Hindus and Their Christian Bible - by R S Sugirtharajah (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

R.S. Sugirtharajah shows how at the height of European colonialism whilst the colonizers were studying the sacred texts of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs and Zoroastrians, the Hindus were themselves scrutinizing the invader's book - the Christian Bible. Sugirtharajah examines how these Hindus transformed the Bible into what they deemed fit for and suited to their contexts. The result was that the Bible acquired a totally different form and lost its authority as the Book of the Empire. Sugirtharajah shows how the resistant, subversive and at times antagonistic readings of the Hindus went beyond what the colonizer had intended. Sadly what these Hindus made of the Bible went largely unnoticed and was ignored by Western scholarship.

This volume seeks to rectify this regrettable omission and to place both the Hindu reformers and nationalists attitude to the Bible in their own specific context and to allow them to speak on their own terms rather than reading them with Christian preconception. The Hindu reformers covered include figures such as Raja Rammohun Roy, Arumuga Navalar, Keshub Chunder Sen, Swami Vivekananda, Ponnambalam Ramanathan, M. K. Gandhi and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and nationalists such as Dhirendranath Chowdhary, Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup. The book contains the interpretative context; the textual negotiation that went on between these Hindus and the missionaries and orientalists; examples of their Hinduization of the Bible; and the hermeneutical impact on mainstream biblical interpretation.

Review Quotes

"Sugirtharajah has an enviable record of solid and substantial publications going back four decades and, to overuse a trite image, like good wine, ages really well! His sustained engagement regarding the "use" of the Bible, read thorough a meticulously informed postcolonial lens, has further consolidated his standing at the forefront of scholars who have deepened and enriched the field of postcolonial explorations and investigations. This volume fills a glaring gap in research, in that while there have been attempts to look at the person and work of Jesus from the point of view of Hindu interpreters, like, for example, Stanley J. Samartha's book, The Hindu Response to the Unbound Christ (Bangalore: CISRS, 1974), there have been very few attempts to look at the way Hindu commentators on Christianity used the Bible either polemically or to foster an understanding of scriptures, a task not helped by some of the indigenous translations using the word "Satyaveda" for the Bible, implying that that was the true Veda, at the cost of relegating the rich Hindu literary religious traditions, including the Vedas, to a subordinate status.

Without glossing over the undoubted painful and hurtful legacy of the use of the Bible to trivialize the religious quest of a huge swathe of people in the Indian subcontinent and beyond, and without underplaying the attempts of prominent Hindus in the past and even today to come to terms with what the Bible says, Sugirtharajah in this outstanding book not only recognizes how the Bible was used to dominate cultures, societies, and peoples, but also how the Bible was "enrolled, enlisted and encroached upon" and how Hindu thinkers and practitioners resisted this domination in many different ways, leaving us with the ongoing question as to plurality and multiplicity when confronted with claims to the "unique" and "only". Sugirtharajah is to be commended for not just considering the "usual" names in presenting his analysis, in this case Roy, Sen, Gandhi, Vivekananda, and Radhakrishnan, but also by "recovering" the thinking of those whose contributions may have faded with time or have not received the attention that they deserved. In that sense the chapter on Navalar is brilliant and fascinating, with Sugirtharajah at his best in translating directly from the Tamil and teasing out insights that have been submerged by an attitude that valorizes writings in English and easily (or arrogantly) overlooks the huge body of "vernacular" literature. This does not take away from each of the other chapters, including the one on Ramanathan, where each interpreter, or group of interpreters, not only come to voice but are brought into interaction with the thinking of those whom they may or may not have encountered in actuality. This "overlapping-conversation" that crisscrosses the book, gives Sugirtharajah the possibility of presenting us with incisive, and, at times, trenchant, comments that do so much to make this such a valuable book.

What strikes one is how thin the line is between those who struggled to make sense of the Bible as a sacred text embodying a variety and range of teachings, without overlooking its colonial and religious usage and misapplication, and those who are bent on "exposing" the Bible by highlighting what are seen as its negative parts and stressing how it was used to mock the faith traditions and practices of the peoples with whom it was brought into interaction. Is there the possibility that memories can be healed and that polemical and hurtful practices of fundamentalist Christian preachers and teachers today can be overcome, leading to some kind of considerate reconciliation and a combined shared quest for the dignity of all people?" --Rev. Dr. J. Jayakiran Sebastian Dean and H. George Anderson Professor of Mission and Cultures United Lutheran Seminary, USA

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