which emerged almost simultaneously with Ise Shinto, is a complex system of beliefs, notably in its adoption of teachings from Shingon Mikkyo or esoteric Buddhism. It has also demonstrated its purist theory of Shinto by describing Shinto

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as being the roots of the tree, Confucianism the branches and Buddhism the fruit. Further, the study of ancient Japanese thought and culture which appeared in the eighteenth century was one which placed great interest in a Shinto (way of the gods) unique to Japan, which derived no foreign influence from Confucianism or Buddhism. There were, however, scholars that applied the then-forbidden Christian concept of god to the explanation of ancient mythology and the myriad of kami that appear in these myths. These ideas were understood only by intellectuals with a profound knowledge of Shinto, whereas on the level of the ordinary person, one’s association with religion did not alter individual beliefs or social structure. Although there was a national policy regarding religion, Shinto and Buddhism continued to coexist on a social level. In the latter part of the eighteenth century Japan underwent a development that resulted in the Meiji Restoration and the opening up of Japan to the world. The Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan for over three hundred years came to an end and the emperor once again assumed a leading role in the governmental structure. In conjunction with the new beginning new policies were implemented to separate the kami and hotoke, adopting worship of the kami on a national level. Criticism of Buddhism by Shinto, the new government’s suspicion of Westerners and the fear of a rise in the propagation of Christianity were significant factors in the shift. In this state of affairs that encouraged renewed awareness of the uniqueness of Japan, the status of Shinto was similar to its status in ancient times. Thus, it was a time for reflecting on its long tradition of existence with “foreign religions” and at the same time, an awareness of its relationship with the emperor. Kami and Hotoke The third point is the co-existence of Shinto and Buddhism. Taking into consideration the lifestyle of the Japanese people, colloquial reference to the phenomenon of the co-existence of Shinto and Buddhism as kami and hotoke is seemingly more appropriate. The concept of the coexistence of the divine entities are used often in daily expressions such as “to solicit favours from the kami and buddha” or “to receive divine blessings from the kami and bud-

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dha” or, as one might say in times of hardship, “kami or buddha does not exist.” It is not the proper noun kami that is being used here but rather a general term for a divine presence. On the other hand, the concept hotoke encompasses a multitude of entities such as the historical figure of Gautama Buddha, buddha as the object of worship, boddhisatvas like Nyorai Bosatsu or Kannon Bosatsu, ancestors and the deceased. It is documented that at the time of the arrival of Buddhism in Japan, references to the hotoke included kami and terms such as the “foreign kami.” Although Buddhism was first embraced by the upper echelon of society upon its arrival in Japan, in time it appealed to the masses and eventually became transformed through the assumption of Japanese features. In dealing directly with death and the afterlife and revering a plethora of hotoke, Buddhism became firmly established in Japanese society. In the view of Shinto, this unique co-existence of kami and hotoke was merely adherence to a given area of responsibility. Shinto was a religion which dealt with the development of the communal body and Buddhism with the salvation of the individual soul and the afterlife. When Christianity was introduced to Japan, relatively late in comparison to Buddhism, it was understood from the beginning that the religious nature of Christianity was typically monotheistic. In fact, the concept of god and the Japanese translation kami have had a great influence on the perception of divinity for the Japanese people. For example, when questioning the existence of kami, they are identified as entities that transcend all earthly matters and heavenly beings that exist above this earth. In contrast, the perception of god to the Japanese remains buried in the culture of kami and hotoke and is comprehended as a non-Japanese entity, contrary to the beliefs of Christians. It is for this reason that many Shintoists have displayed an interest in the Shinto-like polytheistic religious phenomenon of the Christian worship of the saints and Mary. The Concept of a Supreme Kami in Japanese Society The fourth point is that of the concept of kami. When considering the religious phenomenon of Shinto, it is not practical to limit it to thought or doctrine. It is also important to emphasize the daily lives of the Japanese people in order to gain some impression of

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how other religions are viewed. The present lifestyle of the Japanese has changed drastically and it is clear that many have embraced the ideals of individualism. The societal structure of the village, which is said to exist no longer, is the traditional rural community in Japan, often criticized for exercising too much control and prohibiting individual expression. However, there have been movements recently to revive the spirit of unity that existed in the communal structure. It is valuable to examine the viewpoint of Shinto from within the context of this kind of community. I would now like to explain the characteristics of a traditional Japanese village from the theoretical and ideological perspective of the kami. It appears difficult to do this when the whole village community reveres the kami as a superior being. These characteristics can apply to the society of Japan as a whole, but it is also useful to pursue this at the level of the community. The Effects of Interaction with Other Religions I mentioned earlier that Shinto is categorized as a polytheistic religion with the Japanese concept of kami being that of a myriad of kami. Also, from within the kami is a plethora of kami which infers reverence towards nature through deities such as the kami of the water, the kami of the mountain, the kami of the ocean and the kami of the wind. It is from this concept that the essence of Shinto is assumed to be that of animism or nature worship. However, there is something we must not forget. Within the concept of polytheism and the pantheon of kami, there is the belief in a “superior being” in the village community. This “superior being” is generally referred to as the ujigami. Although the definition of ujigami has undergone transformation through the ages, it still remains a kami that the whole village community reveres as a superior being(Sumiya1994). This can be compared to the marvel of the ancient metropolis of Greece or Rome dedicated to specific gods within their pantheon of gods or European towns and villages, each of which had their patron saints. The institution where the worship of the kami is performed is a jinja and there are usually several jinja located within the village community. Nonetheless, there is typically one jinja of significance for the residents, that of the ujigami of the village commun-

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ity and the role of the ujigami is limited to the safeguarding of the residents of that particular community. Many kami are worshiped, yet the ujigami remains the most prominent kami for the members of a particular community. The ujigami holds a central place in the lives of the members of a village and cases of conflict have been known to occur when a member of one village denied the existence of or showed irreverence to the ujigami of another. However, within the whole of society it was expected of people that they acknowledge and respect the existence of all ujigami. The exclusive nature of Japanese society is reflected in how the village ujigami is worshiped. It would be interesting to note the results of any new encounters between the long-established deity of the village and new religious values or beliefs never experienced in the past within this traditional structure of the village and the importance of the ujigami within that formation. The more antagonistic the relationship, the stronger the presence of an inherent nature of exclusiveness within the system. This does not only apply to foreign religions but also to different forms within Shinto as well. During the period of State Shinto a conservative bureaucrat, in accordance with Shinto policies, attempted to remove an ujigami from a village by force but met with fierce resistance and refusal by the villagers. This illustrates the nature of exclusiveness even within Shinto (Sakurai 1998). It can be said that the term Shinto emerged when the concept of kami and the structure of the village system was made conscious on a national level. With the aforementioned concept of kami in mind, a concern arises as to the kind of dialogue in which foreign religions will be able to engage with Shinto, the religious and cultural identity of Japan, which, in turn, may serve to provide an opportunity for Shinto to reflect on its nature in respect to other religions. Conclusion In conclusion, when Shinto views other religions, it is always associated with a degree of self-awareness, accepting the presence of other religions where it echoes the same kind of non-confrontation as when interacting with the kami on a personal level. Nevertheless, in the course of history, when confronted with the denial of the existence of the kami, a rather apprehensive awakening took place with each experience. What was noted here may not

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necessarily pertain to the modern structure of Japanese society. However, it may exist within the structure on a subconscious level. In a modern society constantly undergoing the process of globalization, it is imperative that we transcend all sense of isolation and perceive one of the characteristics of Shinto as that of worshiping the ujigami and encouraging reverence for the preservation of the forest. It is on the basis of this development that an interest in the discovery of the true nature of other religions has occurred. Through this we know that Shinto possesses a potentiality for development and realizes its ability to preserve the ancient elements of Japan and at the same time break through it. Bibliography Ishida, Ichiro. (1970). “Shinto no shiso”(“A Historical Theory of Shinto”). In: Ishida Ichiro (ed.). Shinto Shiso. Tokyo: Chikumashobo. Pp. 3-37. Ishii, Kenji. (1997). Data Book Gendai nihonjin no shukyo. (A Data Book of Contemporary Japanese Religion). Tokyo: Shnyosha. Kuroda, Toshio. (1983). Rekishigaku no saisei (Rebirth of History). Tokyo: Azekurashobo. Fukunaga, Mitsuji. (1987). Dokyo to kodai nihon (Taoism and Ancient Japan). Kyoto: Jinbunshoin. Murei, Hitoshi. (2000). “‘Shinto’ Nihonshoki yourei kou.” (“On an Interpretation of the Word “Shinto” in Nihon-shoki [Chronicle of Japan]).” Bulletin of the Shinto Institute 16. Kogakkan: The Shinto Institute of Kogakkan University (March): 115-50. Nishida, Nagao. (1978). Nihon shintoshi kenkyu (A Study of Shinto History). Vol.1. Tokyo: Kodansha. Sakurai, Haruo. (1998). “The Shrine Cult and Local Society in Modern Japan.” Acta Asiatica 75. Tokyo: The Toho Gakkai. Sumiya, Kazuhiko. (1994). Nihon no ishiki (Consciousness of Japan). Tokyo: Iwanamishoten.

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Is “Theology of Religions” Possible in (Pure Land/Shin) Buddhism? The “Shock of Nonbeing” and the “Shock of Revelation” Shinryo Takada Abstract The problem of “being” and “nonbeing” has often been presented in religious dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity or that concerning the theme “East and West.” “Nonbeing” or “nothingness/emptiness,” that is, the “shock of nonbeing” must have been a “new” experience for Western/Christian people. Here I am going to refer to a kind of “shock of revelation” as a “new” notion for Buddhism. (Pure Land/Shin) Buddhists would find their “new” identification or self-reflection from the viewpoint of a “theology of religions” or of a religious dialogue between (a) “religion of revelation” and “religion of enlightenment,” (b) “faith in the Eschaton” and “faith in the Last Dharma age,” and also in (c) the encounter with a “religion of the holy” (Shinto) in the religious “diversity” of Japan.

The “Shock of Nonbeing” and “Theology of Religions” in Christianity Nowadays, in the situation of the religious pluralism of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Buddhists are also expected to join in discussions on theologiae religionum (theologies of religion). What does the term “theology of religion” mean when used in Buddhism? Is it an issue of cultural philosophy or of religious Buddhism? The problem of “being” and “nonbeing” has often been presented in religious dialogues between Buddhists and Christians or in discussion on the theme of “East and West.” Hans Waldenfels begins his book Absolute Nothingness with a comment on Takeuchi’s “Buddhism and Existentialism: The Dialogue between 21

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Oriental and Occidental Thought” and also on Tillich’s “shock of nonbeing.” Terms like “absolute nothingness,” “emptiness” and “non-self” are representative of or symbolic for explaining or understanding the original or unique religious/philosophical experience of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, which is explicitly claimed by the philosophers of the Kyoto School. “Nonbeing” or “nothingness/emptiness” may be a kind of “new” experience for “Western/Christian” people. Such “Buddhist/Eastern” spirituality is welcome as a partner in religious dialogue. In this article I would like to say something from another viewpoint, namely, that of a “shock of revelation,” if such an expression can be used. As the idea of “nonbeing” is a new notion for Western/Christian people, the “revelation of God” to Abraham, Moses or Muhammad is a “new” notion for Buddhists. And this revelation is inseparable from or united with “being” and “otherness” (das ganz Andere) just as “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14) is. Here, released from the complexity of Christianity and “Western” onto-theological metaphysics and also from Buddhism and “Eastern” spirituality, I am simply going to look at the difference between the “religions of revelation” (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and “religion of enlightenment” (Buddhism). The matter of revelation is fundamental. God (Yahweh, Allah) revealed himself to Abraham, Moses and Muhammad. Through this revelation everything in the world began to exist. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Insofar as something is revealed or someone encounters a revelation, the difference between the one who reveals and those to whom the revelation is made appears. The former is “God” and the latter are “human beings.” And at the same time the ontological difference between “creator” and “creatures” emerges. The revealing god is “creator” and “the absolute other.” Human beings are part of the “created” in the world. Theology of Religions in Christianity Concerning the “theology of religions” I will briefly sketch a little what I have learned from The Myth of Christian Uniqueness. In abandoning the “absoluteness of Christianity” many “thinking Christians” (Hick and Knitter 1987: 17) are seeking to identify

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themselves with the modern situation of religious diversity. Raimundo Panikkar reflects on his Christian self-consciousness— “Does one need to be spiritually a Semite or intellectually a Westerner in order to be a Christian?”—by referring to three rivers which have their own religious historically symbolic meaning: the Jordan, the Tiber and the Ganges (Panikkar 1987: 89ff). “To address this problem inherent in traditional Christian faith and theology,” Gordon D. Kaufman writes, “we follow out certain implications of our modern historical consciousness, and the kind of reflections it engenders, as we work out our theological understanding of Christian faith” (Kaufman 1987: 5). Being aware that they are confronting the “dilemma” between Christian uniqueness and universality, many Christian thinkers are seeking their own identification of the Christian faith in modern “religious diversity.” Those who defend a pluralist theology of religions argue that their theological paradigm allows for their own Christian “unique” confession to be “universal.” Insofar as I understand it, the motive behind theology of religions is as follows: How do we see our Christian faith amidst the religious diversity of this modern world? Is our own faith universal or not? Although Christian faith is by nature universal, as Christians we find ourselves in conflict with other traditions in which we ourselves do not believe. Now that we, in the present global culture, meet with people with other faiths on an equal footing we have to find a new paradigm for understanding our own Christian uniqueness and its universality. Many theologians try to find a new dimension of religious salvation (“Christ”) by means of a reconsideration of the notion of “God” from a wider perspective, in which other religions or faiths could be included. There are two types of arguments. First, there are those people who attempt to construct their “theology of religious pluralism” positively with the focus on “God.” They treat “reality,” “truth” or ultimate religious concern as something universal that in (its own way) can be found in every religion. In this view interreligious dialogue is possible on the basis of such notions as “God” (in a wider sense), which could be gained through philosophical consideration or comparative theology. Secondly, there are those who focus on the unique salvation in Christ and are hesitant with regards to the “pluralist theology of religions.” They do not attempt to generalize Christian beliefs and practices

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too quickly and think it important to study carefully the differences between religions as well. “Theology of Religions” Itself as Unique to Christianity I will not attempt to judge which discourse would be appropriate for the self-reflection of the Christian faith, because I am not a Christian. My interest is merely the reasons why Christians argue in such a way. Why do they try to treat other religions as something that are in some manner related to Christian faith? In the end, many Christians cannot accept religious diversity. Other religions, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and African Religions are recognized as partners of interreligious dialogue. The perspective of Christians is, in principle, global. Christians (want to) see “everything” in the world or on earth. As far as I understand it, the way in which many Christians think—reflecting on or seeking the truth of their faith —stands on the unique axis point of anthropology, cosmology and soteriology (at the point of the fulfilment of salvation). The confrontation with other religions (and also secular worldviews) is perhaps only for Christianity essentially important for the selfreflection of the faith. I think that this Christian interest in the existence of other religions traditions has its root in beliefs that are typical for Christianity. Inevitably, Christian faith is marked by the delicate and paradoxical balance between God’s universality and Christ’s uniqueness. Just as a bicycle cannot stay upright on its own while standing, Christian faith can only move forward on both “wheels” in the very delicate and subtle balance between “God” and “Christ.” In the Christian confession Christ (Messiah, Savior) is “now, for me” in the world of human beings. After a long history of God and humankind and the people of Israel, Christ is the “fulfillment” of salvation. Because of this unique character of the notion of Christ, Christians are always seeking evidence of the fulfillment of faith, namely, a new integration of all (created) beings. Every difference of values, of ways of life or of human interests which Christians confront is to be integrated into the relationship to God (the Reality or the Truth).

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“Theology of Religions” in Buddhism and the Shock of Revelation: “Religion of Revelation” and “Religion of Enlightenment” But what can we say about Buddhism? Is a “theology (or Buddhology) of religions” possible? Of course, I would not use the term “theology” in the same sense it has in Christianity. Surely, as Rita M. Gross says (2000: 53), “Buddhist Theology is at this point a hybrid Western enterprise.” In the area of traditional Buddhism (at least in Japan) such an academic self-reflecting discourse treating “doctrines” by means of “new” notions or terminologies may be not found. But if Christian theological reflection on such a religious encounter with “nonbeing” may be called a “theology of religions,” then the thinking about this “new” experience of “the shock of revelation” could be called a kind of theology of religions from a Buddhist point of view, which, however, is still foreign for many (Japanese) Buddhists. In the encounter with other faiths or foreign cultures a new self-reflection or self-discovery for Buddhists might occur. If Buddhists find a new way of self-reflection by means of new notions or paradigms, then such a new way of thinking may be called “theology of religions” but then in the sense of the proverb non nova, sed nove. From the perspective of such a Buddhist theology of religions, I will consider the religious concerns of Buddhism in the encounter with the “religions of revelation.” The most important concern in the religions of revelation is faith or the response to the disclosure of God. This relation between God as the Creator and human persons as creatures in one way or another presupposes an ontological difference between God and humankind, between the One who reveals Himself and those to whom He or She reveals Him- or Herself. The idea of revelation entails an act of God towards human persons and therefore an intended personal relation of a kind that Martin Buber, for example, describes the difference between Ich und Du, “I and Thou” and “I and It.” Even if the experience of such a transcendent God is considered as agapé without “being” or “beyond being,” as in the God Without Being of Jean-Luc Marion, the relation remains nevertheless person. From a Buddhist point of view the confessional differences between Judaism, Christianity and Islam do not make much difference: a “theology of revelation” goes

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hand in hand with ontological difference (in one way or another) and a personal relation between God and humankind. For Buddhism, as a “religion of enlightenment,” the most important concern is enlightenment or the release from the sufferings of “one’s self.” The starting point is one’s “personal” sufferings in this world: Now I am suffering from such and such; how can I get rid of these sufferings? Suffering is surely one of the most serious problems confronting anyone. It should be alleviated. In the “religion of revelation” relief from suffering may be found in one’s relation to God. However, in Buddhism the solution is sought in the “reversal of one’s existence.” How can this enlightenment-resolution of suffering be realized? How can “I” reach this truth? Shakyamuni, who became a Buddha and attained enlightenment in this world of sufferings, teaches us how to realize it. If we follow the Buddha’s teachings “I” can arrive at that point. Gautama Siddharta attained enlightenment: he saw “Dharma-Truth” and became a Buddha. Enlightenment requires freedom from “blind attachment to self” and can occur through the “reversing of the basis (of one’s existence).” Because in enlightenment the “self” no longer exists, it can be described simply as “non-self” or “nonbeing.” In the Buddhist religious context “nonbeing” is not a philosophical, ontological or epistemological question but simply a matter of religious practice. As long as “blind attachment” exists, human beings remain confined by that attachment, and an infinite distance between Buddha and human beings (or sentient beings) remains. But seen from the wisdom that is realized in enlightenment, the difference between Buddha and sentient beings fully disappears. There is no more Buddha; there are no more sentient beings; there is no me. Religious Concern in the Buddhist Stories of “Ten Oxen” and “Two Rivers, a White Path” In order to compare the religious concern of Buddhism with “religions of revelation,” I will use two parables (and their images): “Two Rivers, a White Path” (Japanese: Niga-Byakudo) of Pure Land Buddhism and the “Ten Oxen” story of Zen Buddhism, added below in an appendix. Although the motive of each story is slightly different, their essential core is the same. In the case of Niga, through the encounter with the recommendation and en-

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couragement by Shakyamuni Buddha and the call of Amida Buddha and in the case of “Ten Oxen” through catching the “ox,” religious truth may realized in the seeking person. Seen from the side of sentient beings or the side of “blindness and attachment,” the distance between Buddha and sentient beings does not disappear. In order to reach enlightenment (or understanding) sentient beings need the appearance or the figure of Buddha (Amida Buddha in the West in the Niga story), otherwise they never will attain it. Shinran says in Hymns of Pure Land Masters (CWS: 367): The lord of the mundane world came to inquire Why he aspired for the Pure Land: “All Buddha realms throughout the ten quarters are pure; Why do you turn to the land in the west?” (23rd Hymn) Master T’an-luan answered: “Since my wisdom is shallow And I have not yet attained the higher stages of bodhisattvahood, I am incapable, with my powers of mindfulness, Of thinking equally on all lands.” (24th Hymn)

Seen from the wisdom of Buddha, however, the experience of attaining Nirvana may be described as just a simple circle (number 8 in the Oxen story). The “formlessness” of Buddha (enlightenment or truth) is described also in the context of Pure Land Buddhism as follows: “Dharma-body as suchness has neither color nor form; thus the mind cannot grasp it nor words describe it.” (Shinran’s Notes on “Essentials of Faith Alone,” CWS: p. 461). The truth of Mahayana Buddhism is described in a double way: from the perspective of Buddha’s wisdom and compassion and from that of sentient beings or worldly, earthly interests and human rationality. Therefore, the logic of Buddhism seems to be a kind of “contradictory expression.” It stems from its concern with religious practice rather than theoretical, ontological arguments. Altruistic Conduct: The Good Samaritan, Aakat, and Dana In the context of the “religion of revelation,” human conduct can be blessed or forgiven by God. Paul says: “Therefore, since we are

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justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). Believers whose misconduct has been forgiven can be considered as “justified” (which, by the way, does not justify misconduct). Faith is related to trust in God and the will to follow the life that God has intended for human persons. Human conduct is related to God if Muslims follow the shari’ah, Jews the halachah and Christians the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. The whole of existence is determined by faith, in a sense by walking with God. Buddhism has similar or analogous concepts, like shila (rules of moral conduct) and Vinaya (monastic discipline). But these are virtues that are required when people seek the way to enlightenment and not virtues for daily life. The Buddhist analogy to being “justified by Christ” might be “appropriate to Dharma”—which means that there is no longer “attachment” or “blindness” in their conduct. One would not be “blind” any more, would no longer be “attached” to anything in any conduct. In the context of Buddhism no concrete conduct is referred to as a kind of moral or religious law. Of course, being modest, not telling a lie, etc., are self-evident virtues for human beings, but that is not the point of the Buddhist way towards awakening. Concerning altruistic conduct or social morality, the examples of analogical ideas are the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) in the New Testament, zakat (gifts) in Islam and dana (donation) in Buddhism. The story of the Samaritan teaches that there is no other answer to the question “Who is my neighbor?” than that Samaritan. According to the Christian context, doing as the Samaritan did or following the words of Jesus means being altruistic to other persons, living before the face of God. In Islam zakat means not just social, altruistic but secular behavior: it is ibadat, a matter of obligation in relation to God. In the context of Buddhism persons cannot be “blessed by God” or even “justified,” although they can generally be praised for their virtue in relation to Dharma or the way of attaining enlightenment (and, in Pure Land Buddhism, supposedly born again in the Pure Land). In Buddhism dana (donation) would be considered as right (or just) if the whole act of giving is pure or, better, not blind, i.e. not attached to any desire in the donating person, the one who accepts the donation and the thing that is donated. Let us see

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what a Buddhist comment could be with regard to the story of the Samaritan. The priest and the Levite, who passed by on the other side, might have had urgent tasks to fulfill. Indeed, they are not very praiseworthy. They would not be compared with the Samaritan. The story does not inform us as to whether the Samaritan was proud of his conduct as helper nor does it say anything about the one who was helped. In the context of (Pure Land) Buddhism morality is understood in terms of Nembutsu (saying the name of Amida Buddha). In any moral action one may be pleased with the mercy of Amida’s vow and say Nembutsu in gratitude. Shinran says in Hymns of Pure Land Masters (CWS: 370): Amida has fulfilled the directing of virtue, Which has two aspects: that for our going forth and that for our return. Through these aspects of the Buddha’s directing of virtue, We are brought to realize both mind and practice. (34th Hymn)

The aspect of for our going forth seeks to bring us into the Pure Land. The aspect for our return refers to Amida’s directing of virtue so that after going to the Pure Land we are enabled to perform the act of Samantabhadra and benefit sentient beings. Samantabhadra:—the manifestation of the bodhisattva—stands for the Buddha’s compassion in its complete fullness. The directing of virtue for our going forth is such that When Amida’s active means toward us reaches fulfillment, We realize the shinjin and practice of the compassionate Vow; Then birth-and-death is itself nirvana. (35th Hymn) The directing of virtue for our return to this world is such that We attain the resultant state of benefitting and going to others, Immediately re-centering the world of beings, We engage in the compassionate activity that is the virtue of Samantabhadra. (36th Hymn)

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“Faith in the Eschaton” and “Faith in the Last Dharma Age:” “Died to Sin, Alive in Christ” and “Life ends; Immediately Born” As may be generally known, it has been said that Shin Buddhism (one of the Pure Land Buddhism schools) has similarities to Protestant Christianity, especially in the accentuation of “only Nembutsu” and the sola fide. Concerning the theory of salvation, Shin Buddhism can be considered to be a religion of mercy (Gnadenreligion). Amida Buddha can be compared with Christ, as John B. Cobb Jr. does in Beyond Dialogue, which can be indeed appreciated as an attempt to understand this Buddhist school from the Christian perspective. Among the so-called similarities, I will take a closer look at the comparison of the Christian faith in the eschaton (the Kingdom of God or heaven) and the Buddhist “faith in the Last Dharma age.” There are clearly parallels and it is not difficult to point out similarities. However, we should not overlook some complexities that may have rather deep consequences. In the case of Christianity we always have to be conscious that the confession that God has revealed Himself in Christ in a special way constitutes a new element in an older tradition. Likewise, “Pure Land” as well is a remarkable new element in Buddhism as the “religion of enlightenment.” The confession of the “Messiah/Christ” of Christianity has a dual structure because of its continuation of an older tradition and the radical change that it means for that tradition. The old covenant was thought to have been renewed in a radical way. Within “the history of revelation” from Abraham and Moses onwards a “new” divine message has been received, as Christians believe, in the words and acts of Jesus of Nazareth. “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). This newness is surely the unique confession of Christianity. It would cause a controversy among “religions of revelation.” Inevitably. this newness implies a polemic between the Christian and the Jewish traditions—just as the Islamic confession of the divine nature of the Qur’an implies a polemic with Jews and Christians. Here lies a deep difference with Buddhism—characterized as it is by its longing for

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non-ego and enlightenment. The kind of polemic just referred to would not fit a “religion of enlightenment.” Characteristic for Pure Land Buddhism is the insight that people can attain enlightenment when they are reborn in the Pure Land and live there as enlightened people. For those who live in this “Last Dharma age” and are not capable of practicing the Path of Sages (traditional authentic Bodhisattva ways), only one path to the final goal remains, i.e. the Pure Land Path. That path is the grace of Amida Buddha. Those who trust in “Amida’s Vow” in this “Last Dharma age” will be born in the Pure Land. Therefore, they should repeat the Name of Amida Buddha (the Nembutsu practice) and attain enlightenment by entering the Pure Land. Shinran states in Hymns of the Dharma-age (Pure Land Hymns on the Right, Semblance, and Last Dharma-Ages) (CWS: 399): It is now more than two thousand years Since the passing of Shakyamuni Tathãgata. The right and semblance ages have already closed; So lament, disciples of later times. ( 2nd Hymn) Entrust yourself to Amida’s Primal Vow. Through the benefit of being grasped, never to be abandoned, All who entrust themselves to the Primal Vow Attain the supreme enlightenment. (1st Hymn)

Both the confession of the Messiah/Christ and the teaching of the Pure Land entail ideas of a new time, a new age. Although that truth is true forever, in both traditions something has changed. A new possibility of salvation has arisen. Although the Law of God is true forever, something new has happened in history. Hence Jesus preaches, “The time is fulfilled.” Although the truth of enlightenment or Dharma must always be true, something has changed. On the side of humankind something has changed as well: the ability to practice. People in the “Last Dharma age” do not have the same ability as those in the Right Dharma age. For them the Path of the Sages is too difficult to follow. There remains the “easy” way of the Pure Land Path only. A new element in introduced into both the “faith in the new salvation in Christ”

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and the “faith in the Last Dharma age,” and an old one falls away. Paul writes: For I through the law died to the law, that I might live in God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:19-20)

And Shinran says in Gutoku’s Note (CWS: 594): Concerning the entrusting of oneself to the Primal Vow, [to borrow the words of Shantao,] “in the preceding moment, life ends.” This means that “one immediately enters the group of the truly settled” [T’anluan]. Concerning immediately attaining birth, [to borrow the words of Shantao,] “in the next moment, you are immediately born.” This means that “one immediately enters the stage of the definitely settled” [Nagarjuna]. Further: “One is termed a definitely-settled bodhisattva.”

In Paul and Shinran we can discover a certain similarity in the transition or conversion from an old to a new stage or new moment in life in the realization of faith. However, in the next step on the way to salvation or enlightenment the similarity breaks down. Paul goes on to engage in “mission:” “So I am eager to preach the Gospel to you who are in Rome” (Romans 1:15). He speaks to others. Insofar as I understand it, Christian faith is realized in a personal relation to God and to other people in the world. Christian conduct can take sides: on the one hand, all people are included in God’s love; on the other, unrighteousness and sin are rejected and evildoers will be judged and punished. However, in the Buddhist context the truth and virtue of Dharma is a life of benevolence in relation to everybody. Shinran praises it in Hymns of the Dharma-age (CWS: 412): Such is the Benevolence of Amida’s great compassion, That we must strive to return it, even to the breaking of our bodies; Such is the benevolence of the masters and true teachers, That we must endeavor to repay it, even to our bones becoming dust. (59th Hymn)

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Shin Buddhism amidst the Religious “Diversity” of Japan: Self-Discovery in the Encounter with the“Religion of the Holy” “Shin Buddhists don’t hold religious taboos.” Such a phrase has often been used to characterize the particular Buddhist attitude towards religious “diversity,” a kind of “fusion” or co-existence with Shinto, Taoism, other forms of Buddhism or folk religious and moral concerns. Shin Buddhism differs in this respect quite a bit from the common Buddhist approach to other religious traditions. Although Kamakura Buddhist schools have the tendency to follow “exclusive” practices in order to attain “enlightenment”—such as meditation (Zen), Nembutsu (saying the Name of Amida Buddha, Pure Land) or Daimoku (uttering the sacred title of the Lotus Sutras)—people of all these schools are not very “exclusive” in their actual religious life, and they are rather tolerant with respect to various religious customs. Many Shintoistic deities have been interpreted as embodiments or manifestations of Buddha or of the wisdom and compassion of bodhisattvas. Rituals and stories from Japanese folk religions have been integrated into a Buddhist context as well. We can say that Mahayana Buddhism is a rather inclusive religion indeed. Among the various Buddhist schools exhibiting these trends, Shin Buddhism is indeed “exceptional.” It seems to have a somewhat “monotheistic” sensibility. Although Shin Buddhists do not hold “religious taboos” but rather reject them, they think that it is not possible to worship Amida and pay homage to other deities as well. Totally “exclusive” Shin Buddhists depend on these words of Shinran: “As for me, I simply accept and entrust myself to what my revered teacher told me, ‘Just say the nembutstu and be saved by Amida’; nothing else is involved” (Tannisho CWS: 662). And: “The Nirvana Sutra states: ‘If one has taken refuge in the Buddha, one must not further take refuge in various gods’” (CWS: 255). How lamentable it is that monks and lay-people Select “fortunate times” and “auspicious days” And paying homage to gods of the heavens and earth Engage in divination and rituals of worship. (101th Hymn of the Hymns of the Dharma-Age; CWS: 422)

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SHINRYO TAKADA How lamentable it is that at present All the monks and lay-people of Japan, While following the Buddhist rules of conduct, Venerate gods and spirits of the heavens and earth. (104th Hymn of the Hymns of the Dharma-Age; CWS: 422.)

On the other hand, the tradition of Shin Buddhism is tolerant and inclusive, as can be seen from another saying by Shinran in the Hymns of Pure Land (CWS: 353): When we say “Namu-amida-butsu,” Brahma and Indra venerate us All the benevolent gods of the heavens Protect us constantly, day and night. (100th Hymn) The gods of the heavens and earth Are all to be called good, For together they protect The person of the nembutsu. (106th Hymn)

We can see that Shinran expressed his Amida worship both “exclusively” as well as “inclusively.” He distinguishes between true worship and “provisional” and “false” views; and the criterion for recognizing that which is worthwhile is the confession and repentance of one’s own “self-attachment.” From the viewpoint of “true” Amida worship, that is different from “provisional” and “false” views. Shinran says: “The term provisional refers to those of the Path of Sages and those of the meditative and nonmeditative practices within the Pure Land path. The term false refers to the sixty-two views and the ninety-five wrong paths” (CWS: 124). Shinran’s seeking mind found a way to deal not only with Buddhist practices but with the cultic observation of other religions as well. He had to find a way to live amidst the worship of other deities in Japanese society. The approach that is typical for the way in which Shin Buddhists live with the religious “diversity” in Japan has been described very nicely in a story entitled “Heitaro’s Pilgrimage to Kumano Gongen (“deity”)” in the legends of Godensho, a biography of Shinran, edited by Kakunyo (1270-1352) who was a descendant of Shinran and founder of the Hongwanji temple (see Kakunyo).

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Because of public obligations Heitaro had to go on a pilgrimage to Kumano Gongen. On that journey he passed a Shinto shrine and was supposed to pay homage to its deity. So he had to decide whether he would worship only Amida or fulfil his public duty in the Shinto ritual as well. Happily, Shinran instructed Heitaro in his dream. Because everything in its true nature is Buddha, the shrines are Buddha as well. Because the original state of the Shinto deities is Buddha (or Buddhahood), the obligatory observations of the pilgrimage are not absolutely necessary and paying homage is not contradictory to Amida worship Shin Buddhists often feel that there is a real contradiction between Nembutsu (Amida worship only) and obedience to Shinto deities. Although it has rightly often been said that “Shin Buddhists do not mind religious taboos” (and are therefore open to participation in other cults), nevertheless they also feel a serious problem in their encounter with the Shinto “religion of the holy,” with its taboos and requirement of obedience to the holy. This was a serious problem for a long time in the history of Shin Buddhism. A resolution was reached through the adoption of a dualistic attitude which can be compared to “two wheels of a vehicle” as interpreted by Zonkaku (1290-1373, Kakunyo’s eldest son), namely “inside” one’s heart worshiping Nembutsu or Amida alone and “outside” participation in the public cult of Shinto and acceptance of Confucian morality in social life. This practical “theology of religions” entails internal purism or exclusivism and external tolerance or inclusivism/relativism. This could be considered a “theology of religions” in the tradition of Shin Buddhism. In the pluralistic situation of the modern age, however, a new paradigm of self-identification or selfdiscovery will have to be pursued, especially in the encounter with “religions of revelation.” Appendix: Two Japanese Parables Two Rivers, White Path1 Further, I say to all who aspire for birth in the Pure Land: I will now present a parable for practicers so that their shinjin will be

1

Parable of Shantao (Japanese ‘Zendo’) in Shinran 1997: 89-91.

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protected from attacks by those of wrong or non-Buddhist views and of different opinions. What is the parable? Suppose there is a traveler journeying one hundred thousand li toward the west, when suddenly, along the way, he comes upon two rivers in a single channel—one of fire, extending southward, and one of water, extending north. Each river is one hundred paces across, immeasurably deep, and endless to the north and south. Dividing the fire and water is a single white path four or five inches wide. This path, from the eastern bank to the western bank, is one hundred paces in length. Billows of water surge over the path and flames sweep up to scorch it. Water and fire thus alternate without break. Now the traveler has already journeyed deep into the vast and solitary wilderness; there is no one to be seen. But bands of brigands and wild beasts lurk there and, seeing the traveler alone, they vie with each other to kill him. Fearing for his life, the traveler at once flees toward the west; when without warning the great river appears. He reflects, “I can see no end to this river either to north or south. In the middle is a white path, but it is exceedingly narrow. Although the two banks are but slightly separated, how is it possible to cross? Assuredly this day I shall die. If I turn back, brigands and wild beasts will press closer and closer upon me. If I run north or south, beasts and poisonous insects will contend with each other to attack me. If I venture on the path westward, surely I will plunge into the two currents of water and fire.” There are no words to express the terror and despair that fill him at this point. He thinks further to himself: “If l turn back now, I die. If I remain here, I die. If l go forward, I die. There is no way for me to escape death. Therefore, I choose to go forth, venturing on this path. Since this path exists, it must be possible to cross the rivers.” When this thought occurs to him, he suddenly hears the encouraging voice of someone on the eastern bank, “O traveler, just resolve to follow this path forward! You will certainly not encounter the grief of death. But if you stay where you are, you will surely die.” Further, someone on the western bank calls to him, “O traveler, with mind that is single, with right-mindedness, come at once! I will protect you. Have no fear of plunging to grief in the

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water or fire.” The traveler, having heard the exhortation on his side of the river and the call from the other, immediately acquires firm resolution in body and mind and decisively takes the path, advancing directly without entertaining any doubt or apprehension. When he has gone but one or two paces, the brigands on the eastern bank call out to him: “O traveler, come back! That path is treacherous and permits no crossing. You are certain to meet your death. None of us address you thus with evil intent.” The traveler hears the voices calling him, but he gives no backward glance. Thinking only of the path, he advances directly forward with the mind that is single and forthwith reaches the western side, free forever of all afflictions. He meets his good friend, and his joy is boundless. This is the parable. Now to apply the parable: the eastern bank is the burning house that is this Saha world. The western bank: the precious land of perfect bliss. The brigands and wild beasts calling with treacherous familiarity: a sentient being’s six sense organs, the six forms of consciousness, the six kinds of objects, the five aggregates, and the four elements. The wilderness where no one is to be seen: one constantly joins up with evil companions, without ever meeting a true teacher. The two currents of water and fire: sentient beings’ greed and desire are likened to water, their anger and hatred to fire. The white path in the middle, four or five inches wide: amidst sentient beings’ blind passions of greed and anger, a pure mind that aspires for birth in the Pure Land is awakened. Since the greed and anger are intense they are like the water and fire. Since the good mind is slight, it is like the white path. Further, billows of water constantly surge over the path: desires arise incessantly to defile the good mind. Flames ceaselessly scorch the path: anger and hatred consume the dharma-treasure of virtue. The traveler follows the path and advances directly westward: turning away from all practices, he advances directly westward. He hears the voice of someone on the eastern bank encouraging and exhorting him, and following the path, advances directly westward: Sakyamuni has already entered nirvana and people of later times cannot meet him. His teachings still remain, however, and we can follow them. They are like that voice. When he has gone one or two paces, the brigands call him back: people of different understandings, different practices or false views, with their own misguided opinions,

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one after another seek to confuse him, claiming that he is committing evil and will fail. Someone on the western bank calls to him: this is the intent of Amidaʹs Vow. The traveler forthwith reaches the western side; he meets his good friend, and his joy is boundless: Sentient beings long sinking in birth-and-death and for innumerable kalpas lost in transmigration, being bound in delusion by their own karma, have no means of gaining emancipation for themselves. Reverently embracing Sakyamuni’s teaching in his exhortations to advance westward and obeying Amida’s call to us with his compassionate heart, the traveler accepts and accords with the mind of the two honored ones; never giving a thought to the two rivers of water and fire and taking the call of the honored ones to heart at every moment, he entrusts himself to the path of the power of the Vow. After his death, he attains birth in that land and meets the Buddha. How boundless is his joy! Further, all practicers always have this understanding and always dwell in this aspiration when performing practice in the three modes of action, whether walking, standing, sitting, or reclining, regardless of the time, whether day or night; hence it is called the mind of aspiration for birth and directing virtue. Moreover, concerning directing of virtue: after being born in that land, one now awakens great compassion and reenters birthand-death to teach and guide sentient beings; this too is “directing virtue.” Since one already possesses the three minds, there is no practice that is not fulfilled. With aspiration and practice already fulfilled, any assertion that one is not born is clearly baseless. These three minds apply also to meditative good acts. Reflect on this. The “Ten Oxen” Story of Zen Buddhism2 1. The search for the ox Why the search? The ox has never been missing from the beginning. However, it so happened that the herdsman turned away from himself; thus his own ox became a stranger to him and eventually lost himself in far, dusty regions.

2

See Otsu 1969.

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2. Finding the traces of the ox Reading the Sutras and hearing the teachings have enabled the herdsman to grasp something of the meaning of the truth intellectually. He has found the traces. Now he understands that things are all of the same gold, however differently they may be formed, and that the nature of each thing is not different from his own. Nevertheless, he still can not distinguish between what is genuine and what is not, not to mention between what is true and false. He can not yet pass through the gate. It is therefore provisionally said here that he has only found the traces. 3. Finding the ox At the same moment when the herdsman hears the voice he suddenly jumps into the origin and catches sight of it. The straying senses are calmed in quiet harmony with it. Unveiled, the ox in his entirety permeates each of the herdsman’s actions. He is present in an inherent manner, as salt is in sea water or as glue is in paint. When the herdsman opens his eyes and takes a look he sees nothing other than himself. 4. Catching the ox Today for the first time the herdsman met the ox, who had been hidden for a long time in the wilderness. However, the pleasant world of the wilderness to which the ox is accustomed, still attacks him so strongly that he is hard to hold. He can not yet detach himself from the desire for the sweet grass. Stubborn selfwill rages in him and wild animal nature rules him. If the herdsman wants to make the ox really gentle he must discipline him with the whip. 5. Taming the ox If even the slightest thought arises then another inexorably follows it in an endless round. Through awakening everything becomes truth, through blindness it becomes error. Thoughts arise not from the surroundings but out of the herdsman’s own mind. Hold the rein tight and do not waver! 6. Returning home on the back of the ox Now the struggle is over. Gain and loss have also disappeared into emptiness. The herdsman sings a simple woodsman’s song and plays a country children’s tune on his flute. He rides on the

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ox and looks up into the blue sky. When someone calls out to him he does not turn round. If tugged by the sleeve he will not stop. 7. The ox is forgotten; the herdsman remains There is no duality in the Dharma. Only as a temporary expedient has the ox been portrayed; like a snare in which a hare is trapped, or a weir basket in which a fish is caught. To the herdsman it is now as if the moon came out of the clouds, or as if shining gold were separated from dross. The one cool light was already shining before the world came into existence. 8. Complete oblivion of ox and origin All worldly desires have fallen away and at the same time the meaning of holiness has become completely empty. Do not linger where the Buddha dwells. Go quickly past the place where no Buddha dwells. If a person is no longer attached to either, what is innermost in him can no longer be seen into, not even by him who has a thousand eyes. Holiness, to which birds consecrate flowers, is just a disgrace. 9. The return to the ground and origin It has been pure from the beginning and there is no dust. There someone contemplates the flourishing and withering of that which has form and dwells in the collected quietness of non-doing. He does not allow himself to be tricked by the transitory and deceptive images of the world and does not stand in need of any further training. Blue flow the streams, green rise the mountains. He sits by himself and contemplates all things changing. 10. Entering the market with open hands The brushwood gate is firmly closed and even the wisest holy man can not see him. He has buried his illuminated nature deep and allows himself to turn off the much-traveled tracks of the venerable sages of old. He sometimes enters the marketplace with a hollowed-out gourd or returns to his hut with a staff. He visits the drinking places and fish stalls as he pleases, to awaken the drunkards there to themselves. Bibliography Cobb, John B. Jr. (1983). Beyond Dialogue: Toward a Mutual Transformation of Christianity and Buddhism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

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D’Costa, Gavin (ed.). (1990). Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Gross, Rita M. (2000). “Buddhist Theology?” In: R Jackson and J. Makransky (eds.). Buddhist Theology: Critical Reflections by Contemporary Buddhist Scholars. Richmond: Curzon. Pp. 53-60. Heisig, James W. (2001). Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Hick, John and Paul Knitter (eds.). (1987). The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Jackson, Roger and John Makransky (eds.). (2000). Buddhist Theology: Critical Reflections by Contemporary Buddhist Scholars. Richmond: Curzon. Kakunyo. An Illustrated Biography of Shinran, the Honganji Shonin (Honganji Shonin Shinran Denne). Introduced, translated and annotated by Zuio H. Inagaki. http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~horai/ denne-index.htm. Godensho. English translation on: http://www.ne.jp/asahi/purelandbuddhism/amida-net. Otsu, Master D. R. (1969). The Ox and His Herdsman: A Chinese Zen Text with Commentary and Pointers and Japanese Illustrations of the Fifteenth Century, Translated from the Tsujimura-Buchner version by M. H. Trevor. Tokyo: The Hokeido. Schmidt-Leukel, Perry. (1992). Den Löwen brüllen hörenʺ: zur Hermeneutik eines christlichen Verständnisses der buddhistischen Heilsbotschaft. Paderborn: Schöningh. Shinran. (1997). The Collected Works of Shinran (CWS). Vol.1. Kyoto: Hongwanji. Smart, Ninian. (1993). Buddhism and Christianity. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Takada, Shinryo. (2000). “Das shin-buddhistische Verständnis von ‘Gebet/Meditation’ in der Begegnung mit dem personalen Gottesverständis des Christentums.” In: Hans-Martin Barth et al. (eds.). Buddhismus und Christentum, Jodo-Shinshu und Evangelische Theologie. Hamburg: EB-Verlag. Takeuchi, Yoshinori. (1959). “Buddhism and Existentialism: The Dialogue between Oriental and Occidental Thought.” In: W. Leibrecht (ed.). Religion and Culture. New York. Harper. Tillich, Paul. (1967). Systematic Theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Von Brück, Michael, and Whalen Lai. (1997). Buddhismus und Christentum: Geschichte, Konfrontation, Dialog. Munich: Beck. Waldenfels, Hans. (1976). Absolutes Nichts: Zur Grundlegung des Dialogs zwischen Buddhismus und Christentum. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. (1980). Absolute Nothingness: Foundations for a Buddhist-Christian Dialogue. Transl. James W. Heisig. New York: Paulist Press.

Emulating Their Good Qualities, Taking their Defects as a Warning Confucian Attitudes toward Other Religions Margaret W. Izutsu Abstract This paper examines Confucian attitudes toward other religions in general in the synthetic periods of the Han and Sung dynasties and during the current “Confucian Diaspora” on the edges of the Sinic world. While admitting to less than ideal practices that may have contributed to crowding out the competition such as nepotism and searing yet not necessarily insightful critiques of Buddhism and Taoism in particular, this paper calls on the Confucian tradition to rededicate itself to its most salient feature and method: learning from others. In so doing, narrow definitions of the tradition that have accrued to it in latter-day attempts to “purge” the tradition of the influence of other religions as articulated in the Ching dynasty and in Tokugawa Japan may be overcome and a broad, liberal and liberating richness and subtlety may be allowed to nurture its adherents.

Introduction Attitudes of Confucians to other religions throughout the centuries vacillate between unabashedly synthesizing the insights of others on the one hand and vigorously condemning the wrongheaded emphasis of their teachings on the other. Confucian critique of other religious ideas can extend to attempting to purge their own tradition of other teachings’ influence, even while embracing the others’ contributions to Confucian method and metaphysical understanding. In my study and experience of the tradition, I have found that in its talent for open discussion and valuing the insights of others, contemporary Confucian discourse 45

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might be seen as a model for constructive pluralistic dialogue that the West, with its history of intolerance and fear of syncretism, still seeks. Confucian tradition has been criticized, to be sure: on its treatment of women, for the limits created by its own rigidity, and because of its nepotistic practices, for example (cf. Ching 2002: 380; deBary 1975: 1-2; Tillman 1992: 21). But examined cumulatively as a religious tradition, its history offers a model of self-transformation through assimilation of other traditions that may be helpful in our day. These possibilities are provided in several notions articulated in the Analects by the Master K’ung, that person known in the West as Confucius and after whom the tradition in latter days gets its name.1 This brief essay will give a descriptive overview of the synthesizing achievements of three salient periods in the Confucian tradition. Beginning with the legends around Confucius himself (552?-479 BCE) leading up to the Han (206 BCE- 220 CE) synthesis, my description continues with a short discussion of the contributions of Neo-Confucianism beginning in the tenth century (and as it is reworked in the Tokugawa (1600-1868) period Japan), and concludes with a look at what Tu Wei-ming would term the third epoch of Confucianism, the New Confucians. A contemporary critical assessment of Confucianism undertaken by the New Confucians will yield some prescriptions for religious attitudes toward other religions consistent with the best of the Confucian tradition and will propose ways in which the subtleties

1

During the twelve years out of the past 25 that I lived in Japan, I recognize and am grateful for the subtly salvific ways that Japanese embodiment of Confucian tradition supported me in learning from others, and therefore consider myself a “convert.” In fact, it seems I internalized Confucian values to such an extent that my Asian colleagues accept me as one of them and refer to me, despite my clearly Caucasian appearance, as “Asian.” Perhaps this makes me a (cautious) insider of sorts. Subsequent to my return to the U.S., I have been ordained in the Episcopal Church, studied the Confucian tradition at Harvard, and now teach at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. My doctoral project examined the sustained bereavement support available through Confucian memorial customs with an eye to adapting these practices to the church in North America, where such support is currently sadly lacking.

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provided for in various textual sources may be brought to bear in addressing the march of history with its too-little use for nuance. The Confucians and the Other Schools A.C. Graham’s Disputers of the Tao addresses most directly the question of how Confucians in the formative period of the tradition viewed other religions generally. It is Graham’s contention that Confucius himself was unself-conscious with respect to other religions, or other teachings, as may be the more appropriate term in the times in which Confucius and his followers lived.2 Graham specifically denounces the idea that Confucius was the founder of a school in competition with other schools; this, he claims, was a later development, when the teaching of Confucius was finally loosely consolidated by his followers and came to be classified as one of the “Six Schools” by the father of the famous historian Ssuma Ch’ien, Ssu-ma T’an (d. 110 BCE). Along with the “Ju” (or “teachers of the Way” as they were called, not yet “Confucians” per se) Ssu-ma T’an counted the Mohists, the Legalists, the Yin/Yang School, the School of Names (Sophists by Grahams’ reckoning) and the Taoists.3 Graham characterizes the Ju as “professional teachers of traditional manners and morals” and is quick to point out “not all of whom necessarily recognized the authority of Confucius,” including specifically one famous example of Kao-Tzu (Graham 1989:117). The Ju did share a reverence for a few classic texts and the moral exemplars of the legendary past as well as common cause in seeking the “Way,” a term the Ju shared with Taoists. For the Ju, the “Way” meant something specifically by which social harmony could be enhanced as opposed to the naturalistic and hermetic ideal espoused by Taoism. Graham’s portrayal of Confucius as in fact eschewing rivalry and as a man single-mindedly bent on following the “Way,” 2

This is in recognition of “religion” being a nineteenth-century term, not an admission to Confucian tradition as being anything less than “religious” as some scholars (myself not among them) might like to assert. 3

See Ching 2002: 352 for an explanation of the term Ju or ru in her rendering and its ironic history.

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merely sincerely and modestly hoping to ferret it out in the presence of his co-sojourners may, of course, be the picture his followers wished to paint of him, a possibility we cannot discount inasmuch as we are dependent on their compilation of his sayings after his death for any information about him. But Graham accurately captures the sense one gets in reading the Analects that Confucius never thought of posing to his interlocutors a choice of his “Way” or others’ “way:” For [Confucius], you follow the Way if clear-sighted enough to see it and strong enough to persist in it, otherwise you simply fall away from it out of blindness or weakness. It is only later, with the rise of schools of competing principles, that we meet with such metaphors as the crossroads (conspicuously absent in the Analects, in spite of many references to the Way, walking, paths, tracks), or the weighing of alternatives as though on a balance. (Graham 1989: 27)

While I share Graham’s sense that the Analects portrays Confucius as less overtly polemical or confrontational than the apostle Paul is in the New Testament epistles, for instance, it is still possible to discern the alternatives that did exist in Confucius’ day and his stance and recommendation with respect to them. For instance, Confucius specifically adjures speculation (cf. Analects 9:4), dogmatism (12:3) and glibness (17:18) or clever talk (17:17). His orientation is decidedly this-worldly, pragmatic and humble, aiming to assist harmonious social life through an emphasis on cultivation of the self. His insistence that “virtue is not solitary; it always has neighbors” (4:25) can be seen not only as opposed to specifically Taoist withdrawal from society but as the basis of Confucius’ own method: Confucius quietly and modestly insists that cultivating the self is life-long, requires sincerity and diligence and entails learning from others: “When you see a worthy man, seek to emulate him; when you see an unworthy man, examine yourself” (4:17). The “one thread” that by his own accounts runs through all his teaching is to “do one’s utmost and put oneself in the other’s place” (4:15). Far from setting himself up as exemplar, Confucius insists that he, himself, has failed to achieve the utmost: the status of sage. It would be centuries before the Analects took anything like center stage, as they did in the Sung dynasty with the reestablish-

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ment of Confucian state orthodoxy in a revised Neo-Confucian curriculum as the basis of government service examinations. But it is safe to assume that these stances (against speculation, dogmatism, glibness, etc. and for sincerity, modesty, life-long selfcultivation and an interest in learning from others) formed the backbone of what came to be the Confucian traditional attitude toward other religions in general. At the very least, these attitudes may be seen to have been formed in a dialectical or reciprocal process as the tradition sought to define itself as over and against other teachings. Perhaps the aforementioned stances also represent the ambiguous guidelines of “right and wrong” that fueled the intense debates that would occasionally rock the tradition from within. It would be naive, though, to think of Confucius and the people of the school that grew up around his teaching as entirely peaceabl e; in fact, as Graham himself points out, their own internal disputes led to their being fired from an important job. The country was united in 221 BCE by the “First Emperor” who asked the Ju of Confucius’ home district of Lu in 219 BCE for ritual help in offering Imperial sacrifice to Heaven on Mount T’ai. The emperor dismissed them, though, upon hearing of their internal wrangling. The Han synthesis amalgamated several teachings as was provided for already in the compilation of and commentary on classic texts held dear by the “teachers of the Way.” Sarah Queen’s study illuminates the syncretic soup of the centuries leading up to and including the Han that nourished the Han Confucian orthodoxy. Within the classic texts are references to Yin/Yang theory, Taoist notions and the Five Agents School and the Analects themselves refer at least to the former two. The Confucian most credited with the ascendancy of Confucian thought in the Han is Dong Zhongshu (Tung Chung-shu) (179-104 BCE), who is said to have coordinated the views on benevolent governance as explicated up to then by Confucius, Mengzi (Mencius) and Xun Zi (Hsun Tzu). Han Confucian cosmology was, in fact, the culmination of centuries of thought that came to view the Emperor as the one who unites Heaven, earth and humankind, a “high priest and fount of wisdom” (Queen 1996: 1f). Indeed, it was the Confucian emphasis on matters of governance that made it particularly appealing to rulers seeking to unite an empire, and

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not its claims for superiority over other religions or teachings per se. In fact, in spite of admonitions against speculation and glib talk in the Analects, the Han period “was tolerant of exaggerations and superstitions” and even Dong was said to place a certain confidence in divination and portents (Ching 2002: 370). Until this point, the Confucians, such as Mencius and Hsun Tzu, took on their philosophical interlocutors on a point-by-point basis. For example, Mencius’ complained that Mohist universal love could provoke a portentous dissolution of “family values” and Hsun Tzu emphasized the need for the “rectification of names” to correct the particular disarray of parlance in his day, presumably a critique of other teachings who fail to call things by their proper names. By the time of the late Han, however, Graham notices an evolution in what we might at this stage more properly call a “Confucian” attitude: The Confucians … treat their rivals not as wholly wrong but as one-sided, an attitude which would have been inconceivable to Mencius but is already assumed by Hsün-Tsu. Since the 3rd century B.C. there had been a general shift from “You are wrong, I’m right” to ‘You have a narrow view, I have a wide view.” We may see this as one more example of the Chinese tendency to rank A above B rather than eliminate B; as the tendency to compromise rather than conflict is another factor in the persisting stability of China. (Graham 1989: 378)

As evidence of its liberality, the Han dynasty in which Confucian state orthodoxy was established was also the time during which Buddhism was introduced to the country. Neo-Confucians and their Opponents In the ensuing centuries Buddhist infiltration into China was to prove both a great thorn in the side of Confucian hegemony as well as a great stimulus (see Chung 1955; Tillman 1992: 16f.). By the time of the Sung dynasty, the corruption in society that Confucians wanted to lay at the feet of Buddhist doctrine could not be done without filling in the gap in Confucian thinking by making an appeal to the minds of the people in a similar way to that which held sway in Buddhism. Beginning with Zhou Dunyi

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(Chou Tun-Yi; 1017-73), who found within classic Confucian texts sources for a metaphysics that Confucianism had been lax in defining or developing, the so-called Sung masters crafted a revision of Confucian teaching that reflected the interest in metaphysics that Buddhist epistemology had helped to shape. Culminating in Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi; 1130-1200), a new curriculum was devised that drew on Buddhist method as well as metaphysical interest and explication, with an emphasis on the role of quiet sitting as a means to achieve the clarity with which to discern the Way. This was to be complemented by an insistence on “investigation of things” in order to align oneself with truth or to enable embodiment of “principle.” Emphasis in Confucianism was still on action, but Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi) was explicitly critical of the influential Sung statesman Wang An-shih’s study of the Confucian classics for the sake of strengthening the state, rather than for finding principles in them for people of all ages (Gardner 1990: 69; Tillman 1992: 18). Chu Hsi fell into disfavor by the end of his life, yet after another hundred years, his Neo-Confucian curriculum became established and wielded enormous influence over all of East Asia. Indeed, for six centuries it was the basis for education and examination of government officials. It was at this point that the Analects took center stage, being established as one of the Four Books that formed the core of Chu Hsi’s curriculum (Gardner 1990: 78f.). While the Analects stress the importance of learning, their ambiguity on the content of what was to be learned lent to vigorous debates among Confucians from the Sung period onwards (Gardner 1990: 59). Further, we still do not know, however, what the lesson plan looked like in Chu Hsi’s day and thus what specific passages, if any, were considered particularly salient to the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy from his point of view or how, with what hermeneutical stance, they were to be understood (Kassel 1994: 59). Later Neo-Confucians formulated pointed criticism of Buddhist and Taoist philosophy on the basis of an emphasis that is clearly pragmatic, this-worldly and socially oriented while simultaneously newly mystical and nature-related. In China in the sixteenth century, Lo Ch’in Shu is clear in his complaints against Buddhism: The “clarifying the mind and perceiving the nature” of the Buddhists and the “fully developing the mind and knowing

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MARGARET W. IZUTSU the nature” of Confucians seem similar but are in reality different. For pure intelligence and consciousness are the wonder of the mind, while perfect subtlety and absolute unity are the reality of the nature. Generally speaking, the Buddhists have insight into the mind but lack insight into the nature …. Were the Buddhists to get a firm hold on what they have attained through their insight, and had they the capacity to direct their inquiries to a higher plane, they in turn might know “the moral sense which is bestowed by the Lord.” But considering theirs to be the supreme and mysterious Way, they are unaware that there are truths they cannot discover in an entire lifetime. Thus they presume to advance their theories, thereby misleading later generations so that they abandon human relationships and destroy the principle of nature. Can the pernicious influence of this disastrous legacy be expressed in words? (Bloom 1987: 51f.)

Such was the invective against Buddhism and Lo’s views in particular were to hold great sway in the transmission of Confucianism into Japan by way of Korea. In Tokugawa (1600-1868) Japan, key Confucian thinkers reworked the tradition they inherited to reflect the particular concerns of their age and to correct emphases they thought were leading people and the Confucian tradition astray. The common denominator was their desire to purge Confucian tradition of Buddhist and/or Taoist influence, while in some cases holding on to elements within the tradition that could, nonetheless, be traced to the other teachings. W. Theodore deBary critically outlines the various concerns and contributions of a handful of Tokugawan Neo-Confucians, founders of the movements, Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan on the one hand and three who are representative of the so-called “Ancient Learning” school, Yamaga Soko, Ito Jinsai and Ogyu Sorai on the other. These five neatly demonstrate a range of options, each elaborating on one or another facet of the complex and rich NeoConfucian synthesis, united in their concern for ridding Confucianism of Buddhist and/or Taoist overlays. Seika and Razan represent differing temperaments and resulting divergent interpretations of the tradition: Seika, according to deBary, was an introvert drawn to and trained through his Buddhist tonsure in mental and spiritual disciplines and thus re-

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tained quiet sitting as a method but nonetheless strove for an integration of inner and outer, quietism and action, reflecting the complex aims of Neo-Confucianism. The possibility of the individual experiencing and acting on truth reflects Buddhist influence in its valuation of subjective/personal experience. Seika’s desire to overturn the amoralistic quality that was engendered in Ch’an Buddhism in his attempt to “abide in reverence and plumb principle,”however, lead him to embrace a moralistic rigorism that deBary dubs “puritanical” (deBary 1979: 131). Razan, by contrast, was an extrovert whose emphasis on the rational and intellectual aspects of Neo-Confucianism was critical of the Buddhist emphasis on the importance of the subjective mind and reframed the object of study as exclusively residing in the realm of things. As deBary notes, both Seika and Razan, even with their different emphases, functioned in “two familiar NeoConfucian roles: as critics of Buddhism, and as proponents of secular society and culture” (deBary 1979: 138). Yamaga Soko, renowned for his construction of the “Way of the Samurai” or Bushido, an application of Neo-Confucian values to military culture, claimed that the Sung preoccupations both with scholarly learning and quiet sitting were irresponsible and effete, an insidious intrusion of Buddho-Taoist quietism and escapism (deBary 1979: 141) Yet he valued the “mystical insights [of Taoism and Buddhism, especially as synthesized in Zen] [which] provided greater access to spiritual freedom and spontaneity” deBary 1979: 140). Soko noticed, however, that these insights took him “away from society, not into it” (deBary 1979: 140). Pursuing further study of Confucian classics and Shinto, Soko developed a “simplified system of basic ethics that would serve as a kind of least-common-denominator adaptable to any social station or situation in life” (deBary 1979: 140). Soko rejected both scholarly learning and quiet sitting as taking away from daily life and social responsibilities. DeBary considers social structural differences to be responsible for this divergence in emphasis: Neo-Confucianism addressed the leisured gentry class in China, as opposed to the military class Soko was addressing in Japan. DeBary insists that Chu Hsi’s method was intended, even with respect to the leisured gentry, however, to enhance practical efficacy.

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Along the lines of argument articulated by Lo Ch’in Shu, Yamaga Soko, Ito Jinsai and Ogyu Sorai all shared a concern over what they perceive to be the Neo-Confucian deprecation of physical nature. The Neo-Confucian emphasis on quiet sitting as a method to assist in transcending selfish motives Yamaga Soko read as implying the self was itself, bad. Rather than strive for transcendence of selfish motives as in the Sung Neo-Confucian solution, these Tokugawa thinkers sought to match or adjust individual desire and aspiration to a person’s own situation based on experience or empirical study—that is, to socialize desire. Ito Jinsai also found fault with fault-finding. DeBary quotes Ito: Therefore what the noble man esteems is not so much being without fault as being able to reform oneself .... the Sung school ... are restrained and reserved, lest they give anyone the chance to find ... fault .... Therefore they are severely handicapped in their own power to do good, and they cannot appreciate magnanimity in others or a warm open-heartedness. This is what I call recognizing dead principles, but not recognizing live principles (deBary 1979: 148)

Finally, the move away from an emphasis on internal discipline and toward a concern with social institutions and form culminates in Ogyu Sorai, who disavows the Neo-Confucian synthesis more thoroughly in an appeal to the prior and superior authority of Confucius, as did Ito Jinsai before him (cf. Dilworth 1979). Sorai, however, was concerned with the inspirational power of the mystical view of the reverence recommended in NeoConfucianism over Neo-Confucian obsessive ritualism. His main complaint was with regard to the danger of antinomianism through the absolute authority granted to subjective convictions of the individual that he perceived held sway in Buddhism and in those he termed somewhat sarcastically the Neo-Confucian “latter-day sages.” In appealing to the authority of Confucius and the ancients, he retained the value of reverence that the ancients evinced in their receptivity to the dictates of Heaven and the demands of the Way, balancing his social concern with a transcendent referent and attitude of reverence.

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Recent Developments in Confucianism It is instructive to see certain strands within Confucianism highlighted, such as reverence, the need to correct oneself but avoid the prissiness of “fault-finding,” and the revalorization of spontaneity as liberating of the power to do good and deBary’s treatment points helpfully to the inception of and critiques certain sensibilities still palpable in Japan today. However, deBary also, as part of his critique, laments the distortions of the rich NeoConfucian synthesis that the more limited emphases of Tokugawan thinkers represent. These limitations notwithstanding, Tu Wei-ming is able to find a source of strength for the Confucian tradition in the outposts in which it is currently most saliently located in the “third epoch” of Confucianism, to which I now turn. In each of the cases I have reviewed so far, the Han synthesis and Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, Confucianism was in ascendancy. From this advantageous position, not granted so much as earned or, in some cases, stolen, it was able to transform other traditions or teachings from within its own orientation and curriculum, as in the notion of the Way shared with Taoism and the method of quiet sitting shared with Buddhism. However, in the so-called “third epoch” of Confucianism, ushered in by the self-conscious New Confucians, on the other hand, we might say that Confucianism is more than a little on the defensive. Having been castigated as Asia encountered the power and influence of the West for its lulling of Confucian cultures into a backward complacency, since the May 4 revolution in 1919 many Asians would like to disown their Confucian inheritance. Others have looked to Confucian elements as the explanation for the remarkably rapid modernization that has taken hold in Asia.4 In either case, Confucian orthodoxy or hegemony is now the exception rather than the rule in matters of overt educational policy. Rather, its force is felt from within its position, somewhat akin to the Trojan horse, located in nominally diverse traditions or teachings, where it continues to transform, this time from within the others. There are, for instance, hyphenated versions of religious commitment that conferences of Confucians have identified: Confucian-Christians, 4 Complicating the situation, as Michael Nylan (2001: 350) writes, “[Confucius] has been vilified by well-meaning reformers and lionized by dubious characters.”

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Confucian-Muslims, and so forth (cf. Berthrong 1994). My own research into the Confucian elements of Buddhist memorial rites in Japan identifies the attention to ritual propriety, the sequencing that respects hierarchical birth order, and most saliently, the capacity to learn from others as significant examples of the Confucian desire to cultivate the self within a social context amalgamated into Buddhist forms. When a taxi driver tells me that the head abbot of a Zen monastery instructed him not to be rude to me, I attribute this concern for etiquette to the lengthy history of Japanese Zen masters studying Confucian classics (cf. Collcott 1981). When I see families concerned over who should go next to offer incense at a Buddhist burial rite, I see Confucian deference at work set to the tune of sutra readings. As I listen to my informants rehearse their grieving experience by an astute attention to mundane details, I hear them cultivating themselves, selves that they may “know” are impermanent on the one hand, but for which they strive to derive meaning in the sensate here and now on the other. When I see my colleague at the secular, government-sponsored puppet theater struggle with his reputation as a “cold and aloof” person, I see a person bent on learning from others, seeking the error within himself in an impressive display of sincerity and valor in the face of the admonitions and exhortations of friends. Two passages in the Analects suggest themselves in this regard: Zigong inquired about how to treat friends, and the Master replied, “Do your utmost to exhort them, and lead them adeptly along the Way. But if they are unwilling then desist—don’t disgrace yourself in the process;” (12:23) The Master said, “Can you really love the people without urging them on? Can you do your utmost for your lord without instructing him?” (14:7)

Each of these examples point to the role of admonition as a virtue of friendship or as a member of the loyal opposition. The first example would suggest forced conversion is not an option and that a high regard for individual autonomy is basic. One’s concerns, in

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friendship, for the other does not endorse or condone acts that will, in the final analysis, result in one’s own humiliation.5 These are just a handful of examples of the influence of Confucianism to which Tu Wei-ming points, generating a phenomenon that we might dub “homo Confucianus” after Richard Niebuhr’s similar term, “homo Christianus.” (Niebuhr 1972: xii).6 As Tu writes, The cunning of history may show that the Confucian intellectual effervescence on the periphery of the Sinic world is particularly efficacious for its flourishing abroad and its eventual return to the mother country. The third epoch of the Confucian Way may have been initiated in Peking, but it is in Hong Kong, Taipei, Kyoto, and Seoul that it has truly endured. With a view toward the future, for the sake of its spiritual enrichment and intellectual empowerment, it seems well advised that the agenda for the journey home includes excursions to such places as New York, Paris, Cairo, and Madras. (Tu 1993: 221)

In its journey to these places, Tu hopes for correctives to patriarchy, nepotism and other ills that have plagued the Confucian tradition. The mandate for this view comes from within the Confucian tradition itself: as deBary points out, Confucius’ recommendation to “learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses, ‘hoping to enhance the one and remedy the other’” is the original inspiration for such a stance (deBary 1983: 106). Tu insists toughmindedly that the Confucian tradition be instructed by its contact with the West. Concluding Remarks In a brief descriptive essay such as this, we do not have the opportunity to investigate intriguing questions raised by our overview of Confucian attitudes toward other religion such as: To what extent did Confucians, in their critique of Buddhist and Taoist epistemologies and philosophies, truly understand their 5

I stress this for the obvious reason, in contrast to the emphasis in Christian history on concern for the soul of the other, i.e., the unconverted. 6

See Tu Wei-ming 1993 and Niebuhr 1972.

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interlocutors? Or more pointedly, to what extent, given the ethos of “seeking the log in one’s own eye” embraced by the Confucian tradition, did Buddhism and Taoism become the foils for its own failures? Conversely, in the spirit of generosity recommended by Confucianism and in recognition of its general tolerance for other teachings, to what extent could we view the criticisms of Buddhism and Taoism, up to if not including the attempt to “purge” the Confucian tradition of their influence, as simply the dutiful admonitions of friends? Tu Weiming’s is the contemporary voice exercising such friendly exhortation from within the Confucian tradition with respect to other world religious traditions in general. Tu sees the concrete, this-worldly, socially engaged and ecologically concerned qualities of the Confucian tradition as a resource for other religions that may have, through their wrong-headed otherworldly emphasis, contributed to our global crises in all these dimensions: social, ecological and spiritual (cf. Tu 1997). In addition to his admonitions to his own tradition from his understanding of the West, he also admonishes the West to become a “learning” as well as a teaching civilization. Specifically, he calls on American civilization, as an inheritor of the Enlightenment mentality based on instrumental rationality to consider “‘Asian values’ such as sympathy, distributive justice, duty-consciousness, ritual, publicspiritedness and group orientation” as “a critical and timely reference for the American way of life” (Tu 1997: 408). Such a recommendation ironically embodies the “one thread” running through Confucius’ teaching: to do one’s utmost and put oneself in the other’s place (Analects 4:15) and accords well with the possibilities within Confucianism I myself have experienced. The Analects recommend five practices that, if “spread everywhere in the world would implement humanity: courtesy, tolerance, good faith, diligence, and generosity” (17:6). In accordance with the dictum that the Way cannot enlarge man, but man can enlarge the Way (Analects 15:29), we are invited to continue to learn from others and to refrain from being puffed up as a result of mistaken sensations of exclusive possession of the truth. As Confucius judged himself as having fallen short of the goal of sagehood, we may safely assume that Confucian tradition has fallen short of its goal of humanity or benevolence. However, perhaps the history of the Confucian attitude toward other tradi-

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tions is animated by and at its best the embodiment of Confucius’ standard or prescription: “The Master said, ‘Put me in the company of any two people at random—they will invariably have something to teach me. I can take their qualities as a model and their defects as a warning” (Analects 7:22). Bibliography Abe, Yoshio. (1970). “Development of Neo-Confucianism in Japan, Korea and China: A Comparative Study.” Acta Asiatica 19: 16-39. Berthrong, John H. (1994). “Dual Citizenship: Syncretism Revisited.” In: John H. Berthrong. All Under Heaven: Transforming Paradigms in Confucian-Christian Dialogue. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press: 165-87. (1998). Transformations of the Confucian Way. Boulder: Westview Press. Bloom, Irene (transl. and ed.). (1987). Knowledge Painfully Acquired: The Kʹun-chih chi by Lo Chʹin-shun. New York: Columbia University Press. Ching, Julia. (2002). “East Asian Religions.” In: Willard Oxtoby (ed.). World Religions: Eastern Traditions. 2nd ed. Don Mills: Oxford University Press. Chung, Carson. (1955). “Buddhism as Stimulus to Neo-Confucianism.” Oriens Extremus: 157-66. Collcott, Martin. (1981). Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan. Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University. Confucius. (1998). The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. Translated. and introduced by Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr. New York: Ballantine Books. Davis, Edward L. (2001). Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. deBary, W. Theodore. (1981). Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart. New York: Columbia University Press. (1979). “Sagehood as a Secular and Spiritual Ideal in Tokugawa Neo-Confucianism.” In: W. Theodore deBary and Irene Bloom (eds). Principle and Practicality: Essays in Neo-Confucianism and Practical Learning. New York: Columbia University Press. (1983). The Liberal Tradition in China. New York: Columbia University Press.

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(1975). The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism. New York: Columbia University Press. Gardner, Daniel K. (transl. and com.). (1990). Chu Hsi: Learning to Be a Sage. Selections from the Conversations of Master Chu, Arranged Topically. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dilworth, David A. (1979). “Jitsugaku as an Ontological Conception: Continuities and Discontinuities in Early and Mid-Tokugawa Thought.” In: W. Theodore deBary and Irene Bloom (eds). Principle and Practicality: Essays in Neo-Confucianism and Practical Learning. New York: Columbia University Press. Graham, A.C. (1989). Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. LaSalle: Open Court. Najita, Tetsuo and Irwin Scheiner (eds). (1978). Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period 1600-1868: Methods and Metaphors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kassel, Marleen. (1994). Tokugawa Confucian Education: The Kangien Academy of Hirose Tanso (1782-1856). Albany: State University of New York Press. Maruyama Masao. (1974). Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan. Transl. Mikiso Hane. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Neville, Robert Cummings. (2000)/ Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-Modern World. With a foreward by Tu Wei-ming. Albany: State University of New York Press. Niebuhr, Richard R. (1972). Experiential Religion. New York: Harper & Row. Nylan, Michael. (2001). The Five “Confucian” Classics. New Haven: Yale University Press. Queen, Sarah A. (1996). From Chronicle to Canon: The Hermeneutics of the Spring and Autumn according to Tung Shung-shu. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tillman, Hoyt Cleveland. (1992). Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Tu Wei-ming. (1993). “Confucianism.” In: Arvind Sharma (ed.). Our Religions. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers. (1997).”Crisis and Creativity: A Confucian Response to the Second Axial Age.” In: Steven Chase (ed.). Doors of Understanding: Conversations in Global Spirituality in Honor of Ewert Cousins. Quincy: Franciscan Press. (2000). “Foreward.” In: Sachiko Murata. Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light: Wang Tai-yuʹs Great Learning of the Pure and Real and Liu Chihʹs Dis-

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playing the Concealment of the Real Realm. With translation of Lawa’ih from the Persian by William C. Chittick. Albany: State University of New York Press. (1991). “The Search for Roots In Industrial East Asia: The Case of the Confucian Revival.” In: Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds). Fundamentalisms Observed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Hinduism A Descriptive and/or Prescriptive Appraisal of Other Religions in General by Hinduism G.C. Nayak Abstract Hinduism is well known for its tolerance and accommodative nature. This is no doubt intrinsic to Hinduism and is a unique tolerance and liberal attitude towards other forms of worship and other deities. That this is a special feature of Hinduism cannot be denied even by its severest critic. Hinduism, in principle at least, shows the way of how to co-exist with others not only peacefully but also by doing positive good to others in promoting the cause of their respective religions which can ultimately lead to the highest. If it is truly our conviction that there is no real difference in respect of the highest to which the different religions attaub and that there is only a difference in the path but not in the destination, then we should be able to demonstrate our conviction in and through our practice. Certainly, any idea of converting others by some sort of forcible conversion to our point of view is out of question so far as Hinduism is concerned, for that is imposition of one’s own ideology on others to which Hindus, at least true Hindus, are allergic to the core.

Introduction The secular ideas of the Hindus are found in and embedded in the very structure of what is popularly known as Hindu religion. Although it is true that different forms of worship, varieties of colorful temples constructed for the purpose of this worship of different gods and goddesses and the well-known Brahminical priests and preachers with their specific religious dogmas are no less conspicuous in Hinduism, it is at the same time worth noting 63

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that from the very beginning of Hindu civilization there has been another counter-trend running throughout this culture which cannot be depicted as narrowly religious by any stretch of the imagination. This trend has been sometimes so predominant in this heritage that religious dogmas and forms of worship have been relegated in that context to a secondary status in principle as well as in practice. This is due mainly to a uniquely monistic type of thought prevailing in Hindu culture from the time of its very inception in the Vedic period (cf. Shri Govinda Candra Pandey 1997). It would be difficult not to admit that Hinduism, in this form, is one of the unique manifestations in human civilization of what I would designate paradoxically as a secular religion. A little elaboration of this idea may not be out of place here. In its monistic aspect it should be noted that Hinduism presents to us a unique picture of a non-dogmatic religion. Is there any specific object of worship, any particular object of “ultimate concern” here as distinguished from all others? Is there anything in particular which alone is intensively valued, considered holy or sacred, at the cost of any other value, entity or ideal in Hinduism, considered in its uniquely monistic aspect? Rather, one must admit that here everything is considered holy, every value is considered to be a matter of concern, every bit of life, personal or social, is considered sacred. And here lies its commitment, its “ultimate concern,” because of which I regard it to be the manifestation of a deeply religious attitude—but with a difference of course. Shankara would put it in the most convincing manner as follows: The whole world is a heavenly pleasure-garden, all trees are wish-fulfilling trees, all waters are as holy as the waters of Ganges, all activities are sacred, all words, whether religious or secular, constitute the Vedanta, the whole earth a place of pilgrimage like Varanasi, and the entire existence is centred on the ultimate Reality, for one who has encountered Brahman, realising the oneness, or better the non-duality, of existence. (Samastam jagadeva nandanavam, sarvepi kalpadrmah, etc.)

Specific worship of gods and goddesses and definite dogmas of religion are relegated to a secondary position in this ideology. Rather, it is pointed out that it makes little sense to talk of worshiping the one without a second, the Infinite.

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This, however, is not the whole story about Hinduism. Karmakanda, the ritual, however obsolete it might have been in its particular details, is no less influential in the life of an average Hindu than the jnana-kanda, philosophical wisdom, and, on certain occasions like birth and marriage ceremonies or at the time of death, can be found to have a distinct hold on the Hindu psyche in general. Bhakti or devotion, tantric and yogic practices also add their respective colours to the multidimensional and multicolored character of Hinduism. In any case it would be far from reality if Hinduism, as it is envisaged in the Advaitic ideology of nondualism, is regarded as the one and only truth about Hinduism. The secular base is provided by the Advaita no doubt, but at the same time adherence to particular sectarian ways are also found to be at least as prevalent as the ideas of what I designate as transcendental secularism, a typically Hindu philosophy of value (cf. Nayak 1987: 67-77). Tolerance Hinduism is well known for its tolerance and accommodating nature (cf. Balasubramanian 1992). This is no doubt intrinsic to Hinduism and it is evident in the following statement of Lord Krsna in the Bhagavadgita, “Those who worship other gods, they also worship Me and serve Me, albeit not in accordance with the prescribed Rules”(9:23). Here a unique attitude of tolerance and liberal attitude towards other forms of worship and other deities is quite evident. Moreover, one cannot lose sight of the open declaration of understanding and tolerance made by both Gaudapada and Shankara, the great founding figures of the Advaita school of thought in respect to the dualist schools with whom they are supposed to come to clash from time to time (cf. Nayak 1992: 12130). It seems that tolerance is the natural concomitant of the transcendental form of monism which provides a philosophical basis for this unique culture of transcendence, i.e. the Hindu culture; a deliberate striving for harmony (samanvaya) could also be detected in some other systems of thought in this tradition (cf. Pattabhirama Shastri 1984). It is, however, significant that a culture that could meaningfully boast of the highest enlightenment had in actual practice descended at times to the lower manifestations of consciousness

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in the form of superstitions, fanaticism, bigotry and intolerance. Thankfully, there have been reformers and spiritual leaders like Swami Vivekananda (cf. Vivekananda 1963) and even political leaders of a unique stature like Gandhi (cf. Zaehner 1962: last chapter “Yudhisthira Returns”), who have given fresh impetus in the right direction, and in future we have only to carry this work with unfailing zeal so that this unique culture of transcendence does not lose itself in the mires of intolerance, superstitions, sectarian rigidities and hatred. Hinduism of future generations can reasonably be expected to keep itself away from such superstitions and perversions as far as possible, even if it need not free itself from rituals, methods of worship, meditation procedures and institutions peculiar to itself. Institutions and rituals, however, need not lead to any clash among different religious denominations, provided the Hindu ideal of tolerance is taken seriously alongside its diversification. This should be specially taken care of by Hinduism in the new millennium and I think that the new generation will have a very important role to play in bringing tolerance and harmony to the forefront while dealing not only with all its diverse sects and rituals but also with other religions. They can be expected to give leadership in this regard with Ramakrishna’s ideology of Yata mat, tatha path (“as many religious views, so many paths”) in their mind (cf. also Chandra, 1994: 20-21: “Views may be many— even as many as there are people. Still, Dharma cannot be many .... In fact, there is no opposition in the views, the same way— feeling one in many forms”). Even the Shiva Mahimna also corroborates the view that the same reality is approachable through different ways according to different tastes (rcinam vaicitryad) of the people. The same tolerance should be visible in the approach of Hinduism to other world religions too. That this is a special feature of Hinduism cannot be denied even by its worst critic. Hinduism may take the leading role in the future in the sense that it may show the way of how to coexist with others in promoting the cause of their respective religions which, if practiced in right earnest, can ultimately lead to the highest. If it is truly our conviction, as it should be, that there is no real difference in the path and not in the destination, then we should be able to demonstrate our conviction in and through our practice. Certainly, any idea of converting others by some sort of forcible conversion

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to our point of view is out of question as far as Hinduism is concerned, for that is an imposition of one’s own ideology on others to which Hindus, at least true Hindus, are allergic to the core. Dogma Is dogma intrinsic to religion? I do not think so. Certainly, it is not always and in all cases so; at least it cannot be regarded as a necessary feature of Hinduism (cf. Nayak 1997). Not mere glib talk but the rigorous practice of love and tolerance in the light of the teachings of Krsna in the Bhagavadgita holds the key for the growth of religion devoid of dogma in the future. Hinduism can pave the way for religious harmony through open dialogue with other world religions to be carried on without rigid dogmas though not, of course, without faith commitments. Here I would like to draw attention to the observations of the renowned Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati of Shri Kamoti Peetham, Kanchipuram, who was revered during his lifetime by one and all. While talking of “religion and religious practices,” the Achira gives us a basic principle to be followed in this regard: “If a thing is good basically, but for some cause evil resulted from it,” says the Master, “the sane view is to retain the thing for its good and to eliminate the root cause of an evil result.” He further admonishes that We should first of all stop criticising and finding fault with other religions and religious sects. We should examine ourselves first and see if we have lived up to the requirements of our religions, before we proceed to criticise the other man’s religion. Religion is intended to elevate man spiritually and to bring him nearer and nearer to God. Before we begin to advise others, we should conquer kama (petty desires), krodha (anger) and dvesa (hatred). We should approach all religions with a spirit of humility and appreciate the good points in all religions. (cf. Balasubramanian 2001: 14-15)

Although he was a Hindu Master of eminence, his eulogistic homage to the Buddha is worthy of note. The life story of the Buddha evokes in us peace, compassion and bliss. The innumerable images of the Buddha found in all parts of the country also produce in us the triple effect of santi

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G.C. NAYAK (peace), karuna (compassion) and ananda (bliss). Somehow, an impression has been gained that Buddhism stood for atheism. We were also told by some historians that this religion was driven out of India. But the numerous Buddhist works in Sanskrit and Pali, as well as the Eustachian edicts, have revealed to us the nobility of the Awakened One (the Buddha) and have filled us with pride that this great soul was born in India. (Balasubramanian 2001: 16)

This is a typically Hindu attitude towards other religions and an appraisal by Hinduism of the masters of other religions. This can be easily extended to the Hindu appraisal of Islam and Christianity, too. As a matter of fact, another genius amongst Hindu religious leaders of the twentieth century, Thakur Anukul Chandra, the founder of the Satsang movement, has sounded a call, a clarion call in fact, not to make any distinction between the Buddha and Jesus on the one hand and between Krsna and Muhammad on the other (“They are one and the same, don’t you know?” he asks, “Ek i tana tui janis ne!”). This, once again, is a typical appraisal by enlightened Hinduism of other religions and religious leaders. The crucial point for us, however, is how can any one, any ordinary person, emulate the spirit of such Masters as Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati and Thakur Anukul Chandra, in one’s religious life and dealings with other religions. The point intimately connected with this is whether such a catholic spirit would not dilute perhaps our faith commitments when they are expected to be taken most seriously and whether it would not end in some sort of frivolity in religion, at least in the case of those who scarcely know how serious a religious life of commitment and dedication is supposed to be. It is, however, a fact to be noted that catholicity of spirit does not in any way mar the seriousness of the religious commitment of religious leaders such as Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati and Thakur Anukul Chandra. Catholicity of spirit has been taken here as something natural to religion in view of the fact that we are supposed to transcend petty desires, anger and hatred if we are to live a truly religious life, according to the Master. The problem, a Herculean one in fact, lies in initiating sectarian leaders and their followers in this direction when in most cases they display, as a rule, bigotry and

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fanaticism in propagating the ideology of a particular sect or a particular religious group and stake their whole life and existence on achieving victory at any cost over their opponents. Dogma is the be-all and end-all in all such cases, and the question of whether there can be religion without dogma is therefore relevant and significant in this context and also in the context of a truly religious life in general. Religion and the Weak In religion, as it seems to me, we encounter the unique phenomenon of a total commitment and dedication to that which is considered to be the highest and the best along with a genuine need to uplift humanity as a whole in the direction of that highest goal. I am, of course, not referring here to the aberrations of religion which might have played havoc at times in the history of humankind. A truly religious person is guided and inspired by what I would call a “unique concern for the weak,” a concern for all those who are weak in some respect or other. The entire life of a truly religious person is oriented to the alleviation of the suffering of the weak. Different sorts of weakness may be found in different persons, groups or nations needing adequate treatment at the hands of a truly religious person. Human weakness can take various forms: sometimes that of the arrogance of the rich and powerful perhaps and at other times the absolute depression of the downtrodden and the desolate and at still other times inveterate hatred of one for the other, egocentrism, etc.). Such (spiritually) weak people may be found among the rich or the poor, the learned or the illiterate, and even the powerful or powerless. The concern of the truly religious person is with the common weakness and drawbacks that cause suffering to humanity at large and this is the sense in which I have designated it a “concern for the weak.” A king, from this point of view, may be considered weak in a certain context and may benefit immensely from the contact with a truly religious person. The life history of Ashoka may be cited as a case in point. This “concern for the weak” could be a full-time passion for the religious person. The only thing that needs to be remembered in this connection is that the term “weak” here does not refer to a specific class of persons,

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groups or nations. The reference is to the inherent human weakness, wherever and in whatever form it may be found, even despite appearances to the contrary at times. This may be regarded as a sort of therapeutic conception of religion. It is significant that Candrakirti in his Prasannapada (18.6) refers to the Buddha as a great doctor (Mahavaidyaraja) who administers medicine in accordance with the specific nature of the disease of the people. This is the sense in which God has been regarded as Dinabandhu (a friend of the weak) in Hinduism and Guru Nanak declared that he is a friend of the lowliest (“Nica andar nica jati nichihu ati nicu, Nanaki tin kai sanga sathi badia siu kya ris”). Buddha’s mahakaruna also points in the same direction. Jesus, the biblical Son of God, Bible is well known to have had a definite soft spot for the “weak” and the Prophet Muhammad’s concern for the poor and the weak is no less conspicuous. Vivekananda, one of the great exponents of Hinduism, is known to have urged others to treat the poor and the illiterate as the objects of veneration (Darido devo bhava, murkha devo bhava, cf. Vivekananda 1963:93). This is a regular feature in the world religions which needs to be highlighted. As a typical exponent of Hinduism, I myself would assess and appraise religion in general and other world religions in the light of the extent to which the all-round development of humans in need and humankind in general is accomplished by it. The concern for the (spiritually) weak in the religious person seems to find its inspiration from his realization that he has encountered the highest and the best in his life and that this unique experience needs to be shared with others who are less fortunate. It is significant that these features are found both in God-less religions and religions having faith in different types of divinity or the Godhead in the context of the world religions. Religion and Bigotry William James has made some interesting observations in the context of aberrations found in religion which needs to be discussed at some length. He points out that Religious after a fashion, they (men’s minds) yet have many other things in them besides their religions, and unholy entanglements and associations inevitably obtain. The baseness so commonly charged to religion’s account are thus, almost all of

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them, not chargeable at all to religion proper, but rather to religion’s wicked practical partner, the spirit of dogmatic dominion, the passion for laying down the law in the form of an absolutely closed theocratic system. The ecclesiastical spirit in general is the sum of these two spirits of dominion. (James 1929: 330-31)

Although there is, no doubt, some truth here to what James says, it is, however, only partially true. Instead of laying the entire blame at the door of the ecclesiastical spirit, one should note certain intrinsic features of religion proper and a possible infiltration of bigotry in and through these very features. It seems to be a significant feature of religion that there cannot be a religion without a total commitment or devotion to that which it considers to be the highest and the best. It is thus not at all strange or extraordinary that a religious person or institution should have their own total commitments. One such commitment or devotion may have its origin in some gospel such as that of Mark, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength,” and another may be inspired by the invocation of Shri Krsna in the Bhagavadgita to resort to Him, forsaking all considerations of dharma (sarva dharman partityaja mamekam sarnam braja). One may even be said to be committed to tolerance, to the point of view that all the diverse paths of different religions lead to the same goal, as is the case in Hinduism in one of its typical manifestations. Or, on the other hand, one may be committed exclusively to one particular path. In this sense the life of a truly religious person is a typically dedicated life; there is not only concern here but an ultimate concern without which it cannot be regarded as religious. This ultimate concern, total commitment or a typical dedication to its cause can easily make room for bigotry and fanaticism, if it is extended too far beyond the reasonable limit. Fanaticism is a sort of misguided and exaggerated reaction. There may be differences of opinion regarding someone being misguided or having an excessive reaction, of course, but when there is meaningless destruction of life, for example, can the reaction be regarded as any thing but exaggerated and excessive? Is it not a fact that human life at least is intrinsically valuable irrespective of any other consideration and that if innocent people

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are destroyed unnecessarily there should be something intrinsically wrong or defective in the approach itself? While it is a definite virtue to be committed to one’s faith, fanaticism and bigotry cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded as virtues. It should be borne in mind that an appreciation of the opponent’s point of view and of others commitment to their own faith is a virtue which needs to be cultivated deliberately. Tolerance is not necessarily a virtue of the weak. It can also be a virtue of the strong. Conclusion Hinduism is not only tolerant, in its ideology at least, but it views different and even conflicting theories such as theism, atheism, absolutism, etc. as different ways and steps according to our adhikara (capacity and spiritual status). All paths will ultimately take us to the highest realization, provided we follow any spiritual path sincerely. True, there have been aberrations of Hinduism too at different times. Intolerance is one such aberration. But for one who knows and understands, the responsibility lies on his or her own head to guide people to the true spirituality for which Hinduism stands. (Nayak 1997) We do not think that others are absolutely wrong or inferior; we are all fellow travelers on different spiritual paths leading ultimately to the realization that ekam sad vipra vahudha vadanti (the same ultimate reality is called by different names by different wise persons). Bibliography Anakul Chandra, Thakur. (1994). Satyanusaran. Deoghar: Satsang Publishing House. Balasubramanian, R. (ed.). (1992). Tolerance in Indian Culture. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research. James, W. (1929). Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: The Modern Library. Nayak, G.C. (1987). Philosophical Reflections. New Delhi: ICPR. (1992). “Tolerance in Advaita: A Study of the Unique Culture of Transcendence.” In: R. Balasubramanian. (ed.). Tolerance in Indian Culture. Pp.121-30. (1997). Understanding Religious Phenomenon. Bangalore: Dharmaram Publications.

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Pandey, Shri Govinda Candra (ed.). (1997). Ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti. Varanasi: Sampurnananda Sanskrit University. Sastri Pattabhirama (ed.). (1984). Sabara Bhasyam. (Sanskrit introduction to Samanvayatmaka pantha, The Integrating Path, of the Mimamsakas). New Delhi. Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati. (2001). “Religion and Religious Practices.” In: R. Balasubramanian (ed.). The Voice of Sankara. Vol. 26. Vivekananda, Swami. (1963). Rousing Call to Hindu Nation. Compiled by Ernath Ramade. Calcutta: Centenary Publication. Zaehner, R.C. (1962; rpt. 1966). Hinduism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Judaism Views Other Religions Aviezer Ravitzky1 Abstract This paper proceeds along two lines: conceptual and existential. Conceptually, Judaism looks at other religions from the viewpoint of three foundational concepts: creation, covenant and redemption. Other religions are also evaluated according to ontological, epistemological and ethical criteria. The question of good (the image of humanity promoted by that religion) was asked as well as the question of truth (the other religion’s image of God). On the existential side, religions theologically closest to Judaism (Christianity and Islam) were perceived, historically, as actual rivals and an existential threat, whereas the more remote religions were seen as the ultimate other and therefore as less of an existential threat. Religious pluralism is almost self-evident: any revelation and any religious tradition is partial and finite. Empirically speaking, however, the different religions do not complement one another but compete for the same theoretical and historical terrain. Consequently, the alien religion cannot be viewed as one totality, and distinctions must be drawn among its various aspects: experience, faith, ethics, doctrine, and the status of the human being. The foregoing distinctions are well illustrated in Maimonides, showing that he used an array of categories and criteria to assess and judge Christianity and Islam and that the different criteria often led to different conclusions as to which was superior.

Theology and History Over the last decade or so young Israelis have become increasingly interested in the lands and cultures of the Far East. They undertake extended tours of those countries, exposing themselves to their ways of life and religious beliefs; some spend time in the 1

Translated from Hebrew by Joel Linsider. 75

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local temples and religious centers, attempting to imbibe their spirituality. Significantly, Israeli Jewish society has not condemned or acted against this phenomenon. Some sympathize with it, others ignore it, and still others express reservations. But even the most avowedly orthodox circles manifest no hint of the horror that would doubtlessly ensue had their children embarked on similar spiritual odysseys within the religious worlds of Christianity or Islam. This surprising phenomenon seems incompatible at first blush with the viewpoint of the Jewish tradition throughout the ages. That tradition suggests it is exposure specifically to the Eastern religions that should be regarded as more disturbing and threatening and incur more intense outrage and resistance. By Jewish monotheistic criteria, polytheism is the ultimate danger, defined in the Talmud as “idolatry” (avodah zarah: literally, “alien [god] worship”). It was prohibited not only for the Jew qua Jew but also for every human qua human, for every “son of Noah.” But while Islam was regarded by the greatest Jewish medieval scholars as a fully monotheistic faith and Christianity was likewise excluded by many authorities from the rubric of “idolatry,” the remote Eastern religions were scarcely known or discussed in these contexts and were portrayed in most instances as idolatry pure and simple (Landau 1811: sec. 10). One would have expected that any authentically Jewish society would do its utmost to combat any Hindu or Buddhist influences, even before attempting to protect itself against Christian or Islamic influences. One possible response is that the contemporary Israeli reaction does not necessarily represent the Jewish heritage over the ages, for it has been nurtured by, and therefore reflects, an array of other sources. Another is that contemporary Israeli culture has had the opportunity of closely scrutinizing the complex nature of these foreign religions, including their spiritual-symbolic qualities, and no longer judges them in accordance with the traditionally sharp dichotomy of simple idolatry vs. unadulterated monotheism. While I do not contest the validity of these claims, I find them insufficient. They fail to explain the discrepancy between the Jewish horror at any hint of Christian missionary activity and the relative equanimity in the face of open Hindu influence. Nor do they account for the fact that this emotional gap and “discrimination” in instinctive response are nearly universal among Jews,

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not limited to Israelis. Indeed, it is a powerful trend within some American Jewish streams that are striving to draw closer to the mystical spiritualism of the Far East and to draw inspiration from it. The principal explanation for the phenomenon thus appears to lie elsewhere, perhaps more in the classical Jewish consciousness than in present developments alone. How religions relate to one another (or, at least, how Judaism relates to other religions) is not an exclusively theological issue and certainly not a question exclusively of formal halakhah. It pertains to the essence of self-definition, to how one confronts the “other”—the foreigner or the stranger. At a higher level of abstraction, it is the question of the individual’s stance toward “otherness” per se. It touches upon the elements of one’s personal identity, the roots of one’s sense of belonging and group loyalty. It originates in primal, formative historical memories and penetrates the depths of present experience. The relationship between one religion and another can be viewed, to be sure, on a theological plane, where truth is divided from falsehood, or on a halakhic (Jewish religious law) plane, where permitted activity is distinguished from forbidden and commandment from transgression.2 But the entire relationship takes shape as well on the existential plane, where the pertinent categories are loyalty vs. betrayal, belonging vs. alienation, and solidarity vs. a sense of disintegration. The Israeli example I began with clearly depicts the difference between these relational dimensions. On the theological level the Jewish believer may find a common language and perhaps a certain affinity with the Christian believer and even more so with the Muslim. But that is not at all the case on the existential level, where the Christian or the Muslim is the traditional rival, the age-old contender, tempter, or potential persecutor. The Jewish consciousness perceives them not only as members of another religion, but also as the direct continuation of the primal threat to collective existence and individual identity. All this arises, of course, out of Judaism’s shared historical origins with the other two faiths and their geographic proximity over the years. The Far Eastern religions, meanwhile, present the reverse situation: they have no theo2

See below for other possible ways of understanding the relationship between religions.

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logical affinity with Judaism and their beliefs may be considered totally alien and prohibited, but their mere presence triggers no historical revulsion or perceived existential threat. Somewhat paradoxically, the ultimate nature of their otherness makes it appear less significant. The distinctive character of traditional Jewish civilization affords added significance to these varied ways of relating to the other. Jewish civilization has never been regarded as solely religious or solely national; rather, it has combined within it both ethnic and theological elements, “Israel of the flesh” and “Israel of the spirit.” Historical Jewish identity was grounded on both a brotherhood of fate and a partnership of faith: “Your people shall be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16); “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of the heavens” (Jonah 1:9). Clearly this Jewish self-conception had direct implications for the Jew’s relationship to the surrounding world. When the identity of the subject (Judaism) is bi-dimensional, then the object (the stranger) likewise appears with a bi-dimensional identity and a consequently dual otherness, both religious and national. In such a situation, the spiritual child of a different faith is ipso facto the existential child of a different nation as well. Let me offer a real-life illustration. A few years ago I heard a Christian spokesman at an interfaith conference declare that if he were fated to see his child abandon Christianity, he would consider it preferable for the child to embrace Judaism or Islam rather than to deny all belief in God and become an atheist. Other participants in the dialogue tended to agree. Their premise, I assume, was that even if the child were to desert his current religion in favor of another, he would nonetheless remain part of the family, the community, the nation and the shared history. But it is difficult to imagine any religious Jew adopting that stance; indeed, one can safely say that the stronger a Jew’s religious commitment, the greater the likelihood he or she would prefer an atheist child to an apostate. From the Jew’s perspective, changing religion means changing nationhood; it represents a double betrayal, not only of Torah and faith but also of community and history. As such, it is a total break from Jewish identity, after which

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nothing remains.3 Not so the case of the Jewish atheist; according to the dominant theory in contemporary Judaism,4 such a Jew has neither become divorced from the community of Israel nor betrayed national solidarity. In contrast to secular “Christians,” who are no longer Christian, and secular “Muslims,” who are no longer Muslim, Jewish secularists are wayward children, who remain members of the Jewish people. They may have torn themselves away from their God, but they have not pursued foreign gods and, on this approach, have not thrown in their lot with other nations either. That is a fact to which the Jewish tradition assigns considerable weight. It follows that the relationship between the Jewish religion and other religions is a matter not confined to the fields of faith and philosophy. It is a broad, multi-dimensional issue, engulfing the Jew from all directions. It has theological, moral, halakhic, historical, national, and existential aspects, all interrelated but not all leading to identical conclusions or identical assessments of the various religions. Jewish religion is particularistic, intended to establish a separate, designated “kingdom of priests and holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), one that does not attempt to convert humankind (at least until the end of days). It is precisely that limitation that makes the relation to the other a decisive, almost all-encompassing, question of self awareness and existence. And that is all the more so when the question is considered in the contemporary context of Israeli sovereignty and a Jewish majority —when, as the halakhah puts it, “Israel’s hand is ascendant.” Universality and Particularity Jewish religious thought grounded the relationship between humans and God on three constitutive concepts or events: creation, covenant, and redemption. It naturally follows that the tension between the human, universal dimension and the Jewish, particularistic dimension plays out with reference to these concepts. The belief in creation posits the shared background of all humanity 3

The apostate Jew abandons national solidarity and brotherhood. Even so, Judaism does not exempt him from religious Jewish obligations and calls upon him to return (see Shaki 1977.) 4

On Judaism’s changing view of the issue in recent generations see Ravitzky 2005.

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and thereby provides the basis for the idea of universal moral duty. The belief in a covenant, contracted between the God of Israel and His people, stresses the historical, particularistic elements of Judaism, and the commandments that separate Israel from the nations. Finally, the promised redemption is destined to transcend these boundaries and join the two domains; most traditional Jewish conceptions envision a two-stage process in which fulfillment of the national messianic hopes will be followed by the universal redemption of all humankind. More specifically, the doctrine of creation sets the ontological background shared by all humanity. It links all people as creatures of one God, situates them together as residents of one world, and regards all of them as descendants of one person. Monotheism is thus powerfully tied to universalism. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin, 4:5) expresses it this way: “Therefore Adam [the first man] was created alone … so no one could say to one’s neighbor ‘my ancestor was greater than yours’ ... and so that the heretics could not say ‘there are many powers in the heavens.’” In other words, the story of the creation of (a solitary) human being is not merely an anthropological account, representing the common origin of the human race; it is also a theological account, symbolizing the unity of God Himself. The story opposes not only ancient racial ideologies (“my father is greater than yours”) but also ancient polytheism (“there are many powers in the heavens”).5 Other early sources likewise suggest this interdependence between the universal human and the monotheistic God, and the interdependence is augmented by the concept of the human being having been created in the image of God (Mishnah, Avot 3:4; cf. Sifra, Qedoshim 4:12). According to at least some traditional interpretations, this concept anchors human essence in the Divine essence, creates an inherent, common denominator for all human beings, and thereby expresses an essentialist conception of the human creature. From all of these perspectives, it is clear that the creation concept shields Judaism from an overly particularistic interpretation.

5

The Tosefta ad loc also viewed the creation story as the antitheses of ancient dualistic inclinations: “Why was man created last? So that the heretics would not say: God had a partner in His work.”

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Naturally, the universal character of the belief in creation set the foundation for the concept of universal human duty. It generated a canon of shared norms and demands that bind all human beings, all those created in God’s image. But a plain reading of Scripture shows that these demands are concentrated in the realm of morality rather than theology, pertaining more to relations among human beings than between humans and God. The prophets of Israel did not rebuke the Gentiles for their deviant beliefs or alien rituals. They judged the nations not by the criterion of truth and falsity but by that of good and bad; they indicted them not for idol worship but for violence and oppression. In other words, the prophets recognized, sometimes explicitly, the multiplicity of beliefs and the religious “other:” “All of the nations shall walk everyone in the name of his god, yet we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever” (Micah 4:5; cf. Deuteronomy 4:19 and commentary of Rashbam ad loc).6 In other instances, this recognition is implicitly conveyed by the very existence of a divine call to a particular nation and of the intimate biblical dialogue between the God of Israel and the people of Israel. The call to one people to establish a “Kingdom of Priests and a holy nation” presumes the existence of other “kingdoms” and other “nations” who are not expected to attain that level within historical time (i.e., until the end of days) (Werblowsky 1967: 7, 16-18; Jacobs 1973: 285). This situation is accepted as bearable,7 even if not ideal. Talmudic exegesis, however, understood Scripture to impose universal religious demands on humanity along with the universal moral claims (Novak 1983: 126-38); the “seven Noahide commandments” as codified in the Talmud set forth humankind’s minimal moral and religious obligations. The nations of the world are not required to worship the one God, but they are forbidden 6

In some instances, the prophet goes further, asserting the existence of a single universal goal under the cloak of multiplicity and separation: “From where the sun rises to where it sets, My name is great among the nations and everywhere incense is offered in My name and pure oblations; for My name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 1:11; see Babylonian Talmud Menahot 110a). 7

Note the distinction between “bearable” and “tolerated.” I will consider the question of tolerance below.

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to worship other gods (avodah zarah). The nations—the “children of Noah”—are not asked to bless the God of Israel, but they are forbidden to curse Him. In other words, the non-Jew need not adopt any specific positive theology and is not called upon to demonstrate devotion to the Creator actively, but active betrayal of the Creator is categorically forbidden. Formulating it conceptually, we may describe it as an essentialist view of the human species: the entire species shares the same standing before the one God and that common standing instills in them a common essence. That, in turn, imposes on them a common religious obligation, and denies the legitimacy of total human otherness. In this sense, avodah zarah—alien worship—is alien not only to God but also to human nature. It is abhorrent not only because of God’s jealously on His own behalf but also because it represents a sin against the human being’s own (divine) image8 In this way, belief in creation (of humankind) draws a further connection between monotheistic God and universal humankind. In contrast, belief in a covenant between God and His nation emphasizes the particularistic message of the Jewish religion. The God of Israel is not only the God of the universe, He is also the God of history; and history is always that of a community, a tribe, or a nation— not of universal humankind. Accordingly, the historical Jew stands before God not solely as a human being but also as a son or daughter of a specific nation, a covenantal partner whose religious faith is linked to a specific collective memory and demands fulfillment of a specific Torah and its commandments.9 “He declares his Word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. He has not done so to any other nation and his ordinances they know not” (Psalm 147:19); “The Holy one blessed be He said to Israel: I am the God of all the world’s inhabitants, but I have bestowed my specific Name exclusively upon you” (Shemot 8

The foundational documents of the Jewish religion identified ancient idolatrous culture with overall moral corruption, with total collapse in all areas. They do not draw a sharp conceptual line between “religion” and “morality” as the terms are now used. That distinction is the product of later (and, in my view, correct) reflection on the documents. 9

The historical Jew thus rejected both the Pauline call to confront God as a human rather than as a Hebrew or a Greek and the Pauline call to annul the practical commandments.

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Rabbah, 29:4; Cf. Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon, Yitro 20: 103). But in what appears at first blush paradoxical, it is this separatist aspect, rather than the unifying perspective presented earlier, that opens the way to religious co-existence or religious tolerance (though not necessarily to religious pluralism). It leads the believer to recognize the existence of the other as a fact and to regard the other’s religious and human dissimilarity as something natural, given and expected, a necessary component of the pre-messianic historical reality. Let me illustrate the idea through a recurring motif in medieval Jewish writings. At the beginning of the twelfth century, Judah Ha-Levi, the great philosopher and poet, developed a dialectical view of the historical function of Christianity and Islam. He argued that these post-Mosaic religions, which were significantly influenced by Judaism, now radiate a positive monotheistic glow throughout the world, thereby preparing the ground for the future universal redemption: “These religions are only the preparation for and preface to the awaited Messiah,” which is the real fruit of their labors. But while these religions, during the present historical period, contribute to the coming of the messianic era, in the messianic era the vector of influence will be reversed. Christianity and Islam themselves will be transformed, rising to the level of fully accepting the true Torah: “At the end of days, when they acknowledge [the true Messiah], they will be his fruit and the tree [of mankind] will become one.” (Ha-Levi, Kuzari, I:23.) Two generations later this idea was developed further in an original manner by Maimonides, the leading Jewish codifier and philosopher (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 11:9 (uncensored printings)), from whom it was later taken by Nahmanides, (midthirteenth century), one of the great medieval commentators, mystics and halakhists (Writings, vol. 1: 144).10 This stance thus appears to be a representative one, accepted by various schools of thought within medieval Judaism. Evidently, the Jewish sages sought to use this concept to overturn the traditional Christian idea of Judaism’s historical function by presenting its mirror image. Christians had depicted Judaism as the religion of the past; Jews now depicted it as the 10

Nahmanides emphasized that he was speaking only of Christianity and Islam.

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religion of the future. Christians saw early Judaism as a preparation for the gospel of the Christian Messiah (praeparatio evangelica); Jews now regarded Christianity as “preparation and preface” in anticipation of the awaited Messiah of Israel. The parallelism can be extended to Islam as well. Muslims saw the prophets of Israel as heralds of the Muslim ultimate prophet; Jewish thinkers now regarded Islam as preparing the ground for Jewish ultimate redeemer. This account thus depicts the three religions in dialectic relationships, conferring upon one another a positive but temporary role in the universal human journey towards religious truth. From the Jewish perspective, however, we have here as well an important difference among the rival religions’ preachings to their believers. The Christian believes in a divine Messiah who has already come and announced his gospel to the entire world. The Muslim believes in the ultimate prophet who has already revealed himself and publicly issued his universal call. Both thus see no place any longer for a historical destiny limited to a defined human group or for a particularistic religious faith; all humanity must now respond to the final, comprehensive divine call, which supersedes or encompasses its precursors. (This was at least the traditional understanding until recent times.) The Jew, however, awaits the yet-to-appear Messiah and the issuance of his call to all the nations. The Jew is thus destined to dwell in an unredeemed world, to be resigned to the existence of partiality, gradualism, and particularity, and to renounce any pretense to universal religion (until the end of days). Accordingly, he may demand of the nations of the world only that they comply with a minimal number of ethical and religious demands (the seven Noahide laws) and must leave them to their own devices regarding positive theology and the commandments issued to Israel at Sinai. In the present historical era, the full array of duties imposed on God’s people cannot be imposed on the entirety of humankind.11 I suggested earlier that belief in the creation of the world and of humankind engendered the concept of universal duty; but the belief in biblical revelation and the historical covenant limited 11

Whether the Gentiles will ultimately adopt Jewish law or only scriptural truth is a question debated by sages and exegetes over the ages.

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the reach of that duty and erected a barrier against its unlimited expansion. And while the latter belief also acknowledges a single ontology and a single humankind, it does not establish one religion or one faith; it leaves plurality in place. Judaism’s particularistic character thus reflects the concept that the promise is yet to be fulfilled and history yet to be redeemed. Must we therefore assume that the future messianic redemption is destined to overcome particularity and finally put an end to the multiplicity of religions? And, if so, does the envisioned religious unity mean that all nations will adopt the Torah as now given or does it imply some universal, utopian spiritual uplifting, rising above any existing historical model, including the Jewish one? Religious thinkers have taken various stands on the question (Ravitzky 1991: 221-56; 1996: 19-26), but there is nearly total agreement on one decisive matter: redemption of the nation will bring with it redemption of humanity. The fulfillment of Jewish national aspirations—the end of exile and the return to Zion—will be followed by the fulfillment of universal human expectations, as depicted in prophetic eschatology. In other words, at the end of the journey, history will turn on its heels and revert to the original state of creation (Hartman 1990: 250; 1999: 163), albeit this time on an elevated spiritual plane (in accord with the Torah as now given or a utopian spiritual model, as the case may be). In the Sabbath afternoon prayer, the Jewish worshipper makes the following declaration to God: “You are One and Your Name is One … and Your people Israel [is] one nation in the world.” This formulation creates a daring parallel between God and His people, between the monotheistic principle and the particularistic idea. Not long after, at the conclusion of the service, the worshiper expresses a seeming change of heart, associating monotheism specifically with universalism: “And God shall reign over the entire world; on that day, God will be One and His Name One” (Zechariah 14:7; emphasis mine). This shift nicely sums up the traditional tension in Jewish thought between past and present, between historical and utopian, and—significant for present purposes—between covenant and redemption.

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Epistemology and Morality Judaism’s foundational texts drew a powerful connection between idolatry and overall moral degeneracy.12 They bundled monotheism and humanism, one God and one Adam (humanity); and a person alienated from the former is thereby distanced from the latter as well. Accordingly, a Jew wanting to grant religious legitimacy to a Gentile contemporary, to maintain positive contact with that Gentile, or to develop a tolerant stance,13 could take either (or both) of two conceptual paths. First, he could remove the Gentile from the rubric of “idolater,” recognizing the existence of a middle ground between true and false, between sacred and profane, and situating the other religion within that middle ground. Alternatively, he could absolve the Gentile of the charge of moral degradation, thereby denying the necessary connection between belief and conduct. The first strategy is thus focused on epistemology; the second, on morality. How is the middle ground drawn and how are the needed conceptual distinctions developed? When adherents of a particular religion set out to closely examine another religion—and especially when they are called upon to define themselves vis à vis that other religion from a theological perspective14—they may employ various criteria: ontological, epistemological, or moral. Naturally, the choice of criterion will have a decisive effect on the conclusion reached. Use of the ontological criterion makes it very difficult to develop intermediate models, for it is likely to depict an unfathomable abyss between one religion and another—a divide not simply between true and false, or good and evil, but also between pure and impure, Divine and demonic. A dualistic worldview of this sort leaves no room for softening one’s position or repairing 12

As noted, the scriptural accusation against the ancient nations was focused primarily on moral decay and not on polytheism. 13

The term “tolerance” in this context is problematic, for it is typically the dominant majority that is called upon to be tolerant, not the subservient minority. But the halakhic consideration of the issue often reflects hypothetical assumptions. 14

As distinct from the historical or existential perspectives discussed above.

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the breach. The gap is substantive and unbridgeable, requiring absolute rejection of the other if not total war. When the competing religion is portrayed not only as erroneous but also as a perverse assault on being itself, there is no remedy short of its downfall. These ideas appear within the Jewish tradition primarily in the writings of the kabbalists, many of whom perceived alien religion as an immanent embodiment of metaphysical evil and some of whom used mystical weapons to wage war against it. (Halamish 1998: 289-311).15 As is well known, kabbalistic writings, more than any other Jewish literary genre, attributed existential reality to evil and developed demonological concepts. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that such concepts manifest themselves as well in relation to the stranger and the stranger’s beliefs. (Of course, the kabbalists made no attempt to present a consistent philosophical system, and other, brighter, viewpoints on the issue can be found in their writings as well.16) Use of the second criterion, in contrast, makes it possible for a believer to see the difference between one’s own religion and another’s primarily as an epistemological distinction, involving questions of true knowledge and correct belief. Here, too, dichotomies may be drawn on the premise that falsehood is the enemy of truth. But while the conflict between the holy and the impure is a total one admitting of no compromise, the epistemological inquiry can be more nuanced, recognizing internal gradations, and it has allowed over the years for the development of intermediate models. In other words, the aliens’ faith may be flawed without being destructive. Their knowledge may be in-

15

At times, the existential distinction extended to the psychological plane as well, and the kabbalists drew substantive distinctions not only with respect to content and beliefs but among human beings as well, between the soul of a Jew and that of a Gentile or idolater. These notions cast an ironic light on the contemporary popularity of Kabbalah among Gentiles. But such is the way of selective information, especially when it is acquired by innocent Gentiles from the mouths of innocent and lessinnocent Jews. 16

See, for example, Sefer ha-Zohar, Shemot, 268a, elevating Gentiles who do not hate Jews to the level of “the righteous among the nations,” who are said to enjoy a place in the world to come (see below, n.22 and accompanying text). Cf. Sefer ha-Zohar, Bereshit, 1, 13a.

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complete without being warped and their religious discourse may be faulty even while their intentions are commendable. Jewish tradition abounds with these sorts of distinctions. They generally arose in the wake of direct contact with neighboring communities and careful examination of their cultures; but once they were committed to writing, they were given conceptual and halakhic formulations that often sound like what contemporary philosophical terms, such as “religious inclusivism” (a position distinct from exclusivism on the one hand and pluralism on the other). The position asserts that though there is only one true religion, believers in other religions can apprehend its truth in their own partial, incomplete way. Let me cite a few select examples; they cannot present the entire picture but will illustrate some of the doors that were opened. Jewish sages in Christian lands ruled that even though their neighbors associated additional personae with the one God, they did not deny His unity. In the view of Rabbi Jacob ben Meir (Rabbeinu Tam; twelfth-century France), for example, “they do not utter the names of alien gods and their intentions are to the Creator of heaven and earth;” accordingly, they represent the legitimate “other” (“son of Noah”) (Tosafot, Bekhorot 2b; cf. Tosafot, Sanhedrin 63b; see Urbach 1968: 59) A more far-reaching position was taken by Rabbi Moses Isserles (Rema; sixteenth-century Poland), who drew a distinction between the Christians’ verbal declaration and their inner religious intention: “and even though they utter [the name of an alien divinity], their intention is to refer to the Creator of heaven and earth” (Rema on Shul han Arukh, Ora h Hayyim, sec. 156; cf. Landau, Introduction). And Rabbi Jacob Emden (seventeenth-century Germany) went still further, not only legitimizing the Gentiles’ religious intentions but also relating positively to their established religion and community: “Christians and Muslims are assemblies for the sake of Heaven, destined to endure; their intentions are for the sake of Heaven and their reward will not be withheld”17 (Rozen 2001: 16-17). These rulings are particularly striking when set against the background of authoritative rulings to the contrary by Maimonides and his 17

Emden also expressed effusive praise for Jesus of Nazareth —more so, it appears, than any previous halakhic sage. For these sources and others, see Rosen 2001: 16-20.

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followers, who identified Islam as pure monotheism but understood the Christian Trinity to be idolatrous.18 Evidently, close familiarity and neighborly relations with Gentiles generate pragmatic interests and discerning assessment, which lead, in turn, to the formulation of intermediary concepts and the development of partial distinctions between truth and falsity and, even more so, between holiness and impurity. Of special note in this context is the daring position of Rabbi Joseph Albo (fifteenth-century Spain), who suggested that there might exist “two divine Torahs, at the same time, for different nations.” Of course, the clear example of this is the simultaneous effectiveness of the Torah of Moses for the nation of Israel and the seven Noahide commandments for the nations of the world. Although the two systems are not on a par—the particular Torah ranks higher than the universal—both are subsets of divine law (Novak 1983: 336-40). In Albo’s words, “You therefore find that the Torah of the Noahides and the Torah of Moses, though differing in their details, agree with regard to broad matters conveyed by the [divine] giver” (Albo: 155). Albo did not clarify what this implies for the standing of an actual religion whose teachings coincide with the “Noahide Torah,” but he appears in any event to have taken a further step in the direction of the “religious inclusivism” mentioned earlier. Finally, an alien religion can be evaluated against an ethical criterion (Goshen-Gottstein). One applying that criterion will determine the religion’s status not solely with reference to its degree of doctrinal truth but also (perhaps primarily) with reference to the actions and values it preaches to its adherents; not solely with reference to the image of God that it proclaims but also (perhaps primarily) with reference to the image of the human being it wants to shape and the character of the society it means to establish. This perspective may lead to far-reaching conclusions. As we have seen, an ontological chasm between religions implies total negation of the other, while cognitive differences leave room for only partial acceptance. The ethical criterion, in contrast, may 18 Regarding Islamic monotheism, see Maimonides, Epistle to Rabbi Ovadiah the Convert, part 1 (Maimonides 1987: 238); regarding the Christian Trinity, see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Avodah Zarah 9:4; Commentary on the Mishnah, Avodah Zarah 1:3; Guide of the Perplexed 1:50. Cf. Saadia Ga’on 1970: 2:5. See also below in the appendix to this article.

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sometimes allow for full acknowledgment of the other’s positive value. It recognizes that even if a religion’s beliefs are in error, the practical demands it imposes on its faithful may be sound and beneficial; even if the faith is based on an imaginary revelation, it may still be able to provide the basis for a fair and decent society. This understanding is reflected (albeit partially) in the early rabbinic term “righteous among the nations” and, later, in the term “righteous Gentile” (who will enjoy a place in the world-tocome) (Tosefta, Sanhedrin 13:2; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 5:11).19 Only in the Middle Ages, however, did it attain a conceptual and halakhic formulation that applied it not only to individuals but to collectives, both nations and religions. Rabbi Mena hem Me’iri (thirteenth-century Provence) introduced the concept of “nations bound by the ways of religion,” that is, human societies in which conduct is subject to dictates of morality and in which concepts of sin and transgression are recognized. These societies are to be distinguished from the depraved pagan societies of ancient times, which were not restricted by religious law and norms (Katz 1961: 120-21; Urbach 1980: 34-45; Blidstein 1990: 27-35). This concept in effect created a shared cultural ground for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—this time on a moral rather than a theological plane, looking to the existence of an ethical society, of civilization rather than barbarism (Halbertal 2000: 80-103). And here, once again, Rabbi Jacob Emden took a radical view, teaching that the Nazarene and his apostles did not intend to abrogate the Torah for the Jewish people, God forbid …. He intended only to give the other nations a religion from that time onwards …. He took away their idols and obligated them to observe the seven [Noahide] laws, so they would not be like beasts of the field, and he gave them moral attributes, and in that sense his strictness far exceeded that of the Torah of Moses!” (Emden, Letter at the conclusion of Seder Olam Zuta ve-Rabbah)

19 See also the interesting introduction by Rabbi. Isaac Aramah (fifteenth-century Spain) to his Aqedat Yizhaq, Leviticus, part 60: “One is not truly called a Jew unless he is righteous … thus, any truly righteous person is [considered] a Jew … and everyone having a place in the world-to-come is a member of Israel.”

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Emden’s basic distinction between the original gospel of Jesus and his apostles and the real history of the Church is nothing new in Jewish literature. Previously, however, the distinction had focused on the purity of the faith; Emden’s innovation was to direct attention primarily to virtues and proper actions. For example, as early as the sixteenth century, Rabbi Isaac Dur’an had stressed the distinctiveness of Christianity’s founders on the theological plane: The imagined messiah never intended to make himself into a god; nothing in the evangelists’ writings says he should be called god …. They never say ‘our god Jesus,’ but they considered him the most exalted of the human race. (Dur’an 1928: 261; cf. Maimonides, Iggeret Teiman (Maimonides 1987: 121))20

But Emden now went further and stressed their distinctiveness primarily with reference to their contribution to the moral improvement of human society: “[Jesus] gave them moral attributes.” Naturally, all the examples pertained to Christians and Muslims. They were the actual neighbors and political rulers and their religious cultures had surrounded the Jews since the end of antiquity. Often they were perceived as the representatives par excellence of universal human civilization. Still, the ethical criterion lends itself to use in more remote contexts as well. Let me cite one extraordinary example related to the ultimate antagonist of biblical belief, that is, ancient idolatrous culture. As already mentioned, the Jewish tradition generally associated pagan culture with profound human degeneracy. And yet, at the beginning of the twentieth century Rabbi A. I. ha-Kohen Kook, later to be the Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, took the view that even there, the ability to make fine distinctions had not been ruled out. Even the ancient pagan nations differed from one another in their moral standing. Accordingly, when the Jewish sages were called upon to authorize a King of Israel to declare a “permitted war” against a pagan nation, “the court was to ascertain the moral stature of [the adherents of] that form of idolatry. Not all idolatrous nations shared the same status” (Kook 1962, 1:

20

See also further in the appendix to this article.

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100).21 This is a clear example of how the question of “the true” may be distinguished from the question of “the good:” even the ultimate rival is not judged exclusively from a theological perspective but from a moral perspective as well. And Rabbi Kook showed remarkable consistency on the matter. Departing from the traditional Jewish understanding that the move from idolatry to worship of God was an antithetical shift from one pole to the other, Kook depicted the move as a gradual one, a steady, stepby-step ascent on the ladder of human progress. Moreover, he did not hesitate to present pre-biblical polytheism as paving the way for biblical monotheism, in the very area of human moral development: When [ancient] man was wild, bereft of any kernel of inner morality, his evil inclination had to be restrained by his countless fears of many gods, i.e. by the various forms of idolatry .… But after these fears had achieved their effect in that ancient degraded situation … part of mankind rose above the need for numerous fears. One great, mighty, and comprehensive fear was sufficient—fear of the one God. And since this enduring righteousness had opened the gate to eternal truth, all of the higher gates opened in order. (Kook 1962, 1: 146-47)22

As noted earlier, the Jewish medieval sages understood Christianity and Islam to be trailblazers for the future messianic redemption. In an analogous move Rabbi Kook presented ancient idolatry as a trailblazer for the past biblical revelation. But while the medievals were speaking primarily in theological terms, Kook was speaking primarily in moral terms. From his point of view, that was the criterion to be used in evaluating any spiritual phenomenon.23 21

Kook stated that “the correct view is that of the Me’iri, that all nations bound by proper laws governing society” are entitled to be regarded positively by a Jewish government (and accorded the status of “resident alien”). 22 23

Cf. Kook 1962, 1: 142; 1967: 30-31; 1999, I: sec. 404 and II, sec.69.

The Jewish tradition’s tension between divine transcendence and divine immanence was likewise considered by Rabbi Kook on the basis of each theological position’s ethical consequences and effect on human nature (Kook 1999, I: secs. 95-96). See Ravitzky 1996.

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We have seen how various sages used each of the two strategies noted earlier. Some removed the alien religion from the rubric of idolatry and situated it in a middle ground between truth and falsehood; others exonerated the alien culture from the charge of corruption and assessed it on the basis of good and evil. Still, I need to conclude by restating the obvious: Jews also spoke in a scathingly derogatory manner of their Gentile neighbors. The Gentile ruler was often perceived as a pursuer and torturer and his religion was regarded as the very antithesis of love and kindness, of law and justice.24 In other cases, these expressions reflected the speaker’s ethnocentricity. But from the wealth of traditional texts, I chose the foregoing examples to highlight the conceptual possibilities that were opened wide in the context of ethical discourse, that were partially opened in the context of epistemological discourse, and that were left almost entirely shut in the context of ontological discourse. And even though these examples focused primarily on the more familiar, traditionally relevant religions, they may be used to derive normative guidelines for contemporary relationships with other religions, which until recently had been beyond the horizon of historical Judaism. Co-existence and Pluralism Each of the perspectives discussed above assumed the existence of the other qua other. The ideas of the two faiths may intersect or their concepts of the good may overlap, but that is not enough to surmount the inherent differences between them or the distinctiveness of a particular revelation. To formulate the point in specifically Jewish terms, the areas of overlap cannot overcome the exclusive advantage conferred by the Sinaitic covenant. And that, in turn, raises the question of whether Judaism can come to terms with a pluralistic view of the phenomenon of religion. Can it welcome the existence of religious multiplicity as something of specific positive value? May it attribute religious diversity to various groups having uncovered different parts of the one Divine truth? Some have offered a positive answer by reducing the Jewish 24

See Greenberg 1979: 265: “When Jesus’ Messianism led to hatred, exclusion, pogrom, it could only be judged false. If it now leads to responsibility, mitgefuehl, sharing of risk and love, then its phenomenology becomes radically different.”

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religion to rule and halakhah. On this view, Judaism makes no pretense of dealing with the realms of ontology, epistemology or ethics. All of these are universal human matters; they originate not in a particularistic revelation but in the natural reason shared by all human beings. Religious tradition leaves no unique mark on these areas; there is no Jewish “truth” or Gentile “good” and it is therefore meaningless to speak of diversity with respect to cognition or pluralism with respect to ethics. Judaism finds its distinctiveness in commandments and laws, ways of life and special practices mandated by the historical revelation at Sinai, which are addressed to Jews and only to Jews. As Moses Mendelssohn (eighteenth-century Germany) taught, Judaism is revealed law, not revealed religion in the commonly accepted theological sense. It presents its own particular avenue to spiritual salvation and human contentment, but it does not claim it to be the only way: “All of earth’s inhabitants are invited to happiness and the avenues available are as diverse as the human race itself.” Moreover, “If it is fear of Heaven you seek … it is evident that diversity is the plan and the goal of Providence.” (Mendelssohn: 142; cf. Nozick 1974: 310; Ward 1990: 1-18.) It is self-evident that this perspective paved the way to a pluralistic religious worldview (Kaplan 1998: 423-25; Jospe), although I myself have doubts whether Mendelssohn himself would have taken that step in its entirety (Feiner 2005: 135). In any event, many contemporary traditional Jews would be unwilling to pay the price involved, namely, to restrict the Jewish religion to the realm of halakhic law and thereby divest most dimensions of human existence of any particularly Jewish content. But the question may be examined from a broader perspective, without any a priori commitment to this sort of limitation on the essence of Judaism. Such an examination would likely lead to the conclusion that as long as we are talking on an abstract theoretical plane, considering only the concept of “religion” or the religious phenomenon in general, traditional Jewish can thought can accommodate religious pluralism. It is in the context of actual historical religions that formidable problems arise (Sagi 1995: 194-200; 1996: 190-94; 1997: 419-42.) From a theoretical, hypothetical perspective, the pluralistic approach is almost self-evident, logically consistent with a variety of theological approaches. If the Divine is immanent, filling the

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entire universe, it follows that Divine truth extends throughout all of being and all of cognition and cannot be contained in its entirety within the spiritual capacity of any one individual or society: The multitude of opinions and concepts of faith in the world are all illuminated by sparks of light; All of the branches multiply and spread left and right … but fundamentally they all lead to one place. Everything will ultimately ascend, perfecting the world through the reign of the Almighty, so that all mortals will call upon [His] Name” (Kook 1999, I: sec. 68; Ish-Shalom 1990: 155)25

Given that, how can we relinquish any of the lights or any of the universal branches? But the same result follows from the idea of Divine transcendence. According to this understanding, only God Himself, Who is beyond this world, is One, complete, infinite and absolute. All other existence, by definition, is partial, contingent, finite and relative (Ravitzky 1995: 17). Given that, how can absolute Divine truth be found in its entirety within one tradition, one defined human community, or one limited religious experience? (Hick 1982: 112-22; 1985; 1989; Rouner 1983.) How can a single historical community be the exclusive mediator of the entire Divine message and bear within itself the totality of spiritual possibilities? Thus, both perspectives point toward pluralism and it is hardly surprising that some contemporary Jewish writers tend to emphasize these options within religious thought (Heschel 1997: 244-45; Hartman 1990: 247-48;1999: 153-60).26 This apparently harmonious picture is incomplete, however, for it overlooks the real difficulties that flow from concrete examination of historical religions. If each faith operated within its own separate domain, with no points of contact or friction, they 25

Rabbi Kook believed that Judaism encompassed all the lights and all the branches, but he was referring to the idea of Judaism, not necessarily to actual, historical Judaism. In any event, I cite him as illustration, not as proof. 26

The (Orthodox) Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathan Sacks, recently expressed a similar view, but he was forced to retreat under ultraOrthodox pressure. See the original version of his book, Sacks 2002. Cf. Shapiro 2003.

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might indeed together form an untroubled, spiritually perfect entity: “Let one hundred flowers blossom.” But reality is quite different. The various religions are not neutral or indifferent to one another. They sometimes encounter and sometimes oppose one another and, not infrequently, they find themselves competing over the same cognitive field or historical terrain. For example, can one honestly expect the traditional Jew (or Muslim) to welcome even the existence of a belief in the Divine incarnation in human form? (Wurzberger: 10). Is it reasonable to expect that a Jew (or Christian) could applaud the existence of a belief in the absolute superiority of the Qur’an and the forgery of the Torah by the Jews? More likely, it understates the matter to say that they would see the world as none the worse if these competing beliefs were to disappear. They may have to get along with their rivals and live side by side, but they hardly see them as a positive contribution to the enrichment of the human spirit. It is even harder to imagine that either the Jewish (or Muslim) tradition would prefer fetish-based religious worship over theological silence or agnostic contemplation. For we are dealing here not with the fuzzy margins of belief but with fundamental foci and principles, with the very essence of the religious worldview. It follows that the move from co-existence to pluralism requires a major transformation, going to the heart of many historical religions. Many of the Eastern religions, it appears, would not be required to pay that price. Because they see all religions as finite paths to the same infinite goal, they might not feel any compulsion to deny the foundations of other religions. But even from their viewpoint, an important question remains: Are all religions on the same order, standing side-by-side and complementing one another, or is there one higher-order religion on which all the others converge and that encompasses all of them in an ultimate unity? And if such exists, who are its representatives on earth? There may well be as many answers to this question as there are religions. I see a need, therefore, for a shift in the discourse on this issue, a move away from asking a member of one religion to relate to another religion as unified entity. The productive question is not “Do you assign specific positive value to the other religion?” It is, rather, “To which aspects of this religion do you relate with tolerance; on which aspects do you confer legitimacy; and to

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which aspects do you assign specific positive value?” I might, for example, welcome another’s religious experience and intensity though not its theological context. I might be intellectually enriched by one doctrine of an alien religion but not by others. I might value the ethical stance derived from a particular belief but remain indifferent to the belief itself. In other words, one’s reaction to the complex phenomenon of a historical religion need not be one-dimensional, a choice among such options as “rejection,” “accommodation,” “tolerance,” or “pluralism.” Any such attempt to reach a comprehensive judgment for good or for ill immediately forecloses options that might otherwise develop. We have already seen how some of the medieval sages drew productive distinctions within other religions and it is quite likely that new distinctions of this sort are even more crucial today, when all religions must collectively respond to competition from secularism or atheism (Borowitz: 21-23), and all religions, including those until recently isolated from one another, are exposed to greater mutual scrutiny. Finally, the transition from coexistence or tolerance to religious pluralism requires welcoming the existence of the other religion. Once again, however, the question is “Which religion?” Does pluralism extend to every belief that people have ever adhered to? Is it restricted to those religions considered “plausible”? Or is the criterion historical success in attracting large groups of people? Each of these possibilities raises conceptual difficulties of its own. And what of the agnostic or atheistic options—should they, too, not be included within the realm of spiritual possibilities? Difficulties such as these may support the minimalist conception of the “Seven Noahide Laws,” which requires us to rest content with the basic decency of the other as the controlling criterion and not to look to the other faith’s special contribution to divine truth or make any positive doctrinal demands. Conclusion I have not dealt much here with the private religious experience. It is, perhaps, the most universal aspect of faith, but it is also the most personal, hidden feature of religious life. “An outsider will not comprehend it—not even a brother in the same faith community” (J.B. Soloveitchik 1996: 73). One could infer from this that interfaith dialogue is impossible. I have here taken a different

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path, suggesting alternate criteria for discourse and mutual assessment, but at the same time attempting to define their limitations. I conclude by returning to my point of departure. Jewish youth today tend to search for a spiritual encounter with the mystical religions of the Far East. Many of them also believe in the creative potential inherent in the fusion of Jewish Kabbalah and Eastern spirituality and we may be on the threshold of a productive dialogue between two distinct cultures which for many generations have had no substantive contacts (Kamenetz). Two important reservations must be noted, however. First, as we saw earlier, it was specifically in kabbalistic circles that a high ontological barrier was erected between Israel and other nations and between the Jewish faith and other religions. Contrary to the popular notion, it was the halakhists and the philosophers, not the kabbalists, who, over the ages, opened conceptual doors to the outside. It was they who developed intermediate models and conceptual distinctions between truth and falsehood, holiness and impurity, while many kabbalists tended to expunge the alien from redemptive history, whether as person or as believer. A productive spiritual encounter therefore requires a profound change in some basic kabbalistic ideas. Second, the Jewish religion is a law-based social religion that welcomes human initiative and demands human efforts to improve the world (tiqqun olam). While its mystical elements cannot be denied, its dominant strains do not permit the person who has encountered God to rest content with the restoration of religious energy and the spiritual return to the supreme, divine source. They demand as well that the person look outward, toward the world. A renewed dialogue between Jewish and Eastern mysticisms must not disrupt the traditional Jewish balance between individual and society, between spirituality and action. Appendix: The Distinctions Drawn by Maimonides In this article I have emphasized the importance of discerning internal distinctions within an alien religion when attempting to assess its relationship to one’s own. For additional illustration of the fruitful possibilities implicit in such distinctions, we may look to the writings of Maimonides, the greatest post-Talmudic Jewish sage. A careful reading of his oeuvre—halakhic and philosophical

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alike—reveals an array of categories and criteria he used in assessing and judging the other. Maimonides clearly distinguished between a religion’s original formulation and its ensuing transformations; between a religion’s philosophical conceptions and its formulation by the masses; and between a belief’s textual sources and the content and religious intentions disclosed in them. He distinguished as well between the alien religion’s mark on historical reality and its anticipated influence in the eschatological future; and between its specific effects on Jews and Judaism and its universal consequences for humanity overall. Maimonides did not consider these questions in a focused, systematic way; rather, his distinctions are formulated in various contexts and are dispersed throughout his writings. Let me therefore attempt to collect and survey them under a single heading. First, Maimonides distinguished between the philosophical conception underlying a religious ritual and the simple, popular understanding of the ritual. The distinctions pertain even to ancient idolatry. In his view, original pagan thought never intended to deny the existence of God, the First Cause; it merely sought to worship and connect with Him through intermediaries—first and foremost, the heavenly forces. Not so the idolatrous masses that followed: they negated the existence of God entirely and of any other non-physical entity and descended into complete materialism. At times Maimonides describes this diachronically, as a gradual, process of historical fall: at first, they began to build sanctuaries to the stars … to ascertain the will of God … and the worshippers who knew [this] premise would say as much, not saying that a divinity was present, but only the star … but as time went on, [God’s] honored and awesome Name was forgotten by all humanity and from their minds, and they did not recognize Him” (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Avodah Zarah 1:1-2)

At other times, however, Maimonides presents a synchronic view, suggesting that there is a permanent gap between different levels of idol worship: Whoever performs idolatrous worship does not do it on the assumption that there is no deity except the idol …. Rather, it is worshipped in respect of its being an image of a thing [fn. omitted] that is an intermediary between ourselves and God

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AVIEZER RAVITZKY …. [Nevertheless,] this led to the disappearance of the belief in His existence, may He be exalted, from among the multitude. For the multitude grasp only the actions of worship, not their meanings or the true reality of the Being worshipped through them. (Guide I:36 (Maimonides 1963, pp. 83-84))27

Let me emphasize: although Maimonides was speaking of ancient idolatrous worship, the distinction he draws here— between the masses’ fanciful concept, centered on “the actions of worship,” and the intellectual, philosophical concepts directed to the “meanings and true reality” underlying the actions—is not confined to that context. It applies directly to the rituals of the later, historical religions, including Judaism itself (Ravitzky 1991: 142-81). Second, Maimonides differentiated rigorously between the gospel of a religion’s true founder and the religion’s ensuing development—a needed step, he believed, in the case of Christianity. In Maimonides’ view, the Christian messiah saw himself as prophet and divine emissary but never presumed to be a divine persona; he imagined himself an authentic interpreter of the Mosaic Torah, never intending to establish a new one. Only with the passage of time did the Christian church arise and base itself on his gospel: “Long after him, a teaching went out from among the children of Esau [the Romans] that they attributed to him; but it was not his intention nor what he had hoped for” (Iggeret Teiman (Maimonides 1987, 1: 121)). As we have seen, this distinction between Jesus and Christianity recurs in various forms in the writings of later Jewish sages. There is a basis as well for assuming that Maimonides adopted a parallel, though opposite, position regarding the development of Islam. Here, too, he sought to distinguish between the person of Islam’s prophet and the monotheistic gospel and religious tradition that continued after him through the ages; but in this instance, he judges the tradition favorably and the founding prophet negatively (See Guide II: 41 (end); Iggeret Teiman (Maimonides 1987: 121, 160)).28 27

See the commentaries ad loc of Kaspi, Efodi, Shem Tov, and Abrabanel. Cf. Guide I:62; Commentary on the Mishnah, Avodah Zarah 4:7. See also Strumza 1999 and Tardieu 1986. 28

28 An interesting independent outgrowth of Maimonides’ position appears in the words of Rabbi Moses Narboni (Provence, fourteenth

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Third, Maimonides differentiated between the source on which the belief is based and the belief’s content and religious meaning. With regard to Islam, for example, he regarded the prophetic source as deceitful—and, accordingly, the textual source as well—but not so the theological content and religious consciousness, which struck him as pure monotheism: “These Ishmaelites [Muslims] are not in the least idolaters, and it [idolatry] has long since been extirpated from their mouths and hearts, and they properly and flawlessly affirm the unity of God” (Letter to R. Ovadiah the Proselyte (Maimonides 1987: 238)).29 Thus, an imaginary prophetic source made a substantial contribution to the spread of true religious belief. In Christianity, however, the process moved in the opposite direction. As a theological matter, Maimonides absolutely invalidated Christianity, regarding the doctrine of the Trinity as an idolatrous contradiction of God’s unity. But he saw Christianity’s textual relation to the Torah of Moses in a positive light and did not hesitate to draw an original halakhic conclusion: “it is permitted to teach the commandments to Christians,” he wrote, for “they believe that the text of the Torah is accurate … and if they are informed of the proper interpretation, they may change their minds.” In this regard they are preferable to the Muslims, who deny the formulation of the Torah of Moses, attributing it to Jewish deceit; therefore, if they are taught something in Scripture that they find contradictory to their own invention, they will respond in accord with their claim [that the text is inaccurate], causing fools and those who lack understanding to err; and this will be a snare for the Jews imprisoned among them. (Responses to the Students of R. Ephraim of Tyre (Maimonides 1987: 216))

Thus, the different criteria—theology on the one hand; attitude toward the text on the other—produce different assessments of the alien religions. The theological point of view immeasurably favors the monotheistic Muslim over the Trinitarian century). See Holtzman 1996: 277-99. 29

Cf. Maimuni 1989: 158. Some passages in Iggeret ha-Shemad suggest that Maimonides identified idolatrous aspects within Islam, but H. Soloveitchik has shown that the remarks in question are merely rhetorical. See H. Soloveitchik 1980: 287.

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Christian; but the Christian, who shares the Jewish belief in the authenticity of Scripture and may be ready to listen to Jewish exegesis without threatening its exponents, is preferable to the Muslim from that viewpoint. I know of no one before Maimonides who offered this conceptual clarification or halakhic conclusion. (Tchernowitz 1950: 45-46; Schlossberg 38-60; Fenton1983: 84-102; Novak 1986: 233-50; Frimer 1986: 89-102.) Fourth, Maimonides examined alien religions not only under the glass of the historical present but also under that of the anticipated messianic future. He inquired into the relative contributions of these religions to the human journey toward monotheism. As we saw earlier, Rabbi Judah Ha-Levi had already identified a positive role for Christianity and Islam in preparing humankind for the era of redemption. Maimonides went further, deepening the divide between the errors in those religions’ declared positions and the positive, though concealed, effects of their historical activity. They rose up against the Torah; yet, as a practical matter, they advance, in a paradoxical or dialectical fashion, the wise plan of the giver of the Torah. They rose up against the commandments; yet, as a practical matter, they plant their seeds among the nations: Humans lack the power to apprehend the thoughts of the Creator of the world. All these words of Jesus the Nazarene and of the Ishmaelite [Muhammad] who arose after him are only to pave the way for the King Messiah and to repair the entire world so it may serve God in unison …. How is that? The world has already been filled [under their influence] with talk of the Messiah, the Torah, and the commandments, and these matters have been diffused to distant isles and among many nations with uncircumcised hearts. (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 11:4.)

This is not the place to consider whether Maimonides in fact had a comprehensive historiosophic perspective on the process of human improvement en route to universal monotheism.30 But it is clear that in the present specific context, he plainly disting30

For an interpretation that attributes to Maimonides a far-reaching, Hegelian-style perspective of this sort, see Funkenstein 1983: 49-53; 1977: 81-103.

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uished between the openly evident and the concealed in history, between subjective intention and objective consequence, and, at least metaphorically, between the actions and artifices of human beings and the plans and concealed acts of God. Fifth, Maimonides distinguished between the alien religions’ effects on the particular fate of the Jews and their contributions to universal human progress. From the former point of view, both Christianity and Islam are seen negatively: as a historical matter, both of them harmed and persecuted Jews; as a theological matter, both harmed and threatened Jewish belief. Jesus left a mark on history that brought about “the destruction of [the people of] Israel by the sword, the dispersal and degradation of their remnant, and the abandonment of Torah” (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 11:4).31 After him came the religion of Muhammad, the “nation of Ishmael,” which likewise rose up against us “to harm us and despise us … and no worse nation ever stood over Israel, none like them went so far to degrade us, diminish us, and intensify its hatred of us” (Iggeret Teiman (Maimonides 1987: 160)). Maimonides the Jewish leader did not spare worlds in recounting his people’s woes and the suffering inflicted on them by the ruling nations, but Maimonides the religious thinker took pains to examine the religions of these nations from a universal human perspective as well. And, as we have seen, Christianity and Islam, though bringing much grief to Israel, also prepared the nations to accept the advance of monotheism. At this point the universal dimension of the analysis and the eschatological dimension merge and become one. In conclusion, his study of the religions he knew, from close up and from afar, led Maimonides—philosopher, leader, halakhist—to develop a series of distinctions and internal gradations bearing on those religions. He examined the relevant phenomena from diverse perspectives—theological, textual, historical, eschatological, sociological, and national—and came to varying assessments and judgments. Certainly, these judgments did not flow solely from empirical observation; they also reflected his a priori 31 Maimonides added: “and the misleading of most of the world to serve a god other than God,” in the sense that the Christian messiah was the reason (he “brought about”) the history of the Christian religion. But immediately following, Maimonides turns to the universal messianic aspect: “but the plans of the Creator of the world ….”

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theoretical points of view and his dogmatic positions related to belief. But the multiplicity of categories available to him broadened his field of vision and produced an original survey and complex picture of the Gentile religious world. Bibliography Albo, Joseph. (n.d.). Sefer ha-Iqqarim. Jerusalem: Mahbarot le-Sifrut. Aramah, Isaac. (n.d.). Sefer Aqedat Yizhaq. Israel: Mif`alei Sefarim Liyezo. Blidstein, G. (1990). “Maimonides and Meiri on the Legitimization of Non-Judaic Religion.” In L. Landman (ed.). Scholars and Scholarship: The Interaction between Judaism and Other Cultures. New York: Yeshiva University Press. Borowitz, E. B. (n.d.). “On Theological Dialogue with Christians.” In Judaism and the Interfaith Movement. New York: Synagogue Council of America. Dur’an (Ha-Efodi), Isaac. (1928). “Kelimat ha-Goyim.” In: Y. D. Eisenstein (ed.). Ozar Viku him. New York. Photo-offset: 1969. Emden, Jacob. Letter, published with Seder Olam Zutta VeRabba [Hebrew]. Feiner, S. (2005). Moses Mendelssohn (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar. Fenton P.B. (1983). “Jewish Attitudes to Islam: Israel Heeds Ishmael.” Jerusalem Quarterly 29: 84-102. Frimer, D.I. (1986). “Israel, the Noahide Laws and Maimonides: JewishGentile Relations in Maimonidean Thought.” In: B. S. Jackson (ed.). Jewish Law Association Studies. Vol. 2. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Funkenstein, A. (1983). Nature, History, and Messianism in Maimonides. Tel-Aviv: Universitah Meshuderet. [Hebrew]. (1977). “Maimonides: Political Theory and Realistic Messianism.” Miscellanea Mediaevalia 11: 81-103. Goshen-Gottstein, A. (Forthcoming 2006). “Theology of Interfaith Dialogue: First Impressions.” In: S Fisher and A. Seligman (eds). Im Lo Dat: On Toleration. Tel-Aviv: The Van Leer Institute and Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’u had. [Hebrew]. Greenberg, I. (1979). “New Revelations and New Patterns in the Relationship of Judaism and Christianity.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 16: 249-67. Halamish, M. (1998). “The Kabbalists’ Attitude Toward the Gentiles.” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 14: 289-311 [Hebrew].

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Halbertal, M. (2000). Between Torah and Wisdom. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. [Hebrew]. Ha-Levy, Judah. (1973). Sefer ha-Kuzari. Tel-Aviv: Devir. [Hebrew]. Hartman, D. (1990). Conflicting Visions. New York: Schocken. (1990) A Heart of Many Rooms. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing. Heschel, A. J. (1997). “No Religion is an Island.” In: S. Heschel (ed.). Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity. New York: Noonday Press. Hick, J. (1982). God Has Many Names. Philadelphia: Westminster. (1985). Problems of Religious Pluralism. London: St. Martin’s Press. (1989). An Interpretation of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press. Holtzman, D. (1996). “Rabbi Moses Narboni on the Relationship Between Judaism and Islam.” Tarbiz 65 (1996): 277-99. [Hebrew]. Ish-Shalom, B. (1990). Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook – Between Rationalism and Mysticism. Tel-Aviv: Am Oved. [Hebrew]. Jacobs, L. (1973). A Jewish Theology. New York: Behrman House. Jospe, R. (Forthcoming). “Moses Mendelssohn: A Medieval Modernist. In: R.S. van Gelder-Fontaine and I. Zwiep (eds.). Sepharad in Ashkenaz. Amsterdam. Kamenetz, R. (1995). The Jew in the Lotus. San Francisco: Harper. Kaplan, L. (1998). “Maimonides and Mendelssohn on the Origins of Idolatry, the Election of Israel, and the Oral Law.” In: A. I. Ivry et al. (eds.). Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism. Australia: Harwood Academic Publishers. Katz, J. (1961). Exclusiveness and Tolerance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kook, Abraham Isaac.(1999). Shemonah Qeva zim. Jerusalem. (1967). Eder Ha-Yakar. Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook. (1962). Iggerot Re’iyah. Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook. Landau, Ezekiel. (1811). Resp. Noda Bi-Yehudah. Prague. Maimonides Moses. (1987). Iggerot ha-Rambam. Ed. Y. Shilat. Jerusalem: Ma’aliyot. (1963). The Guide of the Perplexed. Transl. S. Pines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Maimuni, A. (1989). Sefer ha-Maspiq le-Ovedei ha-Shem. Ed. N. Dana. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University. Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai. Ed. D.Z. Hoffman. Frankfurt: 1905. Mendelssohn, Moses. (n.d.). Jerusalem. Ramat-Gan: Masada. [Hebrew transl. from German].

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Nahmanides, Moses. (1963). Writings of Nahmanides. Ed. C.D. Chavel. Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook. [Hebrew]. Novak, D. (1986). “The Treatment of Islam and Muslims in the Legal Writings of Maimonides.” In: W. M. Brinner and S. D. Ricks (eds). Studies in Islamic and Jewish Traditions. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 233-350. (1983). The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism. New York/Toronto: Edwin Mellen. Nozick, N. (1974). Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. Ravitzky A. “Covenant of Faith or Covenant of Fate? Competing Orthodox Conceptions of Secular Jews.” In: R. Elior and P. Scafer (eds). Creation and Re-Creation in Jewish Thought: Festschrift in Honor of Joseph Dan. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005, pp. 271-307. (1999). Freedom Inscribed. Tel-Aviv: Am Oved. [Hebrew]. (1996a). Messianism, Zionism and Jewish Religious Radicalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (1996b). “Rav A. Y. Kook and Modern Consciousness.” Jewish Action 57: 28-31. (1995). “Yeshayahu Leibowitz: Values and Impressions.” In: A. Sagi (ed.). Yeshayahu Leibowitz - His World and Philosophy. Jerusalem: Keter. [Hebrew]. (1991a). “The Secrets of the Guide of the Perplexed: Exegesis Then and Now.” In: Al Da`at ha-Maqom. Jerusalem: Keter. Pp. 142-81. (1991b). “To the Utmost of Human Capacity: Maimonides on the Days of the Messiah.” In: J. L. Kraemer (ed.). Perspectives on Maimonides. New York/ Toronto: Oxford University Press. Rozen D. (2001). “Esau – Jacob’s Brother.” De`ot 9. [Hebrew]. Saadia, Gaon. (1970). Emunot Ve-Deot. Ed. Y. Kafi h. Jerusalem: Sura Institute. Sacks, J. (2002). The Dignity of Difference. London and New York: Continuum. Sagi, A. (1997). “Religious Exclusivity and the Basis for Interfaith Pluralism.” Iyyun 45: 419-42 [Hebrew]. (1996). Elu va-Elu. Tel-Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me’uhad. [Hebrew]. (1995). “The Jewish Religion: Tolerance and the Option of Pluralism.” Iyyun 44: 194-200 [Hebrew]. Schlussberg, A. (1990). “Maimonides’ Attitude towards Islam.” Pe’am 42: 38-60 [Hebrew]. Shaki, A. H. (1977). Who Is a Jew in the State of Israel. Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law. [Hebrew].

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Shapiro, M.B. (2003). “Of Books and Bans.” The Edah Journal 3. Soloveitchik, J.B. (1996). “Confrontation.” In: N. Lamm and W. Wurzberger (eds.). A Treasury of Tradition. New York: Hebrew Publishing Co. Soloveitchik, H. (1980). “Maimonides’ Iggeret ha-Shemad – Law and Rhetoric.” In: L. Landman (ed.). Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Memorial Volume. New York: Ktav. Strumza, S. (1999). “The Sabaens of Haran and the Sabaens of Maimonides: On the Development of Religion According to Maimonides.” Sefunot 22: 277-295 [Hebrew]. Tardieu, M. (1986). “Sabiens Qoranic est Sabiens de Harran.” Journal Asiatique 274: 1-44. Tchernowitz, G. (1950). Ha-Ya has Bein Goyim ve-Yehudim le-fi ha-Rambam. New York. Urbach, E.E. (1980). “The Doctrine of Toleration of Rabbi Menahem Ha Me’iri: Sources and Limitations.” In: I. Etkes and J. Salmon (eds). Chapters in the History of Jewish Society in the Medieval Ages and Modern Times Presented to Jacob Katz. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Pp. 34-45. [Hebrew]. (1968). Ba`alei Ha-Tosafot. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. Ward, K. (1990). “Truth and the Diversity of Religions.” Religious Studies 26: 1-18. Werblowsky, R.Z. (1967). Commitment and Indifference: Some Reflections on Expansionism, Exclusiveness, and Coexistence. London: The Council of Christians and Jews. Wurzberger, W.Z. (n.d.). “Justification and Limitations of Interfaith Dialogue.” In: Judaism and the Interfaith Movement. New York: Synagogue Council of America. Pp. 7-16.

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Theologia Religionum The Case of Christianity from the Perspective of Ecumenical Thought Jerald D. Gort The problem of [Christianity’s] relation to the world and all its spheres of life and that of the attitude towards other religions and how God works in them cannot be ... passed by in silence or left untouched. Common sense and the reality of life revolt against this. (Kraemer 1961: 120)

Abstract Along the lines of the two major questions posed by the discipline of theology of religion as delineated in the position paper composed for the use of the contributors to this volume, we will briefly look, in this essay, at a few of the salient historical Christian approaches toward other religions and then examine some important aspects of contemporary ecumenical Christian thinking with respect to the proper attitude toward people of other faiths and their religious traditions.1

Historical Attitudes For most of its history the opinion of Christianity with respect to other religious traditions and their adherents was overwhelmingly negative. During the earliest period of its existence, however, it had exhibited an altogether different spirit. At that time there were prominent Christian thinkers such as Justin Martyr (ca. 100ca. 165) and Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-ca. 215) who were highly appreciative of the beliefs and thought of people outside their own Christian circle. 1

Translations of German, Dutch and Latin texts in this essay are

mine. 109

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These early Apologists argued that through the operation of God’s salvific grace many good and true things had come into existence everywhere in the world. They held the position that the philosophical and religious traditions of humankind owe their existence to God’s revelatory initiative. Making use of various concepts and insights borrowed from Greek philosophy, they taught that all humans have been gifted with what they called a logos spermatikos through which they participate in the eternal divine Logos, whom the Apologists identified with Christ. “Unfortunately, this felicity of attitude, this generosity of mind which made it possible to hold the beliefs and convictions of others in such high regard was nipped in the bud before it could fully flower or bear ripened fruit” (Gort 1989: 37). Based on certain scriptural interpretations and theological notions, the affirmatory openness which had characterized much of earlier Christian thinking with respect to the larger external world of philosophical, religious and cultural expression was gradually replaced by strongly negative feelings toward and finally rejection of virtually anything outside the orb of the church. From about the middle of the third century a second phase in the history of the church’s attitude toward the world around it began to take shape, characterized by the motto extra ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the church no salvation). As originally formulated this maxim was pastoral in intent and purpose, but it soon came to be interpreted and applied in an ever more exclusionist manner: no salvation whatever, it was maintained, is to be found outside the boundaries of the Christian church. Another early theologian, Cyprian († 258), at the time the leading proponent of this exclusivist position, asserted that “he cannot have God for his Father who does not have the Church for his mother” (cited in Kelly 1965: 206). Subsequent to, and as a consequence of, the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire from around the year 325, this rigorously negative attitude on the part of the church became even more entrenched. The religions and cultures of other people came to be viewed as “non-Christian” and were perceived as manifestations of pagan unbelief and evil superstition. The “outside world” was considered to be the kingdom of darkness which required to be taken up into the enlightened body of Christendom. For roughly the next 1500 years

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Christian thinking in respect of other religions and people of other faiths would be almost wholly governed by that perception. The opening and closing words of the Athanasian Creed are illustrative of this exclusivist and exclusionist cast of mind.2 Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith. Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally. This is the catholic faith: One cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully. (Cited in Plantinga 2004: 280)

These negative sentiments were reiterated in no uncertain terms by various popes and in the official declarations of important ecclesiastical gatherings, such as the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the Council of Florence (1435-1445). This latter council, for example, stated emphatically that: No one outside the Catholic Church, whether pagan or Jew, heretic or schismatic, can partake of eternal life, but will find their end in the eternal fire that is prepared for the Devil and his angels, unless before the end of their life they become members [of the Church]. (Denzinger-Schönmetzer: 342, § 1351)3

And even the early twentieth century popes, Benedict XV, Pius XI and Pius XII, held decidedly negative views of people outside the church and Christianity, as can be seen from the terms they sometimes employed when referring to such people in their official writings: barbaric, uncivilized, morally perverse, unbelievers, heathen. Of course there were also those who throughout the centuries challenged this dominant ecclesiastical mood by advocating or 2

This creed was not written by Athanasius (296-373), the Bishop of Alexandria, but most probably by Ambrose (339-397), the Bishop of Milan (cf. Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church: 98-99). 3

Nullos extra catholicam Ecclesiam exsistentes, non solum paganos, sed nec Iudaeos aut haereticos atque schismaticos, aeternae vitae fieri posse participes; sed in ignem aeternum ituros, qui paratus est diablo et angelis eius, nisi ante finem vitae eidem fuerint aggregati. This declaration was based on a sentence of Fulgentius of Ruspe (A.D. 467-533), a disciple of St. Augustine, who also contended that all unbaptized children and even fetuses who die in the womb will suffer the eternal fires of hell.

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employing a more accommodating model of encounter with other religions, for example, Pope Gregory the Great (ca. 540-604) and missionaries such as Raymond Lull (ca. 1235-ca. 1315), Bartholomew de las Casas (1474-1566), Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and Robert de Nobili (1577-1656). And even during the heyday of European colonialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there were calls by both Catholics and Protestants, especially within ecumenical and cooperative missionary circles, for a revision of the prevailing attitude toward the religions of Asia and Africa. Yet the overall picture shows that by and large Western Christianity continued to embrace the exclusivist-rejective approach to other religious traditions and that more often than not the posture assumed by in particular North-Atlantic Christians vis-à-vis people of other faiths was informed by uncurbed feelings of superiority. On the Protestant side, the two greatest Reformation leaders, Martin Luther and John Calvin had, each in his own way, a part in fostering Christian negativity toward others. Luther’s diatribe against the Jews is well known, but his negativism embraced all religions other than Christianity. He stated that the Christian faith is set apart from every other religion and faith of men. It makes all the others false and useless .... Those who remain outside Christianity, be they heathens, Turks, Jews or false Christians [i.e., Roman Catholics] ... remain in eternal wrath and perdition. (Cited in Cracknell 1986: 11)

Calvin taught that God discloses Godself in and through creation everywhere in the world, that reason belongs to human nature and that the seed of religion (semen religionis) is firmly implanted in every human soul from the moment of conception in the womb. But he argued that, because of the devastating effects of sin, people were incapable of responding appropriately to this divine self-disclosure on their own. If people’s hearts were not, through the working of the Spirit of God, first radically turned around by the special revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and if their minds were not informed by God’s Word, the Bible, they would not be able to know God truly or in a saving way. Any “knowledge” that humans might have of God apart from the truth revealed in Scripture, Calvin contended, can only be muddied, confused and

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erroneous, and he left no doubt as to his opinion of the efficacy of human attempts to arrive at truth beyond the Christian faith. [W]ith regard to knowing God [and] knowing his fatherly favor in our behalf, in which our salvation consists ... the greatest geniuses are blinder than moles! ... [T]he philosophers ... saw things in such a way that their seeing did not direct them to the truth, much less enable them to attain it! They are like a traveler passing through a field at night who in a momentary lightning flash sees far and wide, but the sight vanishes so swiftly that he is plunged again into the darkness of the night before he can take even a step—let alone be directed on his way by its help .... Human reason, therefore neither approaches, nor strives toward, nor even takes a straight aim at, this truth: to understand who the true God is or what sort of God he wishes to be toward us. (Calvin 1960: 277-278)

For our purposes here it will suffice to mention just one more example of Protestant exclusivist thinking: that of the great twentieth century Neo-Orthodox theologian, Karl Barth. For most of his life Barth viewed religions as varying forms of human unbelief (Religion ist Unglaube): only God and not religion can rescue people. Religion always constitutes an attempt to do and achieve what only God can do and accomplish, namely, provide for human salvation. The Christian religion is superior to other religions—not in and of itself but only in the sense that it recognizes and accepts the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Barth rejected the possibility of any kind of divine salvific revelation beyond the self-revelation of God in Christ, which is contained within the Christian Scriptures and which impinges upon people through the operation of the Holy Spirit, particularly in the preaching of the Word.4

4

It should be mentioned here that later in his life Barth seems to have been working on a revision of his views on these matters of divine revelation and religion, but he never really worked these new ideas out and finally was prevented by death from pursuing them further.

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Shifting Stance In our own times this negative attitude on the part of Christianity has begun to change drastically. Christians have gradually become more open to and appreciative of other religions. Recent years have witnessed a growing degree of “ecclesiastical sanction for disparate theological views” and religious beliefs, a “new latitude for pluralism” (Coalter and Cruz: xix) There are many determinants involved in the genesis of this evolving transformation of Christian thinking with regard to other faiths and their adherents. A few of these are discussed below. External Contributory Influences The first causal factor that can be mentioned in this connection is the huge amount of vastly improved intelligence about other religious traditions that has become available in modern times. Earlier, knowledge of the other religions was exceedingly meagre, and the scanty information available was in most cases highly inaccurate. Until rather recently, the majority of people residing in the West, including the West’s literati, were shockingly illiterate about the ABCs of the world’s great religious traditions. Consider the case of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who in a letter dated July 17, 1845, blithely reports the following item of community news “The only other event is the arrival in Concord of the ‘Bhagavat-Geeta,’ the much renowned book of Buddhism.” Such an astonishing blunder—in contemporary terms ... comparable to referring to Tony Blair as the prime minister of Canada—is most instructive.... (Plantinga 2004: 275)

This condition of ignorance began to change from around 1860 onward, when Western scholars began to undertake serious academic studies of the other great faiths of the world for purposes of providing Europe and North America with a better understanding of them. As a result of this and a number of other factors, such as growing ease of travel and vastly improved means of communication, the general public in the West gradually became better informed and more knowledgeable about other world religions, particularly during the second half of the last century.

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The second factor that helped to activate this metamorphosis of attitude was the increasing awareness of the continued existence and conspicuous vitality of the other religions, despite hundreds of years of Christian missionary activity, a circumstance that, in the words of Karl Rahner, “has astonished and baffled the church” (Rahner: 137). During the first decade of the twentieth century Western Christianity and its mission agencies were still overwhelmingly informed by nineteenth century North-Atlantic presuppositions and certainties. In the ensuing years, however, a series of momentous events took place, in consequence of which the strong facade of European preeminence in human affairs would be cracked beyond repair. The process began with the Great War of 1914-1918. This spectacle of hatred and destruction among the “Christian” nations of the Occident not only weakened Europe but also deeply eroded whatever moral credibility the West might still have had in Asia and Africa. The debacle in Europe led many Asians and Africans to a positive reassessment of their own cultures. A renascence of autochthonous religions, powerfully linked with existing and new movements for national autonomy and self-determination, gathered force everywhere in Asia and Africa, where people became ever more vociferous in their resistance to Western influences, including that of Christianity, which for several generations had been associated with European colonialism. World War II ushered in the period of decolonization and Asian and African nation-building. Europe as center, waxing for so long, was now clearly on the wane. All of this forced Christianity to a reappraisal not only of its own position in the world but even more significantly of that of other cultural and religious traditions as well. Thirdly, one of the most significant facts of present history is the radical pluralism of populations and communities right throughout the world. In the contemporary situation the various religions have become “mutually accessible” and are being challenged by each other’s “truth claims and missionary activities” (Krieger 1986: 59). Nearly every human society in today’s world is multicultural and multireligious to a greater or lesser degree, and even large numbers of local neighborhoods have taken on a global character. As a result of this, Christians everywhere, in East and West, in South and North, are directly confronted with forms of spirituality and religiosity from all parts of the earth. “Today few

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Christians anywhere in the world find themselves in a situation where coexistence with other religionists is not part and parcel of their daily life” (Bosch 1991: 483) As Karl Rahner, one of the pioneers in the area of theology of religion, rightly stated some years ago, many Christians all over the planet experience these other persuasions as “a question posed,” “a tendered possibility,” “something that calls the Christian claim to absoluteness into question” (Rahner: 137 ff.) This new proximity to other religions, this immediate exposure to the beliefs of people of other faiths has been a potent factor in arousing Christian interest in them. Internal Causal Factor It is against the background of external influences such as those reviewed above that a radical rethinking of Christian theological positions and biblical interpretations has taken and continues to take place with a view to finding an answer to the question regarding the proper attitude toward other religions. And it is this area of reassessment—which may be termed the internal causal factor in the alteration of attitudinal negativity with respect to other religions—that constitutes the chief zone of exploration for Christian theology of religion in its prescriptive mode. In this mode Christian theology of religion explores and seeks to provide answers to a number of cardinal questions. First, do people beyond Christianity and the Christian gospel have a share in salvation, and if so, in what does that salvation consist? In the words of Dutch evangelical theologian Bernhard Reitsma, “What is the significance of the religious experiences of people who do not know Christ” (Reitsma 1999: 2). Second, if the Christian Gospel may be said to bear definitive truth and to have decisive importance and universal validity, does this mean that other messages of human and divine salvation are nugatory? If Christians “confess that Jesus is the only name by which we may be saved,” and if they say that their “experiences of faith are experiences with the only true God, the Father of Jesus Christ,” are they then “obliged to go on to say that the experiences of others are not true?” (Reitsma 1999: 2). Does the commitment of Christians to Christ and his message preclude their having respect, reverence and appreciation for the beliefs, faith and commitment of people who adhere to other religions? Third, if people of other faiths share in salvation, can their religions be viewed as viae salutis, sal-

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vific ways, transmitters of salubrity? Fourth, if other religions constitute ways to salvation, is there still a raison d’ être for Christian witness? These are questions with potentially far-reaching implications: the answers Christians give to them will be of pivotal significance in determining their attitude toward people whose religious experience is rooted in other religious traditions. Of course, there are a number of elemental verities from which any valid Christian theology of religion will take its departure in its search for fresh understanding of and new approaches to the matter of the relationship with other religions. Christian theology of religion will acknowledge the efficacious work of the God of the Old and New Testaments, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who is building His Kingdom here and now and for the time to come. It will also affirm the decisive significance of Jesus Christ within God’s plan of salvation for the world. And it will not lose sight of the missionary nature of the Christian congregation, never forget that witness and service is coterminous with the very life of the church rather than just a part of it that could be ignored or abandoned at will. But for the last number of years up to the present time these and other fundamental Scriptural and theological articles of faith have been and are being subjected to ongoing reexamination and reinterpretation in the light of the hyper-pluralistic and socio-economically divided contexts found in all parts of the world. New Understandings What has this process of reassessment and fresh reflection generated in terms of new insights? A brief outline of a few of these new perceptions is offered below. God’s Work Among God’s People An awareness has been growing that this world is the theatrum Dei. God has left Himself nowhere without witness. As the black spiritual has it: “He’s got the world in His hands, He’s got the whole world in His hands.” As God’s creation, the world and all of its people are the permanent object of His inexhaustible love and salvific concern. According to the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver, Canada in 1983, the whole of human history, at every possible level and at every time and place, with all of its cultures and forms of faith, with all of its tribes and peoples, with all of its dark and lustrous, destructive

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and creative aspects is and remains the arena of the activity of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—an insight that is being embraced by more and more Christians as time goes on. This perception is grounded in biblical affirmations such as that found in the New Testament gospel of John, where in chapter 8:12 and 9:5 Jesus Christ is portrayed as “the light of the world.” This image of Christ, often interpreted in a way that is prejudicial to people of other faiths and their religions, is in reality panoptic and inclusive in scope and significance. [A]ccording to the witness of John’s gospel, in strict analogy with the sun which rises for all human beings, Jesus Christ is the light that shines for all people and not just for [Christian] believers. “He was the true light, which enlightens everyone” (Jn 1:9). The sovereign indicative of the gospel is that the whole world already exists in the light of God’s grace .... If the light is already here, it is here for everyone. If the day has already broken, it has broken for everyone. In Romans 10:20 ff. the apostle [Paul] quotes the prophet Isaiah (65:1 ff.) to emphasize this sovereign indicative; there Yahwe declares: “I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am,’ to a nation that did not call on my name.” In Jesus Christ God speaks in this way to all nations, to the whole world .... (Jüngel 2000: 206)

According to the late Indian lay theologian M.M. Thomas, Christian spirituality is necessarily Christ-centered, and this spirituality does not lead to withdrawal from but to affirmation of the world, because, as taught by the biblical witness, “what God has done in Christ is for the world” (cited in Chacko 2000: 66). Christcentered spirituality, thus, has a definite universal thrust: it is not something that exists exclusively “between the Christian and God” but is, rather, “concerned with God’s redemptive relation to the world” (cited in Chacko 2000: 66). Christ-centered spirituality, founded as it is on the new humanity of Christ, forms the basis of what Thomas calls “secular humanism” and “universal human solidarity” (cited in Chacko 2000: 66). That being the case, it transcends “the symbols and structures of religion, including [those of] Christianity” (cited in Chacko 2000: 66). All of this, according to Thomas, is of great significance for determining the proper attitude of Christians to other religions and their adherents: Christ-

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centered spirituality paves the way for a true universalism: “The more Christ-centered we are, the more able we become to break down or lower the partition walls, open ourselves to one another across the boundaries, and build community in diversity” (cited in Chacko 2000: 66). But it is especially the Holy Spirit who works in other religions and among people of other faiths. “If Christians link their faith-experiences to the work of the Spirit of God,” queries Bernhard Reitsma rhetorically, “does a relation then also exist between the operation of the Spirit and the faith-experiences of [the adherents of other religions]?” (Reitsma 1999: 2). Citing Stanley Samartha, Kirsteen Kim argues rightly that it is not a “question of whether the Holy Spirit is active in others’ experience but ... where and how the Spirit is active there” (Kim 2000: 175). And if God, through God’s Spirit, is directly involved with the whole of humanity everywhere in the world, then it goes without saying that people everywhere come into contact with God, that they are gripped by God and that they bear witness to this in their words and deeds. People of other faiths are people who have met God and consciously choose to serve God. This means that the congregation of Christ which is called to be a witness may also expect to be the recipient of witness from people of other cultures and faiths concerning the magnalia Dei, the great and wondrous deeds of God, that is to say, witness concerning God’s salvific encounter with them, and the faith, hope and love that this encounter has engendered in their lives and communities. This understanding of the universal scope of God’s salvific work and the resulting faith of the religiously other was prefigured or put forward in the writings of a number of eminent Christian theologians working in the latter half of the previous century, among whom were the British historian and missiologist Max Warren and the late South African New Testament scholar and missiologist David Bosch. In 1963 Warren called for a deep humility, by which we remember that God has not left himself without a witness in any nation at any time. When we approach [people] of another faith than our own, it will be in a spirit of expectancy to find how God has been speaking to [them] and what new understandings of the grace and love of

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And more than thirty years ago David Bosch wrote: I would ... dare to say that today I understand God better than I used to. This is due above all, of course, to the boundless grace of God, but my increasing understanding of African concepts of God was instrumental in the process. God used the richness of African religious experience to teach me more about his richness. (Bosch 1973: 73)

In people of other religions Christians can be met by the God of their hope. In the faith of the adherents of other religious traditions Christians can encounter God’s truth. Through the religious experience of others and their response to God’s revelatory initiative, Christians can be led to a new, fresh understanding of their own faith. Mission This view of things bears important ramifications for the understanding of Christian mission. As already stated above, the task of mission is not an indifferent matter for the church. By and large, Christian churches have understood and continue to understand themselves to be churches existing for mission in the power of the Holy Spirit. In the words of Karl Barth: Since the community of Jesus Christ exists first and supremely for God, it has no option but in its own manner and place to exist for the world. How else could it exist for God?... For God is who He is, not in abstracto nor without relationship, but as God for the world. (Barth 1962: 762)

Most churches were and are aware that their life and work must be intentionally directed toward the world in which they exist, that the church has been called into existence by Christ “for this end—that she performs for the world the service of giving witness to the Kingdom of God” (Blauw 1962: 120). A central element in the church’s self-understanding, thus, is the conviction “that [it] is a missionary church or it is no church,” that “there is no other church than the church sent into the world” (Blauw 1962: 120-21). Though external outreach of the church fell into dormancy from time to time during the course of Christian history, generally

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speaking it has been regarded as an essential function of Christian spirituality But the understanding of what mission is and entails has changed considerably through the years. As already indicated above, there were those who already fairly early on objected to the way mission was conceived and carried out. The example of a Swiss Reformed pastor named Ernst Langhans could be cited in this regard. As early as 1864 Langhans published a critique of the way in which mission was carried out in his day. He took strenuous exception to, among other things, the dogmatic, tactless and reckless manner in which many missionaries approached people of other faiths. He complained that missionaries were telling people of other faiths that they were heathens, that they “were all being tyrannized by the Devil and that their Gods represented personifications or embodiments of the Devil” (Langhans 1864: 88). Educated Indians and Chinese, he observed caustically, were supposed to be pleased to be greeted “by nescient Swabian or Scottish missionaries with the message: ‘You are a servant of lies, a servant of Satan’” (Langhans 1864: 139). The old perception of mission as word-proclamation of the Gospel, as a task belonging to the Western church and its missionary agencies and as a movement from the North and West to the South and the East to carry the Gospel to cultures and peoples cast in terms of idolatry, superstition and unbelief, began to undergo modification from the very beginnings of the ecumenical movement during the first decades of the twentieth century. Christian leaders became increasingly aware that it was a fundamental mistake to have arranged for mission to ride along to various parts of the world on the broad shoulders of colonialism. And the missionary method whereby people were called, and converts were expected, to abandon the traditional culture of their fathers and mothers came in time to be seen as highly presumptuous and objectionable. It is now generally accepted among ecumenical and also many evangelical Christians that mission is called to be the respectful, listening agent of the contextualization and inculturation of the Gospel, that is to say, it is understood that the Gospel needs to be brought into rapport with, fully embodied in the existential situations, the actual social, cultural and religious settings of the people to whom it has come.

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The Correlativity of Theology of Religion and Missiology It is evident that “these developments in the perception of the nature of mission were and are fraught with great significance for the evolution of today’s newer attitude to other religions” (Gort 1989: 45) But the reverse is also true: mission requires the new insights developed in the area of theology of religion in order to come to a better understanding of what contextualization of the Gospel means and entails in concrete terms. In fact, reflection at the level of theology of religion is an essential precondition for the inculturation of the Christian message. As K.V. Kinnerley has rightly observed, “No real progress will be made [in terms of contextualization and inculturation] until the church works out its theology of religions” (cited in Hedges 2000: 187). In other words, theology of religion and missiology are intimately intertwined and correlative. The way Christians view mission will directly affect their attitude toward other religions, and, conversely, their attitude toward other religions will have an immediate bearing on their view of mission. Serious and honest reflection on mission and on the relationship between Christianity and other religions leads to the emergence of new, dynamically interrelated perceptions, insights and views, which can be likened to an unending series of interlocking, interdependent cogwheels: fresh views regarding the stance Christianity should assume relative to other faiths produces a new apprehension of mission, and further reflection on this new construal of mission, in turn, energizes a renewal of exploration in the area of theology of religion, and so on. Concluding Observations Ongoing reflection among Christians in the area of theology of religion is yielding new patterns of appreciation for other forms of religiosity and faith, which clearly represents an important departure from the negative, confrontational attitude that generally obtained among them in the past. It is through this process of theological and spiritual reassessment that many Christians of all stripes and persuasions, both ecumenical and evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox, have been or are being led to exchange their former exclusivist opinions for an inclusivist or even pluralist conception of the appropriate stance relative to other religious traditions.

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Most of the pluralist theologies of religion that have been developed in the last number of years have proven to be inadequate in that they relativize religions by viewing them as merely so many paths radiating around and leading to the same final goal and thus rob them of any essential distinctiveness. Recently, however, an intriguing and convincing alternative pluralist approach has been offered by Mark Heim in his book The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends. Heim maintains that the religious communities of the world do not all pursue the same goal but rather a diversity of goals and hence do not constitute relative entities. The various religions are paths to various religious ends and consequently exhibit pronounced and even profound differences. The understanding of salvation, beatitude, relations with the divine differ from religion to religion. Heim argues on the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity for both the recognition and acceptance of the validity of religious ends other than those which in Christianity are collectively called “salvation.” He shows how various religious ends fit in with and therefore can be grounded in the fullness or plenitude of the divine life of the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This being the case, the possibility exists that these alternative religious ends carry a deep eschatological significance, meaning that they may continue throughout and beyond time and history, which means, in turn, that Christians, while remaining fully committed to their own faith, could and should respect and honor these other religious ends. And this kind of radical acceptance and affirmation of interreligious diversity and difference does not preclude dialogue and witness but on the contrary makes them possible and meaningful. In one of his recent publications the Catholic theologian Paul Knitter (2002) speaks of what has come to be called the acceptance model, which refers to a growing sense and conviction among Christians that they can and should accept religious diversity and that it is wrong on the basis of this diversity to view or refer to religions in terms of inferiority and superiority. Increasing numbers of Christian believers are beginning to realize that God is revealed in and through diversity and on the basis of that realization are seeking to foster interreligious understanding and crossfertilization through dialogical encounter. An eminently promising means of promoting this encounter and achieving such

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understanding and interchange is what I have elsewhere called: “liberative interreligious ecumenism” (cf. Gort 1992: 88, 102 ff.), that is to say, cooperative interreligious social action in a world infested with injustice, racism, sexism, poverty and conflict, a world which all too often can indeed only be characterized by the final whispered words uttered by the dying enigmatic figure Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s great classic novel, Heart of Darkness: “The horror, the horror!” Today, many Christians would want to endorse a statement found in the report of Section I of the World Council of Churches conference held in San Antonio, Texas in 1990: though Christian believers will always wish to point to the way of salvation in Jesus Christ, “at the same time we cannot set limits to the saving power of God,” (cited in Bosch 1991: 489) and they would want to embrace “the abiding paradox of asserting both ultimate commitment to one’s own religion and genuine openness to another’s” (cited in Bosch 1991: 483). Bibliography Barth, Karl. (1962). The Doctrine of Reconciliation. Church Dogmatics IV. 3. 2. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke. Bevans, Stephen B. (1992). Models of Contextual Theology. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Blauw, Johannes. (1962). The Missionary Nature of the Church: The Biblical Basis of Mission as Seen in the Writings of Modern Theologians. New York et al.: McGraw-Hill Book Company. Bosch, David J. (1973). “God Through African Eyes.” In: H.J. Becken (ed.). Relevant Theology for Africa. Durban: Lutheran Publishing House. Pp. 68-78. (1991). Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in the Theology of Mission. Maryknoll: Orbis Books,. Calvin, John. (1960). Institutes of the Christian Religion. Vol. 1. Transl. Ford Lewis Battles. Ed. John T. McNeill. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Chacko, Mohan. (2000). Interpreting Society: A Study of the Political Theology of M.M. Thomas and Its Implications for Mission. Diss. Free University. Amsterdam.

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Coalter, M.J. and Virgil Cruz (eds.). (1995). How Shall We Witness? Faithful Evangelism in a Reformed Tradition. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press. Conrad, Joseph. (1995). Heart of Darkness, with Introduction and Notes by Robert G. Hampson. London: Penguin Books. Cracknell, Kenneth. (1986). Towards a New Relationship: Christians and People of Other Faith, London: Epworth Press. Denzinger-Schönmetzer (1965). Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum. Editio XXXIII. Barcinone, Friburgi Brisgoviae, Romae, Neo-Eboraci: Herder. Gort, J.D. (1992). “Liberative Ecumenism: Gateway to the Sharing of Religious Experience Today.” In: J.D. et al. (eds.). On Sharing Religious Experience: Possibilities of Interfaith Mutuality. Amsterdam/ Grand Rapids: Editions Rodopi/Eerdmans. Pp. 88-105. (1989). “Syncretism and Dialogue: Christian Historical and Earlier Ecumenical Perceptions.” In: J.D. Gort et al. (eds.). Dialogue and Syncretism: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Grand Rapids/Amstedam: Eerdmans/Editions Rodopi. Pp. 36-51. Hedges, Paul M. (2000). “Architecture, Inculturation and Christian Mission,” International Review of Mission 89: 180-89. Heim, S. Mark. (2001). The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans. Jüngel, Eberhard (2000). “To Tell the World About God: The Task for the Mission of the Church on the Threshold of the Third Millennium.” International Review of Mission 89: 203-16. Kelly, J.N.D. (1965). Early Christian Doctrines. London: Adam & Charles Black. Kim, Kirsteen. (2000). “Post-Modern Mission: A Paradigm Shift in David Bosch’s Theology of Mission?” International Review of Mission 89: 172-79. Knitter, Paul. (2002). Introducing Theologies of Religions. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Kraemer, Hendrik. (1961). The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World. 5th rep. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications. Originally published 1938. Krieger, D.J. (1986). “Zur Heilslehre in Hinduismus und Christentum.” In: H.J. Braun, Indische Religionen und das Christentum im Dialog. Zürich: Theol. Verlag. Pp. 59-73. Langhans, Ernst Friedrich. (1864). Pietismus und Christenthum im Spiegel der äusseren Mission. Leipzig: Otto Wigand.

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Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, The. Ed. F.L Cross. London: Oxford University Press, 1966. Plantinga, Richard J. (2004). “God So Loved the World: Theological Reflections on Religious Plurality in the History of Christianity.” Calvin Theological Journal 39: 275-302. Rahner, Karl. “Das Christentum und die nichtchristlichen Religionen.” In: Schriften zur Theologie V. Einsiedeln: Verlaganstalt Benziger & Co. Pp. 147-54. Reitsma, Bernhard J. (1999). “Religieuze ervaringen en de Geest van God.” Soteria 16.

Classical Attitudes in Islam towards Other Religions Jacques Waardenburg Abstract As a new religion Islam entered a world with many other traditions—Judaism, Christianity, Manicheism, Zoroastrianism —and Muslims needed to discover how they were to relate to them. That relationship was strongly determined by Islam’s central belief in the Oneness of God. However, because the Islamic community was not centrally organized, the encounters with people of other traditions depended largely on individuals and local circumstances. This contribution looks at the attitudes towards other traditions in Islam’s classical period. Non-Muslim peoples were classified into various categories and in the areas under Muslim control rules were developed concerning their treatment. The author describes objections to the doctrines of Manicheism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity. This is followed by some general observations on the way in which Muslims assess other religious individuals and groups. The final part of this essay discusses the interest of some thinkers in other religious traditions and some hints are given with respect to the new directions taken by more contemporary Muslims in interreligious encounters.

Introduction No new religion encountered so many other religions right from its beginning as Islam. Muhammad himself, the Prophet of Islam (d. in Medina in 632), met with religiously minded Arab Bedouins, townspeople and possibly monotheists. He also met Jews and Christians of different persuasions, such as Nestorians, Monophysite Jacobites and Copts, and possibly Orthodox, not to speak of sectarian devotees and hermits living in the desert. He

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may also have met Zoroastrians, perhaps “Sabians” from Iraq, and possibly Manicheans. Within a century after his death the Arab conquests brought Muslims in contact with Buddhists and Hindus in Sind, in present-day Pakistan, Manicheans in Mesopotamia and elsewhere, Orthodox and Oriental Christians as well as Latin and probably also Arian Christians. Besides these established religions, elementary forms of religious life must have been present throughout the emerging empire. During that first century there were not many pressures on the population to convert to Islam. Followers of Islam came to live in very different cultures among people of great ethnic and linguistic variety and much religious diversity. Later they would also visit and spread to regions that were beyond Muslim political authority. The absence of a hierarchical and centrally organized religious authority in Islam has meant that Muslim encounters with people of other religions have depended largely on individual people and on local institutions, situations and contexts. I was asked to sketch here the attitudes Muslims adopted towards adherents of other religions in the period of classical Islamic civilization, mostly defined as lasting from the ninth to the fourteenth century but in fact continuing in many regions until the nineteenth century. I shall first say something about practical forms of behavior adopted in the earliest days that established basic elements of Islamic religious law. I shall then mention some doctrinal aspects of the critical attitudes taken in classical Islamic civilization towards the major other religions in the Middle East. I shall discuss the gradual rise of interest in these religions among a cultural elite. At the end I shall at least hint at some new attitudes that have appeared mainly during the twentieth century and that distinguish themselves notably from those at the time of classical Islamic civilization. In all these cases Muslim attitudes to and representations of other religions have been linked to the ways in which they viewed Islam itself, be it as masters of their own countries and societies, be it under foreign domination. The way in which people see and judge their fellow human beings is very much colored not only by situations of dependence in which they find themselves but also by their own political and economic situation and their own ideological and political system.

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Islam as a Religion A notion in Islam that is relevant for our subject is that humankind from its very beginning received a kind of primordial religion or Urreligion, giving guidance how people should live. This guidance exists not only as a monotheistic doctrine and a moral order of society but also, on the individual level, as a kind of basic religious awareness or orientation (fitra). Islam, then, for Muslims, is not only the particular historical religion and social order established by the Prophet Muhammad over some twenty-two years. Before all else it is the primordial “natural” religion of humankind, in which human beings “surrender” (Ar. aslama, from which the substantive islam is derived) to the unique Divine Being who should be adored and obeyed. Muslims hold that prophets have preached this monotheistic religion throughout history and established monotheistic communities all over the world. Some of them, moreover, brought a scripture revealing in greater detail the laws according to which believers should live. Muslims consider Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as prophets who gave such scriptures to the communities they established. Muslim thinkers have reflected much on the fact of the diversity of peoples and their various religions. It is mostly assumed that humankind started as one community with the faith of the primordial monotheistic religion. Then this community split into a number of peoples to whom God sent prophets. The resulting religions can be seen as developments from the primordial religion. Through Muhammad’s preaching there arose a religious split between Muslims, who heeded the new message, and the Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian and other religious communities who stuck to their traditions. These older communities had received a scripture with religious law from their prophets, but they had not transmitted their scriptures faithfully and they had interpreted them wrongly. The prophet Muhammad was now sent to preach and establish the primordial monotheistic religion in Arabia and to provide a reliable scripture in Arabic offering guidance not only to the Arabs but to all humankind. The relations between Islam and other religions, between Muslims and other believers, are to be seen in the light of this basic structure. We find it also in some other religions, in the preaching of Mani

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(d. 276), for instance, and Baha’ullah (d. 1892) when they established their communities. Classification of Non-Muslims In classical Islamic thought, non-Muslim people constitute the “infidel” world. The Qur’an characterizes them first by their veneration of other divine beings, that is to say idols they mistakenly associate with the one divinity (Ar. shirk: lit. “associationism”), and second by their outright denial of Muhammad’s prophethood. The Qur’an mentions five distinctive non-Muslim communities. They are, first of all, the Jews and the Christians, who have much in common and are considered as “People of the Book.” Then there are the Zoroastrians (majus) and the Sabians (sabi’a), who are mentioned in the Qur’an as receiving a divine reward. Last come the idolaters or polytheists (mushrikun), who venerate more than one god. The Qur’an mentions both polytheists in Mecca who had idols and primitive forms of polytheism without idols, as practiced among the Bedouins. An Islamic religious classification of these five communities calls them infidels (kuffar), subdivided into those possessing a scripture (ahl al-kitab, “People of the Book,” i.e. Jews and Christians) on the one hand and idolaters or polytheists (mushrikun) on the other. It should be noted that one important non-Muslim community in Muhammad’s time, which had its own prophet and scripture, is not mentioned in the Qur’an: the Manicheans, designated as zanadiqa (“heretics”). They suffered oppression and incidental persecution from the 780s on. In Islamic law, however, another classification of non-Muslims was developed for administrative purposes such as taxation and the legal systems under which non-Muslim communities fell. The non-Muslims who were living inside Muslim territory were called ahl al-‘ahd (lit. “people who have a covenant” with the Muslims). They were divided into two groups. Most important was the first group, that of the ahl al-dhimma or dhimmis (lit. “protected people”). They can be qualified as permanent residents in Muslim territory, who had to pay so-called jizya taxes to the Muslim authorities. The second group consisted of the ahl al-aman or musta’minun (lit. “people who received a guarantee of safety”). They were temporary visitors to Muslim territory, such as envoys or

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merchants, and did not pay jizya taxes. In Islamic law the nonMuslims living outside Muslim territory were called ahl al-hudna (lit. “people of armistice”) who were not supposed to wage war against Muslims. If they did, however, they were called ahl al-harb or harbis (lit. “people of war”). Jews and Christians (ahl al-kitab) living in Muslim territory were mostly considered dhimmis. The question was raised, however, if they should not be classified as polytheists (on the basis of Qur’an 9:30-31), and whether they could be considered as dhimmis if they had converted to Christianity or Judaism after the time of Muhammad’s preaching or if they belonged to a Christian tribe living in the Arabian peninsula. Dhimmis had to obey particular rules in Muslim society. Muslims, for instance, could marry dhimmi women—and also consume meat slaughtered by dhimmis—but dhimmis could not marry Muslim women. Zoroastrians were considered dhimmis, probably for administrative purposes once Iran had been conquered by the Arabs. Since their scripture (the Avesta, of which the Arabs had only the vaguest notion) was considered only a “semblance of a book” (shubhat kitab), they were not considered a “people of the Book”. Muslims could not marry their women or consume meat slaughtered by them. The religion of the Sabians (sabi’a) was practically unknown to the Muslims. Yet since they were mentioned positively in the Qur’an (2:62, 5:69, 22:17), they could keep their religion. More than one non-Muslim minority in Mesopotamia claimed to be Sabians. The polytheists and idolaters (mushrikun), according to the most rigid legal view, had to accept Islam or otherwise face death. In the end, however, this harsh attitude was only applied to polytheists and idolaters in the Arabian peninsula, which should have religious uniformity under Islam, with the exception of Yemen. Just as the Qur’an (9:29) imposed jizya on the People of the Book considered dhimmis, prophetic tradition (the hadith “Burayda”) imposed it on all other non-Muslims under Muslim rule too, with the exception of polytheists and idolaters in the Arabian peninsula. This ruling later made it possible to administer the part of India conquered by Muslims, where most of the inhabitants were Hindus. With the growth of the Muslim empire, the

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category of ahl al-dhimma, who paid the jizya, was expanded more and more. The Development of Rules about Non-Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula After the beginning of Muhammad’s preaching in Mecca around 610, he distanced himself from the Quraysh’s proposal to admit a kind of “mixed” religion as a compromise satisfactory to both sides. He pleaded with the Meccan leaders to leave the Muslims alone with the words:“To you your religion, to me mine” (109:6). The Prophet was enjoined to turn away from those who do not believe (15:85, 43:89). He should not force people to accept Islam because matters of religious belief are in the hands of God, not humans (10:99-100). Soon after the hijra and Muhammad’s arrival in Medina (622), a covenant of the community living there (‘ahd al-umma) was made. This so-called “Constitution of Medina” formulated the conditions under which various religious groups—the most important being several Jewish tribes—would live together in Medina while keeping their own religions. However, a few years later this agreement came to an end in connection first with the war against Mecca and then with Muhammad’s policy of making the Arabian peninsula an exclusively Islamic territory. The Jews would be expelled from Medina and later Khaibar, the Christians from Najran, and the Zoroastrians from Oman. A well-known and important text from the Medina period is sura 2:256: “There is no compulsion in religion.” The interpretation of this verse has given rise to much discussion until the present day. Most interpreters of the text agree, on the one hand, that dhimmis cannot be forced to embrace Islam if they choose to pay the jizya. Coercion in matters of religion is not feasible. On the other hand, the verse cannot have been intended to allow idolatry to continue in Arabia. Some interpreters argue that this verse, as it stands, was meant to be universally valid but that it was abrogated later by sura 9:73 for the polytheists and by sura 9:29 for the People of the Book. In this context the prescription of jihad has led to much discussion. If jihad is proclaimed, its intention is not the forcible conversion of the enemy but his submission; jihad and religious freedom are not mutually exclusive. But

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what should be said about suras 2:193 and 48:16, texts favoring the exclusive dominion of Islam in the Arabian peninsula? And is the basic purpose of the jizya not to bring the People of the Book to embrace Islam? Another interpretation holds that sura 256 should be read not as a command but rather as a description of the human condition and the place of religion in it. In fact, it is fair to say that there has been compulsion in religion, including in Islam. Legal texts contain discussions about the consequences of apostasy, the conditions of interfaith marriages, the forcible conversion of women, children, and prisoners of war. In his book Tolerance and Coercion in Islam, to which I owe much on this subject, Professor Yohanan Friedmann submits the plausible hypothesis that around 624 the Muslim attitudes which had been current until then in the field of interfaith relations started to change. Islamic sunna (Tradition) later tried to compress these changes into the Medinan period of Muhammad’s lifetime, but they must have taken more time. Friedmann notes, for instance,that there are indications of the existence of an earlier tradition in hadith and fiqh that was more considerate toward the People of the Book than the later sunna. At the beginning of Muhammad’s preaching, the boundaries of the Muslim community were not yet precisely delineated. A tradition exists suggesting that at a certain stage the Jews and the Christians were considered as belonging to the community of Muhammad. Fred Donner speaks of a development among the followers of Muhammad “from believers to Muslims.” Well-known changes away from certain Jewish tenets were, for instance, the orientation of the qibla towards Mecca rather than towards Jerusalem, fasting in the month of Ramadan, the performance of the adhan by the human voice rather than by instruments. According to later sunna, all of this lasted less than two years and was linked to political developments around the Jewish tribes in Medina. These changes, in fact, probably took much longer. There are other interesting changes in attitudes towards nonMuslims as well. They could become more lenient but also more rigorous. Examples of developments towards greater rigor are an increasing emphasis on the superiority of Muhammad to the prophets preceding him. In a first stage a more egalitarian approach to the prophets prevailed, and consequently a more con-

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siderate attitude to Judaism and Christianity. And whereas at the beginning Muslims and dhimmis were subjected to the same rules in matters of retaliation and blood money, this equality, at first accepted, aroused increasing resistance. Examples of increasing leniency are the acceptance of interfaith marriages, the recognition of Zoroastrians and Indian polytheists as dhimmis, and a less harsh attitude to apostasy. This development testifies to a more lenient attitude towards the religious “other.” These changes and developments have to be seen, of course, in their precise contexts, in particular the evolution of the balance of power. Islam’s disengagement from Judaism and Christianity in the Medinan period is a case in point. One consequence was that Muslims developed an increasing feeling of superiority. Islam was more and more exalted, in the Qur’an and elsewhere, and seen as deserving to dominate over all religions. The Qur’anic texts of that period stress the humiliation of others, that is, of non-Muslims. As far as power is concerned, Friedmann puts his finger on an important point. Because they were the rulers for a long time, Muslims could settle relations with other religious communities according to their own vision and will. This ended, however, with the arrival of the West in the Muslim world. Even nowadays Muslims can have difficulty in perceiving, let alone admitting cases of intolerance in the history of Islam, such as that towards pre-Islamic religions in Arabia, towards Manicheans, and especially towards forms of religious renewal interpreted as cases of dissidence in Islam that should be suppressed. Examples are the fate of the Babi, the Bahai and the Ahmadiyya movements in Muslim countries. Doctrinal Condemnations of Other Religions Muslims often judge non-Muslims not only in the light of generally accepted human norms and values but also in a religious light, with reference to particular verses of the Qur’an. Such verses are then considered to set the standards by which other religions ought to be evaluated and even to provide factual historical and other knowledge about them. In these evaluations, Islam as a religion is often viewed as the expression of the primordial religion (Urreligion) of humankind and of the fundamental religious awareness (fitra) implanted in

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each human being. Those elements of monotheistic religion that are present in religions preceding Islam are considered to be fully realized in Islam. Among the non-Muslim religions a basic distinction is made between the People of the Book (ahl al-kitab) on the one hand and the polytheists (mushrikun) on the other. The former have a scripture brought by a prophet and are fundamentally monotheist. The latter have no scripture and offend against the oneness and uniqueness (tawhid) of God, although there may be some monotheists in polytheistic societies. Although in fact all human beings should become Muslims, this holds particularly true for polytheists and for those people who have no religion. The communities of Zoroastrians (majus) and Sabians (sabi’a) occupy an intermediate position. They are considered to be monotheists but to have only a semblance of scripture, not a revealed Book. I shall now review the main doctrinal judgments passed by Muslims on the religions they encountered in the Middle East during the first centuries of Islam. Against Manicheism Muslim critics attacked Manicheism as a religion ferociously and its followers were oppressed and sometimes persecuted from the 780s on. Mani (216-276), considered as a prophet by his followers, preached a religion which presented itself as a synthesis of existing religions on a Gnostic basis. He provided it with a handwritten scripture which included illustrative pictures. Characteristic of Manicheism was the radical opposition of two eternal principles, good and evil, associated with spiritual and material reality respectively. The community distinguished clearly between the elect, who followed an ascetic way of life on the way to perfection, and ordinary members. Manicheism suffered a frontal attack by Muslim political and religious leaders and disappeared from Mesopotamia around 950. It survived for some time in Central Asia. Since Islam did not recognize Mani as a prophet, it did not consider his religious writings to be revealed scripture. Consequently, Muslim polemics did not address Manichean scriptures but were keen in unmasking errors of thought and doctrine in the Manichean system. The first doctrine they attacked was that of the nature of evil. In Manicheism, evil was viewed as constituting

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a reality in itself with an absolute origin. Referring to the Qur’an, Muslim polemicists held that evil cannot detract from God’s power and that the force of evil cannot dispense the human being of his basic responsibility to further the good and to desist from evil. Moreover, they used rational arguments to deny the absolute character of the force of evil. The second Manichean doctrine attacked by Muslim polemics was that of two eternal principles of light and darkness, as the origins of good and evil respectively. Because of this doctrine, Muslims used to call Manicheans “dualists.” Basing themselves on the Qur’an, Muslim polemicists contended that God created both light and darkness; thus they cannot be considered autonomous agents. Moreover, God possesses power over what is morally bad; in principle he is able to do evil too. Their rational argument against the dualist doctrine was that, logically speaking, only one principle can be eternal. The existence of two eternal principles denies the truth of divine unity (tawhid). The third Manichean doctrine the Muslims refuted was that of a struggle between—and thus a mingling of—good and evil. The Qur’an defines good and evil as obedience and disobedience to God’s commandments. This excludes any possible intermingling of them. The Manichean way of using mythical representations and speaking of the struggle of light with darkness awoke resistance among Muslims. In their view, this way of speaking in religion implies ta’til (an “emptying” of the idea of God). It is a form of agnosticism to be rejected on principle. Some Manichean religious practices, too, were the object of Muslim polemics, such as a certain disdain of the body and its needs and a certain contempt for material realities. These latter in the Manichean view represent the realm of darkness, whereas spiritual realities give access to the realm of light. The Manichean community was a kind of spiritual church, not a socio-political community like other religious communities including Islam. Muslims also disliked certain Manichean prohibitions, such as their refusal to kill animals. Muslim religious sensitivity was hurt by the Manichean idea that evil could constitute an autonomous reality. Such an idea dislocates the relationship between the created human being who has an individual responsibility and his Creator. The self-evident

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harmony that exists in the Muslim view between the creation and its Creator as well as within creation itself would be disrupted by the presence of an eternal enemy of the Creator. In Islam there cannot be a basic split in reality or a permanent war between God and any of his enemies. The desire to subordinate all oppositional concepts to the basic opposition of two opposite metaphysical principles undermines the primordial character of tawhid, both as the starting point of logical thinking and as the metaphysical principle of reality. Apparently, Muslims felt the zandaqa (heresy) of Manicheism to be a real enemy of Islamic religion. It is still a subject of discussion as to how Manicheism represented a danger for Islam. Was it seen as an ideological opposition to the religion of tawhid, as an Iranian political opposition to Arab domination, as a kind of intellectual freewheeling in the domain of religion, as a suspect alternative movement with strong missionary activities, or otherwise? Manicheism must have been considered not only as a wrong doctrine but also as a potential source of agitation and revolt in society, but the reasons for this are still unclear. Against Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism) Zarathustra was an Iranian prophet about whom Muslims knew hardly anything with certainty. Zoroastrianism had been the official religion of Iran under the Sasanid dynasty (224-651) which preceded the Arab conquest and gradual Islamization of the country. Although both Zoroastrianism and Manicheism were dualistic in their concepts of good and evil, the Muslim struggle against Mazdaism was less violent than that against Manicheism. One reason may have been that the majority of Iranians were adherents of Mazdaism at the time. Zoroastrianism was modest in its claims of having a prophet (Zarathustra) and a scripture (the Avesta). Moreover, it did not pass judgment on the prophets and revelations sent to other peoples. On the level of Zoroastrian doctrine, Muslim polemicists addressed mainly the doctrine of dualism concerning the nature of evil, the existence of two eternal principles, and the continuous struggle between good and evil. Their arguments here were largely the same as in their polemics against Manicheism. Another controversial doctrine was the Zoroastrian idea that suffering is inextricably linked with evil. In Islam, suffering and

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evil are not seen to be intrinsically related. There is no reason to assume that evil has a creative force of its own or that God cannot be the creator of evil, too. Furthermore, as in the case of Manicheism, certain mythical representations in Zoroastrianism, for instance, about the creation of the human being and about the great kings of the past, irritated Muslim theologians. On the other hand, they could not deny it had a certain spirituality. On a practical level, Muslim polemics addressed the elaborate rites of purification, the exposure of the dead, the veneration of fire, the hierarchically organized clergy, and certain rules of marriage. In the course of time Zoroastrianism in Iran decreased. A number of Zoroastrians moved to India where they are known nowadays as Parsis. Against Judaism as a Religion The first reproach that Muslim polemicists addressed to Judaism is that of the forgery of the Hebrew Bible (Tawrat) and particularly the Torah, the Jewish scripture. A historical forgery was involved, insofar as for various reasons the preaching and law of Moses had not been transmitted accurately to following generations. As a consequence, the text itself suffers from corruption (fasad). Moreover, there has been a literary forgery insofar as the transmitted text has repeatedly been interpreted incorrectly. Both kinds of forgery together are called tahrif (forgery). The second reproach concerns matters of doctrine. The Jewish doctrine of God, although it recognizes his tawhid (oneness and uniqueness), suffers from a lack of universality. Being bound through his special alliance with the Children of Israel, God is insufficiently recognized in his universal dimension and his concern with humanity as a whole. Parallel to this doctrinal error, the doctrine of the Children of Israel as God’s “Chosen People” leads to the mistaken belief that the Jewish people are separate from and superior to other peoples. So they have claimed Abraham as their own physical ancestor and they disdain the prophets and revelations given to other peoples. A subsidiary Muslim reproach addresses the Jewish contention that God is not able to change his mind. This contradicts passages in the book of Genesis. It implies that the Jews reject Jesus and Muhammad as prophets and that they accept no further revelation than that of the Torah.

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On a practical level, there are a number of differences between Jewish and Islamic religious law. Islam is supposed to replace Judaism but it continues to respect Jewish law and faith. Polemics against Jewish religious law often concern technical details. An example are the Sabbath rules. Keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest cannot have been among God’s prescriptions. The very idea that God needed a rest after having made his creation is an offense to his honor and dignity. Another reproach is that the Jews introduced certain elements of Jewish thought and tradition into Islam through Jewish converts, for instance, to Islam. Muslim “puritan” polemicists submit that such Jewish elements (isra’iliyyat) should be removed from Islam and that Islam should purify itself from such foreign elements. The particularistic orientations of Judaism must have hurt the more universalistic orientation of Muslims. This seems to lie behind much Muslim polemic against Judaism as a religion. Against Christianity The first reproach Muslim polemicists leveled at Christianity is the forgery of its particular scripture (Injil), largely the New Testament gospels. To this should be added the forgery of the Hebrew Bible (Tawrat), which is recognized as scripture in Christianity, too. As in the case of the Hebrew Bible, a distinction is made between historical and literary forgery. The first results from a wrong transmission of the text considered to have been delivered by Jesus, before the present New Testament was written down and later canonized. Thus, according to certain polemicists, the Christian scripture suffers from corruption (fasad) of the text itself, so that present-day beliefs and practices of the Christians do not conform to the original message of Jesus. The second, literary forgery, is due to wrong interpretations of New Testament texts considered to be correct. Both kinds of forgery together are known as corruption (tahrif). A second kind of reproach concerns what are seen as doctrinal errors in Christianity. First of all, Muslims reject the doctrine of the incarnation, implying a hypostatical union between God and a human being. They develop various arguments against the notion of Jesus’ divine nature. Thus, it is not possible to attribute a human and a divine nature to Jesus. In the Gospels Jesus never claimed to be God and a number of New Testament

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texts indicate his human weaknesses; this implies that he did not have a divine nature. The doctrine that Jesus was the “Son of God” suggests that God needed the help of a woman whereas he could have created a human being simply out of his own will. Last but not least, the sheer existence of considerable differences between the Christologies of the Christian Churches points to the logical unsoundness of the whole doctrine, which leads to confusion. Equally, the doctrine of God being three persons is rejected outright because it contradicts the absolute oneness (tawhid) of God. As such, a Trinity is nowhere mentioned in the New Testament. The idea of a father-son relationship within God again suggests procreation (tawallud) and thus a need and contingency of God instead of a free creation by him. Muslims brought forward a number of logical arguments against the doctrine of the Trinity. They firmly rejected a third Christian doctrine, that of salvation, as well. The doctrine of original sin cannot be found in the Qur’an and is held to be contrary to divine justice. The belief that the sins of individually responsible people could be remitted by someone else through atonement goes against the Qur’anic ideas of justice and personal human responsibility. It also conflicts with reason. Last but not least, the Christian idea of redemption is in visible conflict with the experience Christians themselves have of daily life. All these doctrinal errors stem from the denial of the truth of tawhid, the truth of the oneness and uniqueness of God. This denial is due to the error of shirk, that is, associating things that are not divine with God. These doctrinal errors are in fact logical impossibilities. There cannot be any mingling/mixture/mixing of God and humankind and there cannot be three eternal principles within one eternal entity. The conclusion is that Christians hold beliefs that are diametrically opposed to reason. This leads them to accept internal logical contradictions that they themselves call “mysteries,” whereas they are, in fact, a maze of philosophical and theological confusion. A third form of error in Christianity is found in religious practice. In their liturgy Christians indulge in what should be called idol worship, when they adore Jesus or venerate Mary and the saints through images and other objects they hold sacred. Christians suffer from ritual laxity, such as when they neglect the

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ritual purity prescribed by Mosaic law or gave up circumcision. They also introduced inadmissible novelties after Jesus’ lifetime, such as the sacraments, the veneration of Mary and the saints, current Church laws on marriage and celibacy, the practice of excommunication, and a range of liturgical celebrations and popular feasts. Islam should purify itself from innovations that found their way into the Muslim community through, for example, Christian converts to Islam. Muslims reproach Christians, for instance, for having introduced monasticism (rahbaniyya). A fourth category of errors of Christianity is to be found in the realm of morality and ethics. Muslims judge the demands of Christian ethics, culminating in the Sermon on the Mount, extravagant. Christian asceticism deserves straightforward rejection, as does the doctrine of the freedom of human will, as Christianity accepts it. The many divisions among Christians are a sign of the confusion that exists in this religion. The fact that Christians do not follow reason leads to intellectual blindness and a certain stupidity in religious matters. As a result of all of these errors, Christians have remained closed to the revelation brought by Muhammad and contained in the Qur’an. This imperviousness, in the end, is the reason why they offer resistance to Islam. It is fair to say that Muslim religious sensitivity was affected by Christianity at several critical points: 1) distinguishing between different persons within the divine essence is an affront to the Islamic doctrine of God’s unity and uniqueness (tawhid); 2) the notions of the Fall and original sin and of the necessity for the Creator to sacrifice himself in response to this disrupt the harmonious relationship between creature and Creator and diminishes the personal responsibility of human beings; 3) The idea of a mixture of the human and the divine in a human person is an affront to God’s honor and is blasphemous; 4) To accept the crucifixion of Jesus as a historical event is a denial of a prophet’s honor. 5) The idea of God’s eternal Word being incarnate in a human person is a denial of the Qur’an’s claim to be the revelation of God’s eternal word.

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Some General Considerations about Muslim Judgments Muslim views of other religions should be understood in the contexts of actual relations between Muslims and followers of these religions in given historical situations and social contexts. Of course, existing traditions from the past and current general views play an important role. But more than ever, the social and political dimensions of present-day concrete encounters between the people concerned should be taken into consideration and the intentions and interests at play should be identified. Muslim views of other religions should be seen in the framework of the constructions of “others” that prevail in the groups concerned in their social relations. Muslim judgments of non-Muslims do not only concern their religions, which may be the subject of polemics. They also concern other dimensions of life, such as ideologies, life practices, social groupings, economic behavior, and cultural traditions that may have less to do with “religion” than with moral issues and rules of behavior. When Muslims use Islam as a criterion of judgment or evaluation, it is often in the sense that Islam—as they see it—offers the best norms and values for a responsible individual life and a proper social order. Such judgments are always linked to experiences in particular historical, social and political situations and they refer to rules judged to be generally valid. Such rules may be of a different nature, for instance: 1) universal religious and moral norms valid for all humanity; 2) particular norms valid for Muslims, rooted in the Qur’an, and elaborated in Islam; 3) various rules and customs that have a relevance for particular groups of Muslims; 4) basic loyalties and sensitivities that are relevant to Muslims in particular situations. I may be allowed to add some more personal observations here about the study of Muslim judgments of other religions. 1. A basic assumption of many Muslim judgments of nonMuslims is the claim of Islam’s religious superiority to other religions and ideologies. Here Islam is considered to be a heavenly,

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absolute religion and the Qur’an is viewed as divine revelation and absolute source of truth. 2. Muslim as well as, for instance, Christian or Jewish attitudes to other religions, cultures, and civilizations can have a strikingly narrow horizon and ethnocentric character. Presentday Muslims are preoccupied with their own problems. They show little visible interest in the various social, cultural, and religious problems treated in other religions and the solutions proposed in them, unless there are direct links with present-day problems of Muslim life and societies. 3. In Muslim territory contacts between Muslims and nonMuslims, although improving, still seem to remain limited. Communication can be affected negatively by difference in religion. This is particularly true in situations of distrust or periods of tension, when people tend to fall back on what they see as the essential loyalties and values of their community as opposed to those of other communities. 4. Religious authors and scholars of religion have mostly overemphasized the role of religion in the relations between Muslims and others. In any case, a difference in “religion” as such is not a sufficient reason to explain existing tensions. In conflicts between Muslims and others, as well as in other conflicts, specific interests always play a role. However, they are mostly not mentioned by name and it is not easy to discern them beneath the religious vocabulary that is often used to describe and judge standpoints and situations. 5. An important function which Muslim judgments of other religions fulfill is to keep the Muslim sense of truth and of basic norms alive in the Muslim community or in society at large. A conscious Muslim will tend to awaken or strengthen the common sense of truth and identity by consulting other Muslims and working with them. 6. In a Muslim context, polemics and apologetics towards another religion are often part of a spiritual jihad for the sake of the community and Islam. Values like Islam, the Qur’an, the shari’a, and the Muslim umma, are taken as meaningful realities that have to be defended. They contain norms for human behavior that should be heeded. 7. In research on Muslim judgments we should pay more attention to the particular level on which people identify them-

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selves as Muslims and to the specific way in which they define or identify Islam. It makes a huge difference if people define themselves in opposition to others or if they define themselves as quietly constructing a way of life for themselves. When defining themselves in contrast to others they can stress, for instance, specific rules under which they live, particular customs and practices, particular religious or moral elements in their way of life, specific religious doctrines to which they adhere themselves, or as their own spiritual reality with experiential benefits. The way in which they identify themselves influences heavily the way in which they define or identify Islam, apart from what they learned about it at school. They can interpret Islam, for instance, primarily as a law or moral system, as ritual behavior, as a decisive moral and religious orientation of life, as a particular doctrine about God, the world, and humanity, or even as a particular mystical experience or spiritual reality. 8. This, in turn, leads to different kinds of dialogue between Muslims and others, on different levels and in different modes. Such dialogues can arise out of different political situations and they can be structured by different theological frameworks— varying from a spiritual kind of theology to a theology of liberation. True dialogues will remain unpredictable, not only because the people concerned will have their own expectations but also because they may be willing to discuss what unites them but also separates them. Last but no least, what one party may recognize as “dialogue” is not necessarily the same as what another party understands by it. Cultural and social differences may prove to be more difficult to discuss than religious ones. Muslim Interest in Knowing More about Other Religions After sketching the development of some practical Muslim attitudes toward non-Muslims at the beginnings of Islam and after surveying the main arguments used in Muslim polemics against other religions and adding some general considerations, I will now turn to the interest which Muslims developed in other religions at the height of medieval Islamic civilization and the positive knowledge they acquired of them. Following the Arab conquests that took place after Muhammad’s death in 632, the new rulers needed to know what kind of

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religions the people of the conquered lands followed and under what conditions they had surrendered. This was necessary for the practical purpose of fixing the taxes to be levied on non-Muslims living under Muslim rule. The soldiers, settlers, and traders who established themselves in the new lands had hardly any curiosity about the beliefs of the subjected local people. Proud of their Islam, they tended simply to dismiss existing religious beliefs and practices as having been superseded by Islam, if not as primitive nonsense. In a second stage local people started to convert to Islam. Apparently this was not much encouraged at the beginning because it meant a change in the social status of the people concerned and thus of the social order in which conquerors and conquered lived separately. Moreover, there was a certain distrust of the foreign doctrines and ways of life that converts used to bring with them into the Muslim community. Here and there heretical movements that supported disturbances of the new social and political order were hunted. Inquisitive minds that were interested in non-Muslim, foreign doctrines, aroused suspicions, which not only hampered authentic intellectual interest in other religions but also threatened Muslims who were interested in other religions. As discussions on the right religious beliefs and practices grew in the Muslim community itself, the need arose to know the various opinions, doctrinal stands and practical rules adhered to in the community. Descriptions and judgments of them in all their variety were compiled indicating the ways in which various schools had gone wrong, for instance in controversies between Sunni and Shi’i schools. This literature of maqalat (doctrines) then expanded to treat doctrines held in other religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and the faiths of the“Dualists” (Manicheans and Zoroastrians). Its main purpose was to gain knowledge of other religions as false systems and possible sources of error in Islamic religion. They had to be refuted with solid arguments, just as was done with sects in the community itself. Slowly, a more positive interest in foreign doctrines started to develop. On the one hand, this could be guided by spiritual concerns. Converts, for instance, could often still appreciate certain aspects of their former spiritual heritage. Non-Islamic doctrines could obtain a place in comprehensive systems of a more philosophical, sometimes Gnostic nature. Such systems prevailed in

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communities with universalist teachings, such as the Ikhwan alSafa’ (tenth century) and some Isma’ili groups. On the other hand, foreign doctrines could also be studied with a view to obtaining basic information. This kind of more empirical interest seems to have developed first in Shi’i circles who were not part of the established Sunni religious system. Those living on the edges of an established religion may have had more reason to develop a curiosity in other religions. The well-known theologian al-Shahrastani (d. 1153), who wrote a classical handbook on religions and philosophical schools (Kitab al-mihal wa’l-nihal), apparently had Shi’i sympathies. Unfortunately, the works of some well-known Shi’i scholars on other religions have been lost. An interest in other religions and civilizations opens people up towards broader horizons and greater depths. But how can such an interest be legitimized in a given culture? An interesting attitude developed by Muslims was to say that all things that are good and true in other cultures and religions can be called “Islamic.” They are part and parcel of Islam as the good religion, even if they are found outside the historical Muslim community. The term “Islam” functions here largely as a predicate: it includes the positive elements of other cultures, as Muslims see them. This idea has had great practical significance since it could legitimize the acceptance of elements from other cultures. Islamic civilization could be enriched with views, prescriptions and customs that cannot be found in Qur’an and Sunna but were useful for Muslims. This transcended Islam as a community with a more or less closed culture and it opened the way towards an Islamic civilization. A comparable open attitude could be found among a cultivated Muslim public in the centers of Islamic civilization. The many contacts that had developed between Muslims and others, and Muslim and other cultures, stimulated increasing interest in the history and geography of the world known at the time. People wanted to be informed culturally and intellectually. Factual knowledge about non-Muslims, such as that provided by alMas’udi (d. 956/57) or al-Biruni (d. after 1050), became more or less harmoniously integrated into the life and worldview of “educated” Muslims at the time insofar as it was not harmful for Muslim self-understanding. Between the tenth and thirteenth centuries there must have existed among educated Muslims a sense of

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belonging to one common world and of the acceptance of a plurality of—followers of—different religions side by side. Was this a sense of the universal? This orientation transcended Islam as the only possible and reasonable culture, way of life and religion. Yet another attitude was that of Muslims who were themselves versed in spiritual life and who had a wider awareness of the human soul, a wider idea of divine revelation, and a wider experience of spiritual blessings. Their interest in other religions was the fruit of an awareness of religious universality, transcending the known Islamic religion with which they had lived. In the poetry of Rumi (d. 1273), for instance, we find an openness toward other beliefs, supported by the notion of the essential unity of all revelation and religious life despite external differences. Such openness made explorations of the spiritual resources of religions possible. New Contexts and New Attitudes to Others Our survey has dealt with Islamic civilization, halting when the West came to dominate the Muslim world. The new situation led to new orientations, besides the tradition-bound descriptions and refutations of Christianity, Judaism, and other foreign religions. These new views about relations with other religions than Islam, however, not only came about thanks to new means of communication and communicative situations. They were also the result of discovering problems that are common to humankind. This implied a fundamental rethinking of Islam. In a first stage the Reformists engaged in this, for instance, Sayyid Ahmad Khan in India, Muhammad ‘Abduh in Egypt, and various thinkers in Iran. By and large, they still had common ideas about what Islam is and how other religions can be judged from an Islamic point of view. Significantly, this movement led to more critical studies about medieval Muslim polemics against Christianity being made by scholars like Abdelmajid Charfi, Ali Bouamama and Mehmet Aydin. The second half of the twentieth century has witnessed a second stage. It involves a true rethinking of Islam and represents a departure from the categories of medieval Islamic civilization. We now find a deepening of philosophical reasoning and greater rigor, for instance in the work of Mohammed Arkoun and Moham-

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med Talbi; committed study and debate, for instance in the work of Isma’il al-Faruqi and Seyyed Hossein Nasr; conscientious scholarly study of other religions, for instance in the work of ‘Abd al-Majid Charfi; proposing strategies for a better society and world for religions to pursue, for instance in the work of Farid Esack; recognition of the need for dialogue and a search for fraternal relations between Muslims and Christians in particular, for instance in the work of Mahmoud Ayoub. Important joint Muslim-Christian publications have appeared. Are they signs of a new scholarly interest among Muslims in the field of the study of religions? And how are they received by Muslim and other scholars? Bibliography Friedmann, Yohanan. (2003). Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Charfi, Abdalmajid. (2004). LʹIslam entre le Message et lʹHistiore. Paris: Albin Michel. Goddard, Hugh. (1996). Muslim Perceptions of Christianity. London: Grey Seal. Ridgeon, Lloyd (ed.). (2001). Islamic Interpretations of Christianity. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. Waardenburg, Jacques. (2003). Muslims and Others: Relations in Context. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. (2000). (Ed.), Muslim-Christian Perceptions of Dialogue Today: Experiences and Expectations. Louvain/Paris/Sterling, VI: Peeters. (1999). (Ed.). Muslim Perceptions of Other Religions: A Historical Survey. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Part II

Religions View Other Specific Religions

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“The Hen Knows When It Is Dawn, But Leaves the Crowing to the Cock”1 African Religion Looks at Islam John Mbiti Abstract In this contribution the author firsts gives a short survey of elements in African Traditional Religion. Although African Traditional Religion manifests itself variously all over the sub-Saharan continent, they do share some common characteristics. The author describes the oral nature of African traditions, their idea of the Creator, spiritual beings, and mystical powers, living in a moral community, the celebration of life, and the attitude towards other religions. Second, he describes the encounter with Islam by people in traditional African Religions, who had been influenced by Christianity and/or have become church members. Because there are almost no sources the author describes this encounter from his own experiences and from what he learned later from his rich experience. After a primary sketch he goes into specific subjects: belief in God, spirits and the departed, and the “co-existence and competition” between African Religion and Islam.

Introduction African traditional culture is basically an oral culture. One has to hear what people say in order to penetrate their thoughts. There are certainly other ways of communication, especially through symbols, rituals and dance. How adherents of African Religion regard Islam remains largely oral; little, if anything, has been written on this issue. Many scholars of African Religion do not address it, even if they do say something about each religion on 1

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its own terms. For example, in a book of nearly 200 pages, Kofi Asare Opoku devotes only half a sentence about the encounter between the two religions. He says: “One finds that Islam in West Africa is blended or fused with traditional beliefs” (Opoku 1978: 170). Any formal dialogue between African Religion and Islam has yet to emerge. Obviously, spontaneous dialogue takes place all the time when individuals from both religions meet, live together in a family or community, attend school or political events or sports, and so on. In comparison, various formal dialogues are going on between Christianity and Islam, between Christianity and African Religion, as well as between Judaism and African Religion. All this means that the question of how African Religion views Islam is rarely discussed in written form. I have not found any publications on it, in spite of my search in Africa, Europe and America. The only possible exception is a book written by a missionary outsider (Gilliland 1986).2 Before we take up the question proper of this essay, we should first review the main characteristics of African Religion. A Description of African Religion African Religion refers to the religious life of the indigenous peoples of Africa and Madagascar. It is deeply rooted in their languages, customs, traditions and history, art, psyche and response to all situations of life. While its manifestation varies from one people to another, there are enough common elements that make it possible to consider it in the singular. However, it is not systematized into an organic whole nor does it have a centralized organization. The main features of African Religion are as follows: 1. African Religion has no founder. Beginning from time immemorial, it evolved gradually. People reflected on their experiences, the mysteries of nature and life itself and in course of time, major ideas and practices took shape. 2

The book contains some useful material from interviews and conversations. But the picture that it presents of African Religion is not always correct, being colored by the authorʹs missionary attitude and not always objective interpretation.

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2. African Religion has no “written sacred scriptures.” Instead, it is retained in oral forms and symbols. The sources for studying and observing it include language, stories and oral history, proverbs and wise sayings, rituals and ceremonies, artistic expressions and symbols, myths and legends, sacred places and objects, values and customs, names of people and places, and texts such as prayers and ritual invocations. There are persons who perform official religious duties and are also custodians of knowledge and traditions. These include priests, priestesses, traditional doctors, diviners, oracles, ritual elders, (some) rulers, rainmakers, seers, griots and other specialists. 3. Of the many beliefs and concepts in African Religion, the commonest is the belief in God, the Creator and Upholder of all things. In every language and society, there is a (word) name for God. Additional concepts describe Godʹs nature, activities and relation to the world. God is a personal and spiritual being, invisible and eternal. Some concepts depict God in human (anthropomorphic) terms and activities, that make it meaningful for people to relate to God. These include describing God as Parent, Father, Mother, Grandfather, Friend, Saviour, Shepherd, Healer, Protector, Guardian, King, Ruler, Master and Judge. People also conceive God in ethical terms, such as Loving, Patient, Generous, Kind, Just, Perfect, Holy, Dependable, Good, Merciful, Compassionate and Caring. They relate to or worship God through praying, singing (and dancing), making sacrifices and offerings, dedications and invoking blessings. Formerly, there were many sacred places, temples and communal shrines, but their numbers diminished in the twentieth century. African Religion is strongly monotheistic and has no physical representations of God. 4. There are also spiritual beings, created by and subject to God. Some are personifications of natural objects and phenomena, such as mountains, oceans, vast rivers, waterfalls, earthquakes, eclipses, thunder and lightning. Some writers speak of these personifications as divinities or deities. They are neither God nor human beings. In addition, people claim the existence of spirits of departed people, some of who died long ago and are no longer part of the living families. As such these spirits are unknown and may be attributed with malicious doings. Others are associated with objects of nature, such as trees, animals, and places like

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mountains or forests. Of course not all trees or animals are associated with spirits! Families and communities consider the spirits of people who died within living memory, to be still part of them, like departed grandparents, parents, uncles, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, and children. The living remember these by name; and on their part they appear to the living in dreams or in a state of wakefulness. This group of spirits is called “the living dead.” In some books they are called “Ancestors”, but the term is inadequate, because children who have died do not become “ancestors.” People believe that the departed continue to be close to their surviving families. The living remember them and express their continuing affection in various ways, such as placing symbolic bits of food on the ground, on the graves, or at small altars and shrines at home, or pouring out libation, or naming children after them. In some situations people may ask the departed to convey prayer wishes to God, since they are thought to be spiritually closer to God. People do not worship their departed (ancestors), and do not attribute to them the kind of power, status and honour that they give only to God. Ontologically, the departed are still creatures and can never attain or share the nature of God, who is clearly distinguished from creatures. All this means that African Religion is very conscious of the spirit world. 5. African Religion acknowledges a mystical power created by God. People use this power for good ends, including the treatment of the sick, divination, exorcism of unwanted spirits, looking for a life partner, searching for success in undertakings (like travelling, sports, examinations, election to a political position, etc.), protection from misfortunes and property from thieves, in predicting where to find lost articles, and foretelling the outcome of an undertaking. But some people (secretly) use the same power in the form of evil magic, sorcery, and witchcraft. When things go wrong, such as sickness, childlessness in marriage, misfortune, accident or failure in undertaking, people attribute that to the evil use of this power. The belief in and practice of magic and witchcraft causes much fear, that in turn leads to accusations, quarrels, fights, and countermeasures in families and communities. However, people cherish the positive use of this mystical

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power in regulating ethical relations and in supplying answers to questions about luck, sicknesses and misfortunes. 6. Another strong aspect of African Religion is the area of moral and ethical values that uphold relationships in the community. These include: justice, peace, reconciliation, respect towards institutions and older persons, love, helpfulness, hospitality, care of children and the weaker members of society, care of elderly family members, hard and honest work. Dealing with wrongdoing may involve punishment, ostracism and rituals to cleanse the evil committed, remove tensions and reconcile the parties concerned. Society uses its values to discourage, eradicate or punish such evil as theft, murder, witchcraft, backbiting, cheating, pride, disrespect, laziness, evil eye, abnormal sexual acts including those of homosexuals and lesbians, rape and intercourse with minors and relatives. Taboos are often attached to these values to strengthen them; and formal curses may be employed as deterrents or punishment. Many of these values constitute the basis for traditional laws and customs. Community life is the most prominent expression of traditional values, religiosity, hopes, fears and joy. It is in this context, that the basic philosophy of African Religion can be best appreciated: “I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am.” Traditional life and their view of the world revolve around this understanding and experience. God watches over the moral life of the community, society, and humankind. If moral order is severely broken, God may give warnings to or punish the wider society through calamities, epidemics, drought, famine and war. But African Religion does teach or stress divine punishment on individuals, which is otherwise carried out by society. Wrongdoing by individuals is dealt with by the family, community (including the departed) or society. 7. African Religion affirms and celebrates life. Key moments in individual life may be marked by celebrations, such as birth, naming, initiation, marriage, investiture (into elders’ or another status), death and funeral ceremonies. Festivals, which are filled with laughter, eating, dancing, singing, drumming, and rejoicing, serve to renew and strengthen family and community ties. Even sad occasions like funerals are events that bring many people together to share in mourning and thus lighten the burden of bereavement. Initiation ceremonies are deeply meaningful and

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some may last several months or even years (formerly and isolated today). The individual is very much exposed to the community and anonymity is virtually out of the question, or difficult to maintain. Ideally, life is one of intensive interrelations, especially through blood kinship, marriage, and social proximity. 8. Marriage is a religious duty that, under normal circumstances, everyone is obliged or expected to fulfil. The bearing of children is the central focus of marriage, and no efforts are spared to ensure that there are children in each marriage. Children knit the community into a vast network of relationships: brothers, sisters, cousins, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and many distant relatives. In effect the family never dies; only its members do. 9. The belief in the life after death is commonly held everywhere in Africa. Burial and funeral rites serve, among other things, to send the departed in peace to the spirit world, and to express condolences to the bereaved. Various symbols speak of death such as stopping normal activities for a day or more, shaving the heads, wearing colors that symbolize bereavement (white, black, or red), or extinguishing the fires in the homestead. Some societies bury a few personal belongings with the dead, such as spears, cooking pots, ornaments, money, and clothes. There are no concrete or institutionalized concepts about any paradise or hell in the hereafter, rewards or punishment (with a few vague exceptions). Life in the hereafter is more or less a carbon copy of the present. The departed retain their human characteristics and the living dead are still part of their earthly families, to whom they appear in dreams, in waking, or through divination, particularly if there is a major family event. The next world is inhabited by spirits and located in thick forests, desert places, underground, or on mountains. African Religion sees the universe in two intertwined parts: the visible and the invisible. 10. In course of its history, African Religion has encountered other religions. It is probable that it has impacted upon other religions such as early Judaism, part of Christianity and Islam. In more recent centuries, however, both Christianity and Islam have rapidly exerted their presence on the African soil, in some cases through political and military conquest or strong missionary expansion (largely with the help of local converts). This has altered the religious scene and the changes are still taking shape. African

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Religion has also crossed the oceans through forced (slaves) or voluntary migration of Africans to Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean, as well as through the many millions of African slaves abducted by Arabs in the Middle East and within Africa itself. Many carried their traditional religion with them. In course of time it took on new forms and expressions, as it met these other cultures. It was estimated that in 2002 African Religion had about 100 million followers, while Christianity had 380 million and Islam 320 million adherents. But historically it predates both Christianity and Islam. While African Religion is statistically in third place, it continues to thrive in integrating with Christianity and Islam and by adjusting to the modern life, both locally and overseas. It remains strong below the (public) surface, in the case of conversions to these and other religions. In the remaining part of this essay, we shall examine specifically how African Religion looks at and reacts to Islam. Other studies are being carried out on how it encounters Christianity. Encounter of Islam with Traditional Society Describing what happened after Islam arrived in Bunyoro, Uganda in 1889, A.B.T. Byaruhanga-Akiiki says that Despite such recent progress in building schools and mosques, the establishment of Islam in Bunyoro was a slow process .... The Muslim preachers were not so organized as the Christian missionaries; they had no professions and preached Islam on a part-time basis. The idea of circumcision was not palatable either .... The Muslims are scattered in many places in the counties of Bunyoro. In Bungangaizi county, they were least successful .... A little centre was started at Rwensera near Kakumiro. Mwalimu Asani Basaijabaraba mentions that there are over fifty Muslims in the area .... In their mosques Arabic is still taught. (Byaruhanga-Akiiki 1982: 82f.)

This account may not be representative of the situation in areas of Africa where Islam has encountered traditional religion in the last one to two hundred years. But it is not an exception. When I attended middle school, there were not more than half a dozen Muslim boys (no girls whatsoever), in a state (colonial)

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school of about 200 boys and (a few) girls. The rest of us were Christian converts and some were adherents of African Religion. In any case, we were immersed in the worldview of African Religion and culture. But we regarded the Muslim boys as “outsiders” for several reasons. First, they lived in the small town of Kitui, in Kenya. Because of that, they were not in touch with the traditions of the Akamba. They followed what looked like a foreign culture to us and had Muslim names that did not mean anything to the rest of us. Second, they had not gone through the traditional rite of circumcision, even though they were circumcised. For us circumcision meant more than just the physical operation. It was a ritual and mystical event, with a profound meaning. It was like a covenant act that bound us mystically to the Akamba people, both living and departed. Third, these Muslim boys did not want to speak our language, Kikamba, and preferred to speak Kiswahili, the language of commerce in towns. This made us think that they were arrogant or too stupid to learn Kikamba, even though we much in common for the rest. Kiswahili was, at that time, the main language that the British colonial rulers used and it was the second language at school after our mother tongues. Among African languages it had a higher status because of its use by the British. One spoke it only in towns, unless one wanted to show off. Fourth, we did not see any Muslim girls, and we wondered where they were kept and why. Like the rest of the women, the girls had to cover their faces completely or leave only small gaps for the eyes. We also wondered what the Muslim women did indoors, where they stayed most of the time except on market days when they would come out to do their shopping. Fifth, there was something else that drew our attention. During Ramadan, the boys fasted and we admired them for observing the fast. However, they carried small tins with them into which they spat. This was repulsive to us and did not seem to be very hygienic. Sixth, half a kilometer away there was a Muslim school. Whenever we passed by, if the boys were in class, we heard them reciting passages from the Qur’an in Arabic. Most of them, if any, did not know what they were saying. We thought it odd to learn religious things in a foreign language that they did not understand. Furthermore, they recited loudly and they were all in one

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classroom. The noise disturbed us, when we compared that with our school where we would be punished if we talked in class. There was something else that disturbed us: the Muslim boys told us that they could not eat meat, unless the animal had been ritually killed by the person authorized to do so. This was contrary to what we were used to and enjoyed at home, where we participated in slaughtering chickens, sheep, goats and cattle. At other times we went hunting and it was always a pleasure to kill and skin an animal, open it up, make a fire, roast and eat some of the meat there and then before taking the rest to our families. We did not understand a religion that would deny boys participation in these traditions of ours. These were personal experiences and observations I had as a schoolboy. They were, nevertheless, the feelings and views of society towards the very few Muslims that were present. We saw the Muslims as townspeople who had no fields to grow crops or keep animals for meat and milk. They were part of us and yet not one with us. We admired some of their habits, like wearing long white dresses (but not at school), trading, being more “sophisticated” than most us, as far as town life was concerned. We liked the sugared buns and the little meat pies (samusas) that Muslims prepared and sold. Together with Indians and Arabs in the towns, these Muslims carried on commercial activities. We liked that, because they were the ones that knew where to get manufactured and imported goods and where to sell what we produced in the fields. They were the facilitators who brought us Western goods and bought our own goods. In our encounter with the Muslim boys at school, we heard little or nothing about what they believed or the history of their religion. Thus we encountered Islam more in person than in theory. As a whole, Islam projected an image of a religion that was basically unknown and distant or detached from our normal life. It was neither attractive nor aggressive towards us who were Christians or followed African Religion. One saw and heard it only when one was in the town. It was completely absent from rural areas. We occasionally heard of girls that married Muslim men, went to live in town and embraced Islam because of their husbands. They more or less cut themselves off from relatives in the rural areas. Some parents were appalled by the idea of their daughters marrying Muslim men and “disappearing” in towns

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and cities and did what they could to prevent it. It was, and still is very seldom, that such marriages take place. I know of only one girl from a Christian family who converted to Islam because of marriage. When I was still young, I had a relative who had married a Muslim man and they lived in town. Occasionally she (but not he) came to visit us. She was still one of us in everything, except her long black dress that covered almost her whole face. The other difference was that she did not eat meat with us but took a chicken home to be slaughtered “properly” according to Islamic tradition. We felt sorry that her children did not know how to conduct themselves like real Akamba children when they were with us. They looked “foreign” to our culture and traditions, because they lived in town. They could not play the same games with us and they could not join us in our “hunting hobbies” since they did not know how to make and use bows and arrows. They also did not know how to care for cattle (which was a very important item of wealth) nor how to work in the fields (which everybody did). These (Muslim) children from the town did not know the traditional stories we told or the riddles we asked one another; they did not even know how to greet people in the proper way. They told us that it was necessary to wash our hands after going to the toilet. They also said that meat was “unclean” if the animal had not been ritually slaughtered. We were not convinced about that. Everyone loved meat and whether it was “clean” or “unclean” did not stop us from enjoying it, when we had the opportunity to do so. We did not despise or reject these children, but we felt sorry for them, for we thought that they were missing out on true Akamba life. In that social environment there was some talk about Muslim men taking boys and young men to sell them to the Arabs who used them as slaves in Arab countries. This made us youngsters somewhat unsure about getting too close to Muslims. We were afraid to enter the homes of their community in town, where they lived in houses built close to one another. Another thing that made us wary was the talk and experience that in business the traders (at that time nearly all Muslims), were cunning, tricky and used dishonest methods. They smiled nicely to attract customers but cheated them without a wink. Also, in conversations they praised cunning dealings or stories. The men

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were also too ready to fight and often carried a walking stick for that purpose. The expression—still in use today— “[He] acted like a real Muslim” means that the person in question cheated or tricked another. This expression is still used today. Live Issues All this is not a formal academic account. But it tells of live issues in the encounter between Islam and African Religion, at least in one particular region of Kenya. My parents were first generation Christians and I grew up in a Christian family. But the physical, social, cultural and religious surroundings were very much those of African Religion. Our worldview was strongly impacted by African Religion. Consequently, my (our) encounter with Muslims proceeded very much from the point of view of traditional religion. We rubbed shoulders with aspects of Islam in practical terms such as hearing the call to prayer at the town mosque or seeing Muslims praying facing north towards Mecca. Even more, we encountered Muslims as people, as fellow members of our wider community. They had some customs that differed from the traditionally normal customs, but we did not criticize or reject them on those grounds. We only took pity on them, because they did not live according to the customs of society (under the umbrella of African Religion). We viewed them from the standpoint of our cultural heritage and not from a Christian view (even if missionaries told us that Muslims and Roman Catholics were “lost” and should be converted). Because Muslims were not living as “true” Akamba, their religion did not attract us. We saw it as a force of cultural alienation and we just left its few followers to mind their affairs while our life went on undisturbed. But even in these personal experiences from my youth some issues emerge. African Religion did not look at Islam in terms of a body of beliefs. The Muslims talked about Allah, God, and we talked about God as well. The Muslims talked about Muhammad, but we had no central figure around which our traditional religion was built. It had evolved spontaneously as people went through life.

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Belief in God in Traditional Religion and Islam Some of the Muslims regarded and looked down upon practitioners of African Religion as unbelievers and pagans, while they claimed to confess (for them) the “true” God, Allah. However, our African (in this case Akamba) religion was and is centered on belief in God (Mulungu, Ngai), the Creator (Mumbi) and Maker (Splicer) of all details (Mwatuangi). We assumed that the Muslims were ignorant of this fact, or stubbornly denied it, because they had detached themselves from the true life of the Akamba. As individuals, they prayed five times a day. On the other hand, in our traditional religion we also prayed but mainly as a community or family and only when there was need to do so, such as in times of drought, epidemic, sickness or locust invasion, or at the birth of a baby. Through creation everyone was a child of God. Belief in God was a communal relationship between the people and God. It was not an individual affair, which earned merits that would entitle someone to a better place than others after death. Belief in God is a strong point of reference for Islam and African Religion, but we had the impression that Muslims ddi not accept the God in African Religion to be the same God as in Islam. Followers of traditional Religion see one and the same God, with different names according to the languages of the people. When Muslims talked about Godʹs judgement at the end of the world, this did not make much sense to us, nor did it move our spirit. In African Religion people believe in the continuation of life after death. But there is neither paradise nor hell and God does not reward or punish the departed on the grounds of what kind of present life they led on earth. In African Religion everyone is embraced within the religious framework of the whole society and community, but this is not the case with Islam as it penetrates into African society. At the point of encounter Islam expects, awaits or even enforces conversion in its direction or favor. That is not the case with African Religion, in which there is no “conversion.” The beliefs, traditions, rituals, ceremonies, celebrations, moral teachings, ethical values, myths and stories, symbols and hopes belong to the whole community. It sends out no missionaries and it has no need for reformers. Generally, it has no centralized institution or

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authority and no written scriptures. It sees Islam as a religion of the book, with different branches and their organizational institutions. People see Islam as a religion of individuals, yet at the same time it is a religion that stretches across languages, ethnic boundaries and national identities. It is global in contrast with African Religion, which is tribal or ethnic in its practice, even if many similarities make it also meaningful to regard it in the singular. That African Religion does not give in easily to Islam, when it comes to belief in God, can be illustrated from the study of religion in Bunyoro, Uganda by Byaruhanga-Akiiki. After discussing the encounter between Banyoro religion and both Christianity and Islam, the researcher concludes that: “Nyoro traditional religion has such roots in Nyoro society that it is likely to continue forever in one form or another.” In an appendix to his study he gives a list of what he calls “one hundred names” of God, adding that “some five hundred or more can easily be collected.” This list of traditional names of God is followed by another list of “the Ninety-Nine most Beautiful Names of God in Islam.” The Nyoro names contain a great deal of traditional theology and one can hardly imagine that such a rich (oral) theology can easily or completely be replaced by another theology from outside. The names are wrapped up and rooted in the worldview of the people. They cannot be erased. Only new names can be added to what already has been there—added by Christianity or Islam but not replacing where that may be theologically possible. Here are some examples of the Banyoro names of God: Ahaisanizibwa: He who is renowned; Ahangaaza: He who makes to live long; Ahumbuura: He who resuscitates; Ahurra: He who hears; Akira: He who excels all; Akugizibwa: He who is praised; Aleeta: He who brings things about; Alema: He who rules; Aroho: He who has existence, He exists; Arora: The all-seeing one; Asiimwa: He who is to be thanked; Asingura: He who overcomes all;

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Asingura: He who succeeds in all; Asobora: He who handles any circumstances; Asumurra: He who unties all difficulties; Atalemwa: He who never fails; Atugonza: He who loves us; Atwaara: He who takes away; Ayegesa: He who teaches; Azoora: He who finds, to whom there is no secret; Bingi: He who is many things; Birungi: The source of good things; Businge: The peaceful one, the Sound one; Isebugaiga: He who enriches; Isenaku: He who afflicts; Isenkuru bantu: The grandfather of people; Isiitwe: Our Father; Kagingo: The creator of death; Kazooba: The one who is light as the sun; Kiha bisembo: The giver of gifts; Kirimagezi: The owner of wisdom; Kirimaani: The very strong; Kyererezi: The Light; Magezi: He who is wisdom; Mazima: He who is truth; Mbabazi: He who is kindness; Mucunguzi: He who redeems; Mucwampaka: He who settles disputes; Mugabi: He who distributes things; Mugumisiriza: The very patient; Muguuda: He who is rich; Muhikiriire: The Holy one; Muhumuza: The comforter, the consoler; Mujuni: The author of safety and security, the Savior; Mukama w’abakama: The king of kings; Mukonyezi: He who helps, the helper of all; Mukuru: The ancient one; Mulemi: The reigning one; Muliisa: He who feeds; Mulinzi: The guardian; Munyakisa: The merciful one; Muramuzi: The judge;

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Musinguzi: He who conquers; Musoborozi: He who explains things; Musobozi, W’obusobozi: He who is powerful; Musomesa mukuru: The great teacher; Musorooza: The assembler; Mutaganya: He who is never sorrowful; Mutajwaaha: He who is never tired; Muzaire: The parent; Mwebembezi: The guide, the leader; Mwesigwa: He who is trustworthy; Mwomeezi, Bwomeezi: The living one, Life; Nkya: The One who provides the means of subsistence as He wills; Nkyanungi: The good one, source of good luck; Nyamusangwaho: He who is found existing; Nyamusigwaaho: He who is left existing; Nyarwa: The most high One; Rugaba: The one who gives freely without thoughts of compensation; Ruganyira: The forgiving one; Ruhanga, Nyamuhanga: God, the Creator; Ruhumuza: He who gives comfort; Rumanya: The omniscient one; Tabihirwa: One who never gets angry; Tabiihwa: One who cannot be told lies; Tahebwa: One to whom nothing is given—He lacks nothing; Tainganwa: The matchless, unequalled one; Taserekwa: He from whom nothing is hidden; Tatengesebwa: The unshakable one; Wabutoosa: The everlasting one; W’amahano: One who does wonders; W’ekisa: Who is compassionate; W’emigisa: He who has and gives blessings; W’obwinganiza: The just one; Wʹomukago: The friend.3 3 Byaruhanga-Akiiki 1982: 241-44. This is only a portion of the 100 names. The author has not listed them alphabetically. For gender purposes, “He who” can be read “The One who.” The central name for God is Ruhanga. The other names are attributive. All African languages have names for God, both personal and attributive. Cf. Mbiti 1978, with about

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Where ethnic-language communities have converted to Islam over the last two hundred years, they have retained their traditional names for God. A few have, however, adopted the Muslim word Allah, at least for public functions. The fact that the traditional name has continued to be used—as the case may be—is an indication of resistance to change. This in turn may mean that there is no essential change in the concept of God from Islam to African Religion nor vice versa. It may also mean that African Religion is making its contribution to Islam if the communities concerned embrace Islam. People resent being accused of being “pagans” in the sense of not knowing or believing in God. What more can one ask from the Banyoro (or other African peoples) who have such a list of names of God as these? It is no wonder that Byaruhanga-Akiiki speaks of the offense inflicted uon people when Muslims call them bakafiri, i.e. infidels, unbelievers. He explains the root of the word as the Arabic kafir or kufr: In the Bunyoro case, someone who was not a Muslim was omukafiri, a kafir .... The meat of an animal slaughtered by a nonMuslim was also labelled enyama enkafu, or enkafiri, kafir meat. That meat was unclean, and therefore to be avoided by Muslims almost in the same way as they were and are supposed to keep away from the bakafiri, the unbelievers who by not recognizing Allah and acknowledging Him are heading for eternal damnation in hell. In the same above sense, a mukafiri like enyama enkafu, would imply or refer to someone who is impure, unclean like the pigs, more in the moral sense, therefore to be avoided somehow, as someone already damned .... Calling one omukafiri is equivalent to a direct smear on his [or her] character, and in the Nyoro cultural values, that is a big social sin. Nobody likes to be labelled omukafiri, as this is in no way a compliment. (Byaruhanga-Akiiki 1982: 120f.)

We hear the same sentiments from the Western side of the continent. Gilliland reports that even where communities in Nigeria have opted for Islamic practices like prayer and fasting, this does not keep people from traditional festivals. 1500 names, pp. 327-36. I have since enlarged the list, which is now available as a computer file.

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When I asked this man why he kept the Muslim prayers, his reply was, “Paganism is a shameful thing. No one wants to be accused of not recognizing or knowing God.” Furthermore, if he will do Muslim prayers at least two or three times a day, a malam will bury him when he dies. Such a proper burial is looked upon by all as suitable for a progressive man. (Gilliland 1986: 48f.)

In spite of such feelings and the wish among Muslim communities to follow Islam publicly, Gilliland reports one case from Nigeria in which African Religion has the final word. The Mshelia clan of the Bura who live at Subwong told me that their mosque has always been the place where God is called upon when there is a plague. There was a very long drought in 1946 in spite of all efforts to end it, so the elders finally called for sacrifice at their ancient prayer center. A ram was killed on the sacred rock located at the entrance of the mosque, the meat was distributed ritually, and prayers were recited. This act represented the highest appeal possible to God for relief. There seems to be no question in anyoneʹs mind that they are calling on Allah at such times.(Gilliland 1986: 52 f.)4

Here God may have been called upon by the Islamic name of Allah, but the community appealed to God as they had known and related to Him/Her since ancient times, before the coming of Islam. The people used the method of African Religion to make the final (and desperate) appeal to God. They knew this was the same God before and after the arrival of Islam. While holding on to the Islamic belief in Allah, they followed methods that they had acquired through African Religion but which Islam had eclipsed. They were the same people and this was the same God. In this case the proverb obtains that: “The hen knows when it is dawn, but leaves the crowing to the cock.” Spirits and the Departed Gilliland points out another area of importance in which both Islam and African Religion come into close contact and traditional 4

He explains that the “efforts” “were those of the usual traditional pattern— i.e., water was brought in special containers from the river and given special rites in each house.”

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religion plays a decisive role. This is the question of the relationship between the living and the departed. While that is highly characteristic of African Religion, it is clearly played down in Islam. Gilliland writes that: The attitude of the living toward the dead is bound to be an area of conflict when Islam confronts African Religion. The respect which African societies give their ancestors is one of the few universal features of African Religion. When these two religious systems interact, the voice of the ancestors could well have the last word. Our study among twenty tribes shows that ancestors are not regarded as divine. Their relationship is one of mediation between the living and the dead. Generally they are actually feared by both family and clan. Where Islam is a major factor in the community, ancestors who have high rank and have become figures of power will usually be accommodated into the new system in some way. Yet the recent dead are also important to the religion. They represent various levels of power and are the center of intense rituals.

Gilliland gives examples of how “the ancestors” function through control and mediation. Control by: “calling the living (Kilba),” “revealing the truth (Jukun),” “special power for special acts (Tiv),” “moving about at night” (Tiv, Jukun). Mediation by: “sleeping on their graves which opens up communication (Jukun),” “healing only comes through the ancestors” (Mwaghavul), “the oldest person ranks next to the dead (Tiv),” “ancestors require sacrifice (Longuda),” “laws concerning the ancestors must be kept for health in the tribe (Kutep).” (Gilliland 1986: 104 f. and ftnte 76; the bracketed terms are ethnic designations)

Co-existence and Competition Between African Religion and Islam J. Spencer Trimingham makes some relevant generalizations and observations about Islam in Africa. He writes: When Islam spread in Africa its forms were inflexible and therefore many African religious beliefs and institutions continued alongside the new religious features. Whereas in the Near East peasant beliefs were thoroughly Islamized, in Africa

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the parallel elements bear the mark of their African origin. Everywhere the traditional world remains real and its emotional hold vivid. The dualism this brings into religious life is evident to anyone in contact with Swahili society [east Africa]. Religious life rests upon a double structure, the animistic underlayer and the Islamic superstructure.

This is what Trimingahm has further to say about what he called The Neo-Muslim: Although I found it difficult to establish the extent of Islamic penetration into the interior, it was somewhat easier to find out its depth, the degree to which those communities with a fair proportion of Muslims have absorbed Islam and how far it has influenced their institutions. A feature of the religious aspect in the interior, in Tanganyika in particular, is that Muslims, Christians and pagans are intermingled, only distinguished by a few factors of religious practice .... Among the Sukuma, for example, the old order is still strong, Christianity is now fairly well planted, and Islam is weak; whereas with the kindred Nyamwezi although the old order is dominant, Islam has gained a strong hold and Christianity is weaker. The animistic view on life is still the dominant one among all cultivators, whatever religion they may claim. Whereas in West Africa the ancestor cult disappears quickly, in East Africa it is clung to much more tenaciously .... Among Swahili, other than townspeople, such rites take the form of tambiko ya gombo, that is, offerings at a mzimuni or altar to ancestral spirits. Muslim Digo, almost without exception, offer sacrifice at their family graves and ancestral kayas. The practice of ancestor propitiation certainly declines somewhat, yet it survives since most agriculturalists need to maintain lineage authority. Muslims affirmed without any embarrassment that ancestor propitiation, in the form at least of periodic sacrifices and feasts in their memory, continue. These generally take place at the end of a period of mourning, on special occasions when a deceased person has been seen in a dream, or at any critical period in the life of the clan. These feasts come to be called sadaka, Islamic prayers are introduced, and the ancestors are asked to intercede or mediate with God. At the same time these feasts fulfil the same functions as the old, in that they af-

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JOHN MBITI firm the unity and solidarity of the family. Among town Swahili, as throughout Hamitic Islam (North Africa, Nilotic Sudan, Somali, etc.), the saints are the mediators. Among neo-Muslims everywhere Islamʹs penetration in depth is superficial. This is not a statement I would make lightly. Yet it is difficult to see how the majority of the Digo, to mention only one people, can be accounted as Muslims at all. Of course many would not claim to be. I was told that in the early days of the British Protectorate, Arab officials made them build mosques and then claimed that they were Muslim. Also that “west of the Gazi road Islam decreases until it disappears and in the Shimba Hills less than half of the people are Muslims.” The religious situation is such that similar statements could be made of many other “Muslim’ peoples. Even with the Yao, whilst one has to affirm that Islam is now a Yao characteristic, the distinguishing mark of a tribe dominating and absorbing cultivators, the only evidences of Islam are such symbols as the empty mosque, the vociferating Qur’an school, abstention from pig and meat not killed Islamically, and fasting during Ramadan, whilst they refuse to abandon their offerings to ancestors and traditional customs. From the sociological aspect the effect of Islam is still weaker. The social features of Islam have few points of contact with Bantu institutions, whether these are patrilineal or matrilineal. The basis of solidarity remains the kinship relations. The Yao [in Malawi] are matrilineal and Islam as a religious law has had a negligible effect upon their social institutions. Islam too is a religion without a rural basis, consequently the religion of the cultivators has everywhere had to maintain its traditional relationship with the land and sacrifices have to be made throughout the cycle of fertility, seed-time and harvest .... The consequence is that Islam in East Africa, contrary to what prevails in the Sudan belt, has the characteristics and gives the impression of being a foreign religion. (Trimingham 1962: 31, 32, 34-36).

Another clear hint is found in West Africa. Gilliland speaks of what he (vaguely and unjustly) classifies as “open” and “introverted tribes.” He says that

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the tribes which we have classified as “open” were the least critical of Hausa-Fulani [Islamic] religious elements, and, accordingly, there is much higher degree of conversion to Islam within these tribes. The more the dependence on its own traditional patterns, the less tolerant it is of the Haussa presence and the less open it is to conversion.

Gilliland gives the example of the Tiv of Nigeria. The Tiv have always been anti-Muslim. This has meant a nearly total rejection of anything that is Hausa, including, most forcefully, the Haus religion [i.e. Islam]. This negative attitude toward Islam has been part of what it means to be a Tiv.

One man told Gilliland: Why then would anyone wish to become Muslim? We know that converts to Islam are lazy people who have travelled about. The “converts” must be rejected .... They are exclusive. Our women wouldn’t marry them. (Gilliland 1986: 62ff.)

This traditional Tiv identity is grounded on African Religion, and the assertion of that identity is a projection of African Religion resisting Islam. Gilliland also points out another level of interaction in which Islam is accepted but only as thin veneer on top of African Religion, “taken over by indegenous ritual and made to serve the traditional myth” (Gilliland 1986: 71). “It is, however, a veneer which seems to guarantee the security of Islam while the strong traditional center still governs their [the Maguzawa people] life” (Gilliland 1986: 73f.). In comparing “Muslim priests with traditional priests,” Gilliland observes: If the malam [Teacher[ and traditional priest were to compare the means open to them, the traditional priest would have the advantage. The non-Muslim priest has a far wider range of techniques he may use .… The extent to which the malamai [teachers[ employ methods based on traditional sturcture is often considerable …. (Gilliland 1986: 122ff.)

Even where a whole people have become Muslims, as in the case of the Nupe in Nigeria, “the priestly systems of the Nupe continue to function” (Gilliland 1986: 127). This is another indication that, in deep spiritual activity, African Religion has held its sway

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over against Islam, even if that is expressed beneath the surface in some cases. Acceptance, Objection and Rejection Not everyone may agree with Trimingham’s assessment and certain things have changed since his findings in the early 1960s. Nevertheless, from his work and that of others, the general picture seems clear that, in many communities, especially in rural areas, Islam has been more affected by African Religion than vice versa. African Religion weakens fast in towns, while Islam acquires communal strength because of its practicability across language and ethnic lines. Muslims can function together, especially in fulfilling their five obligations of confessing their faith, saying prayers, fasting, giving alms, and making the pilgrimage to Mecca. That is where Islam’s strength seems to lie. African Religion has no parallel activities in towns and cities or even across tribal and language boundaries. Life in the city has generally weakened some of the practices done in rural areas. The corpus of belief and practices continues at various levels: belief in God, life after death, the mystical power, the spirits and the departed, sickness and health matters, community values and the celebration of life. In matters of belief about the spirits, and in traditional medical practice, African Religion and Islam seem to function without overt tension. Indeed, they support each other in one way or another. Islam acknowledges or accommodates spirits (jinn). But in African Religion some of the spirits are members of the family that died in recent generations. This is not the official case in Islam generally, in which the jinn are not regarded as departed family members. In both systems there are people who contact the spirits and jinn, to exorcize them or to communicate with them for usually good purposes. This is particularly in connection with the practice of traditional medicine—diagnosis of the diseases and the causes (persons, witchcraft, sorcery, evil eye, curse or restless spirits), treatment, prevention, protection against harm, generating good luck, exorcizing unwanted spirits, divination, finding lost items or thieves, protecting persons and property, etc. In this area both Islam and African Religion work in the same direction, sometimes using the same methods, along parallel lines and without getting into conflict.

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A thirty-one-year-old Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal Kurami was stoned to death for having a child out of wedlock, her daughter Wasila. This punishment is in accordance with shari’ah law. The judgement was made by two courts, in June and in August 2002. Despite an appeal has been made and the hope that world opinion would prevail to save Amina’s life, the sentence was carried out. In matters of shari’ah, like this one, African Religion says “No” clearly. Unfortunately, shari’ah is enacted in northern Nigeria and the Sudan, among other countries. When it clashes with traditional African law, such as stoning a woman to death for having sex outside of marriage, the feelings of the people are absolutely with the traditional law, whatever its own weaknesses may be. Shari’ah violates human rights severely, especially in the case of those who reject it whether they be Muslims, Christians or followers of African Religion. It is said that shari’ah should be revised, reformed or eliminated altogether and replaced with a legal system that is more just and respectful of human rights. This, among other things, raises the question of the position of women. Both African Religion and Islam have fostered the patriarchal domination of women. But under African religion the treatment of women varies from society to society. Some societies are matriarchal and the position of women is accepted and respected. In many the role of the women in the family and community depends on age and social relationships. The impression is given that, on the whole, women under African Religion have more freedom than those under strict Islamic control. They make their contribution to the social, cultural, and economic life of their societies and in some cases there were women rulers (queens). At one time, in the past century, there were more girls and women in schools and universities from the traditional background than those from Islamic society. But, like many other things, this is changing. Both religions have still to do much more justice to women in all areas of life. There are still barriers to the freedom of women, some of which are religious attitudes in Islam and African Religion. Talk about Islam and slavery persists and there are communities where the adherents of African Religion are forced into slavery by Muslims. A clear and substantiated case is in the Sudan. Among traditional believers (and converts to Christianity) like the

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Nuer, the Dinka, the Shilluk and many others, the foremost “enemies” are the Arabs, Muslims and Islam. They slaughter the people, burn down their homesteads, capture them and sell them as slaves. So the reports say. Political conflicts between the Islamized and largely Arabized north of the country and the southern region where Christianity and African Religion dominate take on religious and commercial dimensions. This is extremely unfortunate. People are suffering, being oppressed and killed or made slaves in some cases, some in the name of Islam. While in some traditional societies there were slaves formerly, African Religion does not sanction slavery as one of its institutions. It says “No” to slavery and would disagree with any religion (be it Islam, Christianity or Hinduism) that may try to justify slavery. There are reports of Africans being taken to and kept as slaves in Arab countries of the Middle East. I do not have reliable sources of information on this issue. But I know personally of several cases whereby Africans were smuggled illegally out of their countries and deposited in Europe and America. Some of them end up as prostitutes, a source of cheap labor or illegal refugees and asylum seekers. It is known that some Muslims (among other people) are active and skilled in facilitating these illegal immigrants to reach Europe and beyond. Whether they do this out of religious and/or commercial interests is an open question. In any case it leaves a negative image. Gilliland reports lingering feelings in Nigeria against slavery: In addition to the image of enlightened superiority created by Islam there is a second factor which greatly affected the Muslim image. This is an attitude of fear and resentment held for the Fulani among pagan tribes due to slave trade. As late as 1970 I found references to the slave raids of the nineteenth century carried out by the Fulani as a lingering issue among traditional people. (Gilliland 1986: 57)

Another area where African Religion says “No” categorically is with respect to the Islamic tradition of jihad. There is obviously a variety of interpretations of jihad. But not many people in the street or in rural areas know the academic nuances of understanding or rationalizing jihad. They know it simply as the socalled “holy war.” The introduction of Islam in many areas of Africa, especially in West Africa and the Sahara region, took place

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through one form or another of war and the enforcement of a political and military presence. There were naturally other peaceful ways of spreading Islam, especially through trade and travel. But in the minds of followers of African Religion jihad is not a word of peace—how much can it be “softened” in Islam by speaking of the great jihad as the struggle in one’s own heart against all kinds of temptation? In February 2002 when I visited my home in Kenya, there was considerable talk about two items in which Muslims were closely associated. One was the attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on 11 September 2001 that killed nearly 3200 people (from many nationalities) and shook the whole world. The talk brought to mind the bombing attack on the American embassies in our capital Nairobi, and in Dar es Salaam in the neighbouring country on 8 August 1998, which killed some 250 people and injured many thousands more. The second was talk about the many suicide bombings being carried out by Palestinians against Israel, which have killed hundreds of people and injured thousands. At the center of and in connection with all these acts of terrorism in America, Israel, East Africa and elsewhere, Muslims were mentioned, jihad was mentioned, martyrdom through suicide was mentioned, the name of God (Allah) was mentioned, infidels were mentioned, Islam as a religion was mentioned ... and much more. The mass media reported how in many countries Muslims had rejoiced and were proud of these attacks. But in my home area both Christians and followers of African Religion were appalled by this projection of Islam as a religion and the glorification of killing in its name. It eclipsed much of whatever else they knew or had heard about Islam. In astonishment and fear the people would ask themselves: “What kind of religion is this?” “Is the world turning upside down?” Perhaps the hen does not know when it is dawn and the cock crows late in the evening. Bibliography Byaruhanga-Akiiki, A.B.T. (1982). Religion in Bunyoro. Nairobi : Kenya Literature Bureau

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Gilliland, Dean S. (1986). African Religion Meets Islam. Lanham: University Press of America. Mbiti, John S. (1978). Concepts of God in Africa. London: S.P.C.K. Opoku, Kofi Asare. (1978). West African Traditional Religion. Accra et al.: FEP International Private Ltd. Trimingham, J. Spencer. (1962). Islam in East Africa. London: Edinburgh House Press.

Hindu Perspectives on Islam1 Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad Abstract The very question of Hindu perspectives on Islam must be answered pluralistically, both because it is not clear whether there is a historical category called “Hinduism” and because traditional Hindu pluralism did not permit pan-Hindu theological authority. There are two broad areas of interaction between Hinduism and Islam. One is cultural and shows the practice of everyday life to have been syncretic over a thousand years. But there is an asymmetry in that while there are few Hindu theological expressions of resistance to syncretic interaction, there is strong condemnation by Islamic authorities. The other area is political. It concerns two questions. First, there is the question of how pre-Islamic Indians became Muslims and results in an often-untoward Hindu suspicion of Islam. Second, there is the controversy over Indian secularism, which is theoretically the neutrality of the state towards religions. In practice, it has meant the unofficial acceptance of Hindu practices and the official provision of special, protective privileges to Muslims and other minorities. The prescription of this paper is that Hindus be encouraged to look to their history to develop a contemporary use for the fact of classical Indian plurality, so that a pluralism that is neither fragmentary nor hegemonistic takes hold. Indian secularism is consistent with this potential pluralism, and invites appropriate and negotiated responses from Muslims and others.

1

I deliberately use the plural “perspectives” and not the singular term “Hinduism” in order to alert the reader to the complexity of the topic on hand. 177

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On the Category of “Hinduism” and the Limits of Hindu Theological Claims to Authority It is now a matter of heated debate as to whether or not there is such a thing as “Hinduism.” On the one side is an academic analysis that suggests that what is known as Hinduism is more a collection of loosely related traditions, communities and partly shared customs and concepts that, only through the Western Enlightenment creation of the category of “religion” and the vested, unifying interests of upper caste Hindu informants, led to the construction of “Hinduism.” On the other side is a range of views from vehement, ideological assertions of an ancient and single Hinduism through to an instinctive contemporary fellow feeling amongst Hindus that they belong to the same “religion.” This cannot be the place to express my exact position on the matter. What I want to do is to say that, at any rate, even the most ardent proponents of the idea of a common Hinduism will have to work with the irreducible plurality of what is known as Hinduism. In the concluding part of this essay I will argue that the nature and status of this plurality is vital to any attempt to theorize on Hindu views of Islam, but, for now, it should be granted that there can be no sustainable attempt to say what the Hindu view of Islam (or anything else) should be. Let me expand. The point is not merely that, since there is such a diversity of views that can be called Hindu, one will always find another Hindu position. That would merely be an empirical claim. The point goes deeper to asking why there is such a diversity, and the answer is that there is an irreducible plurality of texts and other sources that are called Hindu and are directly authoritative. I introduce here the idea of direct authority to indicate that which guides the beliefs and agency of people in such a dominant way that, if asked, they would be prepared to identify that authority explicitly. Even if most Hindus would say they acknowledge the sacred supremacy of the Vedas, their actual rituals, conduct, and everyday expressions of belief in transcendence seldom reveal any reference to the Vedas but, rather, to other sources. (Indeed, these sources may even legitimate beliefs and practices contradictory to what is stated in the Vedas.) Directly authoritative sources of tradition are irreducibly plural in what is called Hinduism. All attempts to say what one’s

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position is (e.g., regarding Islam), will be “local” to whatever sources one takes to be authoritative. The localization is reciprocal, allowing others to have other sources of authority. This is something even ardent advocates of an essentialized Hinduism accept. (In fact, the case could be made that the more sophisticated advocates of essentialized Hinduism take this plurality itself to be the essence of Hinduism.) It is entirely in keeping with Hindu intellectual practice to propose a view and claim its legitimacy by reference to one’s specific authority, while acknowledging the possibility of an absence of overlap with the sources of someone else’s authority. There are hilarious instances of confrontations between followers of Shiva and Vishnu in the eleventh-century Tamil country in the novels of the twentieth-century writer, Kalki (1999) in which each side quotes stories from mythic narratives (the puranas) in which the other’s God comes out badly. The puranas themselves are known and acceptable to both sides, hence the attempt to out-narrate the other (a tactic which postmodern proponents of Christian radical orthodoxy claim is the only possible mode of interreligious engagement). But there can be no appeal to theology, because the relevant texts of each side are simply not acceptable to the other. There can, then, be no “Hindu” view of Vishnu or of Shiva; there can only be decisions by the adherents of each tradition on whether, extra-theologically, to help, ignore or hinder the living presence of the other. Plurality of sources precludes the very possibility of claiming to give a common and singular account that holds over the entire Hindu world. There are no fundamentals to quarrel over and claim pan-Hindu interpretive legitimacy; hence, the characteristic Hindu concern for one’s community tradition (sampradaya). It is in this deeper, conceptually determined, way that it can be said that there cannot be any Hindu theological stance towards Islam as such, no claim as to what the “real” view of “Hinduism” is. In this way Hinduism is different from any religion with a book. (And this refers not just what are parochially called the “religions of the Book;” for Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism have books as well, albeit in ways that relate them curiously to and intimately with the Hindu traditions.)

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Classical India and the Common Epistemic Framework Did the classical Hindu traditions, then, lack all conceptual scope for critical engagement with difference? No, of course not. The Indian cultural world was, from the earliest times, marked by vivid and disputatious diversity. The intellectual treatment of difference came broadly under two categories and was common to all systems, whatever their specific doctrinal commitments, be they Buddhist, Jain or those that came to be called Hindu. The commonality was given by an epistemic framework that used the same terminology and provided the methods of debate and persuasion. For example, even when different schools of thought disagreed on, say, whether analogy was an instrument of knowledge, they agreed on what analogy meant and on what role the instruments of knowledge played (Matilal 1986: 21-37). The two types of treatment of difference were as follows: (i) structured debates utilizing only commonly agreed upon sources of authority and method meant to bring about changes in the position of the other regarding sources and methods that are not commonly agreed upon and (ii) projects of concordance to overcome difference by incorporating other schools into a hierarchy of right views (with the favored one naturally on top). This relatively stable mode of engagement worked because, even (or, perhaps, especially) when it came to the conceptualization of the ultimate purpose of thought and debate, there were shared concepts (of liberation, cognition, physical and mental discipline, textual qualification, and so on) between the classical Indic traditions. The social and cultural treatment of difference, of course, was more complex and cannot possibly be dealt with here except to say that the ancient richness of Indian culture, that diversity which exhausts metaphors of mosaics and melting pots, carpets and banyan trees, stands testament to its accommodation of otherness. The violence over difference—bouts of kingly persecution of communities, as well as the periods of fierce competition between sects—lie more in the realm of practice, be it through high society fiat or the crowded conduct of everyday life.2 2 Let it be made clear, however, that what has just been said concerns roughly horizontal socio-cultural engagement, where contestation did not directly involve traditional location in a common social struc-

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Islam and the Absence of a Common Epistemic Framework Islam came to India, first in the busy quietness of the Arabian Sea trade to the southern coast, and then, with increasing ferocity, through invasion of the open reaches of western and northern India. The very aetiology of Islam’s presence in India marks today’s condition. The questions in modern times have been as to what to make of Islam’s extraneous origin, its forceful entry, its period of political domination, its artistic inculturation, cultural indigenization and demographic depth. But this cannot be a paper on the history of Islam in India and I want to consider instead the type and novelty of Hindu responses to Islam compared to that towards the classical Indic religious traditions. (I use the somewhat artificial word, “Indic,” to apply to religious traditions that were born in India and “classical” to indicate the pre-Islamic world. That allows for a distinction to be made with “Indian,” for Islam is Indian too; that it is so is at the heart of a contemporary issue, as we will see.) Despite some efforts at bridging the philosophical and theological divide during the time of the Mughals—in Emperor Akbar’s court gatherings and personalized religion, as in the Sanskrit to Persian translations made under the guidance of Prince Dara Shukoh (the unfortunate brother of Aurangazeb)—nothing comparable to the earlier common epistemic framework emerged in the case of the Indic traditions and Islam. Such a framework had co-evolved with(in) the Indic traditions, and they were located in a common world of concepts, teleology, and methodological assumptions. Of course, a rich and interactive culture of communication did form in India in which Islam and the Indic traditions participated—we will turn to that in a moment. But the rarefied demands of philosophy and theology did require a coture. It would be absurd to extend the account given to the myriad of values and actions evident in the history of vertical interaction, between groups of differing social power and status. There is no intellectual engagement there, only a continuity of marginalization, rejection and disempowerment. It must not be thought by superior external commentators that India (or even just Hindu culture) had the monopoly on deeply unjust treatment of the subordinate other, but that there was such treatment should not be denied either. However, encompassing vertical interaction is not a task for this paper.

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evolved framework for engagement and this could not develop between Islam and the Indic traditions. Let us reiterate two points that have been made: (i) the plurality of authority in the Hindu traditions rules out the possibility of claims to pan-Hindu theological normativity; (ii) there is no epistemic framework common to the Indic traditions and Islam. Combining them makes clear why we cannot have a Hindu theological position on Islam. Given that, by the very nature of its birth, claims and spread, Islam is rich in a theologically motivated xenology, there is an asymmetry here with Hinduism. If we are to look at the real Hindu engagement with Islam, we should look elsewhere. The debate in our time over Hindu views of Islam—the debate that is made urgent by the dynamics of contemporary Indian plurality—concerns not theology but culture and politics. The issue of culture is about the nature of the interaction and mutual influence. The issue of politics has to do with the history and reality of the balance of power. These must be examined before I return to the possibility of at least a prescriptively philosophical (although not a theological) position on Hindu attitudes to Islam. Practice and Everyday Life: The Question of Syncretism It would seem a relatively simple task to look at the lives of Hindus and Muslims who have lived and continue to live in mixed areas and answer questions about how their lives have been mutually influenced. But it is not an easy task. The very question of how Islam came to India is a problem, as we will see in the next section. Even granting the reality of a shared political space over the past thousand years, different conclusions can be drawn as to how Hindus and Muslims have interacted. Of course, over a period of many centuries and across the length and breadth of India, there has been and continues to be an astonishing diversity of interaction. Ironically, it is this diversity that allows commentators to choose what examples suit their theses on Hindu-Muslim interaction best. However, a few, highly general observations can be made. Between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries, an influential form of public spirituality emerged that was centered on emotion-directed devotionalism (bhakti) towards a personalized deity. It drew on older traditions, going back in the Tamil country to the

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sixth century, but its spread coincided with the establishment of Muslim state formations and the demographic growth of Islam in India (Pande 1989). One of its dominant features was the Hindu interaction with the recently available and politically dominant religion of Islam, exemplified in the figure of the poet-saint, Kabir (Lorenzen 1991) but everywhere evident in the assimilation of Islamic characterizations of God into native Hindu discourse (Ranade 1983). Indeed, this rich assimilation of Islamic principles, sometimes novel, sometimes coinciding with Hindu ideas, contributed to the distinct spirituality of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism and of the Sikh sacred text compiled by Guru Arjan (McLeod, 1989: 16-31). While contemporary Hinduism has much that is directly derived from the bhakti movement (relative to the authoritative but little known ritualism of earlier periods), it is likely that the elite or high cultures of courtly Islam and brahminical Hinduism, committed to an orthodoxy made possible by access to authoritative textual sources, ran in parallel, little touched by the popular Hindu incorporation of Islamic (primarily Sufi) material (Majumdar 1964: 555). This lack of engagement is evident, as already noted, in the Hindu philosophical material of that time. While it was true, as Muslim court records show, that there was a virtual “cultural apartheid” between educated Hindus and Muslims (Hardy 1982: 39-40), popular or minor traditions evident in the patterns of North Indian society as a whole show mutual participation in festivals and other events in ordinary life (Thapar 1966: 319). However, a good deal of this engagement to this day appears to distinguish between forms of social bonding and overt internalization of the other’s religion. In Tamil culture, Muslims have demonstrated knowledge of the Tamil version of the Ramayana epic without any concern for the worship of Rama; and Hindus make pilgrimages to the tombs of Muslim holy men, incorporating them into their own devotionalism without attempting to read the Qur’an or Islamic literature (Narayanan 2001: 176). The notable process in the interaction between Hinduism and Islam in India has been syncretism (Stewart and Shaw 1994) This is to be understood as the conjoining of different religious sensibilities in beliefs and practices or, more weakly, an importation of the other religion’s beliefs and practices into one’s own. Syncretism is not usually the deliberate attempt to unify two tra-

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ditions from neutral or common ground, to create a new synthesis. Rather, it is a process of accretion, of gradually acquiring aspects of another tradition. Of course, different dynamics exist for the syncretic urge within Hinduism and Islam. In Hinduism ancient patterns are found. There is assimilation into existing mythic narratives: in certain temples to Vishnu in South India, a Muslim princess is respectfully enshrined as a consort of the deity (Narayanan 1984: 56-57). There is hierarchization of values without rejecting them: the dietary habit of Muslims is seen as indicative of their intermediate progression towards the brahminical ideal of vegetarianism.3 And henotheistic patterns of worship abound: pilgrimages are made to Muslim shrines, treating the holy men buried there as some sort of special guardians or granters of boons (Bayly 1989: 105).4 In Islam the case of India is very special. Here syncretism has meant the very limited superseding of local language, culture, belief systems—i.e., a very limited Arabization in the face of Hindu culture that amounts, according to some, to “the growth of Indianism in Islam” (Roy Choudhuri 1961: 103). It has also meant the retention of Hindu patterns of discourse within the explicitly Islamic narratives of identity; e.g., among the Labbais, a maritime Tamil community, legends of Islamic victory over Hindus use Hindu language and terminology (Bayly 1986: 64-65). In practice, then, there is a long history of Hindu-Muslim interaction that makes any simplistic thesis about Indian culture of the last thousand years difficult. Of course, it should not be denied that that interaction has also for long included hostile attitudes towards others. The hill Muslims of Nepal, who celebrate the Muslim festival Muharram at the start of which the martyrs, Hassan and Husain, are venerated, claim that Hindus were the murderers (which, in seventh-century Iraq, was not the case) (Gaborieau 1972: 92-3). On the other hand, Hindu exorcists in 3

This point is the result of my conversations in Delhi and Chennai with Hindus of different caste backgrounds. 4

The shrines (darghas) of Sufi saints (pirs) are found all over India, and even in areas like Tamil Nadu, where there is a relatively low percentage of Muslims in the population, there is a great deal of visiting shrines by Hindus.

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parts of Rajasthan take the most malignant spirits to be Muslim (Kakar 1982: 63). These are just striking examples of the underside of Hindu-Muslim relations. Nothing needs to be said about the continuing tensions in parts of India today between the religious communities. Indeed, it can be argued that a communal distinction between Hindus and Muslims has existed in India from medieval times (Saberwal 1999). Nevertheless, we must also keep in mind the rich history of constructive interaction between Hindus and Muslims in India. But for educated or even communalized Hindus today, there is perhaps some weight to be attached to an asymmetry in the theoretical treatment of each other’s religion. Revealing the traditional xenological passivity (Halbfass 1988: 172-74) of classical Hindu culture, the Hindu Great Tradition’s systematic theological treatment of Islam is non-existent. (What does exist, from the nineteenth century, is political expression of depression at Hindu defeats and Muslim triumphs.) This lack allows tremendous interpretive possibilities, ranging from the genuinely creative to the deliberately hegemonistic, as we will see when we consider the issue of pluralism and Hinduism. The contrast with Islam could not be greater. Here it has long been the rule for Muslim figures to chastise those who would incorporate Hindu beliefs and practices into Islam. Strikingly, this includes the various Sufi orders that are so often celebrated as being some sort of bridge between Hinduism and Islam. Although in practice they eventually tended towards tolerance of Hinduism, their doctrinaire position was to preserve their Islam (whatever its differences with Shi’ite and Sunni Islam) from Hinduism (Ahmed 1969: ch. IV). This indubitable fact has tended to lead modern commentators to see Indian Islam as engaged in a see-saw battle between “Islamization,” an attempt to adhere to the values of a fundamentally definable culture drawn from the Arab cradle of Islam, and “indigenization,” the incorporation of Indian (what we have called Indic) patterns into religion (Mishra 1971). Even persuasive attempts to show this to be a false dichotomy invariably require appeal to popular patterns of religious culture (Roy 1998) rather than at the level of the religious authorities. In this context, a measured and careful invocation of pluralism by Hindus might go some way towards a sustainable acceptance of Islam in the common Indian scheme of things. This will

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require some negotiated reciprocity from Muslims, as I will suggest at the end of the essay, although exactly what and how that should be done is naturally to be left to Muslims to decide. The Politics of Islam in India Hindu-Muslim interaction begins with the vexed question of how there came to be Indian Muslims in the first place, even if we set aside the Muslims who came into India as rulers and warriors (known subsequently as the ashraf, the “honorable ones” or nobility). With the coming of historiographical consciousness of the past, in the nineteenth century—and with increasing anxiety and vehemence since—Hindus have argued that conversion, particularly, forcible conversion, was the main vehicle of the growth of Islam in India. The facts are not easily available (Desika Char 1997: 91ff), but the issue of how Indian Islam came to be in the first place has influenced contemporary readings of the past thousand years. It is reasonable to think that some conversion to Islam was through choice, some directly under the sword and some through the pressures of differential taxes and preferential jobs. It is also noticeable that Islam spread more swiftly and deeply in peripheral areas with less integration into the world of classical Indic culture—especially Bengal and Sind— than it did in regions like northern/central India (Uttar and Madhya Pradesh), despite their being at the center of Islamic political control. The absence of an intrinsic missionary orientation in much of Hindu tradition makes Islam’s (as, indeed, Christianity’s) impulse appear alien to most Hindus.5 Finding in the general practice of their traditions a lack of the missionary imperative, they tend to interpret the freedom to practice religion in a way that does not include the freedom to preach conversion. The relatively fluid nature of Hindu practice—where even orthodox brahmins feel free to have plural divine foci of worship—combined with the 5

It should, however, be noted that missionary activity as such is not unknown in Hindu culture. The eleventh-century Tamil theologian, Ramanuja and the thirteenth-century Kannada devotional reformer Basavanna, for example, had definite missions to establish their beliefs and practices in a wider society. But it is remarkable, from the viewpoint of missionary religions, as to how quickly these movements solidified into the specific traditions of particular communities.

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constitutive freedom of Hindu traditions from hegemonizing theologies, makes many Hindus sympathetic to sharper and politically dangerous attacks on Islamic and Christian conversion. It is a delicate task to separate out two different Hindu criticisms of missionary activity. One is the current, openly articulated and ideological criticism, which works on denying the freedom of religionists to stand witness to their beliefs and to persuade others to join them. The second, deeper and often unarticulated disquiet in wider Hindu society concerns the fundamental presumption in missionary activity of a binary divide between the truth of one set of beliefs and the error (or incomplete truth) of all other sets. Hindus who are otherwise not supportive of militant political Hinduism nevertheless tend to think that the very statement of the missionary intent is incompatible with the idea of a pluralist society such as India. This disquiet has much to do with the emergence of a pan-Hindu sense of identity since the late nineteenth century, which itself was a reaction to the criticisms and power of the Western Christians of the British Empire in India (Jones 1998). It was then that the political philosophy of nationalism was sought to be applied to the Indian situation; there was uncertainty over whether the “nation” was Hindu or Indian. Over the course of a century a precarious equilibrium was reached between pan-Hindu identity and a pluralist Indian identity within which the former was to be subsumed. Hindus saw themselves as belonging to a religion called Hinduism that was demographically preponderant in India, while also learning to live with a state structure in which Hinduism was only one of many religions. Hindus came to think of themselves as belonging to one religion, while also acknowledging that there was a plurality of religions in India. The assertiveness of Hindu identity was curbed by situating Hinduism within a constitutional framework of plural religions, although always prone to erupting because of claims made by political leaders about the unfairness of that framework. In such a context, when missionary activity implicitly or explicitly challenges the normative nature of religious plurality, that very norm of pluralism is evoked to assert Hindu identity by criticizing present Christian and past Islamic conversion. Arguably, this way of thinking about the truth and error of religions is very much a modern phenomenon in Hindu society and tied to Christianity. But it is also read back into the centuries

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when Islam was spreading rapidly, even though traditional Hinduism did not then express resistance to it in the philosophical terms of pluralism. (Briefly, by pluralism I mean a commitment to self-constituted difference in society and the possibility of multiple values and commitments to truth that may not be compatible.) By reading back modern concerns about pluralism into the period when Islam was politically and demographically on the ascendant, the conclusion is reached that there is a fundamental incompatibility between Islam and Hinduism. Now, of course, the theological position of Islam in India has almost invariably been precisely that there is such an incompatibility. But some Hindus give a reason that appears to be distinctively Hindu, namely, that Hindu traditions are by nature pluralistic and the very history and growth of Islam in India shows that that pluralism is not— in theory—acceptable to Islam. A certain symmetry now comes into existence between Islamic and Hindu discomfort about the other: the complex interaction and multiple interreligious practices are devalued against the high theory of religious identity. Where the Muslim theorist draws on a theological commitment to the sole truth of his tradition, the Hindu theorist draws on a historico-philosophical reading of the irreducible plurality of his. I will eventually return to the question of Hinduism and pluralism in my prescriptive conclusion. But for now, the point to focus on is that the Hindu response to Islam in India is primarily political, i.e., concerning the relationship between power and society. Contemporary debates and challenges are political and mainly revolve around the question of how Muslims and Hindus should and can co-exist in India. That question is usually formulated in terms of Indian secularism. It is impossible to talk of the contemporary Hindu-Muslim relationship without evoking the special and problematic idea of Indian secularism. This is more proactive than the concept of the evacuation of religion from the public sphere that is common in Western thought. In the Indian constitutional dispensation, secularism is, first, the neutrality of the state towards the religions of the people (Galanter 1998: 234-67). But, apparently in consequence of this (although this does not necessarily follow), it is understood as the duty of the state to ensure equal treatment of the

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legal and other interpersonal requirements of the religions of the people. The particularly controversial expression of this duty has been the interpretation of it to mean the extension of special privileges to religions taken to be in need of protection, namely, the religions of the minorities—most notably, in the matter of personal law, Muslims. In the early period of Independent India, it was felt, particularly by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister, that, since British India had been partitioned into Islamic Pakistan and secular India, the Muslims who remained in India had to be reassured that they would not lose out on their religious provisions by staying in India. The political consensus that barely survived his life has withered away. The direct attack, of course, has come from Hindu nationalist ideologues who have argued that the special privileges of Muslims must go—based on the claim that no such privileges are needed in a nation-state whose culture is intrinsically Hindu and Hindu culture naturally being able to protect all people without recourse to constitutional fiat. (This is sometimes put, in deliberate inversion, in the form of the claim that Hinduism is itself secularism, i.e., that its advocacy of the equality of religions is tantamount to the constitutional dispensation (Shourie 1993: 22-71). Apart from the self-contradictory use of this thought to deny Muslims constitutional rights, this also raises the question of why, then, constitutional secularism should be replaced if it coheres with Hinduism after all. It usually turns out that the debate is not really about this abstract question of political philosophy but, again, about those privileges granted to Muslims and other minorities.) While Muslim figures have predictably argued for the retention of these privileges, they have a difficult time in deriving an argument rooted in the secular rhetoric of the Indian constitution. These privileges were really ad hoc measures for immediate political stability, whereas the internal logic of Indian secularism does indicate an eventual move towards common law and other ideal forms of neutrality. But that is the rub: the logic is directed towards an ideal state. The instrumental defense of secularism has come from people who contend that it is irrelevant whether they are Hindus or Muslims or even Indian (India is never lacking for Western ex cathedra intellectual intervention). The instrumental defense of special privileges to Muslims and other minorities is that, as a matter

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of fact, Hindu culture does dominate the public sphere (a supposedly anti-Hindu nationalist point that comes dangerously and inadvertently close to buying into the Hindu nationalist presumption) and so countervailing assurances must continue to be given. Furthermore, the instrumental defense also argues that Hindu nationalist criticism of secularism is an unscrupulous attempt to subjugate Islamic consciousness in India and not some highminded philosophical articulation of the proper national life (Sen 1996). This instrumental defense is polemical and tends to receive media attention, but it does not really address the possibility of a genuine critique of secularism that coincidentally shares some beliefs with Hindu nationalist ideologues yet is truly concerned to re-imagine India. In contrast to this debate over instrumentality, there is a more systematic one. A systematic anti-secular criticism is that Indian culture—of all religious traditions—is simply too permeated by religion to permit the removal of religion from state policy. Some way of explicitly recognizing and fulfilling a society full of religious sentiment must be developed, going beyond special privileges to privileging those sentiments in general, not of one religion but of all (Madan 1998; Nandy 1998). This does have a certain Hindu air to it, even if distant from militant ideological use, for it does appeal to the religious culture of India and that does mean, historically, drawing on Hindu and other Indic traditions, especially the (sometimes contested) history of communities where religious sentiment was both strong and pluralist (Thapar 1966: 319ff). Systematic secularism is not directly concerned with instrumental reasons for retaining protective privileges for minorities. Many thinkers have conventionally endorsed those instrumental reasons. Increasingly, however, both the theoretical weakness of those privileges, and worries about the Muslim leadership’s appeal to transnational, global Islamism (against the rooted Indian Islam of the community) has led even systematic secularists to assert that robust and proper neutrality is an ideal, however unlikely it is in the context of militant Hindu-Muslim relations. Let us set aside the instrumental secularist arguments that privileges for minorities serve to protect them, and that, at any rate, there should be no giving in to demands made by Hindu nationalists. The systematic secularist position has a greater bearing

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on the question of whether characterizations of Hindu views of Islam are possible. Secularists no longer argue, as Nehru and others did fifty years ago, that religion will become irrelevant and the state should not be constructed with religion in mind. Nowadays it is argued that secularism is needed precisely because religion is so important in the lives of the majority of Indians, since it can serve as a bulwark against excess and domination. Critics of secularism who are not Hindu nationalists, as mentioned, take precisely the opposite stand: the importance of religious sentiment makes secularism impossible. If there is to be a retention of some form of state neutrality (even if special, protective privileges ultimately go), a larger question remains: Why exactly should Hindus, who have an increasingly consolidated sense of a panHindu identity,6 not press for a dispensation in which there is legitimation of a culturally dominant discourse? How can Hindus be made to see that India should remain secular? Attempting any answers to these questions involves, importantly, questions about Islam (and, in closely related ways that we cannot go into here, about Christianity). Negotiated Pluralism: a Prescriptive Perspective Minimally, the continuation of an Indian political dispensation (i.e., secularism) that resists legally privileging Hindu culture must depend on the supererogatory commitment of Hindus to anti-majoritarianism. By majoritarianism I mean the inscription of certain values, presumed to be derived from a relatively self-identifiable demographic group that is in the majority, on society as a whole (through legal, political, cultural and other procedures).7 In other words, there must be a consolidation of a pan-Hindu attitude to the effect that Islam (and Christianity) must be allowed their difference, not on Hindu terms but their own. Essentially, to argue that there are indeed no coherent pan-Hindu 6

Pointing to a complex and more fragmented history is quite beside the point; as if history should stand still in India, as if Europe is generally measured in terms of its medieval socio-religious structures. 7

This has not been sufficiently recognized by Western commentators who, after all, live in a culture dominated by majoritarian liberalism that despite, its material prosperity, still struggles to accommodate value pluralism.

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values or that no pan-Hindu classification should ever have emerged is to miss the point; a complex of transformative forces has led to the emergence of just such an identity, even if it is diffuse, absent in sections of society and diversely articulated. And to fail to acknowledge what an extraordinary achievement in the global scheme of things it would be for Hindus to remain content with pluralism is to do an injustice to those Hindus who would be ready to undertake the task. The key to the future, then, lies in finding ways of motivating a genuine anti-majoritarian pluralism amongst Hindus, ranging from the urban post-liberalization elite through semi-urban jobseekers to agricultural workers and radicalized, newly Hinduized tribals. The reductivist strategy would be to go some way towards Hindu acceptance of pluralism by securing economic growth in India. It might well be the case that the growth of a militant majoritarian sentiment in politics has been due to competition for resources, rather than any lurch into a novel form of Hindu religio-cultural exclusivism (Ram-Prasad 2003: 179-84). In that case, changes in Hindu attitudes to Muslims may be a function of economic correction. But in the context of our present discussions, the possibility of a more religio-philosophical approach should also be considered. The deep need, it could be argued, is for an intellectual movement that works with rather than against the transformation of Hindu traditions into modern Hinduism. That is to say, Hindu acceptance of pluralism in Indian society today cannot be encouraged through saying that, historically, there is no ground for Hindus to deny plurality as there was no single or non-plural Hinduism in the first place. But talking of Hindu pluralism is a difficult task, since some Hindus manage to evoke precisely the idea of a historically plural Hindu culture to resist a genuinely anti-majoritarian pluralism. They start with the assumption of a historically unified Hinduism and then, attempting to reconcile it with the undeniable fact of plural Hindu traditions, claim that Hinduism is unified precisely by the doctrine of pluralism. Having then asserted that Hinduism is intrinsically committed to pluralism, they argue that, since Islam and Christianity lack this doctrine, they must be subsumed into Hinduism. In order to remain true to pluralism, it would seem, there is a need to over-

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come it.8 This is what draws criticism from historians of religion who point to an absence of any such recognizable doctrine across Hindu traditions. The challenge, then, is over how to use the resources in Hindu traditions for a contemporary reworking of pluralism which encourages Hindus to find accommodation with Islam in India. On one side lies the danger of asserting pluralism to the extent of creating a historical image of a permanently fragmented Hindu culture, but such a supposedly anti-Hindu nationalist assertion refuses to recognise modern pan-Hindu developments. On the other side is the danger of using pluralism as a doctrine that paradoxically requires putatively non-pluralistic traditions and values to be given up.9 What is required is a way of acknowledging that the Hindu past is marked by the fact of pluralism although not a doctrine of pluralism. The fact of pluralism is evident in that there was no theologically hegemonistic theorization from common authority across communities and traditions. This may have been due to a lack of the capacity for universalization or it may have been the result of a cumulatively nuanced recognition of the diversity of the human condition. We need not, for our present purposes, adjudicate on that. The fact is that pluralism existed and that that pluralism meant there was no unifying doctrine. But why does that have to imply that this classical, thoroughgoing commitment to pluralism— in the ontologically intriguing form of an absence of hegemonistic authority—cannot be rendered intrinsic to modern pan-Hinduism? Yes, there might now be an irreversible emergence of a pan-Hindu religion, but the novelty of that development does not preclude the retention of the practice—the facticity—of pluralism. Neither the history of a plural Hindu past 8

This line of thought stretches from nationalist social reformers like Swami Vivekananda to contemporary Hindutva ideologues. It is made for often different reasons but is nowadays drawing the attention of commentators (Basu 2002). 9

It should be noted that the same move is made in Western liberalism, where it is so identified with a set of values that it is illiberally required to deny values held to be inconsistent. Just ignoring diversity becomes a powerful expression of exclusivist liberalism (e.g., Rawls 1993: 29ff).

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nor the reality of a present pan-Hindu identity is denied. Neither the lack of a historical doctrine of plurality nor the possibility of putting such a doctrine to contemporary use is denied. The suggestion, then, is that there should be a way of encouraging Hindus both to see plurality as historically part of their identity and to understand that that practice, to be true to that history, must not be inverted to anti-pluralistic ends. To be Hindu must be to accept the co-presence of Islam (or Christianity) in India and that acceptance cannot be on the terms of Hindus. To be thus would be to be truly Hindu, and while a recognition by pontificating Westerners of the scope of this attitude might be pleasant, need not be waited upon. Now, it should be noted, in conclusion, that realism and ethicality require an exploration of what it would be for Muslims or Christians to be accepted by Hindus as Indian on their own terms. The problem has lain in the fact that both religionists (Muslims and Christians) and secularists have argued that those terms amount to “being different and not giving reasons (to Hindus) for being so” (Chatterjee 1998: 374). Being different has meant the right to pursue non-negotiably lines of action that are of concern to Hindus. That cannot, logically, be sustained. If the principle of pluralism requires non-negotiable, non-justified assertion of what is held important, then that would, in symmetrical return, allow Hindus to pursue a demographically charged hegemony. So, pluralism must be negotiable, if it is to be stable. While the disreputable and violent use of Muslim difference by militant Hindus has muddied the waters of negotiated pluralism, the abstract commitment to negotiation and compromise must be kept as an ideal. For example, if commitment to Islam is supposed to include the pursuit of an Islamic state—and it should be noted that there is no majority Islamic state which has the secular values that are enshrined and still legally binding in India – then, that is a difference too far for Hindus, for it would imply that their right to difference is held insignificant (even if they are allowed, say, the status of dhimmi (non-Muslims who retain rights after paying a special tax)). In this plea for negotiated pluralism (to spell out which I would require a quite different paper) the secular framework of the Indian constitution still provides an ideal platform. The thrust of this conclusion has been that Indian secularism need not be seen as incompatible with Hindu values, if Hindus do seek

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reference to their culture. How it would non-instrumentally, philosophically, work for Muslims or Christians, is another question. Bibliography Ahmed, Aziz. (1969). An Intellectual History of Islam in India. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Basu, Sushmita. (2002). Religious Revivalism as Nationalist Discourse: Swami Vivekananda and New Hinduism in Nineteenth Century Bengal, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bayly, Susan. (1986). “Islam in Southern India: ‘Purist’ or ‘Syncretic’?” In: C.A. Bayly and D.H.A. Kolfff (eds.). Two Colonial Empires. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. Pp. 35-73. (1989). Saints, Goddesses and Kings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Desika Char, S.V. (1997). Hinduism and Islam in India. Princeton: Marcus Wiener. Chatterjee, Partha. (1998). “Secularism and Tolerance.” In: Rajeev Bhargava (ed.). Secularism and its Critics. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pp. 345-79 Gaborieau, Marc. (1972). “Muslims in the Hindu kingdom of Nepal.” Contributions to Indian Sociology. N.s. 6: 84-105 Gallanter, Marc. (1998). “Secularism East and West.” In: Rajeev Bhargava (ed.). Secularism and its Critics. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pp. 234-67. Halbfass, Wilhelm. (1988). India and Europe. Albany: State University of New York Press. Hardy, Peter. (1982). “Islam and Muslims in South Asia.” In: R. Israeli (ed.). The Crescent in the East. London: Humanities Press. Pp. 36-61. Jones, Kenneth W. (1998). “The Negative Component of Hindu Consciousness.” In: G.A. Oddie (ed.). Religious Traditions in South Asia. Richmond: Curzon Press. Pp. 65-80. Kakar, Sudhir. (1982) Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions. New York: Alfred Knopf. Kalki (R. Krishnamurthy). (1999). Ponniyin Selvan. Transl. C. V. Karthik Narayanan. Chennai: Macmillan. Lorenzen, David N. (1991). Kabir Legends. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Madan, T.N. (1998). “Secularism in Its Place.” In: Rajeev Bhargava (ed.). Secularism and its Critics. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pp. 297-320 Majumdar, R.C. (1964). The Delhi Sultanate. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. McLeod, W.H. (1989). The Sikhs: History, Religion and Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Nandy, Ashis. (1998). “The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Toleration.”In: Rajeev Bhargava (ed.). Secularism and its Critics. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pp. 321-44 Narayanan, Vasudha. (2001). “The Strains of Hindu-Muslim Relations: Babri Masjid, Music and Other Areas Where the Traditions Cleave.” In: A. Sharma (ed.). Hinduism and Secularism After Ayodhya. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Pp. 159-202 (1984). “Arcavatara: On Earth, as He is in Heaven.” In: Joanne P. Waghorne et al. (eds.). Gods of Flesh, Gods of Stone: The Embodiment of Divinity in India. Cheambersberg: Anima Books. Pp. 53-66. Pande, Susmita. (1989). The Medieval Bhakti Movement. Meerut: Kusumanjali Prakashan. Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi. (2003). “Being Hindu and/or Governing India? Religion Social Change and the State.” In: G. ter Haar and J.J. Busuttil (eds.). The Freedom to do God’s Will: Religious Fundamentalism and Social Change. London: Routledge. Pp. 159-96 Ranade, R.D. (1983). Mysticism in India: The Poet-Saints of Maharashtra. Albany: State University of New York Press. Rawls, John. (1993). Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press. Roy Choudhuri, M.L. (1961). The State and Religion in Mughal India. Calcutta: Calcutta University Press. Saberwal, Satish. (1999). “Elements of Communalism.” In: T.N. Madan (ed.). Religion in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pp. 339-50. Sen, Amartya. (1996). “Secularism and Its Discontents.” In: K. Basu and S. Subrahmanyam (eds.). Unravelling the Nation: Sectarian Conflict in India. Delhi: Penguin India. Pp. .11-43 Shourie, Arun. (1993). Indian Controversies: Essays on Religions in Politics. New Delhi: ASA Publications. Stewart, Charles and Rosalind Shaw. (1994). Syncretism and Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis. London: Routledge. Thapar, Romila. (1966). A History of India: From the Discovery of India to 1526. Vol. I. Bombay: Oxford University Press.

Muslims’ View of Hindus in the Past and Present Asghar Ali Engineer Abstract Since the British colonial period there has been controversy regarding how Muslims viewed Hindus in India. Since the British followed the policy of divide and rule, they distorted history and created conflict between the two major communities in India. The Hindu leaders (particularly of communal orientation) began to propagate the view that Muslim rulers and ‘ulama treated Hindus as kafirs and humiliated them by converting them by force and destroyed their temples. This is a rather simplistic view of a complex problem. Different rulers pursued different policies which suited their interests. Their policies were based on their politics, not on their religion. They would invoke religion to justify their policy but did not base their policies on religious terachings. The Muslim theologians (‘ulama) also differed on such issues. The sufis of the Chishtiya school were very open to other religions, particularly towards Hindus. They not only interacted with them but also adopted many of their practices. The sufis were much more popular among the Muslim population than the ‘ulama who tended to be too legalistic in their approach. Some ‘ulama were quite liberal and refrained from denouncing Hindus as kafirs, even though many did. The issue should be seen in its complexity.

Hindu-Muslim Relations in the Pre-Colonial Period Muslims came to India both from the south and from the north. From the south the Muslim Arabs came as traders via the Malabar Coast, whereas from the north they came as invaders and conquerors. The Arabs had engaged in trade on the Malabar Coast long before Islam and, after their conversion to Islam, these Arabs continued their trade as before. Some of them settled down 197

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on the Kerala Coast, married local women, learned the local language and assimilated into the culture (see Engineer 1995b). There was no conflict with the local population; on the contrary, they received cooperation from local rulers since they brought trade and prosperity. However, it was different in the case of the Muslims entering from the north. Muslims entered northern India with the invasion of Muhammad bin Qasim, a young Arab general who attacked Sindh primarily to punish Raja Dahir of Sindh for not taking action against the pirates who had looted some Arab dhows. He defeated Raja Dahir and left again, after punishing the local rulers. However, it is important to note that, after consultation, the Umayyad caliph and the ‘ulama in Damascus treated Hindus as ahl al-kitab i.e. people of the book, negotiated jizyah (a tax ordained by the Qur’an to be imposed on those who have a written revelation like the Tanakh, the Bible, etc.) and drew up a peace treaty with them. The fact that Muhammad bin Qasim treated Hindus as ahl alkitab was a measure of good will towards Hindus. He did not treat them as kafirs. Ahl al-Kitab are those who possess truth from Allah, whereas kafirs are those who refuse to accept any form of truth. Once Islam was established in India a large number of ‘ulama (Muslim theologians) and sufi saints streamed into this country. By the twelfth century Muslim rule was established in northern India and various attitudes were developing towards local populace. Some ‘ulama treated Hindus as kafirs but certainly not all of them. Similarly, the sufis, particularly of the Chishtiya order, were very open and liberal towards other faiths and they had established good rapport with their Hindu counterparts. They even believed in assimilating local customs and traditions. Khwaja Hasan Nizami, who was the sajjada nashin (successor) of the great sufi saint Nizamuddin Awliyah, wrote an interesting book Fatimi Da‘wat-e-Islam (Delhi: n.d.) which is a rich source for showing how Chishtiyah Sufis assimilated some of the local Hindu customs and traditions and gave them Islamic form. Nizami describes in detail how the Chishti saints used the Hindu temple’s annual rituals like the sandal procession and washing the idols with that sandal. The idol was, of course, replaced by the grave of the sufi saint. Many similar Hindu rituals

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were adopted by the sufis (Khwaja Hasan Nizami 1338 A.H.). This could be termed a “dialogue of life” between Hindus and Muslims in India. In addition, there were many Muslim scholars who were deeply interested in studying the Hindu scriptures. Al-Beruni, for example, who came with Mahmud of Ghazna, stayed behind and studied Hindu scriptures like Ramayana and Mahabharata in the original Sanskrit and wrote a scholarly book Kitab al-Hind (English: The Book of India). Al-Beruni appreciated the Hindu philosophical systems greatly and commented in a scholarly way on Hindu philosophy (Al-Beruni 1983). It should be noted that the problem of the Muslim attitude towards Hindus in India was an extremely complex one. Today the Hindu right in India oversimplifies it and claims that Muslims treated Hindus with contempt, condemned them as kafirs and converted them to Islam by the sword. This is far from true. This is, in fact, a multilayered problem and has to be treated carefully. In my opinion, it has to be discussed on three levels: 1) the treatment of Hindus by Muslim rulers, 2) their treatment by Muslim theologians (i.e. ‘ulama) and, finally, 3) the treatment of Hindus by sufis. One should also take into account the one-onone contacts, i.e. contacts between ordinary Hindus and ordinary Muslims. The rulers had their own logic. Their attitude was not determined fundamentally by their religious beliefs but either by their political or other complex considerations. They were at war with some Hindu rulers and had political alliances with some others. They also had many vassals and Hindu nobles in their courts. They gave them jagirs (i.e. landed estates) and allowed them to keep their own soldiers. These Muslim rulers also had Hindu (rajput) soldiers in their armies. Hardly any Muslim ruler had a completely Muslim army. Thus it was mixed armies which fought the wars, and Hindu and Muslim soldiers fought shoulder to shoulder. Similarly, the Hindu rulers also had mixed armies of Muslims and Hindus. The ‘ulama were basically guided by their theological considerations, but many could compromise these considerations in view of their personal interests. Also, there was no unanimity among all theologians on the treatment of non-Muslims. They had highly differing positions on this question. However, most of

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the ‘ulama agree that the Qur’an requires that, apart from one’s own non-Muslim parents and other relatives, a Muslim should behave cordially towards non-Muslim orphans, the poor and needy, neighbours and slaves and any misconduct towards them was condemned. The Qur’an also requires good conduct towards non-Muslim prisoners (Umrti 1998). Most of the eminent companions of the Prophet and theologians like Abdullah bin Abbas, Allama Abu Ubayd, Imam Qurtabi, Imam Tabari and Abu Bakr Jassas maintain that one should behave decently towards non-Muslim prisoners and should not mistreat them (Umriti 1998: 42-44). However, there were some instances in which the Muslim rulers killed their prisoners of war or blinded them, or, in some cases, even forced them to convert to Islam. But such behavior was motivated by their political deeds and had nothing to do with religious injunctions. For that matter, some Muslim rulers destroyed Hindu temples, even though the Qur’an does not permit such atrocious acts. The Qur’an clearly states, “Our Lord is Allah. And if Allah did not repel some people by others, cloisters, and churches, and synagogues, and mosques in which Allah’s name is much remembered, would have been pulled down” (22:40 ).1 Similarly, there are other pronouncements in the Qur’an against abusing the gods of others, because they can abuse Allah. Thus the Qur’an says, “And abuse not those whom they call upon besides Allah, lest, exceeding the limits, they abuse Allah through ignorance.” The Qur’an, furthermore, makes a more important statement: “Thus to every people have We made their deeds fair-seeming” (6:109). Even with people of the book the Qur’an advises Muslims to put their best foot forward. It says: And argue not with the People of the Book except by what is best, save such of them as act unjustly. But say: We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you, and our God and your God is One, and to Him we submit (29:46)

But the rulers and even the ‘ulamas had their own considerations and interests in behaving otherwise. Neither the Qur’an nor Islam

1

This and other quotes from the Qur’an are taken from Maulana Muhammad Ali’s English translation (1973)

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can be blamed for what they did. They themselves should be held accountable for what they did; no one else can be. It is true that, when attacking Hindu temples, some invaders or rulers invoked Islam to justify their own politically motivated acts. However, we should not be misled by such attempts. One needs to study the whole situation and the ruler’s motives closely. One good example is Mahmud of Ghazna attacking the Somenath temple and plundering its wealth; his court historians and other Persian chroniclers justified this act in the name of Islam. But it is highly doubtful whether Mahmud was motivated by his devotion to Islam. This has been very well brought out by the noted historian, Romila Thaper, in her excellent work Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History. Through meticulous research she shows effectively in this work the complex motives that guided Mahmud in his attack. They had nothing to do with religious hostility (Thapar 2004). Such examples can be multiplied. But communalist forces in India today are using these political acts by Muslim rulers and invaders to fuel hate politics against Muslims in India. In fact this question, as pointed out above, is too complex to be oversimplified. We have to examine the attitudes of various sections of Muslim society towards Hindus. The sufis, especially of Chishtiya School were very open and liberal towards Hindus. Baba Farid (1173-1265), a Chishti saint who wrote in Punjab language is still highly respected by the Sikh community. There is a chair in his name at Punjab University, Chandigarh, where extensive research in Sufism is done. Shaikh Farid advised his disciples to nurture generosity and honesty in all human relationships. He believed in non-violence as the only method for resolving differences in social life. Through his own behavior he demonstrated that pacifism and non-violence in the cult of the strong and not as the defence of the weak. The holy scripture of Sikhs contains the following saying by the guru Granth Sahib: Farid, return thou good for evil, Bear no revenge in thy heart: Thus will thy body be free of maladies, And thy life blest. (see Talib 1975: 31)

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Baba Farid used to say “Having one heart is better than speaking one language” (Talib 1975: 31). Baba Farid was very a popular saint among all, irrespective of religion, caste and ethnicity. All bowed before him with the same reverence. Similarly, another Chishtiya saint, Hamiduddin Nagauri of Nagaur, Rajasthan, respected the sentiments of Hindus around him so much that he gave up eating meat and became a strict vegetarian, even instructing his disciples not to speak to him on days when they ate meat. He also kept a cow with him, because cows were highly venerated by the Hindus. The Chishtiya sufis were followers of the doctrine of Wahdat al-Wujud (“Unity of Being”) first propounded by the great eleventh- century sufi Ibn Al-Arabi. In Persian this is translated as hama u ast i.e. “He is all.” This doctrine implies that real being is God and all are manifestations of Him. This doctrine demolishes all walls of separation between people of one faith and those of another. Ibn Arabi called his heart a “Centre of Love” and hence a church, a synagogue, a temple and a mosque. Thus the Chishtiya sufis built bridges between Hindus and Muslims and helped develop a mixed culture. Nizamuddin Awliyah, another great sufi saint buried in Delhi was close to Baba Farid. He spent few years with him and then settled down near Delhi. He too was very open to other faiths, especially the Hindu faith. According to Khaliq Nizami, the following two principles guided Nizamuddin Awliha’s socioreligious approach. 1) The murids (disciples) were expected to seek the blessings of God through service to His creatures. Service to humankind was considered by the Sheikh to be of greater spiritual significance than mere formal prayers and penitence. 2) Baba Farid’s ideals of love and amity in society were to inspire the lives of all those associated with the silsilah (the chain of Chishti saints). Attempts were to be made to unite people rather than to divide them. There was to be no discrimination between one human being and another. All were to be treated as children of God (Nazimi 1991: 56). Thus, from the above two principles it can be seen how liberal and humane the approach of these Chishti Sufi saints was. In fact, most of the low caste Hindus, insulted and treated as untouchables by upper caste Hindus, were attracted to these sufi

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saints who treated them with equal honor and dignity and converted to Islam. It is no wonder then that a large number of Muslims in southern Asia are low caste Hindu converts. That is why there is so much poverty and illiteracy among them. Although their religion changed, their economic status did not. The Chishti saints kept away from the rulers whom they considered to be tyrants and exploiters. Nizamddin Auliyah followed this meticulously and never sought to be received at court. He instructed his senior disciples: “You will not go to the doors of kings and will not seek their rewards” (Siyar-u’l Aulya: 295, 204 etc.; quoted in Khaliq Ahmad Nizami 1991: 103). Nizamuddin survived several sultans but never sought the attention of any of them. He had resolved early in his life to follow the path set by his spiritual master. When Sultan Jalaluddin Khalji offered him some villages for the expenses of his khanqah (hospice), Nizamuddin refused, saying it was not proper for a darwesh (mendicant) to have orchards and villages to look after. When Jalaluddin sought a interview with the sheikh, he politely declined. The Sultan then thought of visiting the khanqah without informing the sheikh. “My house has two doors,” remarked the sheikh, “if the Sultan enters by one, I will make my exit by the other” (Nazimi 1991: 105). These sufi masters did not want to be seen as courtiers of these rulers. Amir Khusrau, a great poet and musician, was Nizamuddin Auliya’s closest disciple. He wrote several volumes of poetry. He, too, was very open and liberal towards other faiths. He was a popular poet as well. He wrote not only in Persian but also in Brij Bhasha (a local dialect) and evolved a new genre of poetry composing one line of the verse in Persian and one line in Brij Bhasha. His couplets are very popular in northern India even today. Khusrau was a very important representative of composite culture in India. Although he was a first-generation Muslim in India, he was very proud of being Indian and wrote an essay praising India and comparing it favorably with all other countries. Although technically shari’ah law forbids music, the sufis were very fond of listening to devotional music, called sama‘, and would become ecstatic while listening to it. Khusrau composed qawwalis (a kind of devotional poetry sung impromptu and accompanied by music) to which Nizamuddin used to listen. These qawwalis were based on Indian music, rather than Arabic or Per-

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sian. India produced great Muslim musicians throughout the medieval period and there are great musicians among Muslims still today. One of the sufi saints belonging to Qadiriyah silsilah—which is not as liberal as the Chishtya—Mirza Mazhar Jan-Janan declared Hindus to be ahl al-kitab. He maintained that Vedas possessed by the Hindus were divinely revealed books and he maintains that they should not be called kafirs (unbelievers). Since Allah had stated in the Qur’an that He sent His messengers to all nations, He sent them to India as well. He compares Hindu idol worship with sufi masters and distinguishes it from the preIslamic idol worship of the Arab unbelievers, who worshiped idols as gods in themselves rather than a means to reach God (see Anjum 1989: 133-34). Thus throughout the medieval period the relations between Hindus and Muslims were quite cordial and Muslims treated Hindu religion with respect and even engaged in dialogue with their religious leaders. The Moghul emperor Akbar institutionalized this practice and used to gather scholars and theologians of different religions and listen to them with great interest. He even attempted to establish a syncretic religion, Din-e-Ilahi, but did not succeed in this. Dara Shikoh, a Moghul prince who was appointed his successor by Shah Jahan but lost the throne to his brother Aurangzeb, was a great scholar of both Islam and Hinduism and wrote excellent works on both religions. His Majma‘ul Bahrain (“The Co-mingling of Two Oceans,” i.e. Hinduism and Islam) (see Dara Shikoh 1982) is considered a classic on the subject. Thus it is not correct to say that the two religions clashed in India and that there were no other trends. Colonial and Contemporary India However, the situation began to change with the beginning of the colonial period towards the end of eighteenth century. Although relations between the common people remained the same, the elite of the two communities began to distance themselves from each other as conflict developed between them on questions of sharing government jobs and political power. The conflict was not religious, but, as usual, religion was invoked to legitimize the

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conflict. Thus many misunderstood this conflict as religious even though it was essentially political. Throughout the medieval period one does not find any communal violence, although two riots did occur in the early eighteenth century in Ahmedabad. Communal riots became, however, a regular feature of British India in the nineteenth century. A section of the Hindu elite thought British rule meant liberation from “slavery” to Muslim rulers. This being in the interests of the British, the latter strongly encouraged this trend in order to consolidate their own rule in India. They commissioned two British officers, Eliot and Dowson, to rewrite Indian history so as to promote conflict between Hindus and Muslims. These two writers thus wrote the history of Muslim rule with the purpose of promoting conflict between the two communities.2 The stories of attacking and destroying temples were not part of the popular consciousness of medieval India. It was only when such stories were published in newspapers during the British period in the nineteenth century and subsequently taught in history books in government schools established by the British rulers that they did become part of the popular consciousness. The nationalist leaders heading the freedom movement were confronted with the communal problem but found it extremely challenging to resolve. Various communal organizations encouraged directly or indirectly by the British rulers came into existence, further exacerbating the problem. But the confrontation was political, not religious. There were no theological disputes involved. All disputes were invariably political in nature. This confrontation—not surprisingly—was led on both sides of the divide by modernists and not theologians. The theories of Hindu rashtra (nation) and Islamic nation were propounded by modernists like Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and M.A. Jinnah. Both were modernists and quite indifferent to religion. In fact both worked for modern reforms. Thus the Hindu Rashtra movement was never led by Shankara, the highest religious authority among the Hindus nor were the Muslims led by the ‘ulama. It is interesting to note that in the nineteenth century, when the Indian National Congress was formed, Muslim modernists 2

There is a vast amount of literature on this subject. See Engineer 1995a.

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like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan opposed Muslim participation in this congress, while an eminent theologian, Maulana Qasim Ahmad Nanotvi, urged Muslims to join and fight the British. He issued a fatwa (religious opinion) to this effect and wrote many such fatwas in a book called Nusrat al-Ahrar (“For the Help of Freedom Fighters”) (see Engineer 1995a). The partition movement in early 1940s was also opposed by all Muslim theologians. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, an eminent ‘alim and Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, a renowned theologian and then president of Jami‘at al-‘Ulama-i-Hind (Organization of Islamic Theologians of India) both opposed the partition movement on religious grounds. Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani even wrote a well-argued book against the two-nation theory (Madani: n.d.). The Maulana argued in his book that separate religions does not mean separate nationalities. Nationality is co-terminus with territory and both believers and non-believers in Islam can share the same territory and hence the same nationality. He quoted the Qur’an to show that the prophets and their followers shared the same territory and nationality with those who refused to believe in them. The Qur’an is full of such verses, several of which Hussain Ahmad quotes in his book. Partition had no religious justification. It was a political issue and the reasons for partition were purely political. Contemporary India and Hindu-Muslim Relations There are no theological debates in contemporary India between Hindus and Muslims, although the communal problem very much persists. The communalists keep raking up religious controversies as well but without the involvement of religious authorities. One troubling problem is the concept of kafir. Most Hindus take it as a contemptuous term for Hindus as idol worshipers. It is true that many ordinary Muslims, without any deeper knowledge of Islamic theology, use the word to describe Hindus. However, the Qur’an does not used this word for Hindus at all but for those Arabs who refused to accept the message of Allah sent through His Messenger. Even the Prophet’s own uncle —Abu Lahab—was denounced as a kafir by the Qur’an (chapter

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III, p.1217). It is a highly controversial matter among Muslims as to who is a kafir and who is not. Muslims often denounce other Muslims as kafirs if they disagree on theological matters. We have shown above that Muhammad bin Qasim did not treat the Hindus of Sindh as kafirs but as ahl al-kitab (people of the Book) and many sufi saints treated Hindus as having revealed truth in the form of Vedas and other shastras. However, this is, unfortunately, not common knowledge. Moreover, it is also exploited by communalist forces to create anti-Muslim feelings. Among Muslims there is no unanimity as to who can be called a kafir. There are several schools of thought. Another troubling concept is that of dar al-harb, i.e. India as an abode of war. There is no authentic religious opinion available on this question. Neither is it a Qur’anic concept. Some Islamic jurists had developed categories like dar al-harb and dar al-Islam (the abode of Islam). Those countries where Islam was the religion of the majority and Islamic rule was present were called dar al-Islam and those where Muslims were in the minority and not at peace with the majority were categorized as dar al-harb. But Muslim ‘ulama never referred to India as dar al-harb, except for a brief period when it was under British rule. In fact, the Hanafi jurists (majority of Muslims in India follow Hanafi school of law) categorized India as dar al-aman i.e. abode of peace. Ordinary Muslims have always co-existed with Hindus in peace and harmony. It is only political interests that rake up communal controversies to polarize Hindus and Muslims politically for their own interests. Recently, a political party of the Hindu right brought up the temple-mosque controversy in order to create hostility between Hindus and Muslims, so that they could win an election with the help of Hindu votes. The carnage in Gujarat in 2002 was also the result of this politics of communal confrontation. Mahatma Gandhi always emphasized tolerance and mutual respect, and he was a great symbol of communal harmony and peaceful co-existence between various religious communities in India. He was born and brought up in Gujarat and, unfortunately, this state in western India has become a bastion of communalism and hate politics today. Gujarat produced many syncretic communities in the Middle Ages and it was a place of tolerance.

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Modern democratic politics is being misused for promoting religious hatred to win elections. India is and will hopefully remain a secular country despite the machinations of the communalist forces. The people of India are politically quite mature and once again defeated the forces of hatred in the last general elections. All those who believe in interreligious harmony are doing their best to keep India a land of religious tolerance. Bibliography Anjum, Khaliq. (Transl. and Compiler). (1989). Mirza Jan: Janan ke Khtut. Delhi: Maktaba Burhan, Urdu Bazar, Jama Masjid. Al-Beruni. (1983). The Book of India. Transl. and ed. Edward Sachau. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher Pvt. Ltd. Dara Shikoh, Prince Muhammad. (1982). Majma‘-ul-Bahrain or The Mingling of The Two Oceans. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society. Engineer, Asghar Ali. (1995a). Communalism in India: A Historical and Empirical Study. Delhi: Vikas Publisher. (ed). (1995b). The Kerala Muslims. Delhi: Adjanta Book International. Madani, Maulana Husain Ahmad. (N.d.). Muttaheda Qaumiyyat aur Islam. Delhi. Nizami, Khwaja Hasan (1338 A.H.). Fatimi Da‘wat-e-Islam. Delhi. Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad. (1991). The Life and Times of Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya. Delhi. Talib, Gurbachansingh (ed.). (1975). Perspectives on Sheikh Farid. Baba Farid Memorial Society. Thapar, Romila. (2004). Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History. Calcutta: Penguin. Umrti, Saiyyid Jalaluddin. (1998). Ghayr Muslimon se Ta‘ulluqat aur un ke Huqooq. Aligarh.

Hinduism and Buddhism as Ways of Faith A Reappraisal Nitin J. Vyas Abstract There is an inseparable and unbroken relationship between Hinduism and Buddhism in the context of a broad legacy of ancient Indian culture. Buddhism originated in India as the fulfilling of a spiritual need in Hinduism at the time. It influenced Hinduism, initially as well as later indirectly, even when it disappeared from India as a widely practiced faith. No doubt it could not transform the basic theological roots of dynamic Hinduism in India. Still, along with its distinct missionary zeal as well as the impact of liberal Hinduism, Buddhism could spread far and wide beyond India. The place of Buddhism in India is the same today as it was in past.

Introduction Looking at the phenomenon of the great Buddha and Buddhism as a Hindu is, indeed, more difficult than a Buddhist reflecting on Hinduism. There is a family relationship between these two faiths. This relationship is so intimate that present-day Buddhists outside India may find it incredible. The Buddhist faith has spread to many south Asian countries with different cultures. It is at variance with Hinduism as the latter exists in India. The former can look at Hinduism more neutrally and rationally than Hinduism can at Buddhism. In other words, as a faith, Hinduism is a distinct religion or a tag attached to romantic “Spiritual India” for most of the followers of Buddhism outside India. However, the same does not obtain for how the Buddha and Buddhism are perceived by the followers of Hinduism. Whereas other religions native to India, e. g. Jainism and Sikhism and even faiths 209

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of external origin, such as Christianity, Islam and even the minor Persian faith Zoroastrianism, have had a strong following for centuries—whatever the percentage may be—it is indeed incredible that Buddhism does not exist in the land of its origin. With reference to the distinct place that Buddhism as a faith is able to achieve in the spiritual community of faiths, its absence from India signifies a cogent irony within the unbroken and inseparable relationship of Hinduism and Buddhism as faiths. The Unique Cultural Spirit of India Already in the earliest theological scriptural sources in the Indian religious traditions, i.e. the Vedas and Upanishads, Hinduism did not endorse any sectarian religious specificity of outlook. “Let noble thoughts come to us from all directions” (“Aa no bhadra kritavo yantuh vishwatah” Rigveda I.89.I) was the declaration that the Veda sounded plainly since the beginning. It also clearly proclaimed that truth manifests itself in many ways (“ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti,” Rigveda I.164.46). Besides recognizing all modes of worship, Hinduism also considers all ways of approaching Ultimate Reality to be legitimate. This democratic outlook denied any monopoly on the form of thought. It is a religious vision and a practical attitude aiming at rapport between knowledge and action. The unity and oneness of this cultural spirit is reflected in the ethical goal of Hinduism which brooks no division between the sacred and the secular, the one and the many. It is a path seeking an unbroken harmony in the apparent diversity of views of the nature of the Supreme Being. Hence, Hinduism has spontaneously recognized different forms of religious belief. There is a liberal toleration of both believers and nonbelievers. That is why the advent of the great Buddha (ca. 563-483 BC) is not something strange for Hinduism. This is not to deny the acquisition of a new religious identity by Buddhism. Buddhists developed their own personal and social customs in their religious outlook. Despite this distinctiveness of Buddhism as a religion in distant countries, the influence of Hinduism on Buddhist philosophy and teaching cannot be gainsaid. The openness of Hindu religious insight has lent Buddhism a

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depth of understanding with a unique religio-cultural inheritance of its own. This inseparable continuity between these two faiths is vividly described by a renowned Hindu thinker “that another religion other than his own was the fulfillment of Hinduism” (cf. Dasgupta 1995: 39). In the same line Swami Vivekananda further concludes that “Hinduism cannot live without Buddhism nor Buddhism without Hinduism” (Dasgupta 1995: 38). Basic Perspectives of Hindu Theology Vedas and Upanishads as Sources of Tradition Hinduism is a religion of the people of Hindustan, present-day India. It was also a geographical reference used by outsiders for those living near the river “Sindhu.” Basically, Hinduism is also known as an eternal religion (sanatana dharma), for it has no rigidly controlled authoritarian structures. It has always been open to the ideas of incarnations and seers of paths as well. The Vedic and Upanishadic traditions have been the fountainhead of this religious Hinduism. The adherents of Hinduism belong to one or another tradition with its roots in early Vedic and Upanishadic lore. Hinduism is a matter of discovering the truth of one’s theological creed by oneself and realizing the same in one’s life. Religious acts of worship and rituals, beliefs and myths existed both in Vedic and pre-Vedic times as well. They have been the expression of basic human aspirations in devotional hymns to higher natural forces, gods and human beings. Etymologically, the root of the word “Veda” is vid, i.e. knowledge. Through the quest for what is eternal and ephemeral, it sought the summum bonum of life. Its knowledge is not founded on faith or revelation but on the basis of direct intuitive experience (darsan) of a higher knowledge (para vidya). It contemplates the inner human consciousness as it is in communion with the Supreme Metaphysical Being. It is later Upanishadic thought which liberated Vedic thought from an objective quest for reality to a subjective quest for it. Upanishadic thought is a philosophical reaction to the excessive ritualistic activities of the Vedic Brahminic traditions. The Upanishads aimed at realizing the Self within and without and not merely praying to gods and goddesses. It marked the period of

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progress from polytheism to monotheism and from monotheism to monism par excellence. This higher religious quest in the Upanishads is to seek the immortal and ever free Real Self behind the finite self. Even in this quest for the higher divine self this divinity is realized in the nature of the world outside. It is a godly state of unity symbolizing the unity of humans and nature. Some well-known Upanishadic declarations are “All this is verily Brahman, the Spiritual Absolute” (Chhandogya Upanishad 1-6.6; I III-14.2) or “This self is Brahman” (Chhandogya Upanishad 6-2.1), or “it is one without a second” (Brihadaranyak Upanishad 2-5.19) etc. As a result, all worldly and sensuous knowledge began to be regarded as limited and partial. The Supreme Being and a Personal God This infinite and transcendent being in its personal aspect functions as a creator God (Brahma), the preserving God (Vishnu) and annihilating God (Mahesh) of the world. The varieties of gods in Hinduism have been affiliated with one or another form of this personal form of God. Divinity being all pervasive, atheism became difficult. Thus, the religious goal of Hinduism is to bridge the conflicting chasm between the Divine and the non-Divine within human beings. The finite separate individual is the crux of this struggle. It is ignorance (avidya) and desires (kama) which are the cause of the human being’s bounded existence. Hinduism presents various ways of knowledge, action and devotion and various means for integrating one’s personality into this Supreme Realization. It also accepts the place of an enlightened guide (guru) who can help to dispel one’s doubts regarding this Higher Path. In short, the earliest Vedic-Upanishadic tradition in Hinduism was concerned with promoting order in the world (dharma) by defending both true social action and welfare (abhyudaya) and inward contemplation of spiritual freedom (nihshreyas) for all. The pleasures and delights of these goals are to be realized through open rationality. Hinduism presented both individual goals (purusharthas), i.e. economic, psychological, social, religious ones, etc., and also social and caste duties based on one’s station of life in

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the fourfold social stratification. This activist tradition in Hinduism had made a worthwhile socio-cultural contribution as well. The Challenges Arising over Time However, despite such noble spiritual ideas, in the later historical period excessive materialistic tendencies developed in the higher social classes, accompanied by rampant sacrificial ritualism. Vain metaphysical speculations, barren asceticism, the indiscriminate search for guides (gurus), etc. had multiplied. The day-to-day life of commoners had degenerated into low levels of animalistic drives and desires. The divisions and subdivisions in society began to harden by slowly becoming hereditary. The religio-ethical direction was lacking at a time when the already developed Vedic culture required firm organizational backing. It is since these Vedic-Upanishadic times that one finds references by some Vedic seers to following the path of detachment (nivrutti marg) over against the activist path (pravrutti marg) of ritualistic Brahmanism. The former revolved around the pure ideal of liberalism as opposed to the worldly riches and heavenly abode of the activist Brahminic tradition in Hinduism. Thus even monasticism has been a well-established institution since Upanishadic times. Those who are liberated from all self-centered ties have been respected and worshiped as Divine since then. Basic Perspectives of “Theological” Buddhism The advent of Buddha and Buddhism in India was more of a religio-spiritual rejuvenation in Hinduism than a revolt against its theological systems as such. Whereas Hinduism has a metaphysical approach affirming reality as Absolute (purna), Buddha had more of a rational and intellectual approach that denied reality (neti neti). Although Buddha admitted the Hindu religious doctrines of the sanctity of all life, the transmigration of the soul and the law of action, he focused more on ethical and secular human life. In line with the existing traditions, Buddha aimed at realizing the supreme goal solely through one’s own efforts. Through its distinct legacy of religious philosophy and liberalism, love and compassion, Hinduism does admit the world, the Buddhist scholar Rhys Davids stated, arguing that “Buddhism tried to in-

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fuse new strength and new truth into the religious life of India” (Rangnathanand 1971: 83-85). Continuity and Discontinuity The founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha, did not declare himself to be a prophet of a new faith. Early Buddhism too was an impersonal religion. Buddha was known as a teacher of eternal religion, the pathfinder (tathagata), within the Vedic and Upanishadic tradition of Hinduism. Nor does Buddhist canonical literature anywhere deny or reject this. In reality, the Pali scriptures take note respectfully of Vedic seers (like Vishwamitri, Vashistha, Vamdeva, etc.) and Vedic deities (such as Indra, Varuna, Prajapati, Yama, Soma, etc. ) as well. It also shows that even those followers who adopted Buddhism did not give up earlier religious beliefs and practices. It has been observed that at the time of Buddha’s arrival, although the Vedas and Upanishads were considered to be sources of “sacred spirituality” in Hinduism, hairsplitting metaphysical disputes regarding self, world, the higher world, merits/demerits, liberation, etc. were predominant amongst Hindus. Their religious practices were influenced by such reasoning. In place of sincere communion with God, religious consciousness was overshadowed by cults and rituals. There was much dehumanization and people’s ethical ability had weakened. Temperamentally, Buddha questioned the purpose of all such religious phenomena. Even while introducing significant social changes, e.g. in admitting the outcastes into the monastic order, Buddha did not have any apparent opposition to basic Brahminic Hinduism. Buddha was concerned mainly with the elaborate priestcraft, the religious sanctioning of caste divisions and the resulting socio-religious injustices. In harmony with the spirit of Indian culture, Buddha pursued a relentless quest for truth with loving involvement with sentient existence as a whole. Moreover, the existence of varied and conflicting schools of thought at the time led to much confusion. It created a vacuum with respect to spiritual direction, leading people at large to either unrestrained hedonism or self-imposed penances. “Anarchy of thought,” a Hindu thinker observes, “was leading to anarchy of morals” (Radhakrishnan 1929: 353). That is why Buddha was

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more concerned with “human beings” than supernatural sources in religion. This is evidenced cogently in Buddha’s life. Setting all his royal inheritance and worldly riches aside, he probed the world outside and the world within him deeply. Confronting and realizing the truth became the goal of his life. He set out in quest of saving knowledge to rid himself of his painful existence. He adopted a free monastic life and pursued long and quiet meditations. “He pursued all those spiritual paths which found,” S. Ranganathanand, a Buddhist scholar states, “its highest expression in Upanishads.” Buddha regarded all the austerities he pursued as only a means and not the end. He realized the goal of knowledge when he attained supreme enlightenment (cetovimukti). Buddha preached his new faith later in the Pali language, which was the language of the common people. He did not care for the subtle analysis of metaphysical ideas of God, Self, World, etc. Keeping silent on raging philosophical issues at the time which had no practical implication, Buddha emphasized experience and effort. He made a deep analysis of the real experience of life and thus sought detachment, elimination of passions, rooting out miseries and realizing the supreme liberation of life. It was later that Buddha was made a personal founder of a particular and exclusive religion with its own history. It began to develop as a faith distinct from that of the eternalist traditions of Hinduism. From then on Buddha became the central authority as a founder for all interpretations in Buddhist traditions. Initially, Buddhism had a pessimistic outlook but later turned into a robust optimistic path for its millions of followers. The Scriptural Traditions Buddha had clearly indicated that not the person but the principles of truths, the rules, the order set by him would be the guide for his followers (Muller 1881: II, 112). In the beginning oral tradition prevailed. The historical records and writing of scriptures were finalized some two centuries after Buddha. Buddhism’s scriptures, known as Tripitakas, i.e. three baskets, preserve the Buddhist canon after due classification. The first pillar of this dhamma is Vinayaka, suggesting rules and regulations deal-

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ing with the monastic order (sangha). The second pillar is suttas, the book of instructions and religious dictums. The third pillar, Abhidhamma, has to do with a more developed teaching and is also a commentary on key terms occurring in the other two baskets. They aim at cultivating a proper mental state for the quest for true enlightenment through bodily and moral purification (sila), inward contemplation (samadhi) and wisdom (prajna). As is usual in religions, two broad divisions took place in Buddhism. One group known as Hinayana considered Buddha to be only a mortal being like the rest of humankind. The other group known as Mahayana considered Buddha to be supernatural by birth (lokottara). These two groups have numerous differences, although they are not pertinent here. Dynamism in Distinct Spiritual Direction It is difficult to point out the precise reasons for the rise of Buddhism. However, as it did not arise accidentally, it must have answered a great spiritual need of the time. The religious procedures in Hinduism had become complicated. Fatalistic tendencies were increasing all round. A variety of crude forms of theism, even with traits of animism and fetishism, had arisen. This focus on outer forms of worship proved to be a barrier to the realization of spiritual depth. And the prevailing customary religious morality of seeking merits and demerits with rewards and punishments also produced limitations to the spiritual development of human beings. A faith with a transcendental touch and an uncommon spiritual conviction was needed at the time. The spirit of the age lent itself to the search for a deep individualization of religious experience. In tune with his inherited cultural background, ceaseless and intensive meditative questing made Buddha realize the root of this crisis and suffering within human consciousness. He could perceive deeply the self-centered grasping tendencies and unconscious drives confusing the human mind. To him, all these external signs were manifestations of what exists within human beings. For all experiences, including the experience of suffering, are found within the human consciousness. As in Hinduism, the Buddhist quest for truth is the human being’s highest spiritual calling, an inner intuitive realization. Whereas Hinduism focuses

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more on bliss and the joy of self, Buddhism centers on the miseries and suffering of consciousness. That is why, even though Buddhism offers a path of liberation, its goal remains undefined. For “Buddha had realized,” in the words of Radhakrishnan, “the obvious limits to the logical investigation of reality” (Radhakrishnan 1926:166). To recapitulate, Buddha believed in life after death (paraloka), reincarnation (punarbhava), spiritual liberation (nibbana). However, he opposed all the superstitious ideas of gods and goddesses of the time. For him, neither scriptures nor rituals, austerities nor any teacher could help the spiritual seeker. Each had to seek his own way of enlightenment solely through his own effort. Buddha’s search for universally true insight did not provide the easy shortcuts that were the convention at the time. He rejected the caste system as a basis for religion, denied the role of priests as mediators and said nothing about heaven and hell. His deep knowledge was aimed at the fresh and unprejudiced mind as conductive to the welfare of all. He had an unprecedented conviction with respect to this quest, even while keeping silent on some key metaphysical issues of the time. His mission is summarized succinctly in the following quote, “The Buddha appears because the causes and conditions become propitious” (Chome Shiba Minato-ku 1992: 66). Buddha shook, for the first time, the ancient tradition of Hinduism significantly. Initially, Buddhism aimed at purifying and unifying Hinduism. Buddhism did influence Hinduism in this way but could not transform the basic theological roots of the dynamic spirit of Hinduism. Aside from that, Buddha’s ideas became recognized in the very homeland of Hinduism and began to have a distinct following of its own in the course of time. The Philosophical Foundation of Buddhism Buddhist doctrine does not begin with theological presuppositions. It deals with human situations directly and is concerned with the pervasive issue of misery and suffering. It is said in Samyutta Nikaya: “Whatever is transitory is painful” (iii.44f.). The unenlightened mind is in a bonded state of existence and Buddhism aims at purifying its grasping tendencies. According to Anguttara Nikaya (iii.134) impermanence (anicca), dissatisfaction

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(dukkha) and having no ego (anatta) are the three characteristics of becoming. And greed, hatred and delusion are the underlying causes of human suffering, individually and socially. Buddha’s doctrine of the Four Noble Truths begins with the fact that suffering and discontent exist everywhere. There is a craving for a separate earthly existence (bhava tanha). One must work on eradicating this strong desire until nothing remains of it. One must detach oneself from it (an alayo). Buddha’s intense meditation showed how sorrows and suffering can be eliminated. One has to put moral laws like compassion, self-control, friendliness, non-violence, etc. into practice. All becoming is momentary as it is subject to the universal law of the dependent origination of things (pratityasamutpadavada). To eliminate sorrow, Buddha exhorts people to observe a middle way (madhyampadapratipada) and the eightfold path (astangikamarga) of right outlook, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right absorption, etc. Because the whole of the universe is subject to conditional coproduction, everything in it is empty (sunyata). Relatively speaking, the law of causation seems to operate universally, but all is void if one looks at it from an altered state of consciousness. All worldly human perceptions are as such misleading. Hence, the human mind must regain its natural purity, empty of desires and intentions. Thus the Buddhist goal of liberation or nibbana means “notweaving” or craving. It is described as “the stopping of all becoming” (Samyutta Nikaya ii. 117). Buddha denies the identity of self but does not explain it away. For it does suggest “an unborn, unoriginated, an unmade, an uncompound [self]” (Udan viii. 3). It points to the universal self as the true self of all. Buddha’s idea of liberation is similar to the impersonal and formless ultimate reality in the Upanishadic traditions of Hinduism. Both traditions focus on doing away with false notions of the self which regard the self as separate and self-centered. The cessation of a separate existence means there is no rebirth (punna-bhava). Cessation of existence is a supreme peace “unaffected by decay and disease, grief and defilement” (Majjhina Nikaya Stutta 26). In support of this higher knowledge the Dhammapada states that “wakefulness is the way to Immortality, heedlessness is the way to death” (11-1. 4, 5) This is very similar

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to the Mundaka Upanishad in Hinduism which states that “all doubts are dispelled when the supreme truth of oneness is realized” (Mundaka Upanishad ii.2. 8). However, for Hinduism, the self is ever realized and liberated (nityasiddha) and hence ultimate freedom is not realized through mere human effort as such (sadhana siddha). Due to a special emphasis on reasoning, the doctrine of causation has been considered to be a basic insight in Buddhism, but it is not clear whether this is intended as a phenomenological description or as a description of human consciousness. This led to varieties of interpretations and schools of thought in Buddhism. Buddhism in India Through the constant efforts of lay followers and monks, Buddha’s “way of dhamma” continued to have a wide appeal in India. Further, some of the Buddhist monasteries became well known as centers of learning, drawing pupils from near and far. Buddhism later received the patronage of King Ashoka who converted to Buddhism after a ghastly battle at Kalinga. He adopted the doctrine of non-violence as a state policy and also sent special missionaries to spread Buddhism from Afghanistan to distant Japan. Whereas Hinduism lacks this missionary zeal entirely, through this evangelistic ardor Buddhism, as a separate faith from the former, soon spread like wildfire. However, as hinted earlier, the sectarian divisional tendencies in Buddhism resurfaced after the passing away of King Ashoka (approximately 232 B.C.). Whereas the Hinayana school (the orthodox southern school) stuck to the original primitive form of Buddhism, the Mahayana school (the progressive northen school) aimed at universal liberation. To the followers of this school Buddha’s teaching is broad and comprehensive. So they struggled to adjust Buddhism to the different levels of human knowledge. Even its major subgroups, viz. the Madhyamika and Vijnanavadins, had been influenced by Vedantic Hinduism. It is this Mahayana tradition through its ideal of bodhisattva which helped to spread Buddhism far and wide. There is a certain mythical idea that surely played a role in the spread of Buddhism. In addition to the first Buddha, the Buddhist scriptures refer to the five non-human meditating (dhy-

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ani) Buddhas as well. This is completely in line with the idea of incarnations in Hinduism and also facilitated the spread of Buddhist ideas across geographical boundaries in the course of time. But that Buddhism could expand thus in manifold ways is due more to a number of progressive factors of religious consciousness in its own heritage. The Decline of Buddhism in India It is said that Buddha kept silent on all deep metaphysical issues. Nor did he approve of discussions of these issues. This not only initially obstructed speculative vigor in Buddhism but also backfired doubly in the later course of Buddhism itself. Buddhism kept speculation at bay, giving positive guidance to various aspects of human life. Theological belief, however, is essential to human religious consciousness. Buddha’s objection to the prevalent nature of Vedic theology at the time is one thing but devaluing theological reflection itself is another. Hinduism could acknowledge Buddha’s point but adhered nonetheless to its theology. It continued its philosophical quest for changeless Reality in the changing world and for discovering the unity of Self in humans with the Self of the universe. This means that Hinduism did not take over the practice of later Buddhists in this regard. For even Buddhism did not develop as Buddha wanted it to. To illustrate, Buddha’s basic quest regarding human suffering and the search for the solution to suffering through self-effort was later watered down. As stated earlier, Buddhism arose as a movement of reform in the face of Hinduism’s many negative and escapist ideas,. But Buddhism itself became subject to similar sorts of limitations and defects later on. The great Hindu monk Adi Shankara, for example, did accept Buddhist teaching on the level of pure consciousness. But he advocated a gradual path of evolution to the supreme state of realization and did not accept the possibility of the quantum leap that Buddha indicated to his followers. Further, it was Adi Shankara’s appearance and teaching during the midseventh century A.D. Hindu renaissance that generally accounted for the disappearance of Buddhist thought from Indian soil. The powerful reawakening of Hinduism that his philosophical vision occasioned is well known. But this does mean that he intended to

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drive Buddhism from India. In fact, he concentrated mainly on squaring the orthodox schools of Samkhya, Mimansa, etc. with Hinduism. He criticized Buddhism generally for its theological basis. The fundamental issue is that the Buddhists themselves no longer had a proper understanding of Buddhism as such. Moral indeterminism in society and the presence of moral hypocrisy in the monastic order together weakened the Buddhist spirit to such a degree that a once strong and glorious Indian faith gradually receded into total oblivion from Hindu India, even though it flourished outside that country. Over the course of time Buddhist traditions had become ever more scholastic and austere, less mystical and hence less compassionate. Buddhist disciples persisted in questioning the eternal nature of the Veda and central Hindu ideas of divinity. Too much emphasis on “individualism” and “this-worldliness” made it difficult for Buddhism to continue to exist in India. It had flourished in India for more than a millennium but then began to lose ground and by the eleventh and twelfth centuries it had disappeared entirely from the Hindu mainland. Neo-Buddhism in Modern India Pre-colonial Hindu traditions were secure on their foundations of liberal spiritual rationalism. Colonial domination, however, attempted to replace this by the imposition of a foreign culture. At the same time, however, it is only the writings and renowned archeological findings of Western scholars respecting the rich legacy of Buddhism that aided the rediscovery of the past intimacy of Buddhism within Indian culture with all of its vast compass. This rediscovery was a great moment of pride for Hinduism, even though only an insignificant number of Buddhists still lived in India by the time this intlligence emerged at the end of nineteenth century. Later, prior to independence, a systematic movement of neoBuddhism was set in motion by the great revolutionary leader and architect of the Indian constitution Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (18911956 A.D.) It seemed as if there would be a notable return of Buddhism to India at the time. Ambedkar, who himself belonged to a lower caste and had endured cruel injustices by higher caste

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Hindus, stood up to the continuation of social divisions. The period of freedom at the time was a rare opportunity for reasserting self-identity and self-dignity for a large mass of socially deprived Hindus. Ambedkar was under intense pressure to convert to one or another non-native Indian faiths. However, he did not wish to cut himself off from the roots of Indian cultural thought or to abandon completely the liberality of the Hindu way of life and thus decided to initiate a new Buddhist movement as more befitting his native culture. He called and inspired a great mass of the downtrodden community to convert to Buddhism and symbolized a religious leadership that stood for social liberation. It is a fact, however, that this neo-Buddhism in India is different from Buddhism elsewhere. Whatever the historical ups and down of the relation between the two faiths under discussion may be, the continuity of Buddhist influence on Hinduism and vice versa cannot be denied. The whole nation of India recently celebrated the 2500th birthday of Lord Buddha. Two Faiths in Creative Communion Hinduism began to be identified as a distinct religion and way of life with the advent of Buddhism around the closing periods of the Upanishadic age. The forceful personality and authentic teaching of Buddha made a positive contribution to this. His moderate balancing of the prevailing extremes of Hinduism could lead it to a higher convergence of its own traditions. The arrival of great thinkers later, such as Kumarila Bhatt in Mimamsa, the great proponent of the Advaitic tradition Adi Shankara, the Vishistadwaiti master Shri Ramanuja etc. would complete the task. Following Buddha, they set up organized sects propagating definite goals for Hinduism. In this sense, even Buddha’s teaching derives its identity solely from the context of the Vedic and Upanishadic traditions of Hinduism. He employed practical approaches to democratize and to provide a wide basis for the noblest and purest goals of Hinduism. His was a sincere attempt to reinterpret the leading spiritual ideas of Hinduism in a psycho-ethical way. This is why these two faiths do not attempt to exclude each other. Even after Buddhism’s disappearance from the Hindu mainland and its

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impressive progress elsewhere, no struggle or militancy of any type arising from past conflicts ever took place on either side. Hinduism has recognized the independence of Buddhism. It has not shown that bitter type of aggressive self-defense that can often be seen in paternalistic relations. Had it been so, Buddha would not have been recognized as one of the incarnations in Hinduism. Buddha’s thought has been extensively welcomed and analyzed, rejected and evaluated in all Hindu traditions. However, Hinduism has emphasized that human beings should assume an active social role by fulfilling affirmative social obligations. It aims at ensuring human well-being both here and in the hereafter. On the other hand, in Buddhism involvement in human life is regarded as only one way to the goal of eternity. Worldly values do not possess the focus that they do in Hinduism. At the same time, no doubt, there are ascetic tendencies in Hinduism and the great Buddha could, indeed, be considered to be its finest fruit indeed. Still the basic difference implied between them could be explained thus. Hinduism uses the language of metaphysics positively, whereas Buddhism expresses it negatively. In Hinduism theological metaphysics is a positive “something:” the analysis of metaphysical subtleties is a constant in all schools of Hinduism. But Buddha remained consistently silent on these questions. The practical effect of positive dialogue and interaction between Buddhism and Hinduism could be exemplified as follows. The Hinayana Buddhist school, which interpreted Buddhism “literally,” culminated in the no-self doctrine. Over against this, the Mahayana Buddhist school later interpreted and identified Buddha à la the Vedantic style of Hinduism. In other cases Buddhists, in Nepal, Tibet, etc., accepted the old beliefs in the gods and goddesses of Hinduism. Some Buddhist texts begin with hymns invoking the Hindu goddess of knowledge (saraswati). It may be concluded that the religious quest for immanent liberation in Buddhism or the transcendent divine nature of humans in Hinduism may seem to be abstract theological approaches and may raise many difficult logical speculations. The adherents of both religions do realize this when they try to live and act according to their religious precepts. Still, these ancient theologies do contribute a great deal in checking the rise of spiritual relativism. Both aim at human existential goals, and the

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search for the meaning of human life remains unchanged. If Hinduism’s metaphysical goal of the “higher divine status of man” is complemented by the psycho-ethical Buddhist’s call for humans to become “a lamp unto [their] own sel[ves],” it will open up a new chapter of reawakening for humankind. Bibliography Chome Shiba Minato-ku. (1995). The Teachings of Buddha. Tokyo: Buddhist Promoting Foundation. Conze, Edward. (1951). Buddhism: Its Essence and Development. London: Bruno Cassirer. Coomarswami, A.K. (1999). Hinduism and Buddhism. New Delhi: Manohar Publishing. Dasgupta, R.K. (1995). “Swami Vivekananda on Buddhism.” Bulletin of the Ramakrishana Institute of Culture. (February): 38-48. De Silva, C.L.A. (1937). A Treatise on Buddhist Philosophy. Colombo: Carlton Printing Works. Devraj, N.K. (1974). The Mind and the Spirit of India. Varanashi: Motilal & Banarashidas. Kashyap, B. J. (1954). Sanyutta Nikaya (Hindi). Sarananth: MahabodhiSabha. Kosambi, D.D. (1931). Fifty Religious Dialogues of Bhagwan Buddha (Gujarati). Ahmedabad: Gujarat Vidyapith. Krishna, D. (2001). New Perspectives in Indian Philosophy. Jaipur: Ravat Publication. Mukhopadhyaya, Satkari. (1998). “Buddhism vis-à-vis Vedic Traditions.” Bulletin of the Ramakrishana Institute of Culture. Muller, Max F. (1881) Sacred Book of the East. Vol. II & X. London: Oxford University Press. Nikhilanand, Swami. (1987). Vedantasar (The Essence of Vedanta). Calcutta: Advaita Ashram. Radhakrishnan, S. (1926). “Indian Philosophy: Some Problems.” Mind. (1929). Indian Philosophy. Vol. I. London: Allen and Unwin. (1971). Hindu View of Life. London: Allen and Unwin. Ranganathananda, Swami. (1971). Eternal Values and Changing Society. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Saraswati, B. (2001). The Nature of Living Traditions. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld, Ltd.

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Satavalekar, S.D. (Ed.). (1984). Rigveda Samihita Vol. I. Paradi: Swadhyaya Mandal. Sharma, D. S. (1971). Essence of Hinduism: Bombay. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Strong, D.M. (1901). The Udan. London: Luzac and Co. Zaehner, R.C. (1971). Concise Encylopedia of Living Faiths. London: Hutchinson Press.

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Nepalese Buddhists’ View of Hinduism Krishna B. Bhattachan Abstract This article describes Nepalese society as characterized by caste/ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious diversity, and religious conflict is gradually on the rise. The main focus of the article is on two aspects: 1) the Buddhists’ views of Hindu doctrines and 2) the Hindus’ politics of religion. The Buddhists’ views of Hindu doctrines discussed are creation and absolute truth, hierarchy/purity and pollution of castes and foods, atma (“soul”) and its rebirth, belief in gods, work with no expectation of its fruits or fatalism, conformity in means, intolerance, individualism, violence, extreme paths and lack of sila and liberation. The Hindus’ politics of religion discussed are the denial of Buddhism as falling within the Omkar Family and Buddha as the ninth incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Also described are the Buddhist opposition to Hindus’ state patronization, closed (proselytization as a threat) membership, cold approach to the development of Lumbini, disrespect for other religions and the anti-non-Hindu stance of Hindu fundamentalist organizations. The article concludes by pointing out that the secular state and the elimination of the Hindus’ negative attitude towards other religions, including Buddhism, are preconditions for religious harmony and positive peace in Nepalese society.

Introduction Nepal is a multi-caste, multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural and multireligious country. The Hindu “high castes” belong to the Caucasian race and are divided into Bahun/Brahmin, Chhetri/ Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra/Dalits. The peoples belonging to the Hill castes speak Nepali and the Madhesi castes speak various languages within the same Indo-Aryan families. There are Dravid 227

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and Proto-Australoid races who speak the Dravid and Munda languages respectively and they are also indigenous to Nepal. About 125 languages and dialects belong to four language families, namely, Indo-Aryan, Tibeto-Burman, Dravid and Munda. There are a variety of religions in Nepal, including animism, Bon, Kirata, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Jainism, Sikh and Bahai (cf. Dastider 1995). All religions are divided into different sects. For example, Bon is divided into White Stripe Bon and Black Stripe Bon. Kirata is divided into White Stripe and Red Stripe Kirata and the followers of Guru Falgunanda. Similarly, Buddhism is divided into Hinayana, Mahayana, Bajrayana and Therbada (cf. Gurung 1987). Hinduism is divided into Shaivism, Vaisnavism, etc. Similarly, Christians are divided into Protestants, Roman Catholics, etc. Islam is divided into Shi’ite and Sunni groups. According to the census of 2001, Hindus comprise 86.5%, Buddhists 10.7%, Muslims 4.2%, Kirants 3.6%, and Christians 3.6% of the total Nepalese population of 22,736,934 (Table 1). The number of Jains and Sikhs are less than 5,000. Non-Hindus have often, through different media, expressed the fact that they have serious concerns about the reliability of census data on religion collected since the census of 1952/54. The exclusionary process adopted by the Hindu rulers in all of the censuses have resulted in engineered data on religion that over-inflates the Hindu population to somewhere between 80% to 90% and provides low numbers of non-Hindus, including Buddhists and Christians (cf. Bhattachan 2002; Gurung, 2002). The government of Nepal has recognized 59 indigenous peoples in Nepal and most of them belong to the Mongolian race and speak Tibeto-Burman languages. However, the constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal, promulgated after the downfall of the autocratic Panchayat political system in 1990, which is modeled after the Westminster form of parliamentary government and in which the winner takes all, has yet to recognize Nepal as a multireligious country. Despite strong demands for secularism, the constitution declared Nepal a Hindu state. Religious Conflict in Nepal Religious conflict is ubiquitous in South Asia and Nepal is no exception (cf. Allen 1993). In Nepal Hindus are the dominant

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NEPALESE BUDDHISTS’ VIEW OF HINDUISM

Religion Hindu

1952-1954

7,138,392

%

1991

88.8 15,996,953

%

2001

IncreaseDecrease 1991-2001

Table 1. Population by religion in the Census of 1952/54, 1991 and 2001

%

86.5 18,330,121

%

80.6

2,333,168

14.6

Buddhists

707,104

8.6

1,439,142

7.8

2,442,520

10.7

1,003,378

69.7

Islam

208,899

2.6

653,218

3.5

954,0234

4.2

300,805

6.0

Kirant

--

--

318,389

1.0

818,106

3.6

499,717 15 7.0

Christian

--

--

31,280

0.2

101,976

0.5

70,696

226.0

Jain

--

--

7,561

0.0

4,108

0.0

-3,453

-45.7

Sikh

--

--

9,292

0.1

5,890

0.0

-3,402

-36.6

6,840

0.0

17,124

0.1

86,080

0.4

68,956

402.7

--

--

18,138

0.1

--

--

--

--

8,235,079

100.0

491,097

100.0 22,736,934

100.0

4,245,887

23.0

Other Unidentifi ed Total

(Source: Table Number 10: Population By Religion, cf. Gurung 2002:9)

religious group, as most Buddhists live in Butan and Thailand. In Nepal Hindus are in direct conflict with other religious groups as well, including Buddhists, Animists, Bons, Kiratas, Muslims and Christians. All non-Hindus oppose Hinduism as the state religion, political recognition of the Siva Sena (“Army of the Lord Shiva”) as a registered political party, direct or indirect harassment of non-Hindus, particularly Christians and Muslims, and engineered census data. Non-Hindus support religious harmony, secularism, constitutional and legal equality, affirmative action or positive discrimination and true census data. Almost all political leaders, planners, policy makers and development workers belong to the dominant caste, that is, the Hill Bahun-Chhetris. They continue to engage in promulgating the

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impression that religious harmony has been characteristic of Nepalese society since time immemorial. I have attempted to deconstruct this myth by arguing that there has been no religious harmony in the past and present. David N. Gellner has conceded that “religious harmony” has been exaggerated but still does not agree that there is serious religious conflict in Nepal (Gellner 1997: 6). It is true that Nepal has never experienced serious violent conflict, but flashes of violence have occurred in the name of religion, although such conflicts were immediately suppressed by the local administration controlled by the dominant caste groups taking the side of the perpetrators belonging to their own group. A serious clash was reported in the second week of August 2002 between Hindus and Muslims in a village in the Mahottari district in the Terai region of central Nepal, bordering India. The local administration and political parties, which are dominated by the Hindus, suppressed it. Buddhists’ View of Hinduism All Nepalese Buddhists have similar views of Hinduism, although some may list more and others less about the differences between Buddhism and Hinduism or what Buddhists do and what Hindus do. It is interesting that Gautama Buddha was born in Nepal but received Budhatwa (“enlightenment”) in India and Indian rulers like Ashoka were instrumental in spreading Buddhism around the region and the world. In contrast, Hinduism originated in India, but Nepal became the first Hindu country in the world. Thus, the encroachment of Hinduism in Nepal and its dominant status for the last few centuries have often caused tension between the Nepalese Buddhists and Hindus. Given the long historical experience of overt and covert conflict between Buddhists and Hindus and the current political economic conditions, it is very natural that both Buddhists and Hindus have developed predominantly, following a remark of Jerald Gort in the introduction to this volume in a “prescriptive mode” or “negative theories, perceptions, attitudes and practices” towards each other. The distance between Buddhists and Hindus widened after the heightened conflict between the Nepalese Buddhists and Hindus when the Hindus made a failed attempt to organize a Hindu-Buddhist Unity Conference inside the sacred

NEPALESE BUDDHISTS’ VIEW OF HINDUISM

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Lumbini complex from November 19 to November 21 in 1999 (Lumbini is the birthplace of the Buddha). Jayaendra Saraswati Shankacharya Kanchikamakoti and Goenka released a press statement from Varanassi in India stating that Hinduism and Buddhism are separate religions and that Buddha is not the ninth incarnation of Lord Vishnu as claimed by some Hindus. This helped eventually to diffuse the mounting tension. Due to strong protest from Buddhists, the conference was organized in Siddharthanagar, a town near Lumbini. Thus, direct physical conflict was averted but the psychological conflict continues. Later, Jayaendra Saraswati Shankacharya Kanchikamakoti, inaugurating the first World Hindu-Buddhist Conference in Lumbini in Nepal said, “There is no difference between Hinduism and Buddhism” (Quoted by Spotlight 1999). The Nepalese Buddhists, on the contrary, view Buddhism as different from Hinduism in many ways. Buddhists’ Views of Hindu Doctrines The Nepalese Buddhists believe that the doctrines of Hinduism and Buddhism are diametrically opposed (cf. Guvaju 1990). Creation by God and Absolute Truth. Hindus believe that God has created everything, including the Vedas. All Hindus regard the four Vedas—the Rigveda, the Samveda, the Yajurveda and the Atharvaveda—as supreme, holy and consensual documents created by the gods. Also, they believe that it was true in the past, it is true at present and it will be true in the future and they consider those who show disrespect for the Vedas to be nastik (“atheist”). Hindus also believe that priests are mediators between the gods and human beings and thus, if Hindus satisfy their priests by giving money, commodities etc., the gods will ultimately be satisfied. The Nepalese Buddhists criticize such beliefs, saying that these Vedas are neither the creation of God nor are they eternally true. As Buddhists do not believe in the existence of any God, they reject the divine authority of the Vedas. Following the law of dependent origination (pratitya samutpada) propounded by Buddha, Buddhists believe in a cause and effect relationship but not in a divine origin (cf. Wadia 1992). They therefore believe that priests are nothing but “cheaters.”

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Hierarchy/Purity and the Pollution of Castes and Foods Buddhists believe that hierarchy and purity and the pollution of castes and foods are one of the worst characteristics of Nepalese and Indian Hinduism. Hindu ideas and practices are based on the paradigm of hierarchy, i.e., that everything is graded in a hierarchy—some are at the top, some are at the bottom and the rest are in between. Hindus divide society into a fourfold varna system, that is, brahmins at the top followed by kshyatriays and vaishyas and sudras at the bottom. Brahmins are considered superior and sudras as the inferior, polluted or untouchables. Nepalese Buddhists believe that it is the strategy of “upper caste” Hindus to perpetuate the discriminatory caste system and discriminatory division of labor through the fourfold varna hierarchy. Buddhists, therefore, believe that Hindus are naive to say that the four varnas were born from different parts of the body of the god Brahma (god of creation)—brahmins from his mouth, kshyatriyas from his hand, vaishya from his belly and sudras from his feet. Also, Hindus believe that the brahmins’ main duty is to engage in intellectual activities, the kshyatriyas’ is that of security, the vaishyasʹ is economic activity and that of the sudras’ is menial labor. The varna system, therefore, is based on ascription and each individual’s position in the varna hierarchy is predestined: it cannot be changed through achievement. Atma (the “Soul”) and Its Rebirth Hindus strongly believe in the existence of atma (the “soul”) and that the soul is eternal. Hindus believe in what Lord Krishna had said in the Bhagvad Gita that souls are like bodies and that souls can change their “bodies” just like we change clothes if they become worn out. Hindus believe that bodies are made of five elements: air, water, fire, earth and sky. They believe that bodies go through a series of births and deaths and that even after death, the soul may roam freely and harm people if it is not appeased. Hindus believe that if individuals perform their dharma (“duty”) in this life as sincerely as possible, their next lives will be wonderful and prosperous. Nepalese Buddhists do not agree with the Hindu beliefs on the existence of the “soul” and its rebirth. It should be noted here that the Tibetan Buddhists believe that the lama is reincarnated. Such belief appears to be the influence of Hinduism.

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Iswarbadi (ʺBelief in Godʺ) Buddha never believed in the existence of god or supernatural beings. He did not believe in the creation of the world by gods. Instead, he explained the existence of living beings and things through cause and effect relationships. Hindus, on the contrary, believe in the existence of 33 Koti gods and goddesses. Hindus believe in the presence of a supernatural god (Vishnu) and the total number of gods is 33 Koti (330 million). Although they regard Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu and Lord Maheswor or Mahadev as the gods of creation, procreation and destruction respectively, they, in their everyday life, worship powerful female goddesses such as Durga and Kali. What is interesting about Hindus is that they worship almost everything, including dogs. Hindus worship dogs during the Tihar or Tyohar festival (the festival of lights) but do not hesitate to beat and kill dogs for the next 364 days. Also, Hindus worship the most “powerful” gods and goddesses only and ignore other less powerful ones. For example, most Hindus visit the temples of Lord Mahadev or Biswanath, Durga, Kali and Sankatmochan (“end crisis”) more than they do those of Brahma. Niskama Karma (“Work with no Expectation of its Fruits”) Traditional Hindus in Nepal care very little about this life but they are very much concerned about their next lives. They say that all individuals should follow their dharma obediently and sincerely, including the dharma of varna and castes. If each and every individual does so in this life, his/her next life will be much better and prosperous. On the contrary, if they disobey, their next lives will be less happy and prosperous. Sociologists and anthropologists characterize such a belief as fatalism. This means that brahmins, kshyatriya, vaisahya, and sudra should perform their respective dharma. As this has been a social reality for several millenniums, “low caste” people have always been exploited and forced to remain in their “lowest” social status all the time. Thus, such a belief has positive impact for the high castes and a negative impact for the low ones. This understanding of reincarnation goes hand in hand with a kind of fatalism. The Nepalese Buddhists criticize such Hindu beliefs. Buddhists, on the contrary, believe that this life is more important and each and every individual who wishes to be free of sorrow

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and to attain nirvana should follow the four noble truths and the eightfold path and follow sila sincerely. Conformity in Means, Not Ends Hindus often try to justify means without relating them to ends. In the Bhagvada Gita, Lord Krishna suggested to Arjun that he act without expecting any fruits or results. Thus, many Nepalese Hindus justify war, violence, exploitation etc. on this basis. Nepalese Buddhists, however, following the teachings of Buddha, believe that both cause and effect are interconnected. They believe that what one does has its definite outcome and whatever outcome one may see has its cause. For Buddhists, there is indeed no cause without effect and no effect without any cause. Intolerance Nepalese Buddhists strongly believe that Hindus are very intolerant of other religious groups. They do not hesitate to use the four policies, namely, sam (“policy”), dam (“money or gift”), danda (“punishment”) and bhed (“divide”), developed by the famous scholar Chanakya. In the past, Nepalese Hindus’ intolerance was exhibited in the form of burning Buddhists texts, dismantling Buddhist bihars, stupas, and gombas (“monasteries”) and proselytization to Hinduism by misusing state power and authority. At present the Hindus’ intolerance towards Buddhists (and also toward Christians, Islams and other religious groups in Nepal) is exhibited through political domination in the executive and legislative branches of government, judiciary, media and political parties. For example, the Supreme Court of Nepal, in its verdict of August 17, 2002, did not find any evidence that the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) and ADRA-Nepal had engaged in proselytization as alleged. Nevertheless, the Court issued a directive to the government to take strong action against those people or organizations who engaged in the proselytization of Hindus. Individualism The Nepalese Buddhists view Hindus as primarily individualistic, whereas Buddhists, on the contrary, are very much collectivists. Lord Buddha himself emphasized the sangha as one of the three silas to be prayed: buddham saranam gachami, dhamam sharanam gachhami and sangham sarnam ghachami.

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Violence Buddhists believe that Hinduism is characterized by violence. Most of the powerful gods and goddesses, such as Shiva, Durga and Kali, symbolize violence. Many Hindus observe different types of sacrificial rituals including pancha bali (“five sacrifices”). The famous epics, namely, the Ramayan and the Mahabharat, are full of violence. The Dasain is the largest festival of the Nepalese Hindus; the offices of the government of Nepal are closed for about a week and educational institutions are closed for a month to celebrate the festival. On the eight and ninth day of the Dasain festivals, most of the Nepalese Hindus sacrifice animals such as goats, water buffalos, roosters, ducks, etc. in their homes. The Nepalese Buddhists have requested the government to ban the killing of animals, at least on the annual Buddha Jayanti, a day on which Buddha is celebrated, but this request has not yet been granted. Buddhism, in contrast to Hinduism, is characterized by non-violence and peace. Extreme Paths Hindus are often said to take extreme paths. For example, there are Hindus who believe in violence and there are other Hindus who believe in non-violence. Buddhists, on the contrary, follow the middle path. No Sila and No Liberation The Nepalese Buddhists appreciate Hindus’ ideals but believe that such ideals are pretentious because Hindus do not indeed practice them sincerely. The Nepalese Buddhists believe that liberation can be attained only through following sila and accepting the four noble truths and the eightfold path. The four noble truths are: (1) there is suffering in this world; (2) there are causes of suffering; (3) there are ways to prevent suffering; (4) the ways to prevent suffering are in this world itself. The noble eightfold path consists of: (1) right view, (2) right thinking, (3) right speech, (4) right action, (5) right livelihood, (6) right diligence, (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration. Buddhists’ Views of Hindus’ Politics of Religion The Nepalese Buddhists express their dismay concerning this polity of the Nepalese Hindu majority, which they feel to be unjust. They often mislead people and annoy Buddhists by spread-

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ing rumors that Buddhism is one of the branches of Hinduism. The following are the main issues of Hindu-Buddhist conflict. Omkar Family? The syllable OM has great significance in Hinduism. Some Hindus argue that, because the Buddhists chant “Om Mani Padme Hun,” they belong to the Omkar family, suggesting that Buddhism is a branch of Hinduism. There is no mention of this syllable in Buddhist texts like the Tripitaka and Buddha never ascribed any significance to it. Buddha as the Ninth Incarnation of Lord Vishnu Hindus believe in ten avatars (“incarnations”) of Lord Vishnu. These are: (1) Matsya (“Fish”) Avatar, (2) Kurma (“Turtle”) Avatar, (3) Baraha (“Pig”) Avatar, (4) Narisingha (“Human Body with Lion’s head”) Avatar, (5) Baman (“Dwarf”) Avatar, (6) Parshuram Avatar, (7) Sriram Avatar, (8) Krishna Avatar, (9) Buddha Avatar, and (10) Kalki Avatar. On the basis of this belief, Hindus argue that Buddhism is a branch of Hinduism. In the Radio Style Book published by the government-owned Radio Nepal, the authors state that “Hindus regard Buddha as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu” (Acharya et al. 2000: 374). Every year newsreaders cite this statement to offend the sentiments of their Buddhists listeners. Buddhists take such a Hindu view very offensively and respond by saying that Buddha was very much against rebirth and gods. Instead, Buddha believed in Hetu Pratyaya, i.e. the relationship of cause and effect. Patronization by the State The Nepalese Hindus believe that Nepal should be a Hindu state, the king a descendent of the Aryan race and a Hindu. Nepalese Buddhists do not agree with their first point and have no objection to the second. They argue that a state such as Nepal should have no state religion because Nepal is a multireligious, multicaste, multiethnic, multilingual and multicultural society. Buddhists, along with other non-Hindus such as Bons, Kiratas, animists, Christians and Muslims, have demanded that Nepal be declared constitutionally a secular country. Closed (Proselytization as a Threat to) Membership Buddhists believe that Hinduism is a closed system where people of other faiths cannot become Hindus. There is, however, no such

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restriction in Buddhism. In Hindu society varna and caste hierarchy is based on ascription. Therefore, people at the top do not generally go down in status, except in violation of caste rules such as marriages with people from low castes. Low caste people have no chance of moving up in the caste hierarchy, although a few of them do move up through the process of Sanskritization.1 Many dalits (low caste people) in Nepal strongly believe that they cannot be free from caste-based discrimination as long as they follow Hinduism. Many of them, therefore, aspire to become Christian or Buddhist. The Buddhists of Nepal have no problem with accepting them, but the Hindus do not accept Buddhists or Christians or Muslims who have converted to Hinduism. A Cold Approach to the Development of Lumbini After the visit of U Thant, UN Secretary General from Burma, to Lumbini in Nepal in 1967, he appealed to the international community to contribute to its development. Accordingly, the Japanese archaeologist Kenzo Tange prepared the Lumbini Master Plan in 1978 for the development of Lumbini through 1150 bighas of land divided into three zones: (1) garden, (2) monasteries and (3) research center. Unfortunately, Lumbini’s development is moving at a snail’s pace because of cold attitude of the government of Nepal during the Panchayat political system (1960-1990) and in the last twelve years after the reinstatement of democracy in 1990. Nepalese Buddhists believe that the dominant Hindus, including rulers, planners, policy makers, decision makers, political leaders

1

Sanskritization is actually a sociological phenomenon, whereby, in brief, the lower castes take over the practices of brahmins, such as vegetarianism, and perform the rituals for the major Hindu divinities such as Vishnu, Krishna, Shiva, and Durga instead of joining in the cults of local divinities. They therefore follow the “Sanskrit” tradition, also known as the “Great Tradition.” The actual use of Sanskrit texts plays a role in this but often only as a symbolic reference to the sacral Brahmanic Sanskrit tradition. The actual study of Sanskrit texts is minimal. One of the consequences of this process of Sanskritization is that the lower castes can climb the ritual hierarchy, with the aim of sharing in the Brahmanic tradition and thus approaching the ritual purity of Brahmins. (Editors’ note)

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and intellectuals do not want to see Lumbini nor Buddhism (and other non-Hindu religions, including Christianity) developed. Hindus’ Disrespect for Other Religions Nepalese Hindus believe that Hinduism is the only religion of the world and all other “religions,” including Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, are branches of it. In practice, however, Nepalese Hindus harbor a great deal of ill feeling towards both Christians and Muslims. Nepalese Buddhists are of the view that the Nepalese Hindus wrongly suspect all international donors of being agents for the proselytization of Hindus to Christianity and that all Muslims are agents of the intelligence services of Pakistan. The Anti-non-Hindu Stance of Hindu Fundamentalist Organizations The Nepalese Hindus have close ties with Hindu fundamentalists and extremists in India. For example, the Nepalese Hindus have established the Siva Sena (“Army of the Lord Shiva”) in Nepal and registered it with the Election Commission of Nepal as a political party. They have close links with the Siva Sena of India led by Bal Thakrey. Similarly, the Nepalese leaders of Biswa Hindu Mahasangh (“The World Federation of Hindus”) are also closely connected with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party of India. Conclusion Because Nepal is a multireligious country, religious tolerance and harmony is required for maintaining peace and development of the country. However, the first precondition for developing such harmony is that the Nepalese state become a secular state, not identified with any religion. The second precondition is that the Nepalese Hindus should change their negative attitude and dominating behavior towards non-Hindus, including Buddhists. Hindus should indeed give up their mistaken belief that Buddhism is a branch of Hinduism, that Buddha is the ninth incarnation of Lord Vishnu and that Buddhism is a member of the Omkar family. Also, the census of 2011 should report the true population of different religious groups. Nepalese Buddhists believe that Buddhism is neither a religion nor an irrational faith but a process of becoming, a peaceful way of life or a way of living and looking at the world.

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Bibliography Acharya, Mukunda, et al. (2000). Radio Style Book. Kathmandu: Radio Nepal. Allen, Douglas (ed.) (1993). Religion and Political Conflict in South Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bhattachan, Krishna B. (2001). “Buddhism and Social Harmony in Nepal.” Swarna-Smarika. Nagbahal, Lalitpur: Hiranyavarna Mahabihar. Pp. 92-101. (Text in Nepali, 2002). Dastider, Mollica.(1995). Religious Minorities in Nepal. New Delhi: Nirala Publications. Galtung, Johan. (1988). Buddhism: A Quest for Unity and Peace. Honolulu: Dae Won Sa Buddhist Temple of Hawaii. Gellner, David N. (1997). “Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Worldʹs Only Hindu State.” In: David N. Gellner et al. (eds). Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press. Pp. 3-31. Gurung, Harka. (2001). Janaganana-2001 E. Anusar Jatiya Tathyanka Prambhik Lekhajokha (Ethnic Data according to the Census of 2001 A.D.: Preliminary Assessment). Kathmandu: Dharmodaya Sabha. Gurung, Harka (1987). Himali Chhetrama Baudha Dharma (Buddhism in the Himalayan Region). Paper presented at the first National Buddhist Conference in Kathmandu, 1987. Guvaju, Tilak Man. (1990). Ke Buddhadharma Hindudharmako Sakha Ho Ra? (Is Buddhism a Branch of Hinduism?). Pokhara, Nepal: Sriprasad Tamu. Spotlight 19 (26 November 26-2 December 2, 1999). Wadia, A.S. (1938; 1992). The Message of Buddha. Delhi: Book Faith India. Weber, Max. (1967). The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism. Transl. and ed. Hans H. Gerth and Don Martindale. New York: The Free Press.

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When Hindus Become Christian Religious Conversion and Spiritual Ambiguity John B. Carman

Abstract This contribution explores the issue of double identity as experienced by Hindu Christians and the challenges with which they are faced. A distinction is made in Protestant theology between outward and inward conversion, requiring a solid break with one’s original religion. The article draws attention to the Roman Catholic approach, which has allowed much greater leeway in the practice of two religions, leading to a Christian reinterpretation, for instance, of local rituals. The author goes on to discuss various individuals who illustrate the rejection and retention of their Hindu heritage: Pandita Ramabai, Brahmabandhav Upadhyay, Krishna Pillai. All reject the necessity of Western forms of Christian belief. The next section deals with the challenge of dalit theology. The final section offers an answer to the question of how Christianity should view other religions on the basis of converts’ experiences.

Costly Conversion: Yohan of Mallupalle How do Indian converts to Christianity regard their previous religious heritage? Let me begin by telling a story about the first new convert to Christianity I met after going to India straight from graduate school at Yale. His new name, given at his baptism, happened to be the same as my own: Yohan. He was a member of the small Madiga community of Mallupalle. The Madigas are one of the two largest “outcaste” communities in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, formerly called “untouchables” because their touch—sometimes even their shadow—could pollute brahmins and other high caste Hindus. Here in the village every one 241

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knew that they were formerly serfs, compelled to do the most menial and unclean tasks for the higher castes. The Mallupalle community of about eighty people lived in a hamlet a mile from the main village. Because of that distance they did not share the sacrificial duties and the compulsory menial service required of other Madiga families living just outside the main village. They were unusual in another respect: they were farmers who owned their own land, rather than tenants or day laborers. Some years before I met Yohan, a Christian catechist living near Mallupalle had been temporarily dismissed from his paid position and therefore had to find another way to earn a living. He persuaded a number of men working on a road gang, one of whom was Yohan, to pay him four rupees a month each to teach them how to read. Although none of them were Christians, he used the Bible as the textbook. Yohan became sufficiently interested in the Gospel story that he occasionally attended Christian worship in nearby villages. A few years later, in April 1957, he, his wife, son, and daughter-in-law were baptized, thus becoming the first and only Christian family in Mallupalle. When I met Yohan two years later, he had recently refused to contribute funds for the festival for the village goddess, precipitating a crisis in Mallupalle. His brothers punished him by denying his family fire from their hearths and water from the communal well. Despite this ostracism from his own relatives and verbal abuse and physical threats from powerful men in the main village nearby, Yohan stood firm, supported by his immediate family. Then his brothers accused him of invoking magical powers when he prayed to the “God possessing all power”1 and said they would force him to leave the village. At this, Yohan walked to the nearest Christian congregation a few miles away to appeal 1

The phrase he used is Sarva shakti-gala Deva. The word shakti, which has the generic sense of “power,” has a number of specific and more emotionally charged meanings for village Hindus. It can be used as the name for the great feminine Divine Power, consort of Shiva or for local Powers (the village goddesses). It also can be used to refer to the specific mysterious power or powers invoked in performing black magic. Yohan’s brothers feared that, in using this phrase, he was worshiping a mysterious Christian Shakti in the interests of black magic (cf. Luke and Carman 1968: 159).

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for help. A meeting was arranged at which both sides presented their views in the presence of a number of Christians. Yohan’s brothers argued that they had been very patient in allowing him to worship a foreign god as his “chosen deity” and to participate in his new sect’s peculiar worship. Surely, they said, he knew that support of the village goddesses was a collective obligation of everyone in the village, and his failure to contribute might anger the goddess Poshamma, and thus bring disaster to the Madiga community or even to the whole village. Moreover, they added, they were only asking him to do something that most Christians in the three neighboring villages regularly did: contribute to the festivals involving the whole village. But Yohan continued to insist that he and his family could not share in the worship of any other deity than Lord Jesus. At that point a compromise was suggested by the Christian mediators: if Yohan would contribute to the goddess’s shrine, would the other eight Madiga families join Yohan the next day to build a prayer hall for Lord Jesus? This unexpected application of the principle of group solidarity threw the Mallupalle delegation into some confusion. They announced that they would have to talk the matter over further among themselves and would come back to the tree after lunch. When they returned, Yohan’s relatives and persecutors made a surprising announcement: “Either Yohan must become like the rest of us and worship the village goddesses, or we must become like him and worship Jesus Christ. Since we cannot persuade him to fulfill his obligations to Poshamma, we shall all have to become Christians!” (Luke and Carman 1968: 160). What seemed to the Christians present a miraculous decision was followed by a formal request for baptism by all nine families. That was not the end of the story, however. The next six months brought severe rain, and the catechist who was supposed to instruct the families and prepare them for baptism became ill. Meanwhile, in an effort to dissuade them from taking this step, the Hindu leaders in the main village threatened to burn down their houses. Furthermore, they pointed out that if the villagers were to become Christian, they would cease to be Harijans and would therefore not receive any of the special Harijan benefits,2 2

In an effort to reform Hindu attitudes, Mahatma Gandhi called the untouchables Harijans, “children of Hari [God],” a name still used by the

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such as the larger well they wanted to build. The most effective deterrent, however, was the powerful threat that, if they became Christians, the government lands they had cultivated for twenty years would certainly not be registered in their name. Indeed, the lands would be taken away and given to others. Not knowing that this would have been illegal, the Mallupalle residents asked the Christian catechist not to visit them any more. For two years the community remained undecided, and Yohan was subject to continuing threats and one beating that sent him to the hospital. Finally the families learned of their legal rights and the lands they had been cultivating were registered in their names. At this point about half of the community chose to be baptized; the others were no longer hostile to Yohan but decided to “wait and see.” The majority of baptized Christians still joined other Madigas and the rest of the village in participating in Hindu festivals. Only Yohan and his little family continued their “exclusivist” stance. Converts Practicing Two Religions Yohan’s story reveals a variety of converts’ attitudes towards their previous religious heritage. Yohan represents what Protestant missionaries have considered the ideal: both an outward and an inward turning around. External conversion requires rejecting the idolatry and caste prejudice of their previous religion and joining the church, while internal conversion requires being convinced of one’s sinful state and of the deliverance from sin offered by God in Christ. Through his own reading of the Bible without formal Christian instruction, Yohan had a complete turn-around in his inmost being, both intellectually and emotionally (Greek: metanoia). He made a conscious individual decision to replace the village religion which had shaped his life to this point with a new, Christ-centered identity which leaves no room for the fulfillment of social obligations requiring him to participate in nonChristian religious activities. Even the ostracism and persecution could not sway him from his new-found identity.

government, in efforts to improve their economic lot and educational status. The current pan-Indian name that some of their leaders give themselves is dalit, “crushed” or “oppressed.”

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The various responses of the villagers first to Yohan’s conversion and, subsequently, to their own reflects a different conception of “conversion.” This appears to outsiders as an ambivalence influenced by their Hindu background, which is initially seen in their willingness to allow Yohan to expand the Hindu pantheon to incorporate this new foreign god called Jesus. Their acceptance of Jesus as a deity reflects an attitude rooted in the theological concept of the ishtadevata, “chosen deity,” whereby an individual comes to find his or her own personal meaning in a relationship with one particular deity. This does not preclude the obligations one has to other deities, however, especially those who watch over the village. It is possible to dedicate oneself to one deity while at the same time participate in communal festivals dedicated to other deities whose sphere of influence is concerned with the community’s well-being. Yohan’s refusal to participate in the village festivals simply makes no sense in this worldview populated by an infinite variety of deities. In these initial conversations, therefore, we see a response to the presence of Jesus in Yohan’s life that is rooted in Hindu theology. Later, when the other villagers accepted Christ, they did so using a more traditional Hindu framework. Moreover, their initial willingness to follow Yohan expressed a communal solidarity which individualistic Western missionaries encountered in many parts of the world. For Protestant missionaries used to the norm of individual decisions and personal conversion experiences, decisions by whole families or larger caste groups to become Christian presented a theological problem. How was one to know for certain that true conversion had taken place?3 Indeed, the subse 3

In the first American Baptist mission station in Andhra Pradesh, for example, it was initially expected that prospective converts would leave their homes and come to live nearby the missionary so that they could be daily tutored and observed in developing a Christian style of life, breaking completely with their previous Hindu practices. That practice was challenged by a recent convert named Periah who insisted that the prospective converts could not leave their village to receive baptism. The young missionary John Clough went against established practice and acceded to this request. Within months, inquiries began to trickle in from Periah’s relatives and neighbors in his Madiga outcaste community, and within a few years the “trickle” become a “flood” (cf. Fishman 1958: 8). Many sought baptism during a famine, but Clough re-

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quent events that took place in Mallupalle would seem to support this skepticism, as the villagers stepped back from their group decision to become Christians in the face of the threats from the residents of the main village. Yet, in India, religious identity is usually a shared tradition of families and much larger caste and sectarian communities. From this Indian standpoint, Yohan had elevated his individual decisions over the well-being of the community. The decision the villagers made to become Christians, therefore, was motivated in large part by a desire to restore the group’s solidarity. By being baptized as a group, they thought that they could reincorporate Yohan and his family into the community. As time passed, however, that solidarity failed and, in the end, Mallupalle became split into two religious groups. The registration of the land in the name of each family may have provided an alternative to their religious affiliation. They were freed to reassess their religious stance with the larger village. Those who chose to become Christians had to relate the new to the old; not all of their religious life was easily rejected. For many, the result was to develop what might be called a “dual religious citizenship:” they gave their allegiance to Christ while at the same time participating fully in the Hindu traditions such as the goddess festivals that Yohan had refused to support. This double identity of many Christians was already present in the neighboring villages, which we described in our study as follows: Most Christians have a Hindu or a Muslim name as well as a Christian name. Some tie a cross round their necks, and on the same thread put a Hindu charm or talisman. Once when the author (P.Y.L.) was invited into a home to pray with a woman in acute pain, he found the sacred ashes of Kamudu (kept from the bonfire at Holi) smeared over her body in order to ward off the evil spirits. Christians give thank-offerings to Christ, and also pay considerable sums to the wandering religious mendifused to baptize anyone until the famine was over—he wanted no “rice Christians”—and on the appointed day for baptism, when thousands came to the bank of the Gundlakamma river, he and his assistants spent all day interrogating the applicants to assure himself of the sincerity of their conversion ( Latourette 1914: 166-67).

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Missionaries, especially Protestants, expected Indian converts to meet their standards of inward or spiritual conversion. They often expressed their disappointment, however, that the new Christian converts maintained their caste identities or participated in Hindu rituals. In India, however, joining or leaving sectarian communities sharing devotion to a particular deity or religious teacher has been much easier than changing caste membership. New converts have had to make decisions for themselves, entering a long debate among Indian Christians as to what it means to be Christian in a predominantly Hindu society. Hindu-Christian Interaction in Popular Catholicism Roman Catholic missions adapted more easily than Protestant missions to the caste structure of Indian society and were less concerned with the initial decision for baptism than with the ongoing process of spiritual nurture through the Christian sacraments. Thus there was much more willingness to adopt and adapt existing religious forms to express Christian worship. This expression of Christianity through Hindu religious or social forms can been seen in a variety of “popular” forms of Indian Catholic practices. There are two important examples of this in Tamil Nadu: the festivals of the goddess Velankanni Arokkiyam Mata and of the martyr St. John de Britto.

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For the ten days between August 29 and September 8, close to a million people, both Hindus and Christians, come to the little village of Velankanni on the southern coast of Tamil Nadu in order to participate in the festival of Velankanni Arokkiyam Mata, “Velankanni the Healing Mother” (hereafter called Velankanni) (Younger 2002: 115). Initially this appears to be a typical south Indian festival (Younger 2002: 115; Meibohm 2002: 63-66). It has all of the elements typically associated with these festivals: hoisting of a flag, daily processions of the deities, and the steady stream of people taking darshan of Velankanni who is dressed in a sari and garlanded with gifts from the pilgrims.4 There are elements about this festival, however, that reveal its Christian orientation. Most important is how people interpret Velankanni herself. Those who know the stories of Velankanni will be aware that she is a form of the Virgin Mary. Likewise, the main temple image of Velankanni bears the Christ child in its arms. Yet, as Paul Younger discovered in his conversation with pilgrims, many do not see the child during their few moments taking darshan (Younger 2002: 112). This creates a certain ambiguity that allows both Christians and Hindus to see Velankanni through the lens they bring with them. For some she is Jesus’ mother, for others a Hindu mata goddess whose powers are far more extensive (because she comes from over the sea) and more permanent than those of the local, fickle village goddesses (Younger 2002: 113-14). This identification is reinforced by the familiarity of the festival elements. Even here, however, there are Christian reinterpretations of these rituals. Most visible are the ongoing masses that take place in the main church building (which is separate from the shrine), the way of the cross pathway, and the tableaus depicting the mysteries of the rosary on the way to the temple reservoir (said to be the location where Velankanni first revealed herself to some local boys). The processions are led by a priest, a crucifix, and candles. Prayers are said before the processions begin and songs sung throughout. There are also elaborate ceremonies each day when the flag is raised, which breaks from the typical Hindu festival, 4 “Taking darshan” refers to the central ritual act in Hinduism that involves the reciprocal “seeing” between deity and devotee. Cf. Eck 1996: passim.

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where this occurs only on the first and last day of a festival. These ceremonies at Velankanni are occasions for prayer and petitions “lifted on high” to God. Even here, however, there are elements that remind one of other specifically Hindu contexts, for people speak of what they experience during these ceremonies in language that hints at experiences of possession (Meibohm 2002: 6869). This festival is an excellent example of the way that popular Christianity can take a Hindu worship form and introduce Christian elements, thereby reinterpreting the festival in Christian terms. Yet this leads to a high degree of ambiguity. For Indian Christians, festivals like that of Velankanni can allow them to remain Indian through the structure of the ritual while expressing their Christianity through the details (Meibohm 2002: 69). Hindu pilgrims, on the other hand, interpret Velankanni through the theological lenses of the Hindu tradition, at the same time acknowledging that she does not quite fit into that paradigm. Not only do the Christian devotees have a hybrid identity, but so does Velankanni. A similar ambiguity in the interpretation of the object of veneration can be seen in the figure of St. John de Britto, whose shrine is in Oriyur, a village in southern Tamil Nadu. De Britto was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary who was martyred in 1696 at the instigation of the local king, Setupathi of Ramnad.5 Tens of thousands of pilgrims from throughout Tamil Nadu come to this shrine to venerate de Britto, the largest number during the festival occurring from August 29 through September 8 (Raj 2002: 87). Like that at Velankanni, this festival is modeled on the south Indian Hindu festival, beginning with the hoisting of a flag and frequent processions. What is unique about de Britto’s festival, however, is the emphasis placed upon fertility, especially as seen in the continual circumambulation of his shrine by pilgrims carrying coconut saplings (a folk symbol of fertility in Tamil Nadu). Even more striking is the practice of animal sacrifice, which the priests participate in only with great reluctance, and only to sprinkle the animals with holy water (Raj 2002: 90, 97). This connection of de Britto with fertility is rooted in his martyrdom. During his stay in the Ramnad kingdom, he converted 5

For a summary of the story of this martyrdom see Raj 2002: 86.

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large numbers of people to Christianity. These people came from the lower caste groups, which meant that not only was he threatening the religious fabric of Tamil society but also the social and political fabric. As a result, he came to be viewed as extremely powerful. The degree to which this power was respected and feared by the people is marked by the way he was martyred: not only was he beheaded, but his limbs were nailed down so as to prevent the dispersal of his power though them (Raj 2002: 86). While there might seem to be a parallel between the beheading of animals in sacrifice and de Britto’s martyrdom by beheading, this association of blood spilled (especially in violence) with fertility and power also has deep roots in the symbolic system of the Tamil religious tradition. Blood, as the seat of shakti (“power”), is what gives people the power to fulfill the tasks of life. It is also considered to be the manifestation of the feminine principle of the universe within people. By spilling that blood onto the earth, it becomes disassociated from the restraint of the body and so a source of incredible, if dangerous, power (Hart 1975). Because of its association with the feminine, it is also considered to be a disembodied form of fertility. Therefore the interpretation of St. John de Britto’s powers has been transformed from one involving a political conflict between an Indian king and a Portuguese missionary to a heroic figure (vira) whose violent death has transformed him into a localized deity (Blackburn 1985). The result is that it is often very difficult to tell whether people at the shrine view de Britto as a Hindu deity or a Christian saint. Nor does the style of ritual help distinguish between “worship” and “veneration.” Indeed, the ritual form could be said to be more Hindu than Christian, the typical Christian forms of worship (masses and sacraments) being largely ignored by the Christians (although, ironically, most Hindus attend the masses). One priest commented in 1990, “We [clergy] preach about faith, the cross, and the kingdom of God, but for them [rural Catholics] religion is pilgrimage, festivals, and rituals. Official Catholic rituals like the Mass and sacraments have only secondary importance” (Raj 2002: 103). These two festivals and many smaller Catholic festivals illustrate more than one of the models already mentioned. For Catholics there appears to be something that we only rarely see among village Protestants: a synthesis of Catholic and popular

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Hindu rituals. Although participants identify themselves as Christian they utilize elements from the Hindu tradition to interpret the personage they are worshiping or venerating. The resulting theology is one deeply informed by the Hindu world view, an interpretation that is reinforced by the ritual forms. However familiar the ritual forms, Hindus are aware that these festivals are expressions of a different and indeed a foreign religious community, whose rituals, including the Masses, they should attend with respect if they are to benefit from their power. The Hindus encountering Lord Jesus among village Protestant congregations are then comparable in their attitudes to other Hindus participating in festivals to Christian saints in a Catholic milieu. In most cases I would not call them converts; they have been “touched” but not “turned.” Even so, every pilgrim’s experience is slightly different, and some of these Hindu pilgrims might say that not only have their lives been touched by the presence of Lord Jesus or of Christian saints, but they also have been turned in a new direction, even though remaining in Hindu society. The views of most past converts to Christianity were never recorded and rarely survive in the memory of their own families. Still less are the attitudes of participants in Hindu or Christian festivals accessible to outside observers. Not surprisingly, therefore, studies of conversion have focused on the relatively few educated Indians, mostly of high caste Hindu background, who have written about their experiences and articulated their convictions in prose or poetry. In this article I have deferred this evidence of such educated converts. They are not the whole story, but they are an important part of it. Indeed we see in their writings specific examples of the ambivalence or ambiguity that we have already noted. Individual Examples of Combining Acceptance and Rejection The high caste Hindus who became Christian converts illustrate both the rejection and retention of their particular Hindu heritage, but each one in his or her own characteristic way. I shall mention only three, but I cannot mention the first, Pandita Ramabai, without saying a word about the two men who most influenced her. One was the scholar and publicist Rammohan Roy, who founded a new Hindu Unitarian movement under the influence of Islam,

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Protestant Christianity, and Western rationalism (see Robertson 1999). The second was Nilakantha (later Nehemiah) Goreh, one of the few Indians to write both against Christianity before his conversion and in support of his new religion after he became a Christian (Young 1981). Equally noteworthy are his multiple changes of religious alliances: from the worship of Shiva to the worship of Vishnu, to Rammohan Roy’s Unitarian reform, and finally to orthodox Anglicanism. The same neatly “orthodox” conclusion of the spiritual quest did not, however, apply in the case of the multiple “conversions” of his younger friend Pandita Ramabai, who was recognized as an orthodox Brahmin scholar before she was drawn to the Unitarian theism of the Brahmo Samaj. It was Goreh who was instrumental in her decision to become a Christian. She commented in a letter to a friend: It was Father Gorehʹs letter that proved that the faith which I professed (I mean the Brahmo faith) was not taught by our Veda as I had thought, but it was the Christian faith which was brought before me by my friends disguised under the name of Brahmo religion. Well, I thought if Christ is the source of this sublime faith, why should I not confess Him openly to be my Lord and my Divine Teacher? (Viswanathan 1998: 133-34, n. 31)

Unlike her Indian Christian mentor, Ramabai’s own statement of faith leans in the direction of Unitarianism. She would only accept Christ as the messenger of salvation, not as one identical with God, and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity seemed too close to the polytheistic Hindu doctrine of “God having Three Personal Forms” (the Trimurti) which she emphatically rejected. While her Anglican missionary sponsors were horrified at her heretical views, they conceded her uncompromising monotheism might make her a more effective teacher in India, where Hindus so readily understand God in terms of polytheism or pantheism (Adhav 1979: 166ff.). In fact, Ramabai shared much of Rammohan Royʹs critique of traditional Hindu polytheism and of the Vaishnava doctrine of divine descent (avatara). Ramabai made a much more decisive break with her Hindu past than did Roy, however, and this led to her criticism of the existing translation of the Bible, which utilized many Hindu theological terms (Adhav 1979: 196).

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When we add to this her vigorous involvement in efforts to improve the lot of Hindu women and her sharp criticism of both Hindu and British patriarchy (Kosambi 2000), we have a glimpse of an independent-minded theologian. A different ambivalence towards the Hindu tradition and his Christian “establishment” can be seen in the Roman Catholic theologian Brahmabandhav Upadhyay.6 He distinguished between being a Hindu culturally and following a Catholic Christian spiritual practice. He considered himself a “Hindu-Christian” at a time when the Western missionary leadership, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, rejected the possibility of such a hyphenated religious existence. For him, Indian asceticism and Shankara’s philosophy both provided appropriate means for expressing the truth of Christianity, indeed for better expressing Christian truth, than the religion of Western missionaries and colonial authorities (cf. especially Lipner 1999: 130-56; Tennent 2000: 208-99). He shared with Pandita Ramabai a pride in their Brahmanical tradition and a questioning of foreign Christianity. While she saw an emphasis in the Christian Gospel sharply different from traditional Hindu doctrine and social morality, however, Brahmabandhav saw Christian and Hindu truth merging in both his theology and his new form of asceticism. By the time of his death, his relations with Roman Catholic officials had become exceedingly strained, and his Hindu friends claimed that he had once again become a Hindu. A final example is Krishna Pillai from southern India. Unlike the north Indian converts discussed above, Krishna Pillai never wrote in English. He did, however, write many books in Tamil and composed a number of hymns still sung by Tamil Protestants. Dennis Hudson has shown an intriguing parallel between the convert’s former Tengalai Srivaishnava ritual status as Vishnuʹs slave and his understanding of his status as a Christian saved solely by Christʹs atoning sacrifice (Hudson 1972: 199). Krishna Pillai himself, however, never seems to have recognized this parallel. He wrote later about his conversion and included the first verse he composed after becoming convinced of the Christian faith. Hudson translates it as follows: 6

Cf. two recent studies of Brahmabandhav Upadhyay’s life and thought: Lipner 1999 and Tennent 2000.

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O Sea of Grace, O Sun that dispels the world of Darkness, O God who has released precious life for this your slave. On this occasion when you make a devotee of me, a low wicked fellow not knowing the meaning of Truth, I offer my heart to only you, for the form of Dharma. (Hudson 1972: 197)

Hudson comments that this verse in no way indicates the name of the Lord in whom he has taken refuge and the final epithet Dharma-murti (“The Image of Dharma”) recalls to mind the figure of Rama, who embodied dharma on earth and to whom he had been devoted as a Hindu. (Hudson 1972: 197-98)

However Vaishnava his language, from that time on Krishna Pillai considered himself chosen by Christ to be his devotee. Krishna Pillai later wrote a number of polemical tracts against Hindu and specifically Vaishnava beliefs. The language of one was so extreme that the Christian missionaries responsible for its publication urged him to revise his statements so that they would not give so much offense to Hindus. Krishna Pillaiʹs poetry, however, continued to use typical Hindu terms. His major work, “The Pilgrimage to Salvation” (Rakshanyayatrikam), was a Tamil version of John Bunyanʹs Pilgrim Progress that took as its literary model the Tamil version of the Ramayana that he had learned as a boy. Thus the same convert who referred to the image-incarnation of Lord Vishnu in the central Srirangam temple as a “demon” retained his respect for that most human of Vishnuʹs incarnations, Lord Rama. We should note briefly another important dimension to Krishna Pillaiʹs life as a Christian. He and his brother continued the “pure” vegetarianism of his high caste Hindu past, and Muthiah Pillai defended the right of Vellala Christians to retain their distinctive religious forms, specifically those setting them apart from low caste Christians. From the standpoint of some English missionaries, the caste pride of Vellalas was un-Christian, but for the two brothers their own distinctive Tamil Christianity, “sitting together, separately,” was a mark of their Christian integrity (Hudson 2000). Throughout the writings of these intellectuals we can see a questioning of the need to abandon completely their religious

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heritage as they become Christians. Each of them finds value in elements from that religious heritage, arguing that some elements, whether theological, ritualistic, or social, are not incompatible with the Christian message. However, they do not agree on what elements to keep nor on the understanding of the decisive difference each finds in his or her new Christian commitments. In other words, they reflect an ambivalence over how to express their new-found identities in ways that do not deny their cultural identities as Indians. None of them believes that one must adopt Western cultural forms to become truly Christian. How to embody Christianity in Indian forms remained controversial, however. The Challenge of Dalit Theology Many Christians want to affirm their solidarity with Hindus in a national culture that includes a distinctively Indian way of being religious. In this contemporary Indian Christian approach, articulated especially by some Roman Catholic theologians, “conversion” of any kind, whether of individuals, groups, or the nation as a whole, can still suggest repentance and spiritual deepening but certainly not a rejection of what is regarded as a common Indian spiritual heritage. While evangelical Protestants continue to regard all Hindu religion as a demonic culture that must be rejected by true Christians, there are other Protestants who share with the Roman Catholics just mentioned a desire to identify themselves with a much larger group outside the small Christian minority. In the case of these Protestants, however, especially as articulated by their dalit theologians, the identification is not with India’s Hindu majority but with the substantial dalit minority (at least one hundred million). Dalit intellectuals, both non-Christian and Christian, claim that dalits have never really been Hindus: they were considered to rank below the lowest Hindu castes, to be so polluted that in southern India they could not live in the village proper and to be excluded from worshipping at Hindu temples served by Brahmin priests. From the viewpoint of dalit theology, conversion is frequently regarded as a group process involving corporate decisions by Dalit communities to move away from their traditional religion and to move towards a new religion articulated by Chris-

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tian missionaries. Their own tradition was interrelated with other strands of popular religion, all of which were informed by the Brahmanic world vision, which placed dalits wholly outside the system, calling them untouchables. The new religious status towards which they chose to move had, in the converts’ minds, the missionaries’ power to alleviate injustices (strengthened by their connection with the colonial government) and the potential for empowerment through education and “moving up” to more dignified forms of employment (often in the towns and cities).7 From the perspective of those speaking for dalits, conversion to Christianity is a way of escaping the cosmically ordained oppression as embodied in the caste system.8 While missionaries have joined dalits in a concerted attack against the caste system, dalits have learned that becoming Christians does not automatically lead to equality, freedom and dignity since Hindus continue to treat them as outcastes. Furthermore, the Christian community itself has come to be shaped along caste lines. Nevertheless, dalits continue to envision a still unrealized new social order. The contemporary Roman Catholic and Protestant positions both are indebted to the experience of converts, but they have chosen to identify opposite elements in the conversion process. The Catholic affirmation of Brahmanic spirituality as the core of generic “Indianness” (Hindutva) emphasizes one of the elements in their religious past and projects it into an anticipated future of interreligious harmony. Protestant dalit theology, on the other hand, rejects everything Brahmanical, both in Indian society and in the theology and practice of Indian Christians. It seems much 7

This section is indebted to a preliminary draft of a forthcoming article by Prof. Sathianathan Clarke on “Conversion to Christianity in Tamilnadu.” Clarke wrote his doctoral dissertation on dalit religion while at Harvard. See Clark 1998. 8

In the British Methodist Mission the semi-independent princely state of Hyderabad, one of the missionaries, C.W. Posnett, attained almost legendary status in the memory of village Christians. He was a huge man who came from England in the early twentieth century and imposed his vision on the Mission, building a school, a hospital, and a huge cathedral in Medak, a few miles from Mallupalle. He had the reputation of being able to intervene forcefully to protect those whom he called “our village Christians” against the worst injustices against them by Hindu landlords (Luke and Carman 1968: 65).

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harder for dalit theologians to agree on aspects of the dalit religious heritage that are or could be revalorized in their new Christian existence. The memory of the past sufferings and indignities lends force to the theme of escape from higher caste oppression, but the village religious resources behind the unbending resolve and the quiet dignity of Yohan of Mallupale remain to be explored if the promise of liberation is to become a reality within the village. The Transforming Dream: From Krishna to Kristu There are many alternatives in the attitudes of Indian converts to Christianity towards their previous religious heritage as well as diverse perspectives among those who have written about this subject, including the views of converts themselves and the Hindu leaders who regard “conversion” as an imperialist-induced betrayal of the Indian spiritual heritage. My interest in this subject was focused by a research assignment that seemed at the time a distraction. I had come back to India, which I had left fifteen years earlier, as a Christian missionary engaged in a doctoral research project. My theological interests in Christian views of Hindus had led to a study of one of the most important Hindu thinkers, Ramanuja. My research assignment to assist the Rev. P. Y. Luke in a study of village Christian congregations seemed to take me in a very different direction. Indeed, I thought I was postponing my study of any kind of Hinduism in order to address the situation of village Christians: What did it mean for them to live as a small Christian minority in the midst of traditional Hindu society? It turned out that our study had much more to do with Hinduism than I had expected, since the lives of these Christians were still intertwined with the established religious practices and beliefs of all the villagers. Our study also had more to do than I realized with the original theological questions that I never quite reached in my doctoral dissertation on Ramanuja: How should Christians view “other religions,” particularly Hindu religious traditions? Only recently have I returned to this question directly and it is still more recently that I have realized the importance of Christian converts’ experiences in both framing this question and trying to answer it.

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The strangest story I heard was one I might not have believed it if I had not heard it firsthand. A young Sudra named Venkatesvara had a dream in which he thought he saw Krishna, who commanded him to accept the next marriage proposal received in the mail. A few days later such a letter did arrive, but it was from a Christian who wanted to find a husband of the same caste for his daughter, provided the young man would first become a Christian. The boy finally agreed, although this offer was less attractive financially than others he had previously received, because he came to believe that the figure he had seen in his dream was not Krishna but Jesus Christ. He was instructed in the Christian faith for several weeks by his prospective fatherin-law, a landowning farmer who had himself become a Christian several years previously as the result of a miraculous healing. This farmer had been a staunch Hindu who never listened to Christian preaching and had once beaten a Christian evangelist who had come to his village to preach. At one time he developed a chronic abdominal pain which he vainly tried to cure with various medicines. He also went to the hospital for treatment but secured no relief. One night in his dreams he had a vision of Jesus Christ, who told him that by a certain date he would be well. To his surprise, on exactly that date he felt perfectly all right. After this experience he became interested in the Christian Church and was subsequently baptized. Later he began to effect healing through prayer in the name of Jesus. According to his own report, his young son once became ill and actually died, but after he had “prayed with tears” at his bedside for two hours, his son came back to life. He is said to have healed many people in his locality through prayer. After this instruction from his father-in-law, Venkatesvara was baptized with the name of Christopher Dayanand and soon afterwards married. Then he decided that he wanted to learn more about Christian faith, and enrolled in a one-year course at Medak. Before the end of the year he decided to offer himself for Christian ministry and take a three-year course in a theological college. Soon after coming to Medak, Christopher entered into regular conversations about Christianity with a

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group of young men of landowning caste in a village near Medak, where the Sudras had never previously shown any interest in the Gospel already accepted by the outcasts (sic) of that village. This is an actual occurrence, but it may also be a symbol of great significance: the attribution to the Lord Jesus of the power and the presence which have previously been ascribed to Lord Krishna or the other “Lords” of the village mind. (Luke and Carman 1968: 182-83)

This story and the others previously recounted suggest that the impact of the Christian Gospel on the southern Indian village mind has sometimes been very different than the reception given to the Bible and the Christian message by educated Hindus in Indian cities. It appears that in those villages where the “Word of God” is least read and Christian social institutions are most fragile, the Word of God who became human in Jesus has escaped from the Bible and speaks directly to people—not only to Christians but also to Hindus. It is understandable that not only secular Westerners but also pious Christians in India might be skeptical about Christ’s appearances to those who have not spent years preparing for such a high point of religious experience, who do not faithfully pray to Jesus in their congregations or at home, and who may not even recognize that it is Jesus Christ whom they have encountered. Certainly it is true that these reports come from those who do not find it unprecedented to encounter a deity in a dream. What made the appearance of Krishna in Venkateshvara’s dream noteworthy was the command conveyed—“accept the next marriage proposal”—and the unexpected consequence of his obedience to that Divine command. We in the West are more familiar with another kind of Hindu thought in which dreams are an evident metaphor for unreality—the world is a dream (maya). It is therefore worth remembering that for many Hindu traditions, quite notably in the theology of Ramanuja, dreams are real and that the Divine communication they convey must be taken seriously. Venkateshvara was a village Hindu of Vaishnava background. He was given the name of the great temple image incarnation of Lord Vishnu in the hills above Tirupati, Venkateshvara. His subsequent drastic change of mind and social status—conversion in both the inner and outer sense—involved a good deal of conventional catechesis, unusual

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mainly because it was begun by a layman, his future father-inlaw. There is nothing “supernatural” about the rest of Christopher Dayanand’s story, but that story would not have started without that puzzling dream. Christopher came to believe that Jesus had appeared to him in the guise of Krishna. In the experience of Christian encounter with “other gods,” there have been two evident alternatives. One is to treat other deities as real powers that are dangerous rivals to Christ for the possession of the soul. They are therefore called demons. The second is to treat “other gods” as figments of human imagination. Whether or not they are given outward material form, they are “idols.” From what I remember of our conversation, however, I suspect Christopher Dayanand accepted neither of these alternatives but was influenced by two other models. One was the theistic Hindu interpretation of “other gods,” that they are real beings with great power but ultimately subordinate to the Supreme Lord, of whom they are in fact devoted servants, even though their human devotees mistakenly give them supreme allegiance. From what Christopher told us of his own new theology, however, a fourth model can be discerned, for Vishnu did not remain a separate deity, one of the “other gods,” but simply merged with the first person of the Trinity. Vishnu active in our world, however, is much more concrete and manifold. Krishna may be a genuine avatar for a previous age, but Jesus is the avatar for the present age, and, quite possibly, Krishna is to be regarded as the servant of Jesus Christ. Venkateshvara was a young man from the washerman’s caste who thought he was having a dream encounter with Lord Krishna, the patron deity of his family. It was only after he was persuaded to become a Christian—as a condition for marriage to the daughter of a new Christian convert—that he decided that the god who appeared in his dream was not Lord Krishna but Lord Jesus. In this case it was his father-in-law who had experienced Jesus’ miraculous healing. Christopher Dayanand’s “miracle,” if we may call it that, was the entire process through which he decided not only to be baptized, joining the religion of the outcastes, but also to enroll in a theological seminary! His own Christian revision of the Puranic story of the world’s creation, told to us before he started his Christian theological education, impressed me then as a remarkably genuine “Indian Christian theology.”

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When I heard of his death, which happened just a few years ago, I realized that I shall probably never learn what happened to his theology and his ministerial vocation after his theological training. Is Lord Jesus appearing in dreams, rescuing from illness and death, and giving strange commands, a reflection of village Hindu beliefs that may be more familiar to the middle and higher Hindu castes than they are to the lowest castes? Certainly Lord Jesus the Healer appears in a divine-human form familiar to Hindus acquainted with the avatars of Vishnu and the sudden appearances of Shiva, but this avatar is not enshrined in a temple from which outcastes are excluded. His shrine is in the middle of the outcaste corner of the village, across the road or even across a field from the rest of the village. Lord Jesus is worshipped there, but his power extends beyond the humble hall where services are held and the still humbler huts of his worshipers. Sometimes he enters into the dreams and into the bodies of Hindus with his healing power. Those who are attracted to him are welcome to worship him, but while they may pray in private, the public worship of Lord Jesus takes place in what Brahmins consider polluted ground, which higher caste Hindus seek to avoid: the outcaste section of the village. I began with Yohan and I end with Christopher Dayanand, two converts representing millions whom I never met, many of whom were illiterate and most of whom never wrote down what they thought about the religious tradition they left, at least in part, when they became Christians. Once in a while some new document is discovered and published that gives us one more voice, but most of the voices we can only imagine or else confess that we simply do not know what they thought. Even if we had been able to talk with them across the barrier of language, they might have been puzzled with our questions, and we might have been confused by their replies. In some cases we might learn more by observing their daily lives and their participation in festivals. In any case we would gain a different impression from these converts than from the articulate, self-confident but often one-sided pronouncements of Western Christian theologians. In retrospect, I am grateful for the major delay that my study of village Christians caused, leading me barely to finish my dissertation for Yale before the final deadline. Not that I no longer

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think it important to study major Hindu thinkers. I suggest, however, that the question of what Christians can learn from these thinkers can benefit from also learning from Christians who have pondered the challenges and the costs of Christian discipleship without the luxury of academic detachment or the freedom to avoid personal decisions. We can learn from stubborn exclusiveness and from imaginative synthesis and also from failure of nerve or utter confusion. We shall understand these better if we see them in their particular Indian contexts. Perhaps we shall discover something of what those converts saw in a command of the Gospel, a dream of Lord Jesus, or a miraculous healing.9 Bibliography Adhav, S.M. (1979). Pandita Ramabai. Confessing the Faith in India Series 13. Bangalore/Madras: The Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society/The Christian Literature Society. Blackburn, Stuart H. (1985). “Death and Deification: Folk Cults in Hinduism.” History of Religions 24: 255-74 Clarke, Sathianathan. (Forthcoming). “Conversion to Christianity in Tamilnadu.” In: Rowena Robinson and Sathianathan Clarke (eds.). Religious Conversion in India: Modes, Motivations, Meanings. Delhi: Oxford University (1998). Dalits and Christianity: Subaltern Religion and Liberation Theology in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Eck, Diana L. (1996). Darshan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. 2nd Rev. and Enlarged Edition. New York: Columbia University Press. Fishman, Alvin T. (1958). For this Purpose: A Case Study of the Telugu Baptist Church in its Relation with the South Indian Mission of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Socieites in India. Guntur: Andhra Christian College. Hart, George L. III. (1975). The Poems of Ancient Tamil: Their Milieu and Their Sanskrit Counterparts. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Pp. 93-119. Hudson, D. Dennis. (2000). Protestant Origins in India: Tamil Evangelical Christians, 1706-1835. Studies in the History of Christian Missions.

9 I want to thank my research and administrative assistant, Ms. Tamara S.J. Lanaghan, for the assistance she provided in preparing this paper.

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Grand Rapids/Richmond: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company/Curzon Press Ltd. Pp. 153-72. (1972). “Hindu and Christian Parallels in the Conversion of H. A. Krishna Pillai 1857-1859.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 40. Kosambi, Meera (ed. and transl.). (2000)., Pandita Ramabai through Her Own Words: Selected Works. New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Latourette, Kenneth Scott. (1944). The Great Century in North Africa and Asia A.D. 1800-A.D. 1914. A History of the Expansion of Christianity 7. New York/London: Harper and Brothers Publishers. Lipner, Julius J. (1999). Brahmabandhab Upadhyay: The Life and Thought of a Revolutionary. New Delhi/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Luke, P.Y. and John B. Carman. (1968). Village Christians and Hindu Culture: Study of a Rural Church in Andhra Pradesh South India. World Studies of Churches in Mission (London: Lutterworth Press. Meibohm, Margaret. (2002). “Past Selves and Present Others: The Ritual Construction of Identity at a Catholic Festival in India.” In: Selva J. Raj and Corinne G. Dempsey (eds.). Popular Christianity in India: Writing between the Lines. Albany: State University of New York Press. Raj, Selva J. (2002). “Transgressing Boundaries, Transcending Turner: The Pilgrimage Tradition at the Shrine of St. John de Britto.” In: Selva J. Raj and Corinne G. Dempsey (eds.). Popular Christianity in India: Writing between the Lines. Albany: State University of New York Press.. Robertson, Bruce Carlisle. (1995). Raja Rammohan Ray: The Father of Modern India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Reprinted in Oxford India Paperbacks, 1999. Tennent, Timothy C. (2000). Building Christianity on Indian Foundations: The Legacy of Brahmabandhav Upadhyay. Delhi: ISPCK. Viswanathan, Gauri. (1998). Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Young, Richard Fox. (1981). Resistant Hinduism: Sanskrit Sources on AntiChristian Apologetics in Nineteenth-Century India. Publications of the De Nobili Research Library 8. Vienna/Leiden: Indological Institute, University of Vienna/Brill. Younger, Paul. (2002). Playing Host to Deity: Festival Religion in the South Indian Tradition. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.

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Christianity’s View of Confucianism An East Asian Theology of Religions Heup Young Kim Abstract The purpose of this paper is to present how East Asian Christians can appreciate Confucianism, their common tradition. Although comparative theologies and theologies of religions in the West presuppose Confucianism as “the other” in an eitheror attitude, this attitude is inappropriate for East Asian Christians whom Confucianism is ontologically given to as their own religio-cultural background, but they may need to accept a dual citizenship in the both-and attitude. East Asian theologia religionum, hence, is compelled to move beyond both the descriptive and the prescriptive approaches, still based on the either-or, and toward a themative approach to properly thematize the Christian faith in the Confucian context. This theologia religionum would consist in two hermeneutical stages, descriptive-comparative and normative-constructive. Accordingly, this paper illustrates (1) two Confucian-Christian dialogues (Karl Barth and Wang Yang-ming, John Calvin and Yi T’oegye) and (2) an example of East Asian theology of religions to propose a theological paradigm shift toward a theo-tao (instead of theo-logy and theo-praxis) and a Christo-tao (Christ as the Theanthropocosmic Tao).

Confucian-Christian Encounters: Dual Citizenship? Confucian-Christian Encounters As deBary finds, Confucianism or, more precisely Neo-Confucianism (cf. Tu 1989b), is not only “the common background of the peoples of East Asia” but also “the most plausible rationale” and “the key” to understanding the attitude of “the inward-looking civilization of East Asia.” However, “the expansionist” Westerners in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries unfortunately 265

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misunderstood this East Asian inward-looking attitude “as ingrown, self-contented, smug, and isolationist,” while East Asians regarded this Western expansionism as “the very embodiment of uncontrolled aggressiveness—power on the loose, bound to no moral and spiritual center” (deBary 1988: 44). Obviously, this sharp contrast reflects two radically different religious views deeply embedded in their ways of life; namely, Christianity with its evangelical and missionary zeal versus Confucianism with its belief in the natural transmission of the Tao through the inner power of virtues. In comparison to this misplaced view of the modern West, the forerunners of modernity such as Pascal and Leibniz, intimately informed by the school of Matteo Ricci, would have much better comprehensions of Confucianism, at least with much keener awareness of its significance for their Christian faith.1 In fact, Confucianism itself is “a misnomer” of Western scholarship to designate a common East Asian religious tradition accumulated with a long and complicated history of development (Ching 1976: xv). Along with sharply rising interest in this East Asian tradition due to rapid economic growth of the Neo-Confucian world, notably Japan and four tiger countries, scholars and theologians have attempted to correct the modern misconception of Confucianism in the West. Tu Wei-ming (sometimes called a Confucian theologian or evangelist) and Julia Ching appear to have made most visible contributions to the interpretation of Confucianism for theology in the English-speaking world. Adding Confucianism as “a third independent religious river system” of sapiential character (Confucianism and Taoism), Hans Küng also argued helpfully for a tripolar view of world religions, instead of the predominant dipolar view that contains only two religious river systems, i.e., prophetic religions of Middle Eastern origin (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and mystical religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) of Indian origin (cf. 1989). North American theo1

Leibniz said, “I am afraid that soon in our relation we are inferior to Chinese, so that it will be almost necessary to receive their missionaries to teach us the usage and practice of the natural theology, while we dispatch ours to them to teach the usage and the practive of the revealed theology” (“Novissima Sinica” [1698-1699], quoted in Ching 1976: 11516).

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logians such as Robert C. Neville, Lee Yearly, and Paul V. Martinson became deeply interested in Confucian-Christian dialogue and enthusiastically support organizing international ConfucianChristian dialogues; 1988 in Hong Kong, 1991 in Berkeley, 1994 in Boston, and 1998 in Hong Kong (cf. Berthrong 1994). This interest in East Asian studies is bringing about an interesting scholarly phenomenon: a great shift in the Western (Christianity’s) view of Confucianism. There are communities of Western scholars who, although originally from a Christian background, became fascinated with Confucianism and went into a scholarly “pilgrimage” in East Asian culture (so called the Boston or Berkeley Confucians). After experiences of this pilgrimage in a new vista of East Asian religious traditions, their Western religious views have been seriously challenged and restructured. Furthermore, they began to ask theologically what this change meant for their Christian faith (cf. Berling 1997: vii-ix). This has developed a new genre of Christian theology, namely, comparative theology. Comparative theology refers primarily to a theological enterprise of Western scholars who attempt to incorporate new insights acquired from the experiences of new religious vistas. Comparative theologians can be divided into two groups by the principle tools of comparison: by philosophy (Yearly and Neville) and by text (Clooney). This is without doubt a significant development of theologia religionum in the last decade. Nevertheless, it tends to be not only highly elitist and theoretical but also romantic and speculative. Most comparative theologians in the West learn the other traditions through literature studies, without necessary firsthand experiences. Their interpretations of the other frequently neglect historical and cultural realities but are often construed with romantic imagination and wishful thinking (“manufacturing”). Dual Citizenship? Above all, dual religious citizenship would be the most intricate problem of comparative theology with which native (in this case, East Asian) theologians could not comply in spite of its profound merits. Does this point to the limit where so-called wider ecumenism can go? Most Western theologians including not only the theological inclusivist Küng but also the liberal pluralist John Hick warn against crossing the Rubicon of dual religious citizen-

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ship: “one can only center one’s religious life wholeheartedly and unambiguously upon one of them ... but not more than one at once” (Hick 1989: 373). In dialogue with Ching, classifying dual citizenship into three categories—cultural, ethical, and religious—Küng concludes, “as much as cultural and ethical dual citizenship is possible and ought to be made possible even anew, a religious dual citizenship in the deepest sense of faith should be excluded —by all the great religions.” He cautions, “Christian inculturation, not dual religious citizenship, must be the watchword!” (Küng and Ching 1989: 282). For East Asian Christians, however, this is indeed an odd watchword. Although extremely sympathetic toward the East Asian situation, Küng as a most open-minded European theologian could not transcend an epistemological dualism in the either-or mode of thinking inherited from Western Christianity (not ecumenical Christianity). He said, “Therefore, even with every cultural and ethical possibility for integration, the truth of every religion extends to a depth that ultimately challenges every person to a yes or no, to an either-or” (Küng and Ching 1989: 281). However, in fact, the genius of the Nicene Creed of the Trinity (not either one or three, but both one and three) and the Chalcedonian Christology lie in the fact that Church Fathers enable Christian faith to overcome Greek dualism (either divinity or humanity) and to declare christological dual citizenship (both heavenly and earthly citizenships). Nevertheless, the Western church has not fully grasped this great wisdom of the ancient church but, turning the clock back, maintained ecclesiastical and epistemological intolerance of the other, stuck to an Arian monotheism (“only one!”) and a Roman confessional complex (“eitheror”) acquired by the experiences of martyrdom and persecutions during the pre-Constantine period. For East Asian Christians, however, dual citizenship is not so much an epistemological and speculative but a hermeneutical and existential problem. For us, Confucianism is a historical reality, ontologically given (perhaps, by the grace of God’s creation). We have no hermeneutical distance to put aside and objectify Confucianism as the status of the other religion. As Tu stated well, “East Asians may profess themselves to be Shintoists, Taoists, Buddhists, Muslims, or Christians, but by announcing their religious affiliations seldom do they cease to be Confucians” (Tu 1989b: 3).

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At this juncture, it may also be needed to clarify another misnomer, “Confucianism—a Chinese religion.” Confucianism is not only a Chinese religion just as Christianity or Buddhism is not only a Palestinian or an Indian religion. Further, it is not China but Korea that was “undoubtedly the most thoroughly Confucianized” country and still is as the only predominantly Confucian society in the world today (Tu 1989b: 35).2 Furthermore, this misnomer is offensive for Koreans, because it carries an undertone of a sino-centric worldview—the specious rational for Chinese imperialism—that is by no means innocent in the history of East Asia nor much less arrogant and oppressive than their Western counterparts. East Asian Theology of Religions As a Korean Christian theologian raised in a family that has maintained a fully recorded geneology of its clan’s thousand-year history in Confucianism, I confessed: The more I study Christian theology, the more I become convinced how deeply Confucianism is embedded in my soul and body, my spirituality. Subtly but powerfully, Confucianism still works inside me, as my native religious language. If theology involves the response of one’s total being to God, it also entails a critical wrestling with this embedded Confucian tradition. Doing East Asian theology necessarily involves the study of Confucianism as a theological task. (Kim 1996: 1).

In this context, theologia religionum entails a different paradigm from the one that the organizers of this workshop have projected, though theologia religionum is much more relevant than other disciplines, such as history of religions, phenomenology of religions, comparative religions, sociology of religion, and psychology of religion. In this Confucian-Christian encounter, there is no clearcut distinction for “the other” religion or faith that the organizers seem to have presupposed based on their European experiences. 2

Grayson also observed (1989: 8): “[A]lthough Confucianism originated in China, it never had the overall impact on Chinese society that Neo-Confucianism had on Korea over five hundred years of the last dynasty. In Japan, Confucianism was primarily a concern of the ruling elite and the associated scholarly class.” He further claimed (1988: 8), “It is only in Korea we find a society in which the predominant political, cultural, and social influences were and are Confucians.”

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It is rather a “both-and” situation than an “either-or” one and thus East Asian theologia religionum is compelled to accept dual religious citizenship (or a hyphenated identity, Confucian-Christian or Christian-Confucian). Accordingly, in this context, a “themative” (intrareligious and constructive) approach would be a more proper attitude for a theologia religionum that may need to combine both the “descriptive” (comparative and interreligious) and the “prescriptive” (interreligious and normative) inquiries. A themative approach refers to a hermeneutical enterprise to thematize a holistic meaning of the Christian faith for the life of a culture and society predominantly shaped by Confucianism. However, it does not denote a false syncretism, but an authentic theological engagement in and through one’s own religious horizons that give the one better, more relevant, and more proper understandings of Christian faith in one’s own context (“owning up to one’s own metaphors” (cf. Kim 2001)). I proposed that East Asian theologia religionum consists of two hermeneutical stages, “a descriptive-comparative” and “a normative-constructive” one (cf. Kim 1996: 139-41). The first stage may correlate with the descriptive approach of a theologia religionum, while the second stage with the prescriptive approach. In the descriptive-comparative stage stage, confuciology, a protective and heuristic device to preserve Confucian intratextualities (narratives), is employed to develop a thickly descriptive interreligious dialogue.3 In the normative-constructive stage the focus is shifted to the East Asian Christian communities that necessitate a normative (or prescriptive) articulation of Christian faith in their given Confucian context. In the following two sections, I will illustrate an example of this East Asian themative theologia religionum in construction. In the next section I will summarize two ConfucianChristian dialogues I have developed between Wang Yang-ming (a seminal Neo-Confucian thinker in China) and Karl Barth (a major Christian theologian of the twentieth century) and between Yi T’oe-gye (the most important Confucian scholar in Korea) and 3

“Confuciology” has been coined to designate a term in Confucianism, functionally equivalent (homological) to theology in Christianity: “Analogously as theology refers to a coherent reflection of the Christian faith in a given context, confuciology does that for the Confucian faith” (Kim 1996: 135).

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John Calvin (a prominent sixteenth-century Protestant theologian and “founder” of the Reformed theological tradition). Then, in the third section, I will give an example of East Asian theologia religionum in the second constructive stage. Confucian-Christian Dialogues: Thick Resemblances in Radical Differences Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529) and Karl Barth (1886-1968): Self-cultivation and Sanctification In this first dialogue, based on the paradigmatic teachings of these two seminal thinkers, I argued that, if properly understood, the Confucian teaching of self-cultivation and the Christian doctrine of sanctification are “thickly resemblant views of a common issue, i.e., how to be fully human” (Kim 1996: 139). In a nutshell, self-cultivation aims to realize the true self (liang-chih) latent in original human nature, while sanctification is to realize one’s true elected nature. Basically, Confucianism and Christianity are two radically different religious paradigms, emerged from different historicalcultural-social-linguistic matrices; generally, human-centered versus God-centered, subjective versus objective, inner versus outer, and so on. These differences appear in the dialogue between Wang and Barth. While Barth’s theology emphasizes historicality, Wang’s confuciology stresses immanence. The Confucian source is the sapiential tradition transmitted through human mind-andheart (hsin), whereas the Christian source is the prophetic tradition revealed through the Word of God. The root paradigms of humanity epitomize their differences. The innate knowledge of the good (liang-chih) is immanent-transcendence, while the humanitas Christi is characterized as historico-transcendence. The Confucian vision as an inclusive humanism presents an anthropocosmic vision (the unity of humanity and cosmos), while the Christian vision (the salvific Christ event) presents a theo-historical vision (salvation history). Hence, Confucianism (self-cultivation) is more ontological and cosmic, while Christianity (sanctification) is more existential and historical. This distinction is saliently revealed in the analysis of evil. Confuciology focuses on reaffirming the primordial unity and ontological goodness, whereas theology analyzes the sinful struc-

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ture of the existential human condition. This nuance is also apparent in anthropology. Whereas confuciology grasps jen as cosmic togetherness, theology articulates imago Dei as historical togetherness. These differences reflect divergent priorities in the movement of radical humanization: self-cultivation first looks at human inner self and makes an outward move (chih liang-chih), while sanctification begins with the historical event and turns to subjectivity (the direction of the Holy Spirit). The Confucian ideal of human being is a profound person, a sincere digger (ch’eng), whereas the Christian model is that of the disturbed sinner, an obedient hearer and doer to the commandments of God (agapé). In the final analysis, these differences can be summarized in two basic visions; namely, the Confucian anthropocosmic vision versus the Christian theohistorical vision. Nevertheless, despite these fundamental differences, the Confucian-Christian dialogue between Wang and Barth demonstrates thick resemblances in dealing with the common issue of how to be fully human, radical humanization. Both of them believe that radical humanity (liang-chih and humanitas Christi) is the ultimate ontological reality (the most concrete-universal of true humanity). Evil arises existentially by a dysfunction and a denial of this ontological reality. Radical humanity as ontological reality not only illuminates but also has an intrinsic power to remove evil. Radical humanization is a transcendent process of realizing this ontological reality beyond the structure of ambiguous human existential situation; that is to say, an identification of subjectivity and ontological reality in mind-and-heart and a historical self-realization of the ontological connection with Jesus Christ. In this process, radical humanity endows the concrete spiritual direction through spiritual empowerment. Further, Wang and Barth present a similar material definition of humanity. Being human means being-in-togetherness; namely, a creative co-humanity (jen) and a joyful Mitmenschlichkeit (imago Dei). The modern notion of selfhood as an individual ego is incorrect and dangerous; selfhood is rather a communal center of relationships and thus humanization entails self-transformation as a communal act. The meaning of humanity should be realized through the concrete-universal way of the ever-expanding circles of human relatedness and in the ethico-religious unity of ontological knowledge (being) and ethical action (becoming). In this

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manner Wang’s confuciology of self-cultivation and Barth’s theology of sanctification present remarkably similar concrete-universal ways of radical humanization. Furthermore, there are some very valuable implications of this dialogue. It warrants three modes of thinking, originally Confucian and properly Christian, helpful to deal with serious issues of contemporary theology. Firstly, Confucianism and Christianity converge in the jen mode of thinking, i.e., “thinking in relationships and communities” (Moltmann 1981: 19). This would be a proper corrective to modern and contemporary individualism. It demands that the mode of thinking in relationship and community must be expanded to the widest horizon, in solidarity not only with the people of other races, sexes, classes, cultures, and religions but also with nature, in order to actualize the goal of humanity as the cosmic being-in-togetherness. Secondly, Confucianism and Christianity converge in the ch’eng mode of thinking (ch’eng = sincerity). Both Wang and Barth propose the concrete-universal mode of self-transformation as a communal act rooted in the unity of ontological knowledge and ethical practice. It would be also a significant corrective for our divided world. It enables us to overcome difficult polarities such as particularity and universality, diversity and unity, theory and practice, and orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Thirdly, Confucianism and Christianity converge in the Tao mode of thinking, in the emphasis of the orthopraxis in the communal interrelatedness (propriety and discipleship). Wang and Barth share a claim that radical humanization implies primarily Tao (the Way of Life always in transformation), the transformative praxis of life. In the final analysis, all these modes of thinking refer to an earnest participation in search of the Tao of common humanity, a genuine “dialogical participation” for the “common quest for a new humanism” (cf. Thomas 1987). John Calvin (1509-64) and Yi T’oegye (1501-70): Imago Dei and T’ien-ming The thick resemblances within radical differences are presented more strikingly in the second dialogue between the two most significant thinkers for Korean Christianity (cf. Kim 1998).4 4 Korean Neo-Confucianism was firmly established by T’oegye and his school of the Way had played decisive roles in the history of Korean Confucianism. Korean Presbyterianism, based on Calvin, has flourished

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a) Ontological Humanity Both Calvin and T’oegye believe that human beings are related to and inseparably intertwined with the transcendent grounds of being (namely, God and Heaven). The Christian doctrine of imago Dei and the Neo-Confucian notion of T’ien-ming (Heavenly endowment) manifest saliently these relational and transcendental anthropologies. Congruently, they define humanity as a mirror or a microcosm to image and reflect the glory and the goodness of the transcendent ground of being. Furthermore, they are remarkably similar in understanding attributes of the goodness endowed in original humanity. On the one hand, Calvin described them as wisdom, virtue, justice, and holiness; in short, integrity and rectitude. On the other hand, T’oegye expressed the attributes of the original nature as benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom; in short, sincerity and principle. If idiosyncratic differences between God and Heaven are bracketed, the understandings of Calvin and T’oegye on ontological humanity would be almost mutually interchangeable. b) Existential Humanity (Fallen Nature and the Human Mind) Calvin and T’oegye are same in perceiving the mind-and-heart as the primary locus of original humanity. They agree that the mindand-heart in reality, however, is so ambivalent and vulnerable that it acts ambiguously against its original goodness. Accordingly, both of them made a distinction between original humanity with original goodness (ontological humanity) and actual humanity in ambiguity and ambivalence (existential humanity). In theology it is expressed as a sharp distinction between the original humanity first created by God and the actual humanity after the Fall. In confuciology it is indicated as a dichotomy between exceptionally ever since it was introduced into this country. The Korean Presbyterian Church is not only the largest in total membership but also culturally and socially the most active among all Christian denominations in Korea. Within little more than a century, the church has grown to be the largest in membership among all the Reformed churches in the world. In Korea, the Reformed tradition has achieved perhaps the most successful mission in its entire history. In fact, this success would be possible because of these astonishing similarities between Calvin’s theology and Yi’s confuciology

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the mind of Tao and the human mind. Consequently, how to recover and restore the original goodness immanent in ontological humanity beyond the ambivalent and dualistic nature of existential humanity becomes the primary subject matter for both of them. This primary project of humanization, i.e., a learning how to restore true and full humanity, is expressed in the doctrines of sanctification and self-cultivation (or sage learning). It is true that Calvin defended the doctrine of original sin and rigorously scrutinized the negative reality of corrupted humanity, whereas T’oegye carefully investigated the phenomena of mind-and-heart. If we look deeper into their thought, however, we find that the differences in their analyses of human reality are not so thick as subtle. Calvin’s doctrines of original sin and total depravity should not be understood independently but as corollaries to the doctrines of grace and Christology (cf. Torrance 1949). T’oegye’s view of human mind-and-heart is not that romantic, in view of his having witnessed four bloody purges of Confucian literati in one of which his beloved brother was killed. Moreover, they converge in a comprehension of humanity’s existential ambiguities as arising from a distortion and perversion of original goodness, rejecting the ontological status of evil. c) Restoration of Original Humanity For both Calvin and T’oegye, piety (pietas and ching) is the central concept that permeates throughout their thoughts. For T’oegye, without a doubt, ching is the cardinal concept of self-cultivation which involves a personal and corresponding relationship with the Lord of Heaven (Shang-t’i). For Calvin, pietas is “the shorthand symbol for his whole understanding and practice of Christian faith and life” (Battles 1984: 192). For both of them, piety includes both fear and love (mysterium tremendum et fascinas) toward the ultimate ground of being and has a doctrinal precedence to knowledge (doctrina and li). The overarching methodology of T’oegye’s sage learning is the “dwelling in the piety and investigating the principle.” It is not too much to say that, although the object of investigation is different, Calvin follows a similar methodology structurally (the classical definition of theology is fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding)). Whereas li (the universal principle) is the object of investigation for T’oegye’s confuciology, Jesus Christ (the Word) is the object of

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faith for Calvin’s theology. Furthermore, they converge in a belief that these objects of investigation are also the transcendent grounds of being which enable us to attain radical humanity with original goodness. For li and Jesus Christ refer to the perfect manifestations of T’ien-ming and imago Dei. T’oegye also articulated this task in terms of the “re-embodying Heaven and progressing along the Way,” while Calvin explained it by way of the restoration of the original image of God through the faith in Christ and living under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Both of them argue for piety as the inner means and righteousness as the outer means in order to achieve sanctification and self-cultivation. In a nutshell, sanctification is the realization of Christ (the perfect image of God) through hearing the Word (Christianity), and self-cultivation is the embodiment of T’ien-ming through the investigation of li (Confucianism). If Christ (the Word) is identified with li (the principle), the structure of humanization in Calvin’s theology and T’oegye’s confuciology will be basically same; both of them point to sage learning. d) Ecological Vision (Pietas and Ching) Calvin and T’oegye had a similar view of the human’s relationship with nature. With the doctrines of the image of God and the Heavenly endowment, both of them denied the qualitative differences between humanity and nature. In the narrow definition, only humanity can function as the true mirror of their transcendental ground of being. In the wider definition, nevertheless, humans and things are same as the common image of God and the common Heavenly endowed nature. T’oegye explained their differences in terms of “physical disposition.” A human being consists of upright and transparent ch’i (material force), whereas things are composed of leaned and opaque ch’i. Hence, the posture of human bodies is upright (toward Heaven), that of wild animals is horizontal (parallel to the Earth), and plants grow vertically in a reverse direction. Calvin says something similar on this point, “God made man erect, unlike the other creatures, that he might know and worship God.” Finally, Calvin and T’oegye converge with their views of the transcendent (God and Heaven), humans, and cosmos are closely interrelated (through the imago Dei and the T’ien-ming). From this vantage point Calvin and T’oegye agree in advocating a theanthropocosmic (the transcen-

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dent, human, and nature interrelated) vision. From this vantage point, human beings are not vicious conquers of the universe or the sole independent subjects of history in the linear cosmos, but interdependent co-spectators to witness the glorious cosmic drama of God or ecological keepers in harmonizing the wonderful trajectory of Heaven in the theanthropocosmic theater. Christian Theology of Confucianism: Toward a Theo-tao In the normative-constructive stage, the focus is placed on Christian theology in this historical collision with Confucianism. Christian communities in East Asia need a holistic understanding of the Christian faith in their own religio-cultural-linguistic matrix (Confucianism). This is an impelling moment for an East Asian theologia religionum to move beyond an a priori level. It is a moment of the “beyond dialogue” (cf. Cobb), to move forward beyond a dialogical moment of either “Wang Yang-ming and Karl Barth” or “Calvin and T’oegye.” The main task of this constructive moment is to construct an a posteriori articulation of the normative Christian faith for the communities in the historical fusion of the two great hermeneutical horizons, the two powerful stories of humanity and full humanization. This normative-constructive enterprise does not refer primarily to a descriptive study of religious phenomena or an arbitrary deliberation of speculative comparison but an imperative thematization for these Christian communities to acquire an integrated understanding of Christian faith in their own contexts (so called as a themative approach). However, again, this enterprise does not imply a naïve, eclectic religious syncretism (cf. Thomas 1987) but “a confessional method” (Niebuhr 1962: 41) in and through “intra-religious dialogue” (Panikkar 1978).5 At this stage the thick resemblances between Confucianism and Christianity furnish the common ground for developing an 5

This moment has affinity with “interreligious dialogue”, “an inner dialogue within myself, and encounter in the depth of my personal religiousness, having met another religious experience on that very intimate level” (Pannikar 1978: 40). However, there are differences: In the dialogue I do not meet “another religious experience” but both Confucianism and Christianity are my personal religiousness. My concern is more related to an articulation of Christian faith in this encounter.

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East Asian Christian theologia religionum (Confucianism). The understandings of humanity in their traditional terms of jen and imago Dei respectively are homologically and materially congruent; namely, co-humanity, being-in-togetherness, or being for others. East Asian Christians have no difficulty in confessing Jesus Christ as the paradigm of humanity who perfects both jen and imago Dei. In Jesus Christ, they also find a perfect unity for the two rootmetaphors of radical humanization, ch’eng (sincerity) and agapè. Hence, the thick resemblances between Confucianism and Christianity discovered through the dialogues become substantiated in the form of Christology. If East Asian Christians confess Jesus Christ as the ultimate paradigm of sincere humanity (Sage) who has authenticated once and for all the Confucian faith in humanity’s intrinsic possibility of self-transcendence, the Confucian story of humanization would become a profound resource for deepening and enriching the reality and meaning of Jesus Christ and theological anthropology. This East Asian understanding of Christianity out of Confucian-Christian experiences introduces some profound insights and new dimensions to Christian theology. This new paradigm of theology has three important postmodern characteristics; namely, the Tao mode of theology (emancipatory), the jen mode of theology (dialogical), and the theanthropocosmic mode of theology (ecological).6 Firstly, it entails a Tao mode of theology (namely, theo-tao [cf. Kim 1998]). The Tao of Jesus Christ, explicitly denoting a christology on the way is more preferable term Christology, as the hodos (Greek: “way;” translated as the Tao) was the original name for Christianity (Acts 9:2; 19:9; 22:4; 24:14, 22). Moltmann argued, “I am no longer trying to think of Christ statistically as one person in two natures or as a historical personality. I am trying to grasp him dynamically [as the Way], in the forward movement of God’s history with the world” (Moltmann 1990: xv). Christo-tao, conceiving Jesus Christ as the Tao (transformative praxis) of radial humanization (cf. Kim 2000), is an emancipatory paradigm to appeal 6

Peter Hodgson (1980: 53-118) categorized three general characteristics of postmodern constructive theology: (1) dialogical, (2) emancipatory, and (3) ecological. Christotao has all of these dimensions; the jen mode is dialogical by nature, the Tao mode has an emancipatory dimension, and the theanthropocomsic mode is more ecological.

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to the world to move beyond the contradictions of scientific and technological civilization such as the minjung (masses of people) and poverty in the Third World, the nuclear threat, and ecological disaster. As an alternative paradigm of equilibrium and harmony, it can correct contemporary paradigms of domination and expansion. Further, it introduces a jen mode of theology, dialogical in the form (Confucian-Christian dialogue) and the content (jen). In fact, Christology itself has always been developed by dialogue: “Christology is never final but always in dialogue (Berkeley and Edwards 1993: 24-25). The jen mode of theology can overcome the defects of modern, anthropological theologies, because it is not based on the modern anthropology of the isolated ego but on the Confucian anthropology that underscores a person as the center of a relationship. Hence, christotao is not a “-logy,” a metaphysical understanding of the prototype of the ego, but a Tao, a transformative praxis for a person to attain full humanity (jen) accomplished by Christ, co-humanity, being-in-togetherness, being-inencounter, being-for-others, and life in partnership. Envisioning Jesus, the root paradigm of humanity (jen), as a cosmic, reconciled being-in-togetherness, it expands and empowers the Confucian principle of reciprocity and mutuality to the cosmic dimension. The jen mode of theology with humility and modesty can correct the epistemological immodesty and ethical hubris Christian theology has often committed in history. This would foster a liberation of humanity and nature from the principle of domination and exploitation (cf. Tu 1989a: 102-07). Furthermore, the new paradigm entails a theanthropocosmic mode of theology. In this paradigm, the anthropocosmic vision of Confucianism fully encounters, collides, and fuses with the theohistorical vision of Christianity. These visions move beyond dialogue and are mutually transformed into a theanthropocosmic vision. This mode of theology may overcome “the crisis of history” by introducing ecological and cosmic dimensions of ConfucianChristian theanthropocosmic vision (Panikkar 1993: 108-19). Conceiving Jesus Christ as the ultimate embodiment of the theanthropocosmic Tao, christotao transcends every dualism; knowing and acting, theology and ethics, logos and ethos, orthodoxy and orthopraxis, and so on. Jesus Christ is the Crucified and Risen Cosmic Sage who fully actualized the messianic Tao for the es-

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chatological theanthropocosmic equilibrium and harmony, traditionally expressed in terms of a new heaven and new earth, and a new humanity. In sum, Jesus Christ is the Tao of new cosmic humanity. As Moltmann argued, ancient cosmological, modern anthropological, and contemporary scientific-technological christologies are too narrow and problematic (1990: 46-72). Hence, christotao, which understands Jesus Christ as the Tao of new cosmic humanity, would be appropriate as a new christological paradigm for the coming third millennium (cf. Kim 2000). Finally, East Asian Christians in and through ConfucianChristian intrareligious dialogue arrive at the axiomatic Christian question of who we say Jesus Christ is. The following would be an answer to this question. Eventually, this would be an example of East Asian Christianity’’s view of Confucianism, confessing one’s own faith (Jesus Christ) more properly in one’s own context, that is to say, an East Asian way of doing theology of religions. Now, we may say: Jesus Christ is the Tao of radical humanization. He is the Jen, the paradigm of full humanity. He is the Ch’eng; a theanthropocosmic sincerization beyond both the Confucian anthropocosmic cultivation and the Christian theohistorical sanctification. He is the Crucified and Risen Sage. He is the Wisdom (Sophia; cf. liang-chih) of Creation, the hermeneutical principle of theanthropocosmic communion (cf. Luke 7:35; 11:49). In sum, Jesus Christ is the Tao of new cosmic humanity, a theanthropocosmic transformative praxis every human being needs to follow. (Kim 1996: 188)

Bibliography Barth, Karl. (1932-81). Church Dogmatics. 4 Vols. Transl. G. W. Bromiley Edinburgh: T. T. & Clark. Battles, Ford Lewis. (1984). “True Piety According to Calvin.” In: Donald K. McKim (ed.). Readings in Calvin’s Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Co. Pp. 192-211. Bering, Judith A. (1997). A Pilgrim in Chinese Culture: Negotiating Religious Diversity. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Berkeley, Robert F. and Sarah A. Edwards. (1993). Christology in Dialogue. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1993.

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Berthrong, John. (1994). All Under Heaven: Transforming Paradigms in Confucian-Christian Dialogue. Albany: State University of New York Press. Calvin, John. (1960). Institutes of The Christian Religion. Transl. Ford Lewis Battles. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960. Ching, Julia. (1976). To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yang-ming. New York: Columbia University Press. (1977). Confucianism and Christianity: A Comparative Study. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Clooney, Francix X. (1993). Theology After Vedanta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology. Albany: State University of New York Press. Cobb, John B. Jr. (1982). Beyond Dialogue: Towards a Mutual Transformation and Buddhism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. deBary, W. Theodore. (1988). East Asian Civilizations: A Dialogue in Five Stages. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Grayson, James H. (1989). Korea: the Religious History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (1988).“The Study of Korean Religions & Their Role in Inter-Religious Dialogue,” Inculturation 3/4: 2-10. Hick, John. (1989). An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hodgson, Peter C. (1980). Winds of Spirit: A Constructive Christian Theology. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press. Kim, Heup Young. (1996). Wang Yang-ming and Karl Barth: A ConfucianChristian Dialogue. Lanham and London: University Press of America. (1998). “Imago Dei and T’ien-ming: John Calvin and Yi T’oegye on Humanity.” Ching Feng 41: 275-308. (1999). “A Tao of Asian Theology in the 21st Century.” The Asia Journal of Theology 13: 276-93. (2000). “Toward a Christotao: Christ as the Theanthropocosmic Tao.” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 10: 1-25. (2001). “Owning Up to Oneʹs Own Metaphors: A Christian Journey in the Neo-Confucian Wilderness.” Third Millennium 4: 31-40. Küng, Hans and Julia Ching. (1989). Christianity and Chinese Religions. New York: Doubleday. Lee, Peter K.H. (eds.). (1992). Confucian-Christian Encounters in Historical and Contemporary Perspective. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press.

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Martinson, Paul Varo. (1987). A Theology of World Religions: Interpreting God, Self, and World in Semitic, Indian, and Chinese Thought. Minneapolis: Augsburg. Moltmann, Jürgen. (1981). The Trinity and the Kingdom of God: Doctrine of God. Transl. Margaret Kohl. San Francisco: Harper & Row. (1990). The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions. Transl. Margaret Kohl. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Neville, Robert Cummings. (1982). The Tao and the Daimon: Segments of a Religious Inquiry. Albany: State University of New York Press. (1991). Behind the Masks of God: An Essay Toward Comparative Theology. Albany: State University of New York Press. Niebuhr, H. Richard. (1992). The Meaning of Revelation. New York: Macmillan. Panikkar, Raymundo. (1978). The Intrareligious Dialogue. New York: Paulist Press. (1993). The Cosmotheandric Experience: Emerging Religious Consciousness. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Thomas, M.M. (1987). Risking Christ For Christ’s Sake: Towards an Ecumenical Theology of Pluralism. Geneva: WCC Publications. Torrance, T.F. (1949). Calvin’s Doctrine of Man. London: Lutterworth Press. Tu, Wei-ming. (1989a). Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness. Albany: State University of New York Press. (1989b). Confucianism in a Historical Perspective. Singapore: The Institute of East Asian Philosophies. (1985). Confucian Thought: Selfhood As Creative Transformation. Albany: State University of New York Press. (1979). Humanity and Self-Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press. (1976). Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-mingʹs Youth (1472-1509). Berkeley: University of California Press. Wang Yang-ming. (1963). Instructions for Practical Living and Other NeoConfucian Writings. Transl. Chan Wing-tsit. New York: Columbia University Press. Yearly, Lee H. (1990). Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage. Albany: State University of New York Press. Yi, T’oegye. (1988). To Become a Sage: The Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning by Yi T’oegye. Transl. Michael C. Kalton. New York: Columbia University Press.

Buddhism and Christianity from a Christian-Buddhist Perspective Eiko Hanaoka-Kawamura Abstract As someone who is both a Christian and a practitioner of Zen, it seems to me that at the very least the following five characteristics need to be a firm part of the foundation of Christianity and Buddhism in the 21st century: (1) the transcendental dimension can be realized on the basis of absolute nothingness; (2) spirituality is realized; (3) not only the Kantian autonomy of the individual self but also the oneness between self and the transcendental dimension is realized; (4) the religious life, which looks upon all lives as equal, is realized; (5) time and eternity and therefore this and the next world are realized in oneness. However, Christianity seems to claim its absoluteness attached to its old dogmas over other religions.

Introduction My contribution to this volume is to look at Buddhism and Christianity from my own perspective as a Christian and at the same time as a practitioner of Zen. For me, Zen is the common stream that flows in the bottomless bottom of all Buddhist sects. When I was a student at the undergraduate school of Kyoto University I became a Christian, even though my professor there, Keiji Nishitani, was a Buddhist, in order to live in the eternal life above life and death in this world. However, when I enrolled in doctoral studies at Kyoto University, I went to Hamburg University to study European systematic theology under Professor Helmut Thielicke between the years 1965-1973. Four years after my return to Japan my husband died of stomach cancer. The death of my husband led me to God as abyss or absolute nothingness. I found God later described as abyss in groundless ground as the ground of the trinitarian God in Tillich and God as absolute nothingness in Kitaro Nishida’s (1870-1945) philosophy 283

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of religion. Directly after the death of my husband I experienced God intuitively as underlying the origin or as groundless ground of all religions like the nothingness of the Godhead in Eckhardt (1260-1328) or God of Quaternität in Tillich. After the death of my husband in 1977, I began practicing Zen. First of all, after twenty-five years of practicing Zen, I am now convinced that God is absolute nothingness, although the representation of the experience of God of absolute nothingness in one’s own cultural tradition is different. My second conviction is that spirituality can be realized only in fact in the oneness of nature, human beings and the transcendental dimension in Christianity and Buddhism. My third conviction regarding both religions is that not only the world but also the Kantian autonomic individual self and its personal dignity has to be realized. My fourth conviction is that of the religious life, where all lives in the universe, including inorganic things like stones or rocks are equal and have equal dignity of life. As Kierkegaard regarded a moment as an atom of eternity, I am convinced that in both religious time and eternity, or this world and the next, there is oneness in God as absolute nothingness. This is my fifth conviction. These are the five prescriptive aspects of Christianity and Buddhism. I would like to bring them together here: (1) God as absolute nothingness; (2) spirituality is realized; (3) not only the world but also the Kantian autonomous individual self and its personal dignity are to be realized; (4) religious life is realized; (5) the eternity can be realized only in the midst of time. In my view, the abovementioned five items have to be underlying presuppositions in Christianity and Buddhism, and I will therefore pose the following thirteen points and investigate which of them and which deep understanding of them Christianity or Buddhism (Zen) lacks: a) nature; b) human beings; c) the transcendental dimension; d) time and history; e) space (society and institution); f) original religious experience; g) absolute negation of ego; h) freedom; i) spirituality; j) the action of spirituality; k) ethics; l) the self-identity of each individual self and communio sanctorum; m) the logic of religion.

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Christian and Buddhist Ways of Understanding The above-mentioned thirteen points are the central important problems into which we inevitably inquire in religions. The first four (“nature,” “human beings,” “transcendental dimension,” and “time and history”) are not only the central concerns in philosophy as metaphysics from ancient Greece to Hegel but also inevitably for religions, because each of us unavoidably lives simply in nature, as one human being among other human beings, in the transcendental dimension and in time and history. The first three points (nature, human beings and the transcendental dimension) especially are essential to the action of spirituality, because only in the oneness of these three aspects can spirituality be realized. The fifth point, “space,” is inevitable for communion on the basis of compassion. Moreover, society and institutions that belong to space are also inevitable as one side of the essence of religion, namely as the place of religious festivals or services. The sixth point, “religious life as original life” is the central point of religion, which enables human beings to be given salvation and healing of their minds, souls and hearts. The seventh point (absolute negation of ego) is the starting point of every religion. The eighth point (freedom) seems to be the aim of every religion. The ninth and tenth points (spirituality and its actions) is inevitable to every religion, because there is no religion in the world without spirituality or its realization. The eleventh point (ethics) is given because there is no religion without ethics. Religions should include ethics which enable the correct relation between human beings, the environment, lives and inorganic things. The twelfth point (self-identity and communication) is listed, because the self-identity of each individual self in the field of emptiness or on the basis of the thinking of non-thinking (= absolute nothingness as absolute negation of ego) should be sought in the dimension over principle of identity as objective logic. The last and thirteenth point (the logic of religion) is given, because religion should be deepened and widened with not only religious intuition but also religious and philosophical logic. Nature In Christianity human beings created by God name each thing, also created by God, and objectify each of them. Some say that this objective attitude of human beings toward nature resulted in

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the development of natural science in Christian culture in Europe. In Buddhism, on the contrary, humans do not objectify nature but live in harmony with nature, as we see in the ninth picture of “The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures” by Kakuan, a Chinese Zen Master in the latter half of the twelfth century, called “Return to the Origin, Back to the Source.”1 In Buddhism there is, moreover, no creator at the beginning of time (Shibayana 1991: 10-13, 37-58). Human Beings The parable in the Christian New Testament that shows the typical way of understanding human beings, is “the parable of the prodigal son” (Luke 15: 11-31). As this parable shows, human beings in Christianity can have true self-understanding individually before God only through the consciousness of his or her sinfulness. This self-awareness of true self ultimately arrives at oneness between the human being and Christ, as Paul’s following words show, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). From this oneness between each self and Christ a communion of saints is formed, as we will see in the twelfth point (self-identity and the negation of ego) below. In Buddhism, on the contrary, a good example that shows the way of understanding human beings is Kakuan’s “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures.” The series of ten pictures shows the process of how the ego becomes aware of true self—summarized in Takada’s contribution—symbolized by entering the city with Bliss-bestowing hands. In the process of pursuing true self, the conscious self undergoes the great death in the eighth picture; in the ninth picture the oneness between self and nature is shown and in the tenth picture true self, which is common to every individual thing is depicted. These ox-herding pictures show that each person is autonomous and at the same time one with all else. This contradictory situation is possible only in the non-substantial field of emptiness, which is the core of Buddhism.

1 The “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures” are printed, along with an explanation, at the end of the contribution by Shinryo Takada in this volume. Cf. pp. 38-42.

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The Transcendental Dimension Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) characterized European traditional philosophy as onto-theological. According to his understanding of the God of Christianity or traditional European philosophy, God is the highest being. However, in the Hebrew world of the Old Testament which is, so to speak, the origin of Christianity, God can be understood as the God who acts in the midst of events or as the God who becomes, because the Hebrew verb hayah means “becoming” and “work” (Exodus 3: 14) (Boman 1968: 28-29). There was, moreover, a theologian in Japan who separated the first Immanuel (= God with us), Christ, from the second Immanuel, Jesus, and sees Christ as the first Immanuel as absolute, but Jesus as the second Immanuel is not absolute (Takizawa 1999: 214-39). God as groundless ground of the trinitarian God in Tillich’s theology (1956: 265) can be given as the third example of a way of understanding the transcendental dimension that is different from the traditional personal Christian way. Concerning the above-mentioned way of understanding God, I would look upon God as absolute nothingness, as the Japanese philosopher of religion Kitaro Nishida (1870-1945) does, while supporting the way of understanding God found in Takizawa and Tillich. Although Nishida, Takizawa and Tillich have different ways of representing experience, the experience of God in each seems to be in agreement. The philosophical term “absolute nothingness” in Nishida’s philosophy corresponds to “emptiness” or “dependent origination” in Buddhism. In “emptiness” or “dependent origination” the essence of the transcendental dimension (as emptiness or dependent origination) can be represented as Buddha Nature and the essence of human beings can be represented as self-nature (in Japanese jisho); and Buddha Nature and self-nature are one, in that both natures are non-substantial. I should add here that in God as absolute nothingness every thing, including human beings, is the absolute center of the universe and at the same time only a point on the periphery. Time and History We can say that in Christianity there are two kinds of eschatology, namely future eschatology (I Corinthians 15: 51-52.) and present eschatology (John 5: 25; 11: 26). In future eschatology time and history as process come into question and in present es-

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chatology time and history can be filled up with eternity, so that time and eternity are one, namely in that a moment has a decisive meaning as eternity right in the midst of time. Eternity in this case has to do with the kingdom of God, to which space aspires in point five (on space) and spirituality in point nine below (the absolute negation of ego). In Buddhism time and history are characterized as linear and simultaneously circular, namely as time composed of points and history which go ahead discontinuously from point to point. This time and history, in which each moment as eternity right in the middle of time and history discontinuously continues, is the way of understanding time and history in Buddhism. This way of understanding time and history as discontinuous continuity is similar to that of Christian present eschatology. Space (Society and Institutions) In Christianity space is directed, in my view, to the realization of the kingdom of God by the ethics of love (agapé). However, in the abovementioned present eschatology in Christianity, the kingdom of God can be realized already in this world. In Zen (Buddhism) this world of our life and death can be Nirvana, in that the ego of each person undergoes the great death, becomes aware of true self and lives compassionately. Also on this point Christian present or “realized” eschatology— the understanding of ultimate reality not as a time to come but as the eternal dimension here and now—and Buddhism are similar to each other. Religious Experience We can classify life in this world according to the degree of consciousness into the following five stages: (1) material life; (2) botanical life; (3) animal life; (4) mental life; and (5) religious life. If one conceives of the universe as organic, then all things can be understood as having original life. In the contemporary world, where technology is highly developed, it does not seem to be simply a case of science fiction that humans might ultimately create life by combining various inorganic materials. Material life might be realized in the future. At the level of botanical and animal life all lives are looked upon as equal. Human beings, however, are not in the food chain in the sense they can be eaten by others because of the dignity of their lives as conscious life.

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If life is understood from the viewpoint of religious life, all lives are equally valuable and should be viewed indiscriminately. A human being whose original consciousness has been destroyed cannot, from the viewpoint of religious life, be looked upon as a human being who has lost his or her dignity of life during World War II, for example. Each of us can be saved and healed of our own ego only through becoming one with the original life of the universe. The original experience of this salvation and healing in Christianity and Buddhism seems to be the same. And this experience of oneness with original life of the universe in Christianity can be represented, in my view, appropriately as groundless ground (German: Abgrund) of the trinitarian God in Tillich’s Quaternität or as the first Immanuel (God with us) in Takizawa, because in the contemporary world pluralism and the complementarity of various religions must be taken into consideration. Absolute Negation of Ego In Christianity the trinitarian God as Father realizes absolute self-negation (Philippians 2:7), and each Christian imitates the Jesus’ way of life as a result of absolute self-negation of the trinitarian God. To use Takizawa’s terminology, if we view the second Immanuel (i.e. the historical Jesus) as absolute rather than the first, we Christians will excommunicate or banish those who do not see the historical Jesus as absolute or those who believe in the Christian God without believing in the absoluteness of the historical Jesus. God, as groundless ground of the trinitarian Christian God in Tillich’s Quaternität, can be represented as the field (=openness) of emptiness in Buddhism and enables various religions to be seen as various manifestations of original life. However, such representation is not possible with any of the four traditional paradigmatic conceptual frameworks that have been used from Socrates to Nietzsche, namely the paradigms of relative being, relative nothingness, absolute being and nihil. God as groundless ground of the trinitarian God, as absolute nothingness and as origin of all religions can be realized only through the thinking of non-thinking on the basis of the paradigm of absolute nothingness.

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In Buddhism, each self lives in the absolute negation of its own ego, in that each self thinks not only in terms of the four European paradigms that have arisen over the last 2,500 years but also always simultaneously with the thinking of non-thinking on the basis of the paradigm of absolute nothingness. Absolute nothingness means, as already stated above, that each human being is always at the absolute center and at the same time at a point of the periphery, enabling the center, the absolute infinite openness, to be opened. It is, however, true in Buddhism that the self who is aware of true self lives in the midst of the world and brings the other four paradigms, excluding absolute nothingness, back to life. Freedom Freedom in Christianity is freedom from law, sin and death and that is the place where the spirit of the Lord is (II Corinthians 3: 17). In Buddhism, however, freedom to live as “a true man without rank” (Sasaki 1975: 3), namely to live without anything with which one can start. The ground of self-identity of a true person without rank consists in the mutual mirroring in each other as each jewel in each knot (stitch) reflects the image of every other jewel in Indra’s Net reported in Kegon Sutra. Spirituality Spirituality in Christianity can be understood as groundless ground (= abyss) of the trinitarian God, in which nature, human beings and the transcendental dimension are one. Because the Holy Spirit as one function of the trinitarian God applies only in Christianity but not in other religions, according to my religious experience, the original life as absolute infinite openness is realized in “groundless ground of all religions.” This realization can be seen, in my view, as a spirituality that is common to all religions, in that spirituality is always realized in the origin of all religions. In Buddhism spirituality can be understood as action which can be realized in the openness of oneness between nature, human beings and the transcendental dimension. This fact can be read from the eighth, ninth and tenth pictures of the abovementioned “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures.” In the eighth picture (entitled “The Ox and the Man Gone out of Sight”), we can see that emptiness, as the transcendental dimension, has a circular form. In the

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ninth picture (entitled “Return to the Origin, Back to the Source”), the nature of oneness with self as emptiness is formed and in the tenth picture the dialogue between two true selves, which are one with emptiness, and moreover one with each self of all things, is formed also with nature. In these three pictures spirituality is realized. Emptiness in the eighth picture, pure nature in the ninth and dialogue between two true selves in the tenth cannot be realized in such a way as in these pictures. This fact of spirituality is shown also in the following words by Dogen (1200-1253): To study the Way (Satori) is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others. (Dogen 1986: 2)

The phrase “to be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others” in this quotation can be interpreted as follows: the self of each individual nature is in oneness, and the self of each individual is one with the Way (Satori). Herewith self, nature and transcendental dimension (= Satori) are one. In this oneness spirituality as the Way is realized and the barrier between one’s self and others is therefore removed. The Action of Spirituality The action of spirituality in Christianity is realized in oneness between nature, human beings and the transcendental dimension. This action of spirituality is actualized not only as the Holy Spirit in the trinitarian God but also as original life in all religions. The action of spirituality in Buddhism appears first in the oneness between nature, human beings and the transcendental dimension as a field of non-substantial emptiness. This action of spirituality cannot be conceived by the four paradigms of relative being, relative nothingness, absolute being and nihil on which thought was possible from ancient Greek philosophy to Nietzsche (1844-1900). The action of spirituality in Buddhism can be represented only through the thinking of non-thinking. The true individual self, who has undergone the great death of ego, lives in the oneness between nature, human beings and the transcendental dimension and is common to each self of all things, must once again bring the way of thinking on the basis of the other four paradigms, with the exclusion of the paradigm of absolute nothingness, back to life through compassion as action of spirit-

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uality. This action of spirituality in Buddhism can be seen in the action of dialogue of the tenth picture (entitled “Entering the City with Bliss-bestowing Hands”) of the “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures.” But this action of spirituality in Buddhism cannot be seen as clearly as in Christianity. Ethics Christian ethics always tries to solve the ethical problem in the midst of this world in a way that is suitable to actual life through love as agapé. Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa can be seen as examples of this Christian ethic. Christian ethics is the ethics of agapé as seen in their lives and works. Buddhist ethics, however, can be called ethics in the world of reality where actuality and what one should do are one. Events or affairs that do not concern the true self can be discarded as matters of worldly passions, because Buddhism (Zen) looks upon ethics in the world of reality as much more important than the ethics of the actual world. Buddhist ethics begins with “inquiry into true self” and ends with “inquiry into true self.” Self-Identity and Communio Sanctorum The self-identity of individual self in Christianity can be understood on the one hand as oneness with Christ, as shown by Paul’s phrase, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2: 20). However, if Christians admit the distinction of the abovementioned “first Immanuel” (Takizawa 1999: 214-39) on the other hand, a communion of saints (communio sanctorum) between Christians and others becomes possible. Buddhist self-identity consists in the abovementioned mutual mirroring of each jewel in the other as each jewel in each knot is reflected in Indra’s Net reported in Kegon Sutra. In this mirroring communion transcends the distinction between holiness and profanity: this communion is daily and profane. The Logic of Religion Christian logic is logic of love as agapé. Love as agapé in Christianity can be understood as agapé not only on the basis of the Holy Spirit of the trinitarian God but also on the basis of spirituality as the original life of groundless ground of the trinitarian Christian God. Buddhist logic is the logic of compassion. This logic of compassion in emptiness can be represented as the “logic of empti-

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ness” in Nagarjuna, as “the four dharma worlds” in the Avatamsaka sect, as “four types of outlook,” according to Rinzai-zen or “the five stages leading to a correct understanding of the universe” according to Tozan Ryokai. Each of these understandings of Buddhist logic is based on the paradigm of absolute nothingness as a “framework-less” conceptual framework. It is realized only through thinking of non-thinking and cannot be explained by objective logic as a principle of identity, principle of contradiction and the principle of the excluded middle. There is no difference between the logic of agapé and that of compassion, if god is understood as the God of absolute nothingness. However, if we do not recognize Takizawa’s first Immanuel, the difference between the two logics is decisive. Similarities and Differences between Christianity and Buddhism Christianity and Buddhism are similar with respect to the following issues: 1) oneness between self and the transcendental dimension; 2) oneness between time and eternity; 3) oneness of religious experience and variety of its representation; 4) oneness between this world and the next world; 5) the emphasis on religious life (the equality of all lives); 6) the aim to realize spirituality. The two religions are different, however, with respect to the following points: 1) the Christian objective view of nature and the development of natural science as a result; 2) if God is not seen as absolute nothingness, the differences in religious experience, the absolute negation of ego, spirituality, the action of spirituality, and communion become apparent; 3) if we look upon the Christian God only as an object of our prayers, we distinguish between holiness and the profane; 4) in Christianity the actual world is more important than the real world; 5) there are differences between the logic of love as agapé and that of compassion. Conclusion In conclusion, as a Christian and as a practitioner of Zen, I wish to pose the following six questions. (1) Should Christianity, which enabled natural science, work at more intensive solutions to problems caused by the natural sciences? (2) Can true self not

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experience self-identity with God as absolute nothingness in Christianity in the twenty-first century? (3) Can Christians not admit Takizawa’s distinction between the first and second Immanuels? 4) Can every Christian in the twenty-first century experience God as groundless ground of the trinitarian God? (5) Can Christians in the twenty-first century not consider, much more earnestly, the possibility of living in harmony with other religions, in that Christians look on each of them not only as the center of the universe but also as a point on the periphery forming the universe? (6) Should the paradigm of absolute nothingness not be added to the other four paradigms which have dominated Europe for the last 2,500 years? Bibliography Akizuki, Ryomin. (1981). Rinzai-roku. Zen-no-goroku 10. Tokyo: Chikuma Press. Boman, Thorleif. (1968). Das hebräische Denken in Vergleich mit dem Griechischen. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Dogen. (1986). The Shobo-genzo. Transl. Yuho Yokoi. Tokyo: Sankibo Buddhist Bookstore. Sasaki, F. Ruth. (1975). The Record of Linchi. Kyoto: The Institute for Zen Studies. Shibayama, Zenkei. (1991). Zen Ox-Herding Pictures Osaka: Sogensha Press. Suzuki, Daisetsu Teitaro. (1960). Manual of Zen Buddhism. New York: Grove Press. Takizawa, Katsumi. (1999). Buddhism and Christianity (Bukkyo-to-Kirisutokyo). Kyoto: Hozokan Press. Tillich, Paul. (1956). Systematische Theologie. Vol. I. Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk.

Muslims and Christians between Confrontation and Dialogue Anton Wessels

The best peoples are those who attempt to prevent a war. What do you have if you have the whole world solely for yourself? Kader Abdolah, Kélilé en Demné

Abstract The continuing confrontation between Muslims and Christians is rooted in the view of past conflicts as religious in nature. The author investigates four historical events (the battle near Poitiers, the reconquista, the Crusades, the occupation of Constantinople) in order to distinguish between fact and fancy in the interpretation of these events. Each of these events had principally economic and political causes, rather than religious ones. Lastly, the author looks at the historical significance of the date September 11, beyond the year 2001. Muslims, Christians and Jews need to engage in a trialogue about their sacred scriptures together, liberate them from fundamentalists and reject any interpretation that leads to violence.

Introduction We can highlight some facts from the fourteen centuries of history between Islam and Christianity that are particularly important for understanding the confrontation that has continued to exist between Muslims and Christians and seem still to influence the present confrontation: (1) The battle between Poitiers and Tours in 732 when the Arab Muslims were defeated by Charles Martel. (2) The reconquista of Al-Andalus which ended with the fall of Granada in 1492

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(3) The call to what would be the first Crusade in 1095, the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099 until the fall of Acre in 1291, when the last Crusaders were driven into the sea. (4) The occupation of Constantinople in 1453 by the Turks and the defeat of the Turks at the battle of Lepanto in 1571 (5) September 11, 2001 when Muslim ‘terrorists’ attacked the economic (the World Trade Center) and military (the Pentagon) symbols of Western “Christian” power as well as what is perceived as the center of political power (the White House). When speaking of the relationship between Muslims and Christians, one must ask whether it is always a question of “holy wars” on the one hand and “Crusades” on the other? What is truth and what are fanciful interpretations of the confrontations between Christianity and Islam? On both sides there are those who see it as a matter of religious conflicts—this is true not only for “Western” Christians but also for Eastern or Muslim observers. But if one surveys the history of the relationship between Muslims and Christians, in addition to examples of militant and polemical confrontations one can also point to examples of peaceful coexistence. There are in particular three areas that can be characterized both by conflict and by a fruitful symbiosis: Spain, i.e. Al-Andalus (the Moors), the (Middle) East, once the goal of the “Crusades” and Eastern Europe (the Balkans and the Turks). I want to explore the extent to which truth and fancy have become confused both in the past and in the present. The destruction of faulty perceptions on both sides can help in finding a way to true dialogue. I will also make few suggestions as to what that dialogue should and must concern. For this purpose I have chosen to examine the (first) four historical events mentioned above. (1) What is fancy and what is reality with respect to the battle near Poitiers in 732? (2) In the conceptualization of the (re)conquest (re-conquista) of the Iberian peninsula “Santiago” in northwestern Spain, one of the most important pilgrimage sites of Latin Christianity, plays a significant role. St. James has become the symbolic “leader” of the reconquista. (3) Were and are the socalled “Crusades” and “holy wars” religiously motivated conflicts? (4) In 1453 the Turks conquered Constantinople and ex-

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panded their power over important parts of Eastern Europe (the Balkans). At different times their armies camped outside the gates of Vienna, in 1529 (in Luther’s time) and for the last time in 1683. The battle of Lepanto (1571) is seen by Christians as an important symbolic counter-movement. Finally, we will look at the role and significance of September 11, 2001. The Battle near Poitiers To many European Christians the battle near Poitiers is a decisive moment in history: the Frankonian prince (mayor of the palace ) Charles, nicknamed “Martel” (the Hammer) (ca. 689-741) defeated the advancing Arab Muslims under the command of Abdal-Rahman al-Ghafiqi at the end of October 732. It is indeed suggestive to place the death of Muhammad precisely a century earlier (632) alongside that of this battle. It seems then that the Muslims were successful in expanding their power from the Arab peninsula deep into Western Europe. Charles Martel is consequently depicted as someone who protected Europe from the further expansion of Islam. In one of his poems, Hagar, the Dutch poet Isaac da Costa (1798-1860) looks at the problems of the relationship between Jews, Christians, and Muslims (Da Costa 1925). Hagar is seen as the ancestress of Arabs and, because most Arabs are Muslims, also as representative of Muslims themselves. The popes therefore see Muslims as Hagar’s descendants and always refer to the Bible verse, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son” (Genesis 21:10), as an argument from Holy Scripture to drive Islam from the sacred places of Christianity (Hayek 1964: 219). In his Hagar Isaac da Costa describes how the descendants of Hagar and Abraham (Arabs/Muslims) played an international role on three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe, through their conquests. As far as Europe is concerned, their advance was brought to a standstill by Charles Martel in 732 near Poitiers. The mother of Ishmael1 How the womb shakes and trembles! 1 Here it is the womb of Arabia that is meant. The poem is now concerned with the appearance of the descendants of Ishmael on the world stage (Da Costa 1925: 52).

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ANTON WESSELS With peoples—waves of conquerors, who seek death (hoping for paradise) with deranged desire Yes, who defiant, spread out to the ends of the earth And, like a field sown with hailstones, The thundercloud swells, with the Hagarenes overwhelms the breadths of three continents2 from the Indus to the Tagus. Bow Syrian! and do not dare resist, Palestine! Writhe from all your woes, O city of David! Still the burden of the mosques of Omar.3 Sink, Eastern Christianity—long unworthy of your name! Beyond redemption, before the flourish of the Damascene sword! O! is the Bible’s word for fables and images and human inventions, which caressed your sensuous ears for too long forgotten? Then accept the Koran now whose half-truth in its dizzying glow your idols can defeat but not return a God to you— And had to overpower, where Christianity becomes a form instead of life—appearance, not essence ... But no! The flood still grows. The Pyrenees Do not stand in the way of the vulture, the Muslim banner, Awake, o North wind, and drive the locust swarms4 Back. Charles!5 rise up to protect the West (150) And be in higher hand a Hammer that smashes, and free whatever still confesses the cross from Mecca’s rule.

It is striking in da Costa’s Hagar how the three characteristic prejudices from the Middle Ages in Europe especially emerge here: lust, violence (force, the sword) and lies (half-truth). This “myth” of Poitiers as having halted the expansion of Islam into Europe in 732 was also propagated by the British his2

Namely, Asia, Africa and Europe (cf. Da Costa 1925: 54).

3

Here da Costa is referring to the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock is often called the Omar Mosque. It was not built by Omar nor is it a mosque. 4

A comparison of the Muslims with a swarm of locusts, one of the ten plagues to strike Egypt. Cf. Exodus 10:19; Da Costa 1925: 59. 5

The reference is to Charles Martel; Da Costa 1925: 59.

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torian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). He contributed to the view of the history of Europe as one of continual conflict with Islam. He claimed that without Poitiers and the heroism of Charles Martel the history of the world would have been much different. (Gibbon 1928: 399) In fact, the issue at the time was entirely different. The battle near Poitiers can then be seen as one of the most decisive in history, even of the world, but it marks the moment, rather, at which the tide turned for the Muslims. The military and political power of the Muslims in Spain continued for a very long time yet. But it was merely made clear at this battle that a further expansion of Muslim power in the direction of France was not to be. It is possible that the personal motives of some Muslim participants were religious, but the primary motive for these expeditions was plunder. As soon as it appeared that further conquests into French territory offered no lucrative prospects, the attempts at conquest ceased (Watt 1965: 21-24.). This view, which gained the power of a myth, as if the Muslim advance was brought to a halt at the battle near Poitiers is now seen as superseded and pointless—one of the many examples of the mingling of truth and fabrication. Al-Andalus and Santiago de Compostela Between Convinencia and Reconquista In 711 the Muslims crossed over into Spain via Gibraltar and conquered the Iberian peninsula with remarkable speed. The already declining Visigothic kingdom succumbed and the Iberian peninsula became “the island of the Vandals:” al-Andalus. The Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba (756-1031) assumed power. Tolerance existed for a long time in this powerful state. This kingdom reached its fullest extent in the tenth century, which was the greatest flowering of Muslim history in Moorish Spain (Wheatcroft 2003: 89; cf. “Al-Andalus,” in: The Encyclopedia of Islam) There have been various Moorish dynasties that have exercised dominion over (parts of) the Iberian peninsula. Under the Almoravids (1086-1145) there developed, with respect to relationships between Jews, Christians and Muslims, a clear hardening in society after an earlier period of fruitful interaction and symbiosis. Arabic-speaking Christians were deported to Morocco.

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One of the princes (Ibn Abi ’Amir al-Mansur; d. 1002) conducted successful campaigns in the form of a jihad against the Christian kingdoms in the north of Spain and defeated them. He even destroyed the famous shrine of St. James of Compostela. His 52 campaigns indicated a fundamental change in the relationship between Moorish Spain (al-Andalus) and the Christian kingdoms. These attacks contributed to a major movement towards unification among the different Spanish principalities, which were now clearly confronted by a common enemy. A new kind of Christian unity was forged. “Christianity” and “Spain” were identified with each other and Christians concentrated on driving out the “other,” “Moorish,” Spain. At his death Al-Mansur was “buried in hell”—so the Christian judgment. This expression entailed a prediction of doom for “Spanish Arabic Islam” (cf. “Al-Mansur” in: The Encyclopedia of Islam). The border area of Castile gave birth to the initiative for a reconquest (reconquista) of the country. It was only with the occupation of Toledo, the greatest city in Spain, that the reconquista began make headway. Toledo is seen as an important stage in the reconquista, because it was never reconquered by the Muslims after that. The question is indeed whether the king himself consciously viewed it as a struggle between Christians and Muslims or simply as a matter of expanding his own kingdom. For the pope (Gregory VII, 1021-1085) it was otherwise. He connected the military triumphs that had been achieved with the will of God and said that what had happened at Toledo was an occasion for joy and thanksgiving because God had stooped to give the Christian people such a great victory (Watt 1965: 93; Riley-Smith 1993: 16). When a new Muslim dynasty (the Almohads, 1145-1228) came to power the Jews were ordered, on penalty of death, to convert to Islam. Many Jews fled to the then more tolerant Christian areas. The Andalusian Muslims had lived with Christians and Jews in their midst for more than 300 years. But under the militant Islamic dynasties (the Almoravids and Almohads) in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Christian and Jewish elements were drastically reduced. When, in the thirteenth century the Christian kings marched south, this “living together” (convivencia) of Jews, Christians and Muslims came to an end. The Almohads, however, were defeated by the armies of the kings of Castile,

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Aragon and Navarre. The reconquista pushed ahead. Cordoba was captured from the Moors in 1236, Valencia fell in 1238 and Seville was occupied in 1248. The pope had given his permission and even his blessing to a “Crusade” to take Seville (one of the greatest cities at that time), while at the same time the French king Louis IX (1228-1270) concentrated on preparing his great expedition to Egypt and the Holy Land (the sixth Crusade). At the same time the idea began to take root that the “Crusade” in the Iberian peninsula was a Spanish affair. For two and a half centuries the “kingdom of Granada” was the only area in the Iberian peninsula that was still under the authority of a Muslim monarch. In 1492 it, as the last Muslim bulwark, would fall: the city surrendered to the Catholic kings on January 3, 1492 (Goddard 2000: 189; Cardini 2001: 76; Wheatcroft 2003: 72, 98.). In 1492 Ferdinand II (1452-1516) and Isabella (1451-1504) banished the Jews from Spain, following this in 1502 with an order for the expulsion of the Muslims. This expulsion was not completed, by the way, until 1609 (Armour 2002: 94). It is estimated that as many as a half million Muslims were killed or banished at that time, a number that reached three million at the beginning of the seventeenth century when the last of them left.6 St. James (Santiago) The influence of St. James on the negative perception of society in Spain is striking. In the ninth century the rumour had spread that the remains of the apostle James the Greater had been miraculously discovered (on his feast day July 25) in Santiago de Compostela in the extreme northwest of Spain. According to tradition, James is the one who converted the Iberian peninsula to the Christian faith. After his death in Jerusalem his remains were transferred to Spain. The discovery of his remains gave a special status to the church of the kingdom of Asturia. The kings promoted the worship of St. James that grew up around this place. It was the beginning of the development of the city and of the pilgrimage there. Santiago became one of the most important pilgrimage sites of Latin Christianity and could compete with other great Christian centers in Europe (Cardini 2001: 37).

6

Namely by the well-known modern Arab (Lebanese) historian P. Hitti (1964); in Armour 2002: 63.

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During a decisive battle against the Moors in 844, which threatened to be fatal for the Spaniards, James is said to have appeared as a mysterious rider on a white horse on a cloud to defeat the Muslims. Since that time he has been called “James the Killer of Moors” (Matamoros), who had appeared to help the Christian soldiers. He was perceived as the spiritual leader of the reconquista, the re-conquest of the Iberian peninsula. His name became a battle cry against the Muslims and Santiago came to function in Spain as the symbol of the struggle between Islam and Christianity. The veneration of St. James provided spiritual strength for the reconquista (Watt 1965: 170, 171, 38; De Boer 1998: 147; Cardini 2001: 39). When the army of a Muslim king (Al-Mansur) ravaged the city (in August 997)—which had in the meantime been abandoned by its inhabitants—including the shrine of St. James, he did leave the latter’s bones undisturbed. He took the church bells, the symbols of Santiago’s power, to Cordoba on the backs of Christians who had been taken prisoner. He had them hung upside-down from the ceiling of the great mosque between the oil lamps. The ringing of church bells has always been an exasperation for Muslims, because they are louder than the Islamic call to prayer by the muezzin, who only has the use of his voice (Wheatcroft 2003: 91, 92; Watt 1965: 84; “Shant Yaqub” in: The Encyclopedia of Islam; Catherine 2004: 51). The desecration of the place caused fear and horror. What began as a pilgrimage was now associated with the defense of the holy tomb, which was now threatened by the “pagans” (Cardini 2001: 38). When a Christian king (Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon) succeeded later in conquering Cordoba (1237), the bells which the Muslim king had taken were returned to Santiago (de Boer 1998: 145-47). The shrine in Santiago has been described as, for Christians, the equivalent of the Kaaba, the center of Muslim pilgrimage: thus, Santiago is, in other words, a Christian counterpart of Mecca (“Shant Yakub” in: The Encyclopedia of Islam). In the nineteenth century a Spanish historian wrote: “Santiago’s shrine appeared to resist the Mohammedan Kaaba as the showpiece of spiritual power in a grandiose struggle between myths.” In the “Holy War” against Islam James is seen, as it were, as an “Anti-Muhammad,” a variation on the Anti-Christ theme. If there ever was a

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road that merits the adjective “European” then it is that road that leads to Compostela (Cardini 2001: 45). El Cid is cited in the literature as a human “revelation” of Santiago. This “Christian” nobleman and soldier,7 received, because of his many victories, the nickname “El-Campeador,” the name for the champion who emerges from the ranks when two armies are facing each other and challenges an enemy in single combat (cf. David and Goliath in I Samuel 17). In spite of his close relationship with the Muslims and although he himself never reconquered one square centimeter of Islamic territory for Christianity, El Cid is nevertheless highly praised by Christian historians. In reality, however, El Cid offered his services to as a military leader to the Muslim king and ended as the independent ruler of a Muslim city. When he made his triumphant entry, he gained such great prestige and influence among his Muslim soldiers that from then on they called him “My master.”8 Although he was in fact quite indifferent with respect to the religious differences between Islam and Christianity, that did not prevent his later being presented in the Poema del Cid as a Christian knight. In that poem the Moors appeal to “Muhammad” for aid and the Christians to “St. James.” El Cid died on July 10, 1099, precisely five days before the armed Frankonian pilgrims entered Jerusalem (“al-Sid” in: The Encyclopedia of Islam; Watt 1965: 94; Barrucand and Bednorz 2002: 111 and literature cited; Wheatcroft 2003: 96, 97; de Boer 1998: 144; Cardini 2001: 44, 188). The Fall of Granada A comparable forming of an image occurs around the fall of Granada. Boabdil, nicknamed “the Unfortunate,” handed the keys of Alhambra to the Spanish monarch on January 2 ,1492. On top of a hill now known as “the Last Sigh of the Moor,” as Boabdil took one last look at Alhambra, his mother Aisha told him not cry like a woman over that which he could not defend as a man (Akbar 2002: 84; cf. Wessels 2002: 225-26). Throughout the 7

Rodrigo (Ruy) Díaz de Vivar (of Bivar) (ca 1040- ca 1099), born in Burgos. 8 Sayyidi, which became sidi and was translated into Spanish in the form of mio Cid. The famous Poema del Cid was originally called El cantor de mio Cid.

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whole of Europe church bells rang in celebration of the fall of Granada: the door through which Islam had entered Europe in the West was now shut after more than 700 years” (Akbar 2002: 85). As the famous Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile—attired in Muslim clothes—made their triumphal entry into Granada (on Epiphany (January 6, 1492)), the banner of the order of St. James was raised. For Christians this meant the glorious end of the struggle against the Moors. Muslims see it as one of the first of Europe’s attempted final solutions through the “ethnic cleansing” of the Iberian peninsula of Muslims and Jews (Ali 2002: 37). At the beginning of the twentieth century the Dutch writer Louis Couperus wrote about the end of Moorish Spain from that Christian perspective. Couperus gives a “Santiago”-like atmosphere to his description of the last days of Boabdil in Couperus’ De Ongelukkige (“The Unfortunate”): Suddenly they breathed deeply and everyone behind them cheered. On the highest watchtowers ... against the still misty, hazy pale azure winter sky, a crimson flag rose, flapping in the wind. on which, when it unfurled, a bright white cross was to be seen. It was the holy Standard .... But the victors cheered again and roared, calling out, “San Jago! San Jago [St. James]!” Alongside the standard of the Holy Cross the banner of the patron saint rose, blowing in the wind. The double royal standard was raised on the other side of the banner of the Cross. Suddenly, the Te Deum Laudamus was heard from all present and the monarchs on their horses prayed and made the sign of the cross .... Then Abu Abdallah took the golden keys of Granada which an officer who had dismounted and presented to him on a cushion and said: “Your majesties, these keys are the last signs of Moorish power in Iberia. (Cited by de Boer 1998: 174)

The conquest of Granada had, it is said, an extraordinary effect on the whole Christian world. It is seen as vengeance for Constantinople having fallen into the hands of the Turks (1453).9 9 The czar of Russia saw himself as the successor to the emperor (basileus) of Constantinople. The Russians presented themselves as the heirs of the Byzantines and protectors of Eastern spirituality against the

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The struggle between Christianity and Islam, between “James” and “Muhammad,” was seen from the perspective of the end times: the “Crusades” were viewed as a prelude to that and the establishment of the thousand-year reign that would precede the last judgement. In Spain there was the idea (ninth century) that, according to the old Visigothic calendar, Muhammad had died in the year 666 which, in the book of Revelation, is the number of the beast (Revelation 31:18) (Cardini 2001: 141; de Boer 1998: 152). Even in the twentieth century Santiago is still associated with the relationship between Islam and Christianity. In 1993 at an ecumenical meeting10 in Santiago, during a service in the cathedral, the hymn of praise was sung in the tradition of this place of pilgrimage: the apostle James, the killer of Moors. A Protestant minister from Seville pointed indignantly at the image of James in the cathedral: seated on a horse and cutting off the head of a Moor (in the Dutch daily Trouw, August 7, 1993). In connection with the recent war in Iraq “Compostela” was again an item in the news. When the first Spanish soldiers arrived in Iraq on July 31 2003, on their uniforms was the emblem of the cross associated with Santiago. In Spain this led to an intense discussion, because the Spanish opposition saw that the soldiers sent to Iraq and walking around, with visible crosses on their uniforms, in an area dominated by Muslims would provoke the Muslims: “Whoever designed this emblem does not understand that our troops are not taking part in a crusade,” declared the tyranny of the Ottomans and papist hegemony. The Russians gained the same privileges for the Orthodox as the French and English gained through their capitulations (Cardini 2001: 178, 182). To mark the final victory over the Tartars the Russian czar Ivan IV (1530-84), the “Terrible” had a new church built in Red Square. This Church of St. Basil “the Blessed, with its twelve cupolas symbolizes the triumphant restoration of the Orthodox Church, which stood in the tradition of Byzantine/Constantinople. The church was initially called “The Church of the Annunication” because on that day in 1552 the Tartar capital in southern Russia had been captured. Moscow saw itself playing a leading role in the crusade against the Tartars. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 Moscow became, as it were, the last bulwark of the Orthodox faith (Figes 2003: 162). 10

For “Faith and Order” (a department of the World Council of Churches).

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leader of the socialists. “I wonder what warrior complex the minister of defense is caught in that he chooses a symbol that can bring our soldiers into serious trouble in an area where the Shi’ites form a strong religious force,” his communist colleague added in support. The Spanish minister found the discussion nonsense: “The cross is now simply the symbol of the Spanish army” (in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant, August 2, 2002). The Crusades There is a stubborn perception, on both the Muslim and Christian sides, that both have been engaged in a centuries-long struggle against each other. It was to have begun with the Crusades, the first of which followed the summons by Pope Urban II in 1095 in Clermont Ferrant in France. It would be the first of a whole series. In the minds of representatives of both sides this struggle has continued until today. That this is a very old perception appears from the work by the “father of all Dutch poets,” Jacob van Maerlant. In his Van den lande van oversee (1291) he portrays the Muslims as the “enemies of God” and “children of Satan.” The church is called to close ranks and dedicate itself completely to reconquering their rightful heritage (the Holy Land): “Church of Rome, draw your sword” (cf. Harper 1998: 90). Centuries later, in the nineteenth century, Isaac da Costa saw the violent expulsion of the Muslims from sacred places to be justified. He saw the “Crusades” in a very favorable light when he spoke of “the sword as a pilgrim’s staff” to purify the holy ground of Islam: A new morning, naked; A new world epoch, a new struggle awakes. See! The West throws itself on the East with the cry Coming from Clermont, “God wills it,” motto and oath Of those knights, unrivalled in form and heart (Before whom the Ally11 first had to learn to tremble!) Clad in iron, and made of iron itself. To the grave

11 Namely, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118), who had been threatened by the Seljuks. He maintained contact with the leaders of the first crusade (Da Costa 1925: 72).

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of the Holy One they go, the sword as pilgrim’s staff Raised to purify12 it from Islam (superstition against false faith13) On that ground, for the ripening of God’s times Oh! Do not seek the Living among the dead! ...

One of the motives cited for the first “Crusade” was the request of the Byzantine emperor to Pope Urban II to “save” Eastern Christianity from the Muslims. In his summons to the “Crusade” the pope indicated the need for liberation as its justification (Riley-Smith 1993: 17). When, in Clermont Ferrant, he addressed his audience of primarily “Franks” as a “race beloved and elected by God” he informed them that the East had been invaded by a “cursed” race, a race entirely alienated from God.” The invaders destroyed churches and tortured Christians. Would not the Franks, being of “great courage,” intervene? (Griffith 2002: 10304). The pope summoned the aristocracy to help the beleaguered church of the East. Urban’s war of liberation had two goals: to liberate the people, i.e. the Eastern Christians, and to liberate a “place,” i.e. Jerusalem. For the pope, both were a continuation of the reconquista of Spain. Given that Jerusalem was the goal, the “Crusade” was a pilgrimage. The pope introduced a vow that the participants had to make, which was sealed by the wearing of a cross attached to the clothing of the Crusaders. The power of the symbol of the cross was demonstrated by the fact that they all wore the cross on their clothes. It was synonymous with going on a Crusade: “those who are marked by the cross” means almost simultaneously “those who took the vow of the Crusade.”14 Already years earlier—in 1093—the pope had referred to the Muslims as the “enemies of the cross.” In September 1098 the leaders of the “Crusade” in Syria would in turn address Pope Urban II as the one whose sermons had led them to abandon their countries and everything in them and commanded them to follow Christ by taking up their crosses” (Riley-Smith 1993: 18, 20, 22, with reference to Matthew 16:24 or Luke 14:27; Matthew 19:29). 12

That is, purify through battle. Da Costa 1925: 73.

13

By “superstition” he means the Roman Catholics and by “false faith: Islam. Da Costa 1925: 73. 14

The term cruce signati; cf. Riley-Smith 1993: 114.

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As soon as “the Crusaders” conquered Jerusalem (1099), they killed everyone they met in houses and mosques—men, women, and children. One group forced its way into the Al-Aqsa mosque and killed everyone there. When an eyewitness visited the Temple Mount later that morning, he had to pick his way among the corpses, the blood reaching to his knees. The Jews, who had sought refuge in the most important synagogue, were accused of helping the Muslims and the synagogue was burned with them in it (Runciman 1964: 286-87; Armour 2002: 73). Muslims and Jews were henceforth forbidden to live within the walls of the city, so that Jerusalem became a “Christian” city and even the old Muslim and Jewish quarters were filled with Western immigrants and pilgrims. For centuries Jerusalem had been a neutral city, regardless of who was in power, and there was a peace of God among Jews, Christians and Muslims. The first “Crusade” interrupted this long tradition of coexistence (Wheatcroft 2003: 193). How little there came of the so-called saving of Eastern Christianity is apparent when one of the “Crusades” (the fourth (1201-1204)) turned into an attack on Constantinople, the capital of Eastern Christianity. This was certainly one of the most tragic of all the Crusades. This Crusade, which had been undertaken by Pope Innocent III (pope from 1198-1216) and was intended to aid the Byzantine emperor, degenerated into a trade war between Venice and Constantinople. In 1204 the city was plundered by the Crusaders and the Byzantine empire collapsed. That delivered a hitherto unknown blow to Eastern Christianity—which they claimed to want to help (Armour 2002: 69). For the rest, there were few positive results. The second Crusade (1147-49), which began with the fall of Edessa, undertaken by the largest Crusader army, achieved almost nothing. The third “Crusade” (1188-92), which began with the fall of Jerusalem, was not successful and merely secured the “Frankonian possessions” on the coast of Palestine and Syria. The Kurdish Ayyub Saladin (d. 1193) defeated the Crusaders on July 4, 1187 at the battle close to Hattin (near Tiberias in Galilee). In October of the same year Saladin reconquered Jerusalem. The attempt of the Crusaders to retake Jerusalem was not, however, successful. On a coin which celebrated both victories Saladin is called “the sultan of Islam and the Muslims.” Saladin was celebrated by his contemporaries as

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the charismatic and very successful leader of the jihad (Hillenbrand 1999: 180, 186). From the already cited work Van den lande van oversee (1291) by Jacob van Maerlant one can get an idea of how the “Crusades” were viewed in the Netherlands in the thirteenth century. Van Maerlant includes in it a lament on the fall of Acro in 1291, which Western Christianity should, in his view, see as “the last bulwark of Christianity in the East.” Already in the opening lines his indignation about the sloth of Western Christians—and, among them, primarily the “kings and barons”—is apparent: Christian man, what are you doing? Are you sleeping? Why are you not serving Jesus Christ your Lord? (cited in Harper 1998: 90)

When the “Crusades” were over, the whole of Eastern Christianity came under Muslim rule. When Pope Urban II issued his summons in his great sermon in Clermont Ferrant to what would be called the first “Crusade”, the Turks appeared to be threatening the Bosporus. When Pope Pius II (d. 1464) preached the last “Crusade” in the fifteenth century, the Turks were crossing the Danube (Runciman, cited by Goddard 2000: 91). Holy Wars? Over time, both in certain Christian and Muslim representations, these “conflicts” were seen and explained as religious wars. In the two centuries that the Franks held Levant the call in the Middle East for a jihad became louder and more frequent. On the Muslim side one sees a comparable interpretation of the “Crusades,” which emphasized their alleged religious character (Wheatcroft 2003: 189). As a consequence of this confrontation between East and West the Muslims developed a ideology of political struggle (idéologie de combat; cf. Bolkenstein and Arkoun 1994: 61). In Muslim literature, poetry and jihad tracts the merits of Jerusalem and Palestine were extolled and the “Muslim fighter” was praised for his faith, which united the “believers” into a jihad to drive the soldiers of the cross from the sacred places (Eliade 1987; cf. Dajani-Shakeel 1976). But what can we say now about truth and fabrication regarding this? Were they religious wars? However strange perhaps it

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may sound, at the time of the Crusades the term “crusade” itself was not used. It is a term that was applied later to these undertakings. It is anachronistic to use this term to describe something that occurred before the thirteenth or fourteenth century, even though it has been done for a long time in historiography (Cardini 2001: 67).15 The word “crusade” did not exist in Arabic either before the nineteenth century. People in the Middle East thought that they were confronted with a new Byzantine invasion. If they did understand what was going on, they called their opponents “Franks” but never “Crusaders.”16 There were “crusades” again at a later period, for about fifty years (between 1397 and 1448) but their goal was not to reconquer Jerusalem but to deal with the Ottoman “unbelievers” in the Balkans who had subjugated the Balkan peoples. The name “Balkan” (which means “the mountain”), as the Turks call the area, is still in use. Thus the Turks defeated the Serbians on June 20, 1389 in the heart of Serbia, at Kosovopolje (“Field of Blackbirds”). Serbia for the most part became part of the Ottoman empire. This entailed the end of Serbian independence. The Serbians still revere King Lazar, who was defeated, taken prisoner and executed by Sultan Murad I, as a martyr and national hero and cherish a deep hatred for Islam. The king of Hungary began to be concerned about the Turkish offensive in the Balkans and pressured the popes (Benedict XIII of Avignon (1334-1423) and Boniface IX (1350-1404) of Rome. He obtained the summons to a crusade in which the Venetians participated. But again, it was not only a military matter, as far as the appearance of the Ottomans

15

When Pope Urban II issued his summons, it was still not a “Crusade.” In that sense no “Crusader” took part in the first “Crusade.” The Latin word cruciata arose only later. The word cruzada was formed in the thirteenth century. In 1575 the word entered English and French as croisade, and was Anglicized in the early eighteenth century as “crusade.” The first complete text in Arabic and compiled from Arabic sources was called The Splendid Story of the Crusading Wars, published in 1899 in Cairo, by Sayyid Ali al-Hariri (Wheatcroft 2003: 187, 212-13). 16 For Urban II it was a pilgrimage, unique because of the cross they wore. Everything was embodied in the emblem, the undeniable mark of Christ, recognized by all Christians. Cf. Wheatcroft 2003: XXX, 174.

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on the European stage is concerned: they made a trade treaty with Genoa (Wheatcroft 2003: 165; Cardini 2001: 111, 113; Lewis 2001). The Fall of Constantinople (1453) and the Battle of Lepanto (1571) For the relationship between Turkish Islam and Christianity and the ideas about it different dates play an important role: the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 and the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, where the Turks were defeated, and the two times the Turks were outside the gates of Vienna, in 1529 and 1683, but were not successful in taking the city at either time. The Fall of Constantinople In the eleventh century a dynasty of Turkish origin, the Seljuks, had arisen. For the first time a Turkish dynasty was successful in achieving a leading position in the Islamic world, even though they were still under the supervision of the caliph in Baghdad. In 1071 the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine armies at the battle of Manzikert in the eastern part of Anatolia (previously Armenia). This led to a fundamental shift in the strategic balance between the Byzantine empire and the Muslims. “Manzikert” has been called “the greatest disaster in Byzantine history.” Christian writers who opposed the Byzantine empire saw the battle as divine punishment for the way in which the Byzantine emperors treated other Christian religious minorities. Western European involvement with the Near East dates from that time. The Franks replaced the Byzantines as the buttresses of Christianity against Islam (The Encyclopedia of Islam 2, “Malazgird;” Hillenbrand 1999: 18, 20).17 In 1453 the Turkish sultan conquered Constantinople. For a long time already prior to that event the Turks, who came originally from Central Asia, had been gaining more power and territory in the Middle East. Mehmed II was the Ottoman sultan (d. 1481) who can be called the actual founder of the classical Ottoman Turkish empire. He wanted to put an end to what still remained of the Byzantine empire in Asia Minor and made preparations to take Constantinople itself. For centuries the Eastern Ro17 In 1097 the Seljuks declared the city Konya in Turkey (known in the Bible as Iconium (Acts 13:51 and 14:21) as their capital city. See “Konya” in: Encyclopedia of Islam 2.

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man or Byzantine empire, which the Muslims called Rum (Rome), was able to keep Islam at a distance. Now Mehmed II “the Conquerer” made the old dream come true. He incited his soldiers with the prediction of the prophet Muhammad that Constantinople would one day be ruled by “believers.” He made use of a new weapon, gunpowder, and hired experts to bombard the legendary walls of Constantinople with cannons. The whole siege lasted less than two months. After the conquest he rode on a white horse to the Aya Sophia, the church of “Holy Wisdom,” the largest Christian church at that time. The “crescent moon,” the symbol of Islam was raised above the copula. In front of the cathedral he dismounted, took a handful of dust, scattered it over his turban and recited the Islamic creed (“There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet”). From that moment this church became a mosque. The new “Turkish” name for Constantinople became Istanbul, derived from the Greek for “into the city” (eis ten polin). Mehmed II claimed to be the only “holder of the sword of the Muslim warrior.”18 He summoned the Muslims to jihad and presented himself to his troops as a “warrior” for God, who engaged in battle against unbelievers: a title that was used by the first Ottoman sultans. In his autocratic way Mehmed II united the countries of the Danube and the Euphrates. He declared himself “emperor,” the only heir of the Roman empire, because he was in possession of the imperial city. He did not attempt, by the way, to drive the Christians from the city, as the Muslims were later driven from Spain (1492). He worked in particular on rebuilding the city and repopulating it (Akbar, 2002: 86-89; “ghazi” in: The Encyclopedia of Islam; Lewis 2001: 116. “Mehemmed II” in: The Encyclopedia of Islam). One of Pope Pius II’s great plans was the defense of the European republica christiana against the Turks. Since the fall of Constantinople in 1453 he worked, as papal legate, on plans for crusades. In 1459 a “crusade” was planned but when, for political reasons, it was never carried out, he himself decided to lead the papal crusader army. He died in 1464 in the harbor of Ancona, waiting for the arrival of the Venetian fleet (“Pius II” in: Grote 18 A ghazi is a “border soldier” on the border between the house of Islam and that of war, driven by the religious zeal of those who dedicate themselves to the way of God. Cf. Hillenbrand 1999: 100.

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Winckler Prins,). The medieval “Crusades,” like the Ottoman expansion in the Balkans and the great Turkish sieges of Vienna (1529 and 1683), had a two-pronged effect: they transformed the West but also transformed the East (Wheatcroft 2003: 194). In 1529, about a century after the conquest of Constantinople, the Turkish army of Suleiman I (the Great), the grandson of Mehmed II, stood for the first time before the gates of Vienna. That marked the high point of the Turkish wave of conquest that washed over the whole southeast of Europe and which, it was believed, threatened the heart of Christianity. The Ottoman empire reached, at its height, from Hungary to Yemen and from Iraq to Algeria. The Ottoman Turks reigned, since 1517, in Istanbul, which after its conquest immediately became the center of the empire and would remain so until the end of the first world war. In the year of the siege of Vienna the Turks attempted to expand their rule still further into Europe, but their failure at Vienna was everything but definitive or decisive. For a century and a half afterwards there would an impasse between the Hapsburgs and the Ottoman empire, in which the question at stake was who would gain power over Central Europe (Lewis 2001: 272). Lepanto On October 5, 1571, the battle of Lepanto was fought near the beaches of Greece (the city of Corinth): a sea battle between the Turkish fleet and the ships of the pope, Spain, Venice, Malta and Genoa. The initiative for this came from the pope (Pius V, pope from 1566-172). The pope managed to interest Venice and Spain in a sea battle against the Turks and to get them to contribute fleets. In the battle the banner of the pope, with a large figure of Christ (in gold) nailed to the cross, was raised above the Spanish soldiers. Underneath flew the emblems of the king of Spain and that of the pope. The war was conducted under the protection of Christ and the same indulgences obtained as during the first “Crusade.” The Turks raised a green flag, on which the ninetynine “beautiful” names of God were embroidered in gold. Both camps performed their own religious ceremonies. In the way in which Western reports discuss it, the respectful religious “silence” of the Christian fleet contrasted with the raucous “cabal” coming from the Turkish ships.

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In the Strait of Lepanto the Christians gained a sensational victory, although they did not exploit this as much as they could have. After this defeat the Turks succeeded in quickly conquering Cyprus (1571) and in driving the Spaniards from Tunisia (1574). Venice, the strongest partner in the alliance, made, nota bene, a separate treaty with the Turks and the Turkish fleet could be rebuilt. Nevertheless, on both sides the belief in the invincibility of the “crescent moon” disappeared. The joy over the victory at Lepanto was not only felt in countries that were directly involved. In France, where the Christian king maintained good contact with the Turks for political reasons, processions were held—even in the smallest towns. The same was true of Protestant England and Germany. The battle was turned into an allegory. “Lepanto” was performed in Granada as a stage play. The moral truth was seen as actually more important than the facts. What happened in Lepanto was determined partly by what really happened but more by the myths about it. The Venetian painter Titian (ca. 1490-1576) produced a painting for the Spanish king, Philip II (whose portrait he also painted), of the “allegory of the Battle of Lepanto,” in which the king, a dominating figure, dedicated his child Don Ferdinand (born some months after Lepanto) to heaven. The anniversary of Lepanto was declared a holy day. In March 1572 the pope determined that the feast of the “Rosary” would be held on the anniversary of Lepanto. In the cathedral of Toledo the banner that was captured at Lepanto was displayed annually on the anniversary of the battle and a thanksgiving service was held (Wheatcroft 2003: 3, 4, 25, 30, 31, 32; cf. also “Rosenkranz” in: Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 1961 ). Even at the beginning of the twentieth century, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), the well-known British novelist, poet, essayist and convert to Catholicism (1922) could still write his Lepanto. When the piece was published in 1911 it was six days after the anniversary of Lepanto and precisely when the Italian army landed in Libya to conquer the last remaining piece of Ottoman Turkish territory. With the signing of the treaty on October 15, 1912, Italy completed the Christian “reconquest” of North Africa —so it was stated. In the meantime the European nations had come to dominate the whole southern part of the Mediterranean from Egypt to Morocco.

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“Lepanto” is not an arbitrarily cited event from the past but something that continues to live. In the eyes of Chesterton it concerns an active and continuing crusade (Wheatcroft 2003: 33). September 11 Just as it has once been said about Poitiers, so it is also said about September 11, 2001, that we have entered a new period of history If people want to be sensitive to dates, then it is good to remember that September 11 has an association with terror—beyond 2001. It was September 11, 1973, when Allende fell. And if one wishes to go back further, the second siege of Vienna by the Turks took place from July 17 to September 12. It has been pointed out that the last day of the Ottoman siege of Vienna was September 11, 1683. In the period from 1609 to 1612 there were emigrants from Spain in Amsterdam who were called Morisken (“Moors”). They had been expelled in 1609 by the Spanish king Philip III. There is a Dutch pamphlet from 1609 that tells of the order for the expulsion of the Muslims from Valencia—dated September 11. There are many interpretations of what happened (cf. Markham and Abu-Rabi 2002), ranging from a mainstream explanation, a pro-Israeli explanation or a pro-Arabic or Palestinian explanation to a religious explanation. Conclusion We have seen how the conflicts between Christians and Muslims throughout the centuries have been placed primarily within the framework of religious wars. Jacob van Maerlant’s Van den lande van oversee from the thirteenth century and Isaac da Costa’s Hagar from the nineteenth century are examples of this. The battle between Poitiers and Tours, Santiago, the Crusades, the holy wars, the battle of Lepanto—all these function as so many examples and illustrations of the alleged centuries-long struggle between religions and civilizations, between Christianity and Islam, in particular the “cross” over against the “crescent moon.” After the last siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683 flags were captured on which there were “crescent moons,” symbols that were designed to proclaim victory (“Hilal” in: The Encyclopaedia of Islam). Muslim fundamentalists see the Crusades as the first period of Western attempts at domination, which were followed new attempts at the

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time of Western imperialism and colonialism. The current conflicts are simply a new expression of this. But the stubborn perception of this conflict as religious in nature continues to be a stumbling-block on both sides and must be abandoned if the East and West truly want to meet each other. It is of essential importance that truth and “myth” be distinguished. The constant perception that it is a crusade on the one hand and a holy war on the other is as stubborn as it is incorrect. If one surveys the history of the relationship between Islam and the West, one can certainly point to military and polemical confrontations (crusades, holy wars, reconquista) but one can also point to periods of peaceful coexistence (close cultural connections and intensive trade). That is true of the (Middle) East (Arabs), Spain (Al-Andalus, Moors) and Eastern Europe (Turks). As far as the Muslims are concerned, the idea (propagated by, e.g. Osama bin Ladin) that it was always a question of holy wars against crusades up until and including September 11 and that it will always be so is a fundamentalist view, nourished by the presupposition that from the beginning there has been a plan for the expansion of Islam, the house of Islam (the house of peace, dar al-islam) around the house of war (dar al-harb). Just as it is incorrect to read the history of Islam as if it was governed from the beginning by the carrying out of such a plan for the armed expansion of the “territory of Islam,” it is also incorrect to see the history of (Western) Christianity as a continuing crusade in response to these “holy wars.” That such views can be found on both sides is perhaps clear, but to present these as the Christian and Muslim view does violence to the truth.19 In fact, both in the past and in the present it has more often been a struggle for trade.20 Globally, there is nothing to indicate a clash of civilizations and cultures but rather one between economic and political interests. Muslims and Christians need very much—preferably together with Jews—to study their religious sources and thus to liberate 19 20

This contradicts views such as that found in Selengut 2003: 26.

There are more than military interests involved in the appearance of the Ottomans on the European stage. The Ottomans made a trade treaty with Genoa. See Wheatcroft 2003: 165; Cardini 2001: 111, 113; Lewis 2001

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their “sacred books” from the hands of the fundamentalists in all three groups. All three need, through dialogue (or trialogue), in a renewed understanding and explanation of their own and the others’ sacred scriptures, to deconstruct every form of violent interpretation. Since the second world war there have existed Christian or Jewish-Christian study groups in the West. Christians reflect very correctly on the Jewish roots of Christianity. The theological challenge of our time has, however, shifted in the meantime. No more than Christians do the Jews have sole rights to the interpretation of the Scriptures. They are not “the only show in town,” as David Hartmann expressed it in Jerusalem. There is no actual dialogue possible today without a trialogue. The Muslim discussion partner belongs there in full as well. To the question “Does Muhammad belong among the prophets?” I give an emphatic yes! The sacred books are too important to leave to Jews, Christians and Muslims alone and separate from one another: the Old/First Testament or Tanakh and the Second/New Testament and the Koran interpellate one another and must engage in conversation with one another and need to bring one another into conversation. Jews, Christians and Muslims should read and reread not only their own holy Scriptures but also at the same time those of the others and preferably with one another. To think or to assert that the one can do so without the other is simply (also theologically) unacceptable. These conversations can and will be often heated. There are also specific questions that the three can pose to one another. Jews and Christians have questions for Muslims with respect to their interpretations of, for example, what legitimates the use of power and violence, whenever the term jihad is discussed and used as a war against those who think differently. Just as Christian Crusaders could speak of “the acts of God through the hands of the Franks,” so fundamentalist Muslims can speak of the gesta Dei per musulmanos. That would entail that the “violent enter the Muslim kingdom of God.” But these and similar views are at right angles to the idea that the jihad akbar (“the great war”) is that which one must wage against oneself. The cross is not the symbol for the taking of the life of others (in crusades) but the paradigm for a fundamental engagement for the liberation of others.

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Bibliography Abdolah,Kader (2002). Kélilé en Demné. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. Akbar, M.J. (2002). The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity. London/New York: Routledge. Ali, Tariq. (2002). The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity. London,/New York: Verso. Armour, Rollin. (2002). Islam, Christianity and the West: A Troubled History. Marknoll: Orbis Books. Barrucand, Marianne and Achim Bednorz. (2002). Moorish Architecture in Andalusia. Cologne et al.: Taschen. Bolkenstein, Frits and Mohammed Arkoun. (1994). Islam en democratie: Een ontmoeting. Amsterdam/Antwerpen: Contact. Catherine, Lucas. (2004). Rijstpap, tulpen and Jihad: Verhalen uit onze gemeenschappelijke geschiedenis met Arabieren en Turken. Berchem: EPO Cardini, Franco. (2001). Europe and Islam. Oxford: Blackwell. Da Costa, Isaac. (1925). Hagar. Introduced and edited by C. Stapelkamp. Reprint. Zutphen: Thieme. Dajani-Shakeel, Hadia, (1976). “Jihaâd in Twelfth-Century Arabic Poetry: A Moral and Religious Force to Counter the Crusades.” Muslim World 66: 96-113. De Boer, E.H. (ed.). (1998). Kennis op kamelen: Europa en de buiten-Europese wereld (1150-1350). Amsterdam: Prometheus. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Leiden/London: Brill (1971) The Encyclopedia of Religion. Eliade, Mircea. (Gen. ed.). (1987). New York. Gibbon, Edward (1928). The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Reprint. London/New York: Dent. Goddard, Hugh. (2000). A History of Christian-Muslim Relations. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Griffith, Lee. (2002). The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Grote Winckler Prins. Amsterdam/Brussel: Elsevier. (1982) Harper, Raymond. (1998). Als God met ons is. Jacob van Maerlant en de vijanden van het christelijk geloof. Amsterdam: Prometheus. Hayek, Michel. (1964). Le Mystère d’Ismael. Paris: Mame. Hillenbrand, Carole. (1999). The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hitti, P. (1964). History of the Arabs. New York: Macmillan and Co. Lewis, Bernard. (2001). Het Midden Oosten: 2000 jaar culturele en politieke geschiedenis. Amsterdam: Forum.

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Markham, Ian and Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabiʹ (eds). (2002). 11 September: Religious Perpscetives on the Causes and Consequences. Oxford: One World. Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. (1961 3rd ed.). Tubingen: J.C. Mohr. Riley-Smith, Jonathan, (1993). The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. London, New York: Continuum. Runciman, Steven. (1964). The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. A History of the Crusades. Vol. 1. New York: Harper & Row. Selengut, Charles. (2003). Sacred Fury; Understanding Religious Violence. New York/Oxford: Alta Mira Press. Watt, W.M. (1965). A History of Islamic Spain. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wessels, Anton. (2002). Islam verhalenderwijs. Reprint. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Nieuwe Zijds. Wheatcroft, Andrew (2003). Infidels: The Conflict Between Christendom and Islam 638-2002. London: Viking.

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Secular Views of Religion Keith Ward

Abstract The author investigates the roots of the position of methodological atheism assumed by the study of religions. He concentrates on Frazer’s The Golden Bough, which is still widely accepted. Frazer sees humankind as having passed through three successively higher stages of thought: magic, religion and then science, with the first two being more primitive attempts at the last. This prompts the question of whether religion can be seen as primitive science, i.e. in an evolutionist way and whether religion is, as Frazer sees it, a matter of getting things to happen in the way one wants. Religion, however, is not a matter of primitive science, not a matter of explanation, but a matter of evoking an intuition of spiritual power.

Introduction It is a strange fact that the fairly modern discipline of the study of religions (the first academic post in comparative religion in Britain was that of Joseph Carpenter in 1876) often assumes a stance of methodological atheism. It is assumed that religious beliefs are false and therefore in need of psychological or sociological explanation. In this paper I investigate some of the roots of this secular view of religions. Out of the vast amount of material available, I have chosen to concentrate on Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough. This is not because it is an easy target for anthropologists to shoot at—which it is—but because it is a classic work, influenced primarily by the philosophy of David Hume, stating a secular view of religion which is still, in its broad outlines, accepted by many teachers of religious studies. It is also because I thought it better to focus on one work than to indulge in large generalizations, even though that entails considerably restricting the scope of the paper. 321

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“Religion” in the The Golden Bough In Frazer’s magisterial twelve volumes, fortunately for most readers condensed in 1922 into one abridged edition, almost all classical myths and recorded practices of tribal cultures, as well as the superstitions which linger still in the most civilized nations, are to be found. But they are not simply set alongside one another as if in some dusty museum catalogue. They arise and take their place in the narrative, one by one, as successive analyses and ever-expanding explanations of how the priests of Diana met their deaths in the sacred grove of the goddess, and were succeeded by one who had plucked the golden bough of mistletoe from the sacred oak at Nemi. Enter into this labyrinthine work, and one is in danger of being lost for ever in the rich imaginative thought-world which James Frazer spun out of his training in classics, his skill in romantic descriptions of the natural world, his evident calling to be an anthropological detective, and his monumental assemblage of the best anthropological data then available to him. After reading The Golden Bough, one will most likely see dying and rising cornspirits and tree-gods everywhere. Every sunset and sunrise, every autumn and spring, every cycle of the phases of the moon, will display a dying and rising god, calling for propitiation and sacrifice, and reminding one of the primitive though utterly mistaken beliefs which all “civilized men” carry around beneath the thin veneer of such scientific knowledge as they have. It is a magnificent work, one that anyone interested in religious beliefs and their origin simply has to read sooner or later. But is it magnificently wrong? Frazer does not present his mass of data in a purely descriptive, neutral way. Far from it. He has an overtly stated theory, by means of which he hopes to explain the origin of religious beliefs, whether these beliefs are about the bad luck caused by walking under ladders or about the creation of the universe by a Supreme God. And in explaining origins, he means to expose the essence of religious belief, and to show that it is fundamentally illusory. His basic theory is simple. It is that humanity has passed through three main stages of thought, each one higher than and superseding its predecessor. First there is the age of magic, then that of religion, and finally that of science. “The movement of the

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higher thought, so far as we can trace it, has on the whole been from magic through religion to science” (853). In magic humans believe that there is an established order in nature which can be manipulated by following certain simple causal principles. These are the principles of homeopathic and contagious magic. By a natural, though mistaken, application of the association of ideas, “primitive man” comes to think that like causes like and that two things which are once contiguous continue to influence each other thereafter. “Magic is a spurious system of natural law” (13), based on the correct recognition of order in nature, and the incorrect hypothesis that this order can be manipulated by using similarity and contiguity as causal mechanisms. A simple example of homeopathic magic is the scattering of water to make it rain. Another would be the performance of an act of sexual congress on a cornfield to make the corn fertile. An example of contagious magic would be sticking pins into a doll dressed in cuttings from a person’s clothes, in order to cause that person pain or even death. In general, the idea is that certain human acts can cause changes in nature, because of their similarity to, or close connection with, the desired occurrences. The primitive human being believes in the omnipotence of the human will, and thinks he can control nature, or even that he is responsible for making the sun rise or the corn grow. This, Frazer thinks, is the original, most primitive stage of human thought. But sooner or later humans discover that it is all a mistake—the sun rises whether or not one sacrifices a young maiden each day and spring comes whether or not one performs sexual orgies in winter. Nature goes on its way regardless of human actions. Then, says Frazer, “in the acuter minds magic is gradually superseded by religion” (853), wherein nature is thought to be governed by “certain great invisible beings” who need to be propitiated if humans are to get what they desire from nature. Magic, then, is “nothing but a mistaken application of the very simplest and most elementary processes of the mind, namely the association of ideas” (65); it is “the bastard sister of science” (59). Religion is in one sense higher, because it recognizes that magic does not work. But in another sense religion is morally inferior, as well as being just as mistaken. For it supposes, wrongly, that events happen because of the whims of supernatural gods, to whom we must bow in submission and craven fear.

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“By religion,” says Frazer, “I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life” (60). The words that Frazer chooses are worth noting carefully. “Propitiation” is an action by means of which one hopes to appease or placate an offended or threatening enemy. “Conciliation” is, similarly, something meant to overcome distrust or hostility, to turn aside some dangerous action. In using these words, religion is at once characterized as something concerned with fear and selfabasement, and its object, God or the gods, is seen as an enemy, a dangerous and powerful agent who is yet vain and stupid enough to be placated by various rituals and incantations. Now it is indeed Frazer’s belief that primitive humans were largely lost in “the jungle of crass ignorance and blind fear” (851), so that the older a belief is the more ignorant and obtuse it is likely to be. Primitive religion, then, will obviously be a mass of ignorance and fear, and the more primitive (the earlier) it is the more benighted it will be—but it is Frazer himself who has decreed that it must be so, by his assumption that “primitive men” were superstitious and mentally undeveloped. One might pause, then, to ask whether it is really quite so obvious that our hunter-gathering ancestors were much more mentally undeveloped than Cambridge classicists and whether we can be quite so sure that the “primitively scientific” approach of magic preceded the first contemptible and ridiculous efforts to placate the hidden and arbitrary gods which saw the birth of religion. Is Religion Primitive Science? A fairly typical passage from Frazer reads as follows: If in the most backward state of human society now known to us we find magic thus conspicuously present and religion conspicuously absent, may we not reasonably conjecture that the civilised races of the world have also at some period of their history passed through a similar intellectual phase, that they attempted to force the great powers of nature to do their pleasure before they thought of courting their favour by offerings and prayer? (66)

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It is the unfortunate Aborigines of Australia who were usually selected as the most backward humans available, and whose practices were then projected back to the universal childhood of humanity. In assessing such comments and comparisons, it must first be granted that an evolutionary account of human origins is almost universally accepted by natural scientists. So presumably for hundreds of thousands of years there existed humanoid beings with mental abilities somewhere between those of modern homo sapiens and chimpanzees. In other words, the human race, or its immediate evolutionary predecessor, has passed through stages of mental development, and any beliefs and practices such beings had would be much less abstract and certainly much less informed than those of typical modern Cambridge classicists. If we could discover the practices of early humanoids, they would be much simpler and less sophisticated than those of the best educated members of the species as it now exists. Sir James never met any of these savages, as they did not seem to get invited to Trinity College High Table for dinner. When he looked for their nearest counterparts, he looked among the superstitious peasantry of Europe, or the more backward parts of the Scottish Highlands. He did not actually ask them for some account of their beliefs and practices but relied on the truly vast store of information which he gathered from classical texts, the reports of missionaries and business men, and folk tales of the world. And his principle, put rather crudely, seems to have been this: what is superstitious and absurd among civilized secular persons now is what is completely normal among the primitive races and was universal in the early history of humanity. It is by looking at folk-tales and rustic rituals that one can discover, admittedly by a great deal of reconstruction and detective work, the origins of religion in the earliest history of the human race. I suppose it is indisputable that there is a great deal of deceit, superstition, manipulation, and credulity in matters of religion, as there is in matters of politics, art, morality, and anything touched by human thought. The astrology columns of modern British newspapers, without which they would hardly dare to appear, testify to the persistence among large numbers of people of a wholly unscientifically founded belief in some sort of ability to predict the future from the position of the stars at the time of a person’s birth. Perhaps some far future historian, from a study of

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some newspapers which somehow survived the great disaster which destroyed our civilization, would surmise that the foundation of our religious beliefs was a false scientific theory of how the stars cause things to happen by magical influence. So in religion there are many well-attested accounts of human and animal sacrifice, of the burning of witches, and of gruesome rites of self-torture and flagellation. These occur not only among “primitive tribes”—the Aborigines know few things of that sort, in fact—but among the so-called “higher” religions, where they tend to recur from time to time. It would be agreed by all that such practices go against the spirit of the great religions, and far from being their foundation are aberrations of a wholly reprehensible sort. Their occurrence may be adduced by the mythological detective as evidence for the survival of earlier, more primitive strands of religion, through a later, more ethically developed, faith. But why should they be the more primitive and original, rather than, what they might more naturally seem to be, degradations from a quasi-personal relationship of reverence and awe before the great spirit or spirits who is known in and through the immediate apprehension of the human environment? The evolutionary anthropologists, E. B. Tylor and James Frazer, both opposed the “degradation” theory as an unsubstantiated theological dogma, which depended on there being some supernatural and original revelation, from which humans had subsequently declined. Against it they set the evolutionary view that human thought had developed greater sophistication and ethical insight as time went on. On the other hand, they did admit that humans had not in fact progressed morally to a great extent, as the devastating wars of the twentieth century were to prove. Few would today maintain that God really walked in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, and that the original revelation, from which all else has degraded, is to be found there. But might it not be true that the requirements of bloody sacrifices and sexual orgies which characterize some ancient cultures, represent the triumph of the will to aggression and lust over an equally ancient set of rituals which were much gentler, and concerned with establishing harmony with the natural world and good relations among humans and animals? Perhaps at a very early stage there existed a matriarchal society which was later overturned by male militarism and the cor-

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ruption of religious ritual by imperial ambitions. I would not insist upon this, though some feminist anthropologists and archeologists have adduced some evidence for it. What I would suggest is that we simply do not know enough about the preliterate origins of religion to be sure. And if one were inclined to think there actually is a creator God, it might seem reasonable to suppose that the earliest humanoids were able to relate to that God—probably not explicitly known as one creator—as a beneficent power. Since most theists would also say that throughout history humans have followed a path of egoism and the will to power, it would follow that human religions, too, would reflect the egoism and lust to power of their adherents. It is not at all absurd to think of many degradations in religion, and to think that the earliest ritual practices might have been as much concerned with ideas of harmony and balance in nature as with gratifying selfish human desires by appeasing wrathful gods. What I chiefly want to point out, though, is that Frazer does appear to assume that the earlier a practice is, the bloodier, more repugnant, absurd and immoral it must be. That sort of evolutionism does not seem to be well evidenced, and it evinces a pessimistic view of human nature that might be counteracted by the reflection that the early stages of human evolution may well have shown traits both innocent and benign, as well as the cruder dispositions which came to dominate human history. Frazer also assumes that the study of primitive religious practices will reveal the essential nature of religion most clearly. As Durkheim, who disagreed that primitive religion was based on fear and propitiation, put it, in primitive religion “all is reduced to that which is indispensable” (Durkheim 1963: 7). “In the primitive religions, the religious fact still visibly carries the mark of its origins.” So the earlier one gets, the nearer one comes to the essential core of religion. That was an agreed position among the early investigators of religion. It is, however, a very odd position to take. Suppose someone said, “In primitive chemistry, you discover what is really essential to chemistry. In fact, alchemy is the essential core of chemistry. That is what chemistry really is.” Or one might say, “Astronomy began in Babylon with astrology. Therefore astrology is the core of astronomy.” These statements are clearly absurd. The earliest beginnings of any human activity are likely to be the least

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adequate or satisfactory, and to predate all the advances which define that activity at a later, more mature stage. So one might think that religion, too, begins with speculations and practices which were to be modified enormously in the course of history and which are a very misleading guide to what religion essentially is—if, indeed, it is essentially anything. It is of interest to know that the earliest humans of whom we know had beliefs and practices which seem quite close to what we call religious beliefs and practices, and also that present day undeveloped tribal societies have recognizably religious practices. This suggests a certain common human inclination to form religious beliefs, to have a religious orientation. What is odd is to think that the study of such beliefs will reveal what is central or most important to the present religions of developed technological societies. The very opposite is more likely to be true. I would say unequivocally that the two great contributions of Tylor and Frazer, the comparative method of seeing religious beliefs and practices in a global context, and the evolutionist method of tracing many beliefs as survivals of or developments from earlier and simpler beliefs, greatly helps the understanding of religious belief. I think one may take it as established that wherever there are found elaborate arts, abstruse knowledge, complex institutions, these are results of gradual development from an earlier, simpler, and ruder state of life. No stage of civilization comes into existence spontaneously, but grows or is developed out of the stage before it. (Tylor 1881: 20.

So the evolutionist method leads us to see present religion as a development from earlier, simpler forms. But why assume that those early forms were founded on ignorance and fear, and express the inner essence of religious faith? Problems begin to appear when Frazer develops his theory that magic preceded religion, and that religion is the placation of angry gods. Frazer concedes that early human beings “performed religious and magical rites simultaneously; he uttered prayers and incantations almost in the same breath” (63). Yet he postulates that magic must have been earlier, because magic requires only “a mistaken application of the very simplest and most elementary processes of the mind, namely the association of ideas by virtue of resemblance or contiguity” (65), whereas religion assumes the postulation of con-

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scious personal agents, and “requires for its apprehension a far higher degree of intelligence and reflection” (65). Frazer thinks of early humans as primitive philosophers, seeking to explain and control their environment. He assumes that the most elementary form of explanation is the association of ideas, found in homeopathic and contagious magic. Religion, involving the more abstract hypothesis of a controlling spirit, arises only when that elementary theory is found to fail. There are two hugely questionable assumptions here: that early religion was a matter of theoretical, quasi-scientific, explanation and that religious practice is a matter of getting things to happen in the way one wants, either by magic or by obsequious pleading. It is at once obvious that these assumptions could only be made by one who regards religion as some sort of theoretical mistake. Frazer does not disguise this fact. As he concludes The Golden Bough, he compares magic, religion and science to “a web woven of three different threads—the black thread of magic, the red thread of religion, and the white thread of science” (855). He says, “There rests on the middle portion of the web, where religion has entered most deeply into its texture, a dark crimson stain.” And then he asks, “Will a reaction set in which may arrest progress and even undo much that has been done? ... Will it [the web] be white or red?” (856). Clearly, religion is now a reactionary, antiscientific force, which should be encouraged to fade away as rapidly as possible. Now if religion is what Frazer thinks it is, a mistaken series of immoral and irrational beliefs, one can understand his point of view. But are believers primarily interested in trying to explain why events happen, and primarily concerned to make things happen as they wish? The contemporary Christian does not go to church to find out how televisions or transistors work and to make sure that she gets a good job. Appeal to God is so far from explaining anything that it is more often a puzzle than a clarification. The query, “Why does God allow suffering?” never explains it; it intensifies the problem. So it seems very odd to suggest that the motivation for belief in God is a desire for explanation. Similarly, Christians are usually castigated by preachers for trying to use religion as a means to worldly success. Abandonment to the divine will is more typical than attempts to get God

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to do what one wants. Of course, in prayer people often do ask God to do what they would like to see. But it again seems very odd to suggest that this is the primary reason for their practice, when it is so frequently and vehemently criticized by most Christian teachers as mislocating the primary importance of the adoration of God as a being of supreme value. Is what is going on, then, an interpretation of religion in terms of its worst features—those features that religious teachers themselves criticize—and a complete neglect of the question of how religious belief differs from scientific, moral or aesthetic belief and practice? If one could isolate something distinctive about religious belief, one might seek its roots in some more elementary forms at the dawn of human history. But one would not be compelled to think that these roots are going to be a complete compendium of all the worst features of present religion, which are assumed to have been its total content in the cruder and simpler days of savagery. The Nature of Religion The most questionable part of Frazer’s analysis, then, is his thesis that magic is prior to religion and is an attempt to explain nature in a quasi-scientific way, which then degenerates into attempts to persuade the angry gods to do what one wants. But the personalization of nature which religions do often postulate is not an attempt to explain the occurrence of events. It is rather an attempt to enter into certain sorts of personal relation with natural powers—relationships of awe, reverence, gratitude, and, yes, intercession. This is not a scientific hypothesis, but the adoption of a basic reactive attitude to the natural powers that surround one and of which one is part. This supposal could well seem as arbitrary as Frazer’s conception of the savage as a very naive empiricist philosopher. But there is overwhelming evidence for it in the “primitive” religions that exist in the world today and that Frazer uses as the evidence for his theory. This can be seen in the work of Edward Evans-Pritchard, Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford from 1946-70, who published a classic anthropological study of the African tribe, the Nuer (1956). Their religion could easily be seen, and has been seen, as an almost wholly superstitious, animistic and terror-

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inspired religion of fear. The Nuer have whole rafts of sacrificial and propitiatory rites to appease the spirits who bring disease and misfortune to the tribe, and they seem ideal candidates for a Frazerian treatment. But Evans-Pritchard gives a much more sympathetic account, in which he points out that the primary motivation of the Nuer is to drive away sickness and evil and to achieve wholeness of life and well-being. There are many spirit powers, both good and evil, but they all relate to, or are forms of, Kwoth, the great “spirit in the sky,” who is a friend and presence as well as a distant and fearsome creator. The spirits are imaginative constructions which present particular ways in which Kwoth, Spirit, is apprehended in events in tribal and personal life. In the end, Evans-Pritchard claims, “Nuer religion is ultimately an interior state ... externalised in rites” (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 322). It is not a theoretical attempt to explain the world and it is not simply a set of magical techniques to avert evil. It is centred on “a strong sense of dependence on God,” even though it involves many beliefs about spirit influences which complicate the understanding of how one can achieve right relationship to Kwoth. Many aspects of Nuer religion—its acceptance of witchcraft and demon possession, and its taboos and rituals for appeasing ghosts of the dead—might appear undesirable, psychologically harmful, and pre-scientific. But one would misunderstand the religious life of the Nuer completely if one simply saw it in such terms. More important is the idea of Kwoth, Spirit, as expressed in personal experiences and historical events, and as evoking personal attitudes of reverence, gratitude and dependence in its devotees. In an even more positive way, Donald Hughes, in his work on American Indian Ecology (1996), takes a much more positive attitude to native American beliefs, which Frazer would undoubtedly have dismissed as savage and superstitious. Indians, says Hughes, see “a community in nature of living beings among whom the Indians formed a part, but not all. There were also animals, trees, plants, and reverse, and the Indians regarded themselves as relatives of these, not as their superiors” (1996: 133). He points out that the Hopis spend about a third of their waking lives in ritual dances, prayers, songs and preparation for ceremonials. But these are not scientific experiments to cause changes in nature. They are celebrations of the mysterious inter-

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relatedness of all that is and attempts to stay in harmony with nature and maintain its balance. The offerings made… are not so much sacrifices as things given in exchange for other things taken or killed, to maintain the balance. A ceremony is one way in which people contribute to maintaining the world as it should be. Indians regarded things in nature as spiritual beings, not because they were seeking some explanation for natural phenomena, but because human beings experience a spiritual resonance in nature. (Hughes 1996: 139)

The ceremonies are not, as Tylor and Frazer supposed—never having asked a native American—attempts to bend nature to the human will, but ways of subordinating the human will to natural rhythms. Black Elk said, “With all beings and all things we shall be as relatives” (in: Gottfried 1996: 105). One may feel that tribal religions are here being given a rather Romantic and sentimentalized makeover, rather tailored to an ecologically aware audience, feeling rather guilty about their past treatment of native Americans. Nevertheless, these accounts give a much better idea of what tribal believers might say—and it is interesting that primal religions throughout the world are experiencing a revival, in opposition to what are seen to be the destructive, patriarchal and repressive tendencies of the “great religions” and of Western liberal imperialism. The marks of that revival are a reiteration of reverence for the natural world, in contrast with the Western tradition which has seen nature as just a means to human dominance and comfort. The revenge of the savage mind is to see Frazer as cut off from his roots in nature, as having a radically self-deceived view of the superiority of rational human thought to feelings of unity with nature which the primal traditions celebrate. Native Americans do regard everything in nature as powerful, able to help or harm. Things mediate wakan, sacred power that permeates all its forms (in this it is very similar to the Nuer idea of Kwoth). Wakan-Tanka is the great Mystery of which nature and human alike are parts. Indian life is a “constant conversation with the sacred universe” (Hughes 1996: 144). Is this to be seen as an infantile personification of impersonal laws and forces, a

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projection of the human mind onto the external world? Or is it a recognition, not formulated in any systematic way, that nature herself is a sacred power, the giver of life, to be revered as well as respected, the Power which embraces humans as those called to respect and further her inborn potencies? Tylor and Frazer were right in saying that there is a fundamental divide in human thought, between those who see nature as an ordered and impersonal system in which “one event follows another necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual or personal agency” (Frazer 1996: 58) and those who see nature as a system of signs and sacraments of an underlying quasi-personal reality, or at least one which generates and sustains awareness and intention within its web of interrelated powers. What we call “religion’ seeks to evoke an intuition of such spiritual power, and that is its most fundamental role. To overlook that fact, which is testified to by religious believers themselves, is to overlook the central distinctive feature in religious belief and to assume the truth of materialism—and can such an assumption really underpin an “explanation” of what religion is? With hindsight, it is easy for us to say that the evolutionism of the early anthropologists erred in assuming that the more elementary and primitive a belief the more stupid, fearful and morally crude it must be. We need to be much more discriminating in our treatment of primal traditions. They may indeed embody prescientific worldviews and morally limited perceptions. But they can be seen as responses, from particular cultural settings, to what is perceived to be of transcendent, objective and commanding value. That value may not be clearly identified and fully reflected upon—it would be hard to say that our current notions of value have been! It may be mixed, as much religion is, with cruder ideas of human sacrifice and magical rituals. But a theist might expect that early religion is founded basically upon reverence and gratitude, upon self-examination and moral commitment, upon the celebration of value in symbolic forms taken from the environment and from crucial events in tribal history. They were right to look for an evolutionary account of religion but highly dubious in assuming that it was originally founded on fear and on mistaken attempts to explain why things happen. In a rather similar way, the comparativism of these thinkers

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is ground-breaking in its insistence on treating religion as a global phenomenon and in looking outside one particular religious tradition to find what is characteristic of religious thought and practice. But it is also restricted, in finding the common basis of religion to lie in a quasi-scientific search for explanation. Is it at all plausible to think that the elaborate genealogies of the gods, the highly imaginative descriptions of their powers and properties, and the narratives of their quarrels and exploits, are attempts to explain natural phenomena? The Babylonian stories are more like literature than like physics. That is what Tylor and Frazer missed—and at least in Frazer’s case, that is very ironic, as The Golden Bough is one of the finest literary fairytales ever told. If these religious stories explain, it is in the sense that art explains, and it might be wondered whether that should be called “explanation” at all. They do, or they do hope to, tell us something about the world. But what they tell us is that there is a transcendent depth, underlying the visible and tangible, to which we can relate, knowledge of which will bring a distinctive sort of fulfillment. That is not explanation. It is revelation, in the true sense —drawing back the veil of space and time to reveal what is hidden, what is beyond, what, among all the concerns and cares of everyday life, might easily be missed. Moses and Muhammed hear the gods, or God, speak. Jesus is claimed to be a unique mediator between God and the world. The Buddha attains Nirvana through meditation. Confucius apprehends the Tao through wisdom. And Plato works it all out by pure thinking—or so his followers say. All of them bring back to this transient world metaphors and images which glow with the mysterious light of eternity, which resound with a beauty and power which time-bound understanding can never match. All of this may indeed be a mistake, a deep and ineradicable human illusion. Proponents of the secular world view would say that it is. But there is no way of establishing on neutral grounds that it is so and I hope to have shown that it is largely prejudice which leads some to think that the systematic study of religions must assume it to be so. Secular world views are as ideologically committed and value-laden as any religious worldview, and methodological atheism, far from being necessary to the scientific study of religions, may plausibly be thought to impede the understanding of religious belief.

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Bibliography Durkheim, Emile. (1963). Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Transl. J.N. Swain. London: Allen and Unwin.. Evans-Pritchard, Edward. (1956). Nuer Religion. Oxford. Clarendon Press. Frazer, James. (1996). The Golden Bough. Abridged Edition. Harmondsworth. Penguin Books. Gottlieb, Roger. Ed. (1996) This Sacred Earth. London. Routledge. Tylor, E.B. (1881) Anthropology. London: Macmillan.

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Afterword

Questions and Comments

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Theologies of Religions Observations Hendrik M. Vroom Abstract This contributions tries to glean some insights into the nature of theologies of religions, the incongruity of the different approaches that follow from by the basic insights of each tradition, and some things they have in common. Each tradition has many different schools that develop in various local contexts. From this the question arises as to whether it is legitimate to state global views and “judge” Islam “as such”, Hinduism “as such,” etc. The relationship between the approaches to other local religious traditions and to their global forms is discussed. After pointing out different forms of exclusivism and inclusivism in the various traditions, it is stressed that a criterion for theology of religion is to acknowledge the alterité of the other. After discussing the so-called pluralist thesis a more radical, real pluralism is stressed, that, on the one hand, is problematic for global culture, because of its variety of worldviews but, on the other, can be enriching because differences between worldviews can help us to learn and to see life better as it is. This process requires encounters and dialogues on different levels of life, including ethics and beliefs about transcendence, the world and humankind.

Introduction In this last chapter in this volume on reciprocal theologies of religions I will try to point out some of the fundamental issues in comparative theology (of religions) and in the theory of religion, i.e, philosophy of religion proper. I will do that quite briefly, because my concern here is not to argue for my own views but to state insights and problems for further reflection in our fields of study. However, this volume is itself a research project, since it 339

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would be impossible for individual scholars. As its planning follows the lines of earlier research projects in which Jerald Gort, Anton Wessels, Lourens Minnema, myself and other colleagues have been involved, and the participants are people with overlapping interests, most of whom have met before, of course my interests and the insights from earlier studies in this field will play a role. Philosophies of Religions; Comparative Theologies of Religions First, comparative theology has to be extended to the study of the views various religions have of one another. We can see immediately that there is not one Christian theology of religion nor one Islamic approach nor one Hindu view. All we have are classical views and mainline views; we could also point perhaps to strict “orthodox” views, somewhat more liberal views and those that are more marginal. The authors in this volume take positions. They describe views of the past, indicate several considerations and come to some conclusions of their own. Jacques Waardenburg, who, as a non-Muslim, was invited to describe classical Islamic views, stresses implicitly some of the views that he describes—and rightly so. What we describe should be true, but that does not mean that the authors may have no views of their own. Therefore, “the” theology of religions of each tradition does not exist. However, what does exist are basic insights into reality, which are basic for the valuation of other religions as well—notions central to a tradition. It is for that reason that plurality does not end up in sheer relativism. That culture is global and pluralistic has far-reaching consequences for “the” philosophy of religion. What is often called philosophy of religion is Western, Christian or post-Christian, or Muslim or Hindu or, better, Advaita, or Buddhist or, better, the Kyoto School philosophy of religion. “The” philosophy does not exist. Even Western philosophers who pretend to think on their own without any authorities to which they have to be loyal or, worse, obedient, are not without their traditions. We may blend insights from various sources, but we all stand in traditions, often at the crossroads of more than one tradition, but we are never entirely free persons who start afresh and simply learn to look on our own, as if we were seeing reality for the first time. So, philo-

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sophy of religion becomes philosophies of religions from various perspectives, religious or secular. This implies that philosophy of religion cannot be done well if people simply take their own religious or secular tradition for granted. All have to study other traditions as well. This obtains even more for the theory of religion, the philosophy of religion proper. Anything we say about religion in general should be accounted for through references to other religions as well. Much of Western philosophy of religion is dependent on one culture and theistic religions only; therefore, Western insights about “religion” cannot be valid as such. This has a further consequence. Because nobody can survey all traditions, philosophy of religion should be done in dialogue—since Plato that seems to be the norm (even though some dialogues look like monologues). Neutrality, indeed, is impossible. Therefore, we should make clear what our background is—as most of the authors in this volume have done. Thus, in the remaining part of this contribution the reader may see some observations that have been influenced by a Protestant, Continental West European background and by my involvement over a number of decades in interreligious studies and dialogue. Local and Global In the process of the preparation of this volume (part of a broader research program into comparative religious anthropologies), we felt that the we should have not only “global,” “universal” theologies of different religions but different kinds of approaches as well. And so we, the editors, invited scholars to write from different perspectives in different ways—and to this the authors added a great deal that we could not foresee: - from one tradition about other religions in general (Izutsu, Nayak, Ravitsky, Waardenburg, Gort, Ward); - from one tradition about other traditions or another tradition in the same country (Sakurai, Ram-Prasad); - from one tradition about other traditions or another tradition—with the result that some of the authors speak more “locally” than “globally;” they concentrate on Korea (Kim), on Japan (Sakurai), on India (Vyas, Engineer, Ram-Prasad), on Kenya (Mbiti), etc., although Takada and Hanaoka with

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their studies in Germany have West European Christianity in mind and not just Japanese theologies; - from the points of view of engaged sociological studies (Bhattachan) and the so-called perennial conflicts between two traditions (Wessels); - from their personal spiritual development (Hanaoka, Kim, Izutsu) or the reflections of persons who played a role in the first encounters between traditions (Carman) and personal experience (Mbiti); What is striking is the delicacy of the balance between the global and the local. In discussions of the local the global is always present in the background. Indeed, we cannot understand a tradition in our country that has international relations with its own “kind” without taking the global forms of that tradition into account. And, vice versa, we cannot speak with Buddhists as Buddhists or Muslims as Muslims or Christians as Christians in our country and forget the different forms within their own tradition. The global and the local are interwoven. The contextual forms of a tradition are not legitimate, in my view, if they deviate too much from the center of their tradition or from what is going on in their tradition elsewhere.1 Allow me to give one example. During the upheavals in Ambon around 2003 a well-known Dutch missiologist (of sorts) stated publically that every time Muslims set fire to a church in Indonesia or Nigeria or wherever, the Dutch government should close 1

The volume One Gospel - Many Cultures (Oduyoye 2003) actually deals with such questions. One can argue for contextual forms of Christianity, but, as Russell Botman from Stellenbosch, South Africa, writes, one is faced then with the question of apartheid: Is that a legitimate contextual form? Several questions arise, as Christine Lienemann points out in her exposition of the World’s Day of Women’s Prayer, which in a sense is a better model of church unity than the processes that strive to overcome doctrinal (and cultural) differences between church dominations. Thus, what binds Buddhists together? Why does the Dutch Buddhist Union not accept all who claim to be Buddhists as members? Who will deny a Muslim the right to say that he is a Muslim? However, there are limits—not everything is relative. That some people do not accept the judgments of those who are more knowledgeable does not imply that these judgments are not true but that they are free to believe what they believe.

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a mosque. Western governments should make it difficult to build mosques as long as Arab countries do not allow churches and church services. This stresses global developments too much over the local situation in one’s own country; the situation in Indonesia is a local situation as well. However, those local situations are not unrelated to global developments. Therefore, we cannot neglect the global and look only at what is under our nose. The global and the local are interconnected, just as the world politics and economics are strongly determining factors in local developments. Nevertheless, processes of violence as well as of reconciliation begin on a local level. Therefore, in some respects the local is more important than the global. This is especially true of religion. Religion is different from business and international politics. Business firms act on a international scale. Competition is a policy that creates jobs and fights poverty. Religious organizations lack the power of business corporations and states. They cannot start terrorism nor end it. Muslims in South Africa cannot order Muslims in Nigeria to forbid stoning women nor suicide bombers in Palestine. Just as the power of states is limited, so is the power of religious organizations—in a much greater measure. Nevertheless, local religious people and organizations can have international influence. Fatwas on the internet are one example. Therefore contextualization is one aspect of the developments of the world religions, but internationalization is another. The same applies to the theologies of religions. In one’s appreciation of another tradition the local is very important but we cannot forget the global. Japanese Buddhists are not responsible for the violence in Sri Lanka, but their tradition is involved. Muslims in Cape Town cannot ignore the fact that fanatical Muslims set fire to churches in other parts of the world—their tradition is at stake and their beliefs are belied. Reconciliation has a local beginning but a global focus—as we may have learned from Desmond Tutu, Swami Agnivesh and Andreas D’Souza (Agnivesh 2002; Meiring 2002; D’Souza 2002). This complicated and ambiguous relationship between the local and global relations among adherents of various traditions is very much present in this volume. One question that will arise for whoever reads these articles is whether Bhattachan’s critique of Hinduism applies to all Hindu schools and in all cases. Anoth-

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er question will be whether Nayak and Vyas do justice to the Buddhist objections to Hindu religion and culture.2 There is a great deal of tension between the views presented by Bhattachan on the one hand and Vyas and Nayak on the other. They can be explained partly by contextual differences operating in the background. Vyas and Nayak live in India and see the tense situation caused by so-called “fanatical” Hindus and, with their sympathies for Advaita philosophies and the moderate school of Hinduism, they try to make peace with Buddhism. Ram-Prasad does not like Bhattachan’s “globalization” of his perception of Hinduism either, influenced as it is by his local experience of Nepalese Hinduism and its often inimical attitude towards members of other religious traditions—who are treated as second-class citizens. Should Bhattachan’s sad experience influence the attitudes of the inhabitants of London or Durban towards local Hindus? One cannot simply say “yes,” but it is also too easy to say “No.” Muslims who hate the websites of fanatical imams in the Middle East and Pakistan can design their own websites and take on the fanatics. Christian churches have always been active in Northern Ireland to further peace and reconciliation. In other words, we cannot simply wash our hands in innocence. For the theology of religions this implies that what is not true on the global scale cannot be fully true locally. Can we take a Christian seriously who defends positions that are not shared by many Christians in other parts of the world? Or a Buddhist? Or a Hindu? Or a Confucian, a Taoist, a Muslim, a Jew? Has not every orthodox and liberal Jew in the world been asked about the policy of Israel towards Palestinians? Those who can survey a bit of the global arena have some global responsibility. We cannot be only “local” and have “local” relationships, but neither can we be only “global” and not see our neighbors as they truly are! This opens up possibilities for reconciliation, starting on the grassroots level.3 2

One should consider, for instance, the difference between shrines to Confucius and the Buddha in a Taoist temple in Hong Kong, and the Hindu inclusion of the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu. Both “acts” are inclusive but in very different ways. I will return to inclusivism below. 3

I cannot help but think of a project initiated by a Muslim woman from the Netherlands, born in Ambon in Indonesia, who during the

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Inclusiveness, Exclusiveness and Alterité In the theology of religion(s) a well-known distinction is that between exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. Exclusivism is said to be the root cause of religious conflicts and pluralism has been propagated as the solution to them. Inclusivism is an in-between position. Exclusivism says that one’s own tradition is the one true way to live a holy life and find salvation. It is often stated that exclusivism is typical of theistic religions, because they claim to be true on the basis of their having a specific and unique revelation or the latest and best revelation. We encountered such an approach, centuries ago, in Christianity (Gort), and in Islam (Waardenburg). Most often, as Takada indicates, for Middle and East Asian religion this claim as to exclusiveness is shocking—and, by the way, seen as rude, egocentric and as attachment to one’s own tradition. Inclusivism is an approach in which people from one tradition include people of other traditions unwittingly in the blessings that their own tradition brings. The classical example is the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, who combines the following basic insights: first, that God extends his grace to those who have not actually heard the Gospel but live according to the ends for which they have been created and, second, the old dogma that there is no salvation outside the (Catholic) church (extra ecclesiam nulla salus). From this combination it follows that “good human beings” are unwittingly “members” of the church—anonymous Christians. The pluralist thesis of John Hick (1989), Peter Byrne (1995) and many others says that all religions have differing icons of the transcendent and that we cannot decide which one is better than the others. In that sense they are equally valid and worthwhile. In my view, all three theories have serious failures and bad consequences—“bad” in the sense that they lead to problems in society and that inclusive and pluralist theories do not escape the problems in the Moluccas around 2000 began, with a Christian friend, to organize meetings between Muslim and Christian women with Indonesian backgrounds, first in the Netherlands but then with their families in the Moluccas. (Wars can be commanded from the top down, but peace comes mainly from the bottom up.)

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trap of describing other people in terms of their own ideas— which is the heart of exclusivism. An inclusivist “makes” people of another tradition members of his own religious family. Rahner did so and Protestants have done so, even without recourse to extra ecclesia nulla salus. But many Hindus do so as well by including the Buddha in the Hindu pantheon (as, vice versa, in the Temple of the Thousand Buddhas in Kyoto Indra and other Hindu deities stand in the corners to protect the Buddhas). Bhattachan stresses the distinctions between Buddhism and Hinduism and warns against such a integration of Buddhism into Hindu schemes, something against which the Buddha and more recently Ambedkar strongly protested. From some other Buddhist perspectives inclusivism has been revived in another way. If Zen thinkers say that everything in the world is just as it is, interconnected in one large “causal” web, Indra’s net, everything is, consequently, just as it is and, from a higher, religious, standpoint, okay as it is, beyond good and evil (cf. Abe 1990: 3-65). So other religious traditions appear and develop in their interconnectedness with the whole of existence. They are just as they are and if their adherents are attached, they will cause suffering, but if people are less attached, they may cause less suffering. This is a different Buddhist approach from that of Professor Takada, although for all Buddhists the idea of an (exclusive and unique) revelation will be shocking (and naive). What we see here, is, first, that every tradition has its own approach to other traditions (implied by its worldview), and, second, that inclusivism is, in a way, a much more common strategy than people are inclined to say. Classical Hindu views say that all religions come to “Me;” from this point of view they are included in the real religion as one of the religious families. Buddhism thinks Christian, Jewish and Muslim ideas of exclusive revelation or a covenant to be naive and narrowminded but can give them a place in the world as it (in its interconnectedness) is. In this way the inclusivist approach comes close to the pluralist approach: all are equally valid. The problem in these inclusivist and pluralist approaches is that they do not accept the religions as they are, because they reinterpret them from their own perspective. The Hindu inclusion of the Buddha as “not that different” is offensive to many Buddhists, just as the Islamic incorporation of Jews and Christians as “the people of the Book” is offensive because the

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Tanakh and the New Testament are criticized on the basis of the Qur’an. That from a Jewish perspective the positive Christian valuation of Judaism (since the Second World War) is not as welcome as many Christians hope, is clear from Ravitzky’s article. Therefore, the inclusivist approach suffers from an exclusive element and so does the pluralist thesis. What is the heart of this exclusivism of inclusivism and pluralism? It is that they do not truly look at the other as other. Christians may value the Jewish tradition highly, but Jews will point out that they are the people of the Covenant and Christians are not, and that all humans who live according to the Noachic Covenant live according to the will of God. Hindus may value (some) Christian denominations very highly, but Christians feel that their central beliefs are overlooked and that the Hindu inclusiveness does not take the differences seriously. Hindus will be glad about a positive approach by Muslims but will fear that at the end of the day Islam will not be as tolerant as many Muslims say they are—as we have seen in the articles of Engineer, RamPrasad and also Mbiti. The challenge is to take the alterité of the other seriously. No solution is possible while we neglect differences. Not taking differences seriously will end in conflicts and is one of the most common sources of conflict. It is a colonial strategy, in which somebody incorporates another into his or her own culture and/ or religion. The hidden message of pluralists and inclusivists is: “I know better than you yourself who you really are (and you’d better listen to me about what your real beliefs should be).” Therefore inclusivism and pluralism are not dialogue. Radical pluralism takes differences seriously and real dialogue first tries to establish better or even good relations and then tries to discuss differences and contradictions (see Vroom 2000: 197223). The difference from exclusivism is that one presupposes that others have discovered true insights into life and that people from one tradition can learn from others, overcome differences that cause conflict and live peacefully together (cf. among others the contributions by Izutsu, Kim, and Wessels).

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Incongruities, Overlappings and Bricolage The way out of these troublesome exclusivisms, inclusivisms and pluralisms in their various traditional forms via a more radical pluralism could easily lead to another mistake: the essentialism or reification of religions. One of the major points that have arisen in cultural anthropological studies of religion is that religions are not fixed wholes that, as closed entities, stand over against one another. According to the latter, some people “belong” to “Hinduism” and others to “Christianity” or “Confucianism.” Anthropologists reject this view, known as “essentialism,” stressing that this holism is not true and that religions are to a certain extent mixed and in different parts of the world mix together in different ways. In contrast to an essentialist position, many anthropologists hold to the position that religion is a matter of bricolages and repertoires: everyone chooses his or her own packet from various sources, fits together what seems plausible and has practical value (bricolage) and “uses” recipes for actions and talks from various sources and examples. What is helpful seems better than what is consistent and proven and right in the eyes of the religious elite (cf. Droogers 2003: 59-72 and Vroom 2003). The idea of religions as closed “wholes” had already been subjected to strong criticism in religious studies, especially by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1964 and 1981). Religions undergo major developments and are internally pluralistic to the point that people from various streams within one religion have trouble recognizing one another or understanding their moral opinions, because people from one sub-tradition integrate ideas and practices of other religions as well. In this volume John Carman gives a number of beautiful examples of such cross-fertilization of religions. John Mbiti shows how elements of African Traditional Religions live on in churches and Heup Young Kim shows how ancestors and family relations continue to play a role in Korean Presbyterianism. Margaret Izutsu writes about how much she has learned from Confucian thought and practice. None of them claims that everything goes but—as do a number of contributors to this volume—think that one can learn from the wisdom of other traditions, whether they are part of the local heritage or foreign phenomena in a now global world.

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Actually, every developing religious tradition is engaged in constant exchange with other traditions in the cultures in which its adherents live. On that point the “bricolage” theories are correct. However, the question is whether everything goes and whether one can make anything one likes. Japan has often been taken as a primary example of bricolage: babies are brought to Shinto shrines, marriages are confirmed at Shinto sanctuaries and “Christian” chapels (often next to hotels and without any connection to a church community), and cremated in a Buddhist ceremony. That is true, and it is indeed a form of bricolage, but the question is: What should our attitude towards this be? From a Shinto perspective it is acceptable, as Sakurai suggests. Some committed Buddhists and Christians, however, think that such bricolage is superficial and that people are not integrating ideas and feelings but “using” practices at moments that they want or need to express deeper feelings. Religions are not “belief systems” but, as I prefer to say, dynamic configurations of basic insights (interwoven with ritual and ethical practices and feelings; see Vroom 1989: ch. 9). So traditions develop in exchange with one another. As Waardenburg shows, Islam also found its way among other traditions, sometimes antithetically and sometimes with understanding, as Engineer shows. The partial truth in the essentialist view of religion, however, is that religions have a center that can be reinterpreted but not removed. If it could, no tradition could ever become a dead religion. The center of theistic religions is creation with Sinai (for Jews, as Ravitsky stresses), Jesus Christ (for Christians) and the Qur’an (for Muslims). People may reinterpret ideas about creation and revelation and covenant—and, actually, do so all the time—but if these central elements are removed, the traditions are abandoned. And, indeed, people can lose their faith. So, in one way or another, a Buddhist has to explain pratytia samutpada (the interdependent arising and changing of all that exists) and the related an-atman (emptiness of one’s being). A Hindu has to find room for the visions of the old seers and the unity of all that exists in its hidden ground far beyond the cosmos, karma and reincarnation, and interpret the worship of the bakhti traditions. Of course, the center of traditions is not static but can be reinterpreted as well, but that does not deny the fact that some beliefs belong to a tradition. Nevertheless, empirical research in the soci-

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ology of religion and anthropology shows that people do combine incompatible beliefs and practices. Sometimes traditions reject that as a sin, e.g. when people’s deeds are at odds with their words. But people can combine incompatible ideas, such as the Last Judgment and karma and reincarnation. In such an example the question is whether that is a true possibility or simply that people do not care what they believe and, indeed, those beliefs do not play a fundamental role in their lives. Can we truly imagine an arhat who tells us that he expects to be judged by God and hopes to live eternally in heaven after death? Or a pope who meditates in order to reach Nirvana? In previous times there have been popes and bishops who were brutal landlords and generals: Do we consider them hypocrites or clever people who knew how the world turns? Therefore, real integration requires learning from others, listening to sometimes very critical questions, and thinking them over and integrating them into what one believes to be true and honest and fruitful. How people do this in practice is one thing; that we should do it is another. The challenge is to be open to the truths seen in other traditions, to learn from them and to integrate them into one’s own beliefs and practices with integrity. Respecting otherness entails respecting the otherness of one’s own tradition as well. Incongruity On the basis of this we can understand, again, that the “strategies” with which people from different traditions study, reject, approve and select ideas and practices from other traditions depends on the insights of their own tradition (in the form in which they have internalized that tradition). The theologies of religion from various religions are not comparable in the sense that they follow the same lines. However, if one digs deeper and takes into account how they see reality, human life and transcendence, then they are “comparable” in the sense that one can learn to understand the various approaches to other traditions. They have an analogical structure in this respect in that their approaches and fundamental views of other religions are stamped by their core insights. In this survey we have given quite a few examples of this phenomenon but so far have not referred to the extensive treat-

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ment of this in Ram-Prasad’s contribution. He deals extensively with one such incongruity in an area that is of great significance for the whole world in our time: the political openness for other religions in cultures that have an overwhelming majority of adherents of one tradition. After the partition from Pakistan and Bangladesh India was left with a huge majority of Hindus and a growing minority of fundamentalists wants to make India a true Hindu state. Hindus who, in opposition to Hindu fundamentalists, argue for a “neutral” state that grants full rights to Sikhs, Jains, Christians and especially Muslims, see Muslims states that suppress other traditions. Ram-Prasad is concerned that on the global scale Muslims in Muslims countries do not grant the same rights to Hindus and other people. That is a major problem indeed. However, we still need to ask whether Muslims in Mumbai or Jakarta can be blamed for the policy in Arab countries. It is clear that they cannot. However, as stated above, the global and the local do intermingle. Muslims from Leeds and Amsterdam travel to Pakistan and from the Middle East to New York, Bali, Madrid, Istanbul, London and Sharmal-Sheik. Ram-Prasad has a point that Muslim exclusivism (as well as other types of exclusivism!) in the present political arena can have (and has had) deadly consequences. Conflicts are not just religious and much more is involved, as Anton Wessels shows, but they do have religious roots as well. Religion can be an incentive for neighborly love, great compassion and non-violence but can also inspire holy wars and the building of walls that divide peoples and families. Dialogue and Levels of Encounter The only way to overcome tensions and conflicts is to be prepared to search for understanding and for what we have in common. For several reasons mainstream Christianity has chosen a more open approach, as Jerry Gort has shown in his contribution. However, the strictly liberal way to find what we have in common is to neglect differences, translate terms from Hebrew, Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Korean and Japanese, Greek and Arabic into English and choose the same words for subjects that are indeed “similar” on one level but dissimilar on a deeper level. Superficially, cultural differences do not seem very great, but, as

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people who have studied and experienced them point out, on a deeper level they are much greater than we would like them to be. The average European does not understand why a Korean professor knows his ancestors going back more than 1000 years by heart. A person from traditional areas in India or Morocco does not understand that the choice of a partner for marriage in urbanized Western countries is almost completely a private affair; they will attribute the high percentage of divorce to this practice. Basic insights are inherently interwoven with basics of morality and with feelings on the deepest levels of our existence—where the Kantian tripartite division of knowledge, morality and esthetics does not obtain. In this volume it is clear that religious knowledge is internally related to morality and that the basic feelings of persons, how they feel themselves to be related to others, family and strangers, to their nations, and how they feel ashamed or offended or proud or thankful is completely interwoven with their view of life. This explains the different levels in interreligious encounters: personal, neighborhood and social levels, discussing social affairs in the community, ethical levels (again on different sub-levels— the discussion in hospitals will be different from that about medieval sources), spiritual and theological or philosophical. A good example of a spiritual encounter is Hanaoka’s description and comparison of Zen Buddhist and Christian thought. Her personal history brought her to Christianity and later to zazen, but that did not put an end to her Christian sympathies. On the basis of her Zen experience she rethinks her Christian beliefs and finds a point of convergence in the common ground of all that exists. This Werdegang and how people feel about it cannot be understood without some knowledge of both traditions nor without looking at Zen meditation and the spiritual change it can bring about. Our argument here is that the experiential dimension should always be present and that the various sorts of encounter will influence each other. Theologians and philosophers should not forget the other dimensions of faith beyond the cognitive; professors of ethics and politics should not just compare ethical rules (intercultural ethics requires fundamental studies in religious anthropology and divinity); practical theologians and sociologists should not overlook the inner power of a tradition because of its

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view of life and support in difficult circumstances. Neither should theologians hide from the dark sides of religions that can easily be misused but also contain elements that lead to conflicts. No religion is invulnerable on this point. Confucianism can be rigid and hurt people. In addition to its softer sides, Islam has an heritage of struggle. Judaism is not only a religion but a nation as well, as Ravitzky says. Christianity should speak about love that overcomes violence and hate but has carried out Crusades; fundamentalists sometimes preach hatred and neo-Christian movements identify blessing with wealth. Buddhists have fought on Sri Lanka and Zen has been used for samurai and kamikaze pilots. In the twentieth century secular “religions” and “paganism” in Nazi Germany and Communist countries account for more victims than all religions together. People ask why they live, how they should live; they are thankful for undeserved goodness and look for help and wisdom in bearing sufferings that they do not understand. The religious questions and the deep experiences around the meaning of life will not fade away. Religions pass on deep motivations and therefore they can help but harm as well. Therefore, all religions need reciprocal critique and to learn to learn from the wisdom and perspectives of one another. Bibiography Abe, Masao. (1990). “Kenotic God and Dynamic Sunyata.” In: John B. Cobb and Christopher Ives (eds.). The Emptying God: A BuddhistJewish-Christian Conversation. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Pp. 3-65. Agnivesh (Swami). (2002). “Processes of Reconciliation in India.” In: Jerald D. Gort et al. Religion, Conflict, Reconciliation: Multifaith Ideals and Realities. Currents of Encounter 21. Amsterdam/New York. Rodopi. Pp. 251-59. Byrne, Peter. (1995). Prolegomena to Religious Pluralism. Reference and Realism in Religion. Houdmills: Macmillan. D’Souza, Andreas. (2002). “Reconciliation in Practice: Indian Experience.” In: Jerald D. Gort et al. Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation: Multifaith Ideals and Realities. Currents of Encounter 21. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Pp. 260-69. Droogers, André. (2003). “Changing Culture and The Missiological Mission.” Inus Daneel et al. (eds.). Fullness of Life for All: Challenges for

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Mission in Early 21st Century. Festschrift Jerald D. Gort. Currents of Encounter 22. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Pp. 59-72. Hick, John. (1989). An Interpretation of Religion. Harmondsworth: Macmillan. Meiring, Piet. (2002). “Truth and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” In: Jerald D. Gort et al. Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation: Multifaith Ideals and Realities. Currents of Encounter 21. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Pp. 279-89. Oduyoye, Mercy Amba, and Hendrik M. Vroom (eds.). (2003) One Gospel - Many Cultures. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. (1964). The Meaning and End of Religion. Mentor Books. (1981). Towards a World Theology. London et al.: Macmillan. Vroom, Hendrik M. (1989). Religions and the Truth. Transl. Johan Rebel. Currents of Encounter 2. Grand Rapids/Amsterdam: Eerdmans/Rodopi. (2000). “Religious Pluralism and Plural Society.” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 10: 197-223 (2003). “Bricolage and Fullness: On Multiple Participation”, in: Inus Daneel et al. (eds.). Fullness of Life for All: Challenges for Mission in Early 21st Century. Festschrift Jerald D. Gort. Currents of Encounter 22. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Pp. 73-87.

Indices

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Index of Names Chandra, Thakur Anukul . . . . 66, 68, 72 Charfi, A. . . . . . . . . . 147, 148 Charles Martel. . . . 295, 297-99 Confucius ( see K’ung, Master) . . 46-49, 54-55, 57-59 Conrad, Joseph . . . . . . . . . 125 Cracknell, Kenneth . 112, 125 Cyprian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Abraham . . . 22, 30. 105, 129, 138 Akbar, Moghul Emperor . . . . 303-04, 312, 317-18 al-Biruni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 al-Mas’udi . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 al-Shahrastani . . . . . . . . . 146 Ambedkar, B.R. . . . . 221, 222 Amida Buddha . . . . 27, 29-31, 33 Ashoka, King . . . 69, 219, 230 Aydin, M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Da Costa, Isaac . . . . . . 297-98, 06-07, 318 Dayanand, Christopher . 258, 260-61 deBary, Wiilliam Theodore 46, 52-55, 57, 59, 60, 26566, 281 de Britto, St. John . . . . . . . 247, 249-50, 263 Durkheim, E. . . . . . . 327, 335

Barth, Karl . . . . . 43, 113, 120, 124, 265, 270-73, 277, 28081 Bhattachan, Krishna B. . 342, 344, 346 Black Elk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332 Bosch, David J. . . . . . 116, 119, 120, 124 Bouamama, Ali . . . . . . . . 147 Buddha . . . . . . . 14-16, 26, 27, 29-31, 33, 35, 38, 42, 67, 68, 70, 227, 230, 231, 233-36, 238, 239, 287, 334, 344, 346 Buber, Martin . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Bulhof, Ilse . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 8 Byaruhanga-Akiiki, A.B.T. . . . 157, 163, 165, 166

Emerson, Ralph Waldo . . 114 Engineer, Ashgar Ali . . . . 341, 347, 349 Evans-Pritchard, Edward . . . . 330-31, 335 Frazer, James . 321-24, 326-35 Friedmann, Yohanan . . . . 133, 134,148 Fulgentius of Ruspe . . . . 111

Calvin, John . . . . . . . . . 8, 112, 113, 124, 126,265, 271, 27377, 280-81 Carman, John . . . . . . . 241-43, 247, 256, 259, 263, 342, 348 Candrakirti . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Gaudapada . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Gellner, David N. . . 230, 239 Gilliland, Dean S. . . . . . . . 152, 166-68, 170, 171, 174, 176 Goreh, N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 357

358 Graham, A.C. . . . . . . 47-50, 60 Hagar . . . . . . . 297-98, 315, 318 Hanaoka-Kawamura, Eiko . . . 283, 341-42 Heim, Mark . . . . . . . 123, 125 Hick, John . . . . 23, 43, 95, 105, 267-68, 281, 345, 354 Hughes, Donald . . . . . . 331-32 Ishmael . . . . . . . 103, 104, 297 Izutsu, Margaret W. . 341-42, 347-48 St. James (Santiago) . . . 300-04 James, William . . . . . . . . 70-72 Jinsai, Ito . . . . . . . . . . . . 52, 54 Kakuan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 Kannon, Bosatsu . . . . . . . . 16 Kaufman, G. . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Kierkegaard, S. . . . . . . . . . 284 Kim, H.Y. . . . . . . . . . . 347-48 Knitter, P. . . . 23, 43, 123, 125 Kook, A.I. 91, 92, 95, 105, 106 K’ung, Master ( see Confucius) . . . . 46 Kurami, Amina Lawal . . 173 Laozi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Lo, Chʹin-shun . . . . 51, 54, 59, 104 Leibniz, G.W. . . . . . . . . . . 266 Luther, Martin . . . . . 112, 292 Maimonides . . . 75, 83, 88-91, 98-107 Mani . . . . . . . . . 130, 135, 236 Mary . . . . . . 16, 140, 141, 248 McCall Smith, A. . . . . . . . 1, 8 Mata, V.A. . . . . . . . . . . . 247-48 Mbiti, J. . . . . . 341-42, 347-48 Mehmed II . . . . . . . . . . 311-13

INDICES Meir, Jacob ben . . . . . . . . . 88 Meiri, Menachem . . . . . . . 104 Mengzi (Mencius) . . . . . . . 49 Michel, Thomas . . . , 148, 318 Mohammed/Muhammad . . . . . . 147, 318, 334 Moses . . . . . . . . 22, 30, 88-90, 94, 101, 104-06, 129, 138 Nagarjuna . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Nayak, G.C. . . . 63, 65, 67, 72 Nehru . . . . . . . . . . . . 189, 191 Niebuhr, Richard R. . . 57, 60 Niebuhr, H. Richard . . . . 277, 282 Nishida . . . . . . . . . . . 283, 287 Nishitani, K. . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Noah . . . . . . . . . . . . 76, 82, 88 Nyorai, Bosatsu . . . . . . . . . 16 Panikkar, R. . . . . 23, 277, 279, 282 Pascal, B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Paul the apostle . . . 28, 32, 43, 48, 123, 125, 286, 292 Rahner, Karl . . . 115, 116, 126, 345-46 Ram-Prasad, C. . . . . 341, 344, 347, 351 Ramabai, P. . . . . . 241, 251-53, 262-63 Ramanuja . . . . . . . . . 186, 222, 257, 259 Rammohan, Roy . . . . 251-52, 263 Ravitzky, A. . . . . . . . . . . . 353 Razan, H. . . . . . . . . . . . 52, 53 Rhys Davids, T.W. . . . . . . 213 Rumi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Sakurai, H. . . . . . . . . 341, 349

INDEX OF NAMES Seika, F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52, 53 Shankara . . . . 64, 65, 220, 222 Shinran . . . . . 27, 29, 31-35, 43 Soko, Y. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52-54 Sorai, O. . . . . . . . . . . . . 52, 54 Suleiman I . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 T’an, Ssu-ma . . . . . . . . . 27, 47 Takada, S. . . 286, 341, 345-46 Takeuchi, Y. . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Thielicke, H. . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Thomas, M.M. . . . 8, 118, 124 273, 277, 282 Tillich, P. . . . . . . . . . 43,283-84, 287, 294 T’oegye, Yi . . . . . 265, 273-77, 281-82 Trimingham, J.S. 168, 170, 176 Tu, Wei-ming . . . . . 46, 55, 57, 58, 60, 265-66, 268-69, 279, 282 Tylor, A.B. . . . 326, 328, 332-35

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Upadhyay, B. . . 241, 253, 263 Urban II . . . . . . 306-07, 309-10 Van Maerlant, J. 306, 309, 318 Venkateshvara . . . . . . . 258-60 Vivekananda . . . . 66, 70, 73, 193, 195,211, 224 Vyas, Nitin J. . . . . . . 341, 344 Waardenburg, J. . . . . . 340-41, 345, 349 Wang, Yang-ming . . . . . . 265, 270-73, 277, 281-82 Ward, K. . . . 94, 107, 246,, 341 Wessels, A. . . . . 342, 347, 351 Xun, Zi (Hsun Tzu) . . . 49, 50 Yohan of Mallepulle . 241-46, 257, 261 Zhuangzi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Zhu, Xi . . . . . . . . . . . . 51, 111 Zi, Xun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

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Index of Subjects Aya Sophia . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

acceptance model . . . . . . 123 Africa . . . . . 112, 115, 124, 128, 152, 156, 157, 168-70, 17476, 297-98, 314, 342-43, 354 African traditional religions . . . . . . . . . . 348 ahl al-aman . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 ahl al-harb . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 ahl al-kitab . . . . . . . . 130, 131, 135, 198, 204, 207 Al-Andalus . . . . 295, 296, 299, 300, 316 Allah . . . . . . 22, 161, 162, 166, 167, 175 ancestors . . . . . . . . 16, 80, 138, 154, 168-70 169, 324, 348, 352 animal/animals . . . . . . 41 136 153, 154,159 160, 166, 235, 249, 250, 276, 288, 326, 331 animism . . . . . . . 17, 216, 228 anthropology . . . 24, 272,278, 279 330, 335, 350, 352 anti-majoritarianism . . . . 191 Apologists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 apostasy . . . . . . . . . . 133, 134 Arabia . . . . 129, 132, 134, 297 assessment . . . . . 7, 46, 89, 98, 172, 239 Athanasian Creed . . . . . . 111 atma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227, 232 atman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 authority . . 4, 47, 54 128, 163, 169, 177-80, 182, 193, 205, 215, 231, 234, 301 avatar . . . . . . . . . 236, 260, 261

Balkans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 battle . . . . . . . 185 219, 295-97, 299, 302, 307, 308, 311-15 Bedouins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 belief . . . . . . 1, 5 17. 78, 80-82, 84-87, 91, 96, 97, 100-04, 127, 132, 138, 140, 151-54, 156, 162, 163, 167, 172, 178, 184, 210, 220, 227, 232, 233, 236, 238 241, 263, 266, 276, 314, 322, 324, 325, 328-30, 333, 334, 349 Bhagavadgita . 65, 67, 71, 232 bhakti . . . . . . . . . . 65, 183, 196 Bible . . . 70, 112, 138, 139, 198, 242, 244, 252, 259, 297, 311 Bihars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Bon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Black Stripe . . . . . . . . 228 White Stripe . . . . . . . 228 Brahma . . 12-16, 21, 22, 24-31, 33-35, 38, 43, 44, 45, 50-55, 58, 59, 68, 114, 179, 209-17, 219-24, 227, 228, 230-33, 235-39, 266, 269, 281, 283, 284, 286-94, 344, 346 Brahman . . . . . . . . . . . 64, 212 Brahmanic . . . . . . . . . 237, 256 Brahmanism . . . . . . . . . . . 213 brahmin . . . 227, 247, 252, 255 brahminical . . . . 63, 183, 184 Brahmo Samaj . . . . . . . . . 252 Buddhism . . . . . . . . 12-16, 45, 21, 22, 24-36, 38 43, 44, 50361

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INDICES 59, 68, 76,114, 179, 180, 209-11, 213-24, 227, 228, 230, 231, 234-39, 266, 269, 281, 283-94, 342, 346, 349, 352, 353 Hinayana . . . . . 216, 219, 223, 228 Mahayana 22, 27, 33, 216, 219, 223, 228 Pure Land/Shin . . . . . 21, 26-34, 36, 37, 96, 227 Zen . . . . 26, 33, 38, 43, 56, 59 283, 284, 286, 288, 29294, 346, 352, 353

Caribbean . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 caste . . . . . . . . . . 178, 184, 202, 203, 212, 214, 217, 221, 227, 229, 230, 232, 233, 237, 241, 244-47, 250, 251, 254, 25661 China . . . 13, 50, 51, 53, 59, 60, 269, 270 Christianity . . . . . 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, 14-16, 21-25, 28, 30, 32, 43, 44, 57, 59, 68, 75-79, 83, 84, 88-90, 92, 96, 100-03, 105, 109-26, 127, 129, 131, 133, 134, 139-41, 143, 145, 147, 148, 151, 152, 156-58, 160, 161, 163, 169, 173, 174, 179, 187, 188, 191-94, 210, 217, 228, 234, 229, 237, 238, 241-63, 265-81, 283-94, 295-98, 300-09, 311-18, 329, 330, 340, 342, 344-49, 35153 Catholic . . . . , 68, 111-23, 241, 247, 250-51, 253, 25556, 263, 301, 314, 345

Protestant . . . . . . 30, 112, 113, 241, 244, 245, 247, 251-53, 256, 262, 271, 305, 314, 341 christology . . . . . . . 268, 275, 278-80, 18 christotao . . . . . . . . . . . 278-81 church . . . . . . 46, 91, 100, 110, 111, 115, 117, 120-22, 12426, 136, 141, 151, 202, 244, 248, 258, 262, 263, 268, 274, 280, 301, 302, 304-07, 312, 342, 343, 345, 349 329 clash . . . . 65, 66, 230, 316, 318 co-existence (see harmony) . . 2, 15, 97, 107, 116, 296, 308, 316 commandments . . . . . . 28, 80 82, 84, 89, 94, 101-02, 136, 272 communion . . . . . . . 211, 214, 222, 280, 285, 286, 292, 293 comparative . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 compassion . . . . . . . . . 27, 29, 32, 33, 38, 67, 68, 213, 218, 285, 292, 293, 351 conflict . 1, 2, 12, 18, 23, 50, 87, 124, 140, 168, 172, 197, 198, 204, 205, 227-31, 236, 239, 250, 296, 299, 316, 318, 319, 347, 353, 354 Confucianism . . . . . . . . 35, 45 47, 49-61, 265-67, 269-75, 278-82, 344, 348 connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Constantinople (see Istanbul) 295-96, 304-05, 308, 311-13 contemplation . . 96, 212, 216 contextualization . . . . . . . 121, 122, 343

INDEX OF SUBJECTS continuity . . . . . . . 7, 181, 211, 214, 222, 288 conversion . . . . 32, 56, 63, 66, 132, 133, 162, 171, 186-88, 197, 241, 244-47, 251-53, 255-57, 262, 263 convivance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Council of Florence . . . . . 111 court . . . . . . . 60, 91, 181, 183, 201, 203, 234 creation . . . . 24, 46, 80-82, 90, 138, 140, 154, 174, 197, 214, 231, 274, 285, 345 Creator . . . . . 6, 22, 25, 82, 88, 102, 103, 136, 137, 141, 151, 153, 162, 164, 165, 212, 286, 327, 331 crucifixion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Crusades . . . 296, 301, 305-10, 312, 313, 315, 316, 319 culture . . . 1, 15, 16, 23, 44, 53, 64-66, 72, 76, 82, 91, 93, 121, 146-47, 151, 158, 160, 180-86, 189-93, 195, 198, 201-03, 209, 213, 214, 221, 222, 224, 239, 255, 263, 267, 270, 280, 286, 339-41, 344, 347, 353 dalit . . . . . . . . 241, 244, 255-57 dar al-aman . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 dar al-harb . . . . . . . . . 207, 316 death . . . . . . 16, 29, 36-38, 48, 65, 113, 128, 131, 144, 155, 156, 162, 164, 172, 173, 217, 218, 232, 250, 253, 261, 262, 283, 284, 286, 288, 290, 291, 297, 298, 300, 301, 323, 350 defilement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 demolish . . . . . 65, 71, 82, 201,

363

212, 247 Devil . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111, 121 dharma . . . . . 21, 26-28, 30-34, 37, 42, 66, 71, 211, 212, 232, 233, 239, 254, 293 dhimmi . . . . . . . . . . . . 131, 195 dialogue . . 3, 8, 11, 18, 21-24, 30, 43, 44, 46, 59, 67, 78, 81, 98, 104, 107, 123, 125, 144, 148, 152, 199, 204, 223, 267, 268, 270-73, 277, 279-82, 291, 292, 295, 296, 317, 341, 347, 351, 354 interreligious . . . 3, 8, 23, 24, 270, 277, 281, 354 difference . . . . 1-3, 22, 24-26, 31, 63, 64, 66, 77, 84, 87, 106, 123, 143, 160, 180, 188, 192, 194, 195, 223, 231, 255, 293, 344, 347 discontinuity . . . . . . . . 7, 214 divine unity . . . . . . . . . . . 136 dogma . . . . 1, 67, 69, 326, 345 donation . . . . . . . . . . . . 28, 29 dual citizenship . . . . . 59. 265, 267, 268 Durga . . . . . . . . 233, 235, 237 duty . . . . . . . . . . 35, 58, 80, 81, 84, 85, 156, 189, 232 East Asian . . . 59, 265-71, 277, 278, 280-82,345 Eastern . . . . 22, 36, 37, 59, 76 77, 96, 98, 266, 296-98, 304, 307-09, 311, 312, 316 ecumenical movement . . 121 emancipation . . . . . . . . . . . 38 emperor . . . . . . 14, 15, 49, 181, 204, 304, 306-308, 312 emptiness . . . . . . 42, 170, 218

364 encounter . . . . 2-4, 21, 25, 27, 33, 35, 36, 69, 96, 98, 112, 119, 120, 123, 124, 151, 152, 157, 159, 161-63, 259, 260, 269, 277, 279, 351-54 enlightenment . . . . 14, 21, 22, 25-28, 30-33, 58, 65, 178, 215-17, 230 environment . . . . . . . 160, 285, 326, 329, 333 equality . . . 134, 189, 229, 256, error . . . . . 41, 56, 90, 138, 140, 145, 187, 188 eternal . . . . . . . . . . 92, 110-12, 135-37, 140, 141, 153, 166, 211, 214, 221, 224, 232, 283, 288 ethics ethical . . . . . . 53, 75, 94, 141, 279, 339, 284, 285, 288, 292, 352 ethnic . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 13, 78, 128, 163, 166, 168, 172, 227, 239, 304 ethnicity . . . . . . . . . . 202, 239 Europe . . . . . . 17, 112, 114-15, 152, 157, 174, 268, 269, 283, 286, 287, 290, 294, 296-99, 301, 303, 304, 311-14, 318, 316, 325, 341, 342, 352 evangelical . . . . . . . . 116, 121, 122, 255, 262, 266 evil . . . . . 37, 38, 67, 86, 87, 92, 93, 110, 135-38, 154, 155, 172, 201, 246, 271, 272, 275, 331, 346 exclusion . . . 18, 33, 58, 93, 95, 132, 133, 171, 215, 291, 346, 347 experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 6,

INDICES 19, 21, 22, 25, 27, 45, 53, 54, 56, 70, 72, 75, 77, 95, 97, 116, 117, 119, 120, 125, 140, 144, 147, 151, 155, 160, 211, 215, 216, 230, 249, 251, 256, 258-60, 277, 282, 284, 28790, 293, 294, 332, 342, 344, 352, 353 religious . . . . 95, 97. 117, 120, 216, 159, 277, 284, 288, 290, 253 faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim founder . . . . . 1, 13, 35, 47, 68, 100, 152, 183, 214, 215, 271, 311 freedom . . . . . 26, 53, 106, 132, 141, 173, 187, 196, 205, 206, 212, 219, 222, 256, 262, 284, 285, 290 fulfillment . . 24, 29, 80, 82, 85, 211, 244, 334 fundamental1, 22, 96, 117, 121, 134, 147, 187, 188, 221, 272, 300, 311, 318, 333, 339, 350, 352 fundamentalism . . . . 227, 238, 316, 317 Ghana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 gift (dona) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 global . . . . . . . . . 19, 23, 24, 58, 115, 163, 190, 192, 316, 328, 334, 339-44, 348, 351 God, gods . . . . . 1, 6, 8, 15-16, 22-26, 28, 30-32, 67, 70-71, 75, 78-82, 85-86, 88-92, 95, 98-103, 105, 109-10, 112-13, 116-20, 123-26, 127, 129-30, 132, 135-40, 144, 151, 15355, 161-63, 165-67, 170,

INDEX OF SUBJECTS 172, 175-76, 179, 183, 200, 202, 204, 212, 214-15, 23133, 242-45, 249-50, 254, 259-60, 269, 271-72, 274, 276-77, 282-94, 298, 300, 306-08, 312-13, 317-18, 345, 347, 350, 353 names of . . 163, 166, 313 Gombas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 grace . . . . . . 31, 110, 118, 120, 254, 268, 275, 345 Granada . . . . . . 295, 301, 303, 304, 314 halakhic . . . . 77, 79, 86, 88, 90, 94, 101-02 harmony . . . . . 2, 4, 41, 65-67, 136, 207-08, 210, 214, 227, 229-30, 238, 239, 256, 27980, 286, 294, 326-27, 332 Heaven . . . . 30, 49, 54, 59, 88, 94, 196, 217, 274-77, 28081, 314, 350 helpfulness . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 heresy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 hierarchy . . 180, 227, 232, 237 Hindu-Buddhist unity conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Hinduism . . 24, 63-68, 70-73, 174, 177-79, 182-85, 187-89, 192-96, 204, 209, 227-32, 234-39, 248, 257, 262-63, 266, 339, 343-44, 346, 348 Advaita Vedanta . . . 65, 72, 224, 340, 344 Vedanta, Vedantic . . . 64 219, 223 224 281 history . . . . . . . . 5-6, 8, 12-13, 18-19, 24, 30-31, 35, 46-47, 56-58, 60, 69, 75, 78, 82, 85,

365

91, 98, 103-04, 107, 109-10, 115, 117, 121, 123, 126, 129, 134, 146, 152-53, 156, 159, 177, 181-82, 184-85, 188, 190-91, 194-97, 201, 205, 208, 215, 262-63, 266, 269, 271, 273-74, 277-79, 281, 284-85, 287-88, 295-97, 299, 311, 315-16, 318-19, 324-25, 327-28, 330, 333, 352 holy . . . . . . . . 4, 21, 33, 35, 42, 64, 79, 81-82, 87, 153, 164, 183-84, 201, 231, 249, 29697, 301, 304, 306-07, 309, 312, 345, 351 Holy Spirit . 113, 117, 119-20, 123, 272, 276, 290-92 holy war (see jihad) . . . . . 174, 302, 316 hypothesis . . . . . . . . 133, 323, 329, 330 identity . . 11-12, 14, 18, 77-78, 143, 171, 184, 187-88, 19192, 194, 210, 218, 222, 241, 244, 246, 249, 263, 270, 284-86, 290, 292-94 ideology . . . 63-67, 69, 72, 309 idols . . . . . . . . . 81, 90, 99, 130, 140, 198, 204, 206, 260, 298 ignorance . . . . . . . . . 114, 200, 212, 324, 328 imago dei . . . . . . . 272-74, 276, 278, 281 immanent . . . . . . . 87, 94, 223, 271, 275 incarnation . . . . . . . . 139, 141 inculturation . . . . . . . 121, 122, 125, 181, 268, 281 India . . . . . . . 68, 72, 118, 131,

366 134, 138, 147, 177, 180-97, 199, 201, 203-08, 209-11, 213, 214, 219-22, 224, 23032, 238, 239, 241, 244, 24650, 252, 253, 255-57, 259, 260, 262, 263, 266, 269, 282, 331, 332, 341, 344, 351-53 Indian National Congress . . . 205 Indic . . . . . . . . . . . 180-82, 185, 186, 190 Indra . . . . . . . . . . 34, 214, 346 Indus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 interaction . . . . 11, 12, 17, 104, 171, 177, 181-186, 188, 223, 247, 299 intercultural . . . . . . . . . 1, 352 interfaith . . . . 78, 98, 104, 106, 107, 125, 133, 134, 148 interreligious criticism . . . . 4 intolerance . . . . . 2, 46, 66, 72, 134, 227, 234, 268 Ise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Islam . . . . . 5, 6, 22, 24-25, 28, 68, 75-76, 78, 83-84, 89, 92, 100-07, 127-29, 131-37, 139, 141-48, 151-52, 156-57, 159 -63, 166-76, 177-79, 181-86, 188, 191-95, 197-201, 20304, 206-08, 210, 228-29, 238, 251, 266, 295-300, 30207, 309-12, 315-16, 318-19, 339, 345, 347, 349, 353 islamic . . . . . . . 30, 76, 89, 106, 127, 128, 130-34, 137, 139, 141, 144-48, 160, 167, 169, 173-74, 177, 181, 183-84, 186-90, 194, 198, 204-07, 300, 302-03, 311-12, 319, 340, 346

INDICES Israel . . . . . . . . . 24, 78-82, 84, 85, 89-91, 98, 103-05, 107, 138, 175, 344 Istanbul (see Constantinople) . 8, 312, 313, 351 Jainism . . . . . . 179, 180, 209, 228, 229 Japan . . . 11, 12, 14-19, 21, 25, 33, 34, 45, 46, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59, 60, 219, 266, 269, 283, 287, 341, 349 jen . . . . . . . . . . 272, 273, 278-80 Jerusalem . . 104-07, 133, 296, 298, 301, 303, 307-10, 317, 319 Jesus Christ . . . . 28, 112, 113, 116-18, 120, 124, 243, 247, 258-60, 272, 275, 276, 27880, 282, 309, 349 Messiah . . . . . . 24, 30, 31, 83, 84, 91, 100, 102, 103, 106 jihad (see holy war) . . . . . 174, 175, 300, 309, 312, 317, 318 Judaism . . . . . . . . 5, 22, 24, 25, 75, 77-80, 83, 84, 90, 93-95, 99, 100, 104-07, 127, 131, 133, 134, 138, 139, 145, 147 132, 143, 152, 156, 266, 347, 353 judgment . . . . . . . 97, 137, 142, 300, 350 justice . . . . . . 58, 93, 140, 155, 173, 274, 344 kafir . . . . . . . . . . 166, 206, 207 Kali . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233, 235 kami . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11-19 karma . . . . . 38, 233, 349, 350

INDEX OF SUBJECTS Kenya . . . . 158, 161, 175, 341 Kerala . . . . . . . . . . . . 198, 208 Kirant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Kirata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 knowledge . . . . . . . . . 2, 3, 15, 59, 87, 112, 114, 134, 14446, 153, 180, 183, 206, 207, 210-12, 215, 217-19, 223, 271-73, 275, 322, 328, 334, 352 Koran . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298, 317 Korea . . . . . . . 52, 59, 269, 270, 274, 281, 341 Krishna . . . . . . . 224, 232, 234, 236, 237, 239, 241, 253, 254, 257-60, 263 Kyoto . . . . . 19, 22, 43 57, 283, 294, 340, 346 language . . . . . . 153, 158, 166, 172, 184, 198, 201, 202, 215, 223, 228, 249, 254, 261, 269 law . . . . . . . . . . . 13, 28, 30-32, 71, 77, 84, 89, 90, 93, 94, 98, 104, 105, 107, 128-31, 13840, 144, 170, 173, 189, 190, 203, 207, 213, 218, 231, 242, 258, 260, 290, 323 Lepanto . . . . . . . . . . . 296, 297, 311, 313-15 liberal . . . . 45, 59, 63, 65, 197, 198, 201-04, 209, 210, 221, 267, 332, 340, 344, 351 liberation . . . . . . 144, 180, 205, 214, 215, 217-19, 222, 223, 227, 235, 257, 262, 279, 307, 318 liberative interreligious ecumenism . . . . . . . . . . . 124 local . . . . . . 11, 13, 19, 76, 115,

367

127, 128, 145, 156, 179, 184, 198, 203, 230, 237, 241, 242, 248, 249, 339, 341-44, 348, 351 logic . . . . . . . 27, 190, 199, 284, 285, 292, 293 logos spermatikos . . . . . . . . 110 love . . . . . . . 32, 50, 56, 67, 71, 93, 117, 119, 120, 155, 202, 213, 275, 288, 292, 293, 351, 353 Lumbini . . 227, 231, 237, 238 Madhyamika . . . . . . . . . . 219 Mahabharat . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 marriage . . . . . . . 65, 138, 141, 154-56, 160, 173, 258-260, 352 maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Mecca . . . . . . . . 130, 132, 133, 161, 172, 302 Medina . . . . . . . 127, 132, 133 Middle East . . . . . . . 128, 135, 157, 174, 309-11, 344, 351 mission . . . . . 32, 115, 120-22, 124, 125, 217, 234, 245, 256, 262, 263, 274, 353, 354 modesty . . . . . . . . . . . 49, 279 monks . . . . . . . . . . 33, 34, 219 monotheism . . . . . . 76, 80, 85, 86, 89, 92, 101-03, 212, 252, 268 moral, morality . . . . . 3, 4, 14, 28, 29, 33, 35, 47, 52, 79-82, 86, 90-92, 105, 115, 129, 141, 142, 144, 151, 155, 162, 166, 216, 218, 221, 253, 266, 314, 318, 325, 330, 333, 348, 352 mosque . . . . . . . 161, 167, 170,

368 202, 207, 298, 302, 308, 312, 343 multicultural . . 115, 227, 236 multireligious . . . . . . 115, 227, 228, 236, 238 Muslim . . . 6, 8, 77, 79, 84, 96, 102, 127-31, 133-39, 141-48, 157-61, 166, 167, 169-71, 174, 182-86, 188, 189, 191, 194, 196, 197-201, 203-07, 246, 247, 296, 298-304, 306, 308, 309, 312, 316-18, 340, 342, 344-46, 351 mystical . . . 22, 43, 51, 53, 54, 77, 87, 98, 144, 151, 154, 158, 172, 221, 266 nastik (atheist) . . . . . . . . . . 231 nation . . . . . 13, 14, 73, 78, 79, 81, 82, 85, 89, 91, 103, 115, 118, 119, 187, 189, 197, 205, 206, 222, 255, 353 nationalism . . . . . . . . 189, 190, 193, 195, 205 nature . . . . . . . . . 271, 273-79, 284-87, 290, 291, 293, 323, 324, 327, 330-33 negation . . . . . . . . 89, 284-86, 288-90, 293 Neo-Confucianism 49, 51-55, 59, 266, 270, 274, 281, 282 Nepal . . . . . . . . . 184, 195, 223, 227-31, 233-39 Nigeria . . . . . . . 167, 171, 173, 174, 342, 343 North America . . . . . . 46, 114 Nuer . . . . . . . . . . . 174, 330-32 obligation . . . . . . . 28, 82, 243 Omkar family . . 227, 236, 238 oneness . . . . . . . . 64, 127, 135,

INDICES 138, 140, 210, 219, 283-86, 289-93 oral culture . . . . . . . . . . . 151 origin . . . . . 41, 42, 71, 80, 135, 169, 181, 210, 231, 266, 284, 286-87, 289-91, 311, 322 original . . . . 22, 35, 57, 83, 85, 91, 95, 99, 101, 104, 139-40, 199, 219, 241, 257, 271, 274-76, 278, 284, 285, 28892, 323, 326 orthodox . . . . 76, 95, 106, 113, 122, 127, 187, 219, 221, 252, 305, 340, 344 orthopraxis . . . . . . . . 273, 279 otherness (difference) . . . . 22, 77, 78, 82, 180, 350 Palestine . . 298, 308, 309, 343 Pancha Bali . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 participation . . . . . . . . 35, 159, 183, 206, 261, 273, 354 particularistic . . 79, 80, 82, 84, 85, 94, 139 path . . . . . . . 26, 31, 32, 34-38, 63, 66, 71-73, 98, 203, 210, 212, 213, 215, 217, 218, 220, 234, 235, 327 peace 28, 67, 68, 155, 156, 198, 207, 218, 227, 235, 238, 239, 308, 316, 344, 345 perspectives . . . . . 4, 6, 11, 17, 23-25, 27, 30, 78, 83, 84, 86, 89, 92, 94, 102, 103, 109, 191, 256, 281, 282, 283, 304, 305, 346, 347, 349 phenomenology . . . 5, 93, 269 philosophers . . . . . . 22, 43, 98, 113, 329, 340, 352 philosophy . . . . 14, 21, 22, 51,

INDEX OF SUBJECTS 65, 79, 106, 110, 155, 182, 187, 189, 199, 210, 213, 224, 253, 267, 283, 285, 287, 291, 321, 339-41 Poitiers . . . . . . . . . 295-99, 315 poor, the . . . . . . . . 69, 70, 200 pope . . . . . . . . . . 112, 300, 301, 306-10, 312-14, 350 power . . . 38, 54, 55, 102, 120, 124, 134, 136, 154, 155, 168, 172, 181, 182, 187, 188, 204, 234, 242, 250, 251, 256, 259-61, 266, 272, 296, 297, 299, 300, 302, 304, 307, 308, 311, 313, 317 321, 327, 33234, 343, 352 primordial religion . 129, 134 prophet . . . . . . . . . . 70, 81, 84, 100, 101, 118, 127, 129, 130, 132, 135, 137, 200, 214, 312 prophetic . . . . . . . . . . . 85, 101, 131, 266, 271 proselytization . . . . . 227, 234, 236, 238 puranas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Qur’an . . . . . 30, 130, 131, 134, 136, 140-43, 146, 158, 170, 183, 198, 200, 204, 206, 347, 349 race . . . . . . . . . 80, 91, 94, 227, 228, 236, 307, 325 Ramayan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Ramayana . . . . . 183, 199, 254 rational, rationality . . . . 1, 14, 27, 53, 58, 136, 212, 213, 269, 332 rebirth . . . . . . . . . 19, 218, 227, 232, 236 reconciliation . . . . . . 2, 6,124,

369

155, 343, 344, 353, 354 Reconquista . . . . . . . . 295, 296, 299-302, 307, 316 rejection . . . . . 6, 7, 87, 97, 110, 141, 171, 172, 181, 241, 251, 255 religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim religious ends, goals . . . . . 3, 123, 125 revelation . . . 3, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 30, 35, 75, 84, 90, 92-94, 112, 113, 138, 141, 142, 147, 198, 211, 282, 303, 305, 326, 334, 345, 346, 349 in Christ . . . . . . . . . . 113 rights . . . . . . . 3, 173, 189, 195, 244, 317, 351 human . . . . . . . . . . 3, 173 rites . . . . . . . 56, 138, 156, 158, 167, 169, 326, 328, 331 ritual . . . . . . 35, 49, 56, 58, 65, 99, 140, 144, 153, 158, 171, 237, 248-51, 253, 263, 327, 331, 349 ritualism . . . . . . . 54, 183, 213 roots . . . . . . . . 15, 61, 77, 163, 209, 211, 217, 222, 250, 317, 321, 330, 332, 351 rulers . . . . . . . 49, 91, 134, 144, 153, 158, 173, 186, 197-201, 203, 205, 228, 230, 237 sacred . . . . 12, 33, 64, 86, 140, 153, 167, 178, 183, 210, 214, 224, 230, 246, 295, 297, 306, 309, 317, 319, 322, 332, 333, 335 salvation . . . . . . . . . 16, 23-24, 30-33, 94, 110-11, 113, 11617, 123-24, 140, 252-54, 271, 285, 289, 345

370 salvific . . . . . . . 4, 46, 110, 113, 117, 119, 271 Satan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 Scripture . . . . 81, 101-02, 112, 129-31, 135, 137-39, 201, 297 secular . . . . . 11, 13, 24, 28, 53, 56, 59, 63-65, 79, 106, 118, 189-91, 194-95, 208, 210, 213, 227, 236, 238, 259, 321, 325, 334, 341, 353 seers . . . . 153, 211, 213-14, 349 self . . . . . . . 7,-8, 11, 18, 21-26, 28, 33-35, 41, 46, 48-49, 5456, 75, 77-79, 94, 112-13, 115, 120, 136, 146, 188-89, 191, 211-20, 222-23, 261, 266, 271-73, 275-76, 278, 282-94, 324, 326, 332-33 self-cultivation . . . 49, 271-73, 275-76, 282 semen religionis . . . . . . . . . 112 September 11, 2001 . . 296-97, 315 Serbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 shari’ah . . . . . . . . . 28, 173, 203 Shintoism . . . . . 11-19, 21, 33, 35, 53, 349 shirk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130, 140 Shiva . . . . . . . . . . 66, 179, 229, 235, 237-38, 242, 252, 261 shrine . . . . . 12-13, 19, 35, 243, 248-50, 261, 263, 300, 302 Sikhism . . . 183, 201, 228, 229 sila . . . . . . . 216, 227, 234, 235 sin . . . . . . 30, 32, 82, 90, 112, 140-41, 166, 244, 275, 290, 350 Sinai . . . . . . . . . . . . 84, 94, 349 sincerity . . . . . . 48-49, 56, 246,

INDICES 273-74, 278 slaves . . . . . 157, 160, 174, 200 society . . . . . . 4, 12, 16-19, 34, 48, 50, 53, 59, 76, 89-92, 95, 98, 107, 115, 124, 129, 131, 137, 143, 146, 148, 153, 155, 157, 159, 161-63, 169, 173, 181, 183, 186-88, 190-92, 196, 201-02, 208, 213, 221, 224, 227, 230, 232, 236-37, 247, 250-51, 256-57, 262, 269-70, 284-85, 288, 299, 301, 324, 326, 345, 354 sociology . . . . . . . . 5, 195, 239, 269, 350 solidarity . . . . 77, 79, 118, 170, 243, 245-46, 255, 273 spirits . . . . 34, 71, 151, 153-54, 156, 167, 169, 172, 185, 246, 322, 326, 331 spiritual beings . . . . . . . . 153 spirituality . . 3, 6-7, 22,52-53, 57-60, 66, 72, 76, 78, 85, 92, 94-95, 97-98, 105, 115, 11719, 121-22, 135-36, 138, 143-45, 147, 151, 153, 171, 183, 202-03, 209-10, 212-17, 221-23, 241, 247, 252-53, 255-57, 266, 269, 272, 28385, 288, 290-93, 302, 304, 321, 332-33, 342, 352 Christ-centered . . 118-19 sudras . . . . . . . . . . . . 232, 259 suffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111, 140 suffering . . . . . . 4, 26, 69, 103, 137, 174, 216-18, 220, 235, 329, 346 Sufism . . . . . . 60, 183-85, 198, 202-04, 207 summum bonum . . . . . . . . 211

INDEX OF SUBJECTS Sunni . . . . . . . 145-46, 185, 228 sunyata . . . . . . . . . . . . 218, 353 symbol . . . . . . . . 207, 249, 259, 275, 302, 306-07, 312, 318 syncretism . . . . . 8, 46, 59, 125, 182-84, 197, 270, 277 synthesis . . . 46, 49, 52, 54-55, 135, 184, 197, 250, 262 T’ien-ming . . . . . . . . . 273-74, 276, 281 Taoism . . . . . . . 47, 60, 265-66, 273, 275, 277-82, 334 temples . . . . . 35, 201-02, 207, 239, 248, 254, 259, 261, 298, 308, 344, 346 theatrum Dei . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Theo-tao . . . . . . . . 265, 277-78 theologia religionum . . . . . . 2, 8, 109, 265-67, 269-71, 277-78 theology . . . . . . . . 2-8, 21-25, 35, 43-44, 75, 81-82, 84, 104-05, 109, 116-17, 122125, 144, 163, 179, 182, 206, 211, 220, 241, 245, 251, 253, 255-56, 259-62, 265-67, 269-83, 287, 339-40, 344-45, 354 theology of religion(s) . . . 2-8, 21, 109, 116, 117, 122, 33940, 345 Therbada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 tolerance . . . . . . 13, 35, 58, 63, 65-67, 71-72, 81, 83, 86, 97, 105, 107, 133, 148, 185, 195, 207-08, 238, 299 Torah . . . . . . . . . . . . 78, 82-83, 85, 89-90, 96, 99-103, 105, 138 Tours . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295, 315

371

tradition . . . . . . 12, 14-15, 30, 34-35, 45-47, 49, 52, 55, 5760, 65, 75-76, 79, 87-88, 91, 94-96, 100, 107, 125, 131, 133, 139, 147-48, 160, 174, 179, 184, 186, 188, 211-15, 217, 219, 222, 237, 246, 249-51, 253, 256, 261, 263, 265-66, 269, 271, 274, 284, 301, 305, 308, 332, 334, 339-43, 345-52 Transcendence Supreme Being . . . 16, 31, 52, 98, 210-13, 215, 218-20, 231, 234, 260, 322, 330 transcendent . . . . . 25, 54, 212, 223, 272,274, 276-77, 281, 333-34, 345 transcendental dimension . . . . . . . . . 285 trinitarian . . . . . 102, 123, 125, 283, 287, 289-92, 294 Trinity . . . . . 89, 101, 123, 140, 252, 260, 268, 282, 325 Tripitakas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 truth . . . . . 3, 23, 24, 26, 27, 31, 32, 41, 51, 53, 58, 65, 71, 75, 77, 81, 84, 87-89, 92-95, 97, 98, 107, 112-13, 115-16, 120, 136, 140, 142-43, 164, 168, 187-88, 198, 207, 21011, 214-16, 219, 227, 231, 253-54, 268, 296, 298, 299, 310, 314, 316, 333, 349, 354 Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 uniqueness . . . . . 3, 15, 22-24, 43, 135, 138, 140, 141 universal . . . . . . . . . 23, 50, 76,

372 79-85, 91, 94, 95, 97, 99, 103, 116, 118, 119, 138, 142, 147, 168, 218, 219, 272, 273, 275, 325, 341 Upanishads . . . . . . . . 212, 219 values . . . . . . . . . 3, 18, 24, 46, 50, 53, 89, 106, 134, 142, 143, 153, 155, 162, 166, 172, 181, 184, 185, 188, 191-93, 195, 223, 224 Veda . . . . . 210, 211, 221, 252 viae salutis . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Vishnu . . . . . . . . 227, 231, 233, 236, 238, 254, 259 violence . . . . . . . . 81, 180, 201, 205, 218, 219, 227, 230, 234, 235, 250, 295, 298, 316, 317, 319 343, 351, 353 vow . . . . . . 29, 31, 32, 38, 307 war . . . . . . 87, 91, 115, 131-33, 137, 155, 174, 175, 199, 200, 207, 234, 289, 295, 302, 305, 307, 308, 312, 313, 316-18, 347 weak, the . . . . . . . . . 69, 70, 72, 169, 201 weakness . . . . . . 48, 69, 70 190 Western . . . . 21, 22, 25, 36-38, 112, 114, 115, 121, 159, 166,

INDICES 178, 181, 187, 189, 190, 192, 193, 207, 221, 241, 245, 252, 253, 255, 261, 266-69, 296, 297, 308, 309, 311, 313, 316, 332, 340, 341, 343, 352 wisdom . . . . 26, 27, 33, 49, 65, 105, 164, 216, 268, 274, 280, 281, 312, 334, 348, 353 witchcraft . 154, 155, 172, 331 woman, women . . . . . . . . 1 46 131, 133, 140, 158, 171, 173 198, 246, 297, 303, 308, 343, 344, 345, 253 World Council of Churches . . 305, 117, 124 San Antonio 1990 . . . 124 Vancouver 1983 . . . . 117 worldviews . . . 86, 94, 96, 146, 158, 161, 163, 245, 334, 346 worship . . . . . 1, 15-17, 33-35, 63-66, 76, 81, 82, 92, 96, 99, 100, 140, 153, 154, 183, 184, 204, 210, 211, 216, 233, 242, 243, 247, 249, 250, 252, 261, 276, 301 349 zakat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Zoroastrianism . . . . . 127, 137, 138, 210

Contributors KRISHNA B. BHATTACHAN, Professor of Sociology at the Center for Nepalese and Asian Studies, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal. JOHN B. CARMAN, Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Religion emeritus, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER, Director of the Center for the Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai, India. JERALD GORT, Associate Professor of Missiology emeritus, Faculty of Theology, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. EIKO HANAOKA-KAWAMURA, Professor emeritus, Faculty of Philosophy, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan. MARGARET IZUTSU, Director of Masters Programs in Pastoral Ministry and Counseling and Lecturer in World Religions and Christianity, Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, TX, USA. HENRY JANSEN, Formerly Senior Research and Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Theology, Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, ordained pastor in the United Protestant Church in the Netherlands. HEUP YOUNG KIM, Professor of Systematic Theology and Dean of the College and Graduate School of Theology, Kangnam University, Kyung-gi-Do, South Korea. JOHN MBITI, Professor emeritus of Missiology and Intercultural Theology, Institute for Systematic Theology, University of Bern. G.C. NAYAK, Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, India, formerly Professor of Classical Indian Philosophy, Utkal University, India.

CHAKRAVARTI RAM-PRASAD, Senior Lecturer and Director of PostGraduate Research, Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, England. AVIEZER RAVITZKY, Saul Rosenblum Chair of Jewish Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University, Israel. HARUO SAKURAI, Professor, Kogakkan Shinto University, Ise, Japan. SHINRYO TAKADA, Professor of Religious Studies, Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan. HENDRIK M. VROOM, Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Faculty of Theology, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. NITIN VYAS, Head of the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, M.S. University, Gujurat, India. JACQUES WAARDENBURG, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. KEITH WARD, Regius Professor of Divinity emeritus, University of Oxford, England. ANTON WESSELS, Professor of Missiology and Comparative Religion emeritus, Faculty of Theology, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

CURRENTS OF ENCOUNTER GENERAL EDITORS: Rein Fernhout, Jerald D. Gort, Henry Jansen, Lourens Minnema, Hendrik M. Vroom, Anton Wessels VOLUMES PUBLISHED OR AT PRESS 1 J.D. Gort, et al., eds.

Dialogue and Syncretism: An Interdisciplinary Approach (copublished with Eerdmans)

2 Hendrik M. Vroom

Religions and the Truth: Philosophical Reflections and Perspectives (with Eerdmans)

3 Sutarman S. Partonadi

Sadrach's Community and its Contextual Roots: A Nineteenth-Century Javanese Expression of Christianity

4 J.D. Gort, et al., eds.

On Sharing Religious Experience: Possibilities of Interfaith Mutuality (with Eerdmans)

5 S. Wesley Ariarajah

Hindus and Christians: A Century of Protestant Ecumenical Thought (with Eerdmans)

6 Makoto Ozaki

Introduction to the Philosophy of Tanabe, According to the English Translation of the Seventh Chapter of the Demonstratio of Christianity

Dutch Colonialism and Indonesian Islam: Contacts and Conflicts, 1596-1950 Human Rights and Religious Values: An Uneasy 8 A.A. An-Na'im et al., Relationship? eds. Canonical Texts: Bearers of Absolute Authority 9 Rein Fernhout (Bible, Koran, Veda, Tipit.aka). A Phenomenological Study Relationality and the Concept of God 10 Henry Jansen Is the Quest for Meaning the Quest for God? The 11 Wessel Stoker Religious Ascription of Meaning in Relation to the Secular Ascription of Meaning 12 Hendrik M. Vroom and Holy Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Hermeneutics, Values and Society Jerald D. Gort, eds. Dreams in the African Church: The Significance 13 Nelson O. Hayashida of Dreams and Visions among Zambian Baptists Walking the Tightrope of Faith: Philosophical 14 Hendrik Hart et al., Conversations about Reason and Religion eds. Philosophical Theology and East-West Dialogue 15 Hisakazu Inagaki and J. Nelson Jennings 7 Karel Steenbrink

16 Christine LienemannPerrin et al., eds. 17 Jerald D. Gort et al., eds. 18 M. Dhavamony 19 Ronald A. Kuipers 20 Martien E. Brinkman

21 Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Hendrik Vroom, eds. 22 Inus Daneel et al., eds. 23 C. Liennemann-Perrin et al. 24 Ton van Prooijen

Reformed and Ecumenical: On Being Reformed in Ecumenical Encounters Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation: Multifaith Ideals and Realities Hindu-Christian Dialogue: Soundings and Perspectives Critical Faith: Toward a Renewed Understanding of Religious Life and its Public Accountability The Tragedy of Human Freedom: The Failure and Promise of the Christian Concept of Freedom in Western Culture One Gospel — Many Cultures: Case Studies and Reflections on Cross-Cultural Theology Fullness of Life for All: Challenges for Mission in Early 21st Century. Essays in Honour of Jerald D. Gort Contextuality in Reformed Europe: The Mission of the Church in the Transformation of European Culture Limping but Blessed: Jürgen Moltmann’s Search for a Liberating Anthropology

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