India's Problem, Krishna or Christ Part 10

The ignorance of woman there is dense and is probably a fact which closely connects her with the proverbial expressions concerning her. Her illiteracy is not an incident in Indian life. It has been, through the centuries, a settled policy of the land. At the present time only one woman in two hundred can read and write in that land of progress. The remarkable thing is, not that so many are illiterate, but that even a few have been taught at all, in view of the att.i.tude of the Hindu mind towards her. In ancient times there was little to learn, in India, apart from religion; but it has been the strict injunction of their Shastras and religious instructors that no man shall, under penalty of h.e.l.l, teach to his wife or daughter the Vedas which are the purest and best part of Hindu Scriptures. Any form of useful knowledge was considered dangerous in her possession.

It is not that woman is wanting in capacity. She is as bright and as teachable as her brother. All that she has needed, educationally, has been opportunity; and this, society has denied her, and this has done injustice not only to her but, still more, to itself.

Infant marriage has been, for many centuries, a crying evil in that land.

This has brought to woman a train of evils which have made deplorable her condition above all the women of the earth. This custom originated, probably, from a sense of kindness to the girl herself. It was the expression of a desire on the part of the parents to insure their daughter, at an early date, against failure to attain that which all Hindus regard as the _summum bonum_ of a woman's life-marriage. But, in their short-sighted policy, they failed to realize the myriad evils which would follow this pernicious custom. The girl's will or desire must not be regarded as an element in this life compact! And, what is worse still, these infant compacts are necessarily followed by early consummation, whereby girls enter, in many cases, upon the duties of motherhood at twelve years of age. Few, indeed, are permitted to reach full physical development before they a.s.sume the function of child-bearing. This is not only a serious evil to the woman herself, it also gives poor chance for the begetting of a healthy progeny and for the early training of the same.

And it is not strange that the woman who thus early enters the sphere of motherhood should become a worn out old woman at thirty-five or forty years.

Much effort has been put forth in India, by Westerners especially, to make infant marriages impossible, or at least unpopular. But, little success has thus far attended this effort.

A small meed of alleviation was gained with much effort in 1891. It came through the pa.s.sing of the "Age of Consent Bill" whereby the age of a girl's consent to cohabitation was raised from ten to twelve. To a Westerner, the blessing acquired by this bill seems in itself a mockery and only reveals the appalling cruelty of that people to its girls.

It has been found impossible to touch, much less remove, the gross evil of infant marriage itself, the custom which opens wide the door to other ghastly evils.

The greatest of these is that of virgin-widowhood. If men will perversely marry their infant daughters to small boys, it is sure that a considerable proportion of the boys will die before their marriage is consummated.

Thus, annually, thousands of these poor girls, who are in absolute ignorance of the situation, are converted into virgin widows whose condition, upon the death of their husbands, is instantly changed from one of innocent childhood pleasure into a sad, despised and hated widowhood.

For, the parents of the boy sincerely believe that it is her evil star which has killed the boy whose destiny was blended with her own. And henceforth she is regarded, not only by the parents concerned, but by society in general, as an accursed person, hated for what has happened to her husband, and also a creature to be shunned. Her presence must not be allowed on any festive occasion, lest its evil influence bring sorrow and death to others. Thus a child of four or five years may suddenly have her prospects blasted, her life embittered and her company shunned by the whole world, with none to befriend, to cheer or to comfort her. There are two millions of such sad and injured ones in India today. Their cry goes up to G.o.d and to man in inarticulate appeal for relief and redress against a social custom and a religious rule which consigns them, in their time of greatest innocency, to a life which is worse than death itself and which robs them of the protection, love and sympathy which the whole economy of heaven and earth should guarantee to them.

Coupled with this terrible fact is the other, that woman _must_ marry in India _anyhow_. No disgrace and misfortune can befall a woman, according to Hindu ideas, equal to that of spending her whole life in maidenhood.

This, of course, is connected with the idea that she has no social status or religious destiny apart from man. Hence it is that a host of loving parents, who are unable to find a suitable match for their daughters, rather than leave them unmarried, stupidly join them in wedlock to _professional_ bridegrooms. There is, in Bengal, today, a division of the Brahman caste whose men are professional purveyors to this silly but prevalent superst.i.tion. They are prepared to marry any number of girls at remunerative rates. And thus they acquire a fair income. Each of these men have scores of such wives and entertains the proud satisfaction, doubtless, that he is bestowing a favour upon a benighted community by coupling his name in wedlock with unfortunate girls who otherwise would be without a name or hope among men! A state of society which renders such a condition of things possible is not only a disgrace to any community, it is a monstrous evil against the womanhood of that community. Is it any wonder, then, that so many of the women of India, under these circ.u.mstances, should commit suicide? Is it strange that a wife, in such a land, should find it best to obey and submit to the indignities of the worst kind from her husband? And is it remarkable that the Hindu widow, rather than endure the neglect, the temptations and the obloquy of her widowhood, should have preferred to practice Suttee and to end her miseries upon the funeral pyre of her husband? When we remember that their system consigns one-fifth of all the women of India-more than 20,000,000 souls-to this despised and ostracized widow cla.s.s, we realize the depth of evil which flows from the system.

There is still another cruel injustice inflicted upon the womanhood of India. Many thousands (there are 12,000 in South India alone) of her daughters are dedicated in infancy to a life of shame in connection with temple worship in that land. These women, the so-called "servants of the G.o.ds," have been mostly dedicated by fond mothers to this wretched life as a thank offering to the G.o.ds for blessings received. This seems very strange when it is known that all such girls thereby become public characters. The "Dancing Girl" of India is thus shut up to her evil life by those who love her most; and her religious profession becomes to her the highway to perdition and a bitter curse to society. Recent effort has been made, in Bombay, to save such girls by making it a legal offence to "marry" them to the G.o.ds and thus devoting them to a life of shame. But this law only refers to the dedication of girls of tender age in Bombay.

It is exceedingly sad that, practically, the whole population is utterly indifferent to this greatest insult committed against the womanhood of India and to the coupling of their own religion and their G.o.ds with the ruin of the soul and body of many thousands of the daughters of the land.

It is not remarkable, under these circ.u.mstances, that among all the people of India the birth of a daughter is the most unwelcome of domestic events.

The evils which surely await her, and the greater possibilities of sorrow and suffering which surround her, the great burden of expense and of trouble which her training, and especially her marriage, will entail upon the family-all combine to make her birth a much dreaded event.

The large expense, in the shape of the marriage dowry and the wedding expenses which have to be incurred among nearly all cla.s.ses in connection with the disposal of their daughters, only make this situation the more emphatic.

The practice of infanticide, so extensively found in India, was the direct result of this difficulty. For instance, among the n.o.ble race of Rajputs in North India it was found, some years ago, that, in a community of 30,000, there was not a single girl! Every daughter that was born was killed. The higher the rank of the family the more constant and systematic was the crime. "Thus, while an unmarried daughter in India is looked upon as hopelessly disgraced, a son-in-law cannot always be found unless the father of the girl is prepared to pay highly, and the marriage of a daughter may mean the ruin of a family. Rather than incur this danger, the Rajput preferred that his daughter should perish. And though the government has enacted stringent laws against this custom, it is not entirely eradicated yet."(10)

Thus the Hindus have wittingly and unwittingly placed many of the most serious disabilities of life upon their women. And the greatest evil of it is that the woman has become so hardened to her lot that, like the prisoner of Chillon, she has become enamoured of her chains and is most loathe to part with her bondage.

3. But the dawn of a new day has risen upon India. It is the day of woman's emanc.i.p.ation. A new spirit, during the past century, has entered that land, and the welcome era of brighter blessing, greater appreciation and larger opportunity for woman has actually begun. One has only to study the laws which, during the nineteenth century, were enacted in India with a view to removing the terrible evils and crimes which were committed under the sanction of Hinduism; and he will find that not a few are directed towards the amelioration of the condition of woman. Such inhuman customs as _suttee_, the murder of children, the dedication of girls to lives of shame-these have been removed in whole or in part; and, by the "Age of Consent Bill" and other similar half measures, the beginning has been made in introducing a day of better things for the women.

Many of the efforts of Hindu Social Reformers are directed towards the removal of some of the disabilities under which woman lives. It is true that the woman of India cannot expect, for a long time, much help from her own people. Even the Social Reformers among them are so few in number, are so half-hearted in their measures, and are so unwilling to deny themselves in behalf of the cause which they advocate, that little can be expected from them. And yet, it must be said that in a few matters of importance Hindu sentiment is slowly moving in the right direction. As a Social Reformer, the Hindu is a poor success; but he is not a fool; he can see that the situation, so far as woman is concerned, is becoming increasingly untenable and flagrantly inconsistent with the growing light of today. The hope is that he will yield, with increasing readiness, to the pressure brought to bear upon him by Western sentiment.

The presence of many women of the West in that land has been a standing rebuke to the Hindu social situation. These women have done not a little to stir within their Eastern sisters a desire for something better. They open their eyes to the contrasted conditions of the women of the East and of the West. When they shall have aroused the women of India to the desperateness of their condition and to the urgent need of reform and relief, the battle will be more than half fought and victory will be in view. For, when the Eastern woman herself will vigorously demand her emanc.i.p.ation, man will yield it to her. The Dufferin Hospitals are a n.o.ble tribute to the active interest of the good lady whose name they bear; and the sympathetic endeavour of Lady Curzon for the elevation of India's women are but suggestive of considerable work which the fair s.e.x of the West have rendered and are rendering in behalf of their Indian sisters.

Protestant Christian missions have been pioneers in this great movement towards the emanc.i.p.ation of the women of India. American and English women, connected with these missions, have given themselves to the redemption of their sisters. More than one thousand of these good women are devoting their lives to the salvation of India through the elevation of the women of the land. Thousands of schools are conducted by them in which a host of young girls are receiving that training which Hinduism has proscribed for many centuries. And through these schools, and by means of at least two thousand Bible Women, trained by them, they have access into hundreds of thousands of Hindu homes where they reveal to the women and girls a broader horizon of life and give a new conception of the privileges and opportunities which are opening today before them. They are creating among the women a spirit of unrest which is the dawning of a new ambition for greater things in life and service. The very presence of these foreign ladies suggests to their Indian sister a new sphere broader than the home, and a new opportunity pregnant with rich blessings to the land.

Under the influence of these missionary efforts and of the less thorough training given in government schools, Hindus themselves are beginning to bestir themselves and to establish schools for their daughters; and thus we trust that coming years will not only witness a change of thought among Hindus concerning women, but also a new line of indigenous activity for their elevation.

There is further ground for encouragement; for the Hindu man of culture is growing increasingly sensitive to the wide gulf which lies between him and his absolutely untrained wife. He sees that, while the Western woman is suited in every way to become the companion of, and a helpmeet to, her husband, his own little wife is fit to be neither. Even when not separated from him by a disparity of many years in age, he finds that she has absolutely no interest outside the walls of her home and has not the first qualification to discuss with him or to help him by advice in any matter pertaining to his work or profession. So he, under the new light of modern times, is increasingly ambitious to have a wife of the new training and of the larger horizon, and is willing to pay a premium for her in marriage.

And this, itself, is beginning to create a market for educated women even in that stronghold of conservatism, the Brahman caste.

Thus the effort of Christian missions in the development of womanhood is acting like leaven upon the whole social ma.s.s.

Chapter VI.

THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN EFFORT IN INDIA.

Christianity found very early entrance into India. How early we cannot definitely say. The Syrian Church of Malabar traces its legendary origin to the "doubting disciple," by whose name it loves to be called. The Romish Church also warmly supports this contention and exalts St. Thomas to a high place as the Patron Saint and Apostle of India.

Careful historical investigation entirely overthrows this old claim. The Thomas legends probably owe their existence to the natural desire of the Syrian Christians to connect their history with Apostolic origin and sanction. The name may also be confounded with a later Thomas, several of whom were conspicuous in the annals of the India Syrian Church.

The ancient vagueness of the name "India," has also, doubtless, had no little influence in the formation of these legends. In the beginning of the Christian era "India" was a term of much wider application than at present. It included several countries in Southwestern Asia, and even a portion of Africa. While St. Thomas may therefore have laboured and died in "India," it does not at all follow that his field of labour was within the limits of the peninsula now called by that name. Indeed, many historical incidents and facts agree in disproving Apostolic connection with the rise of Christianity in India.

Pantaenus, the saintly and learned Presbyter and Christian philosopher of Alexandria and the renowned teacher of the ill.u.s.trious church fathers, Clement and Origen, is the first honoured name which finds historic sanction in the grand roll of Christian missionaries to India. He visited Malabar, South India, during the last decade of the second century. He was a man wonderfully equipped by deep spiritual insight and piety and also by philosophic training and metaphysical ac.u.men to become the messenger of Christian truth and life to the Buddhists and Brahmans who lived side by side in South India in those days.

We know little of his work in that land. He found in Malabar a colony of Jewish Christians who possessed a copy of the Gospel of Matthew in the Hebrew tongue, said to have been given to them by the Apostle Bartholomew.

It is not known, however, whether this last named apostle laboured among these Christians in that region.

Probably a century later that Christian community formed connection with Antioch, Syria, which was the first of all Christian missionary centres; but which, through its Nestorian faith, soon lost its missionary ardour.

1. And thus emerges out of the darkness into its long and unique history the Syrian Church of Malabar.

It has pa.s.sed through many vicissitudes and has lost much, if not all, of its positive Christian influence and missionary character. During a recent visit to that region I was saddened by the sight of this Christian community which had lived all these centuries in the centre of a heathen district with apparently no concern for the religious condition of the surrounding, non-Christian, ma.s.ses-content to be as a separate caste without religious influence upon, or ambition to bring Christ into the life of, its benighted neighbours.

This church has survived its own apathy, on the one side, and Roman Catholic inquisition on the other, and appears before the world as what it really is-the only indigenous Christian Church in the peninsula of India.

It enjoys the unique distinction of having lived more than a millennium and a half in a heathen land, for a thousand years of which it was entirely surrounded by a non-Christian people.

During the last half century it has been considerably influenced by the work and example of the Church Missionary Society which is established in that region. Through this influence a Reformed Syrian Church has come into existence which promises to do much for the whole community in ideals and life. The Syrian Church has. .h.i.therto been greatly cursed with the trinity of evils-ignorance, ceremonialism and superst.i.tion. It was not until 1811 (at the suggestion of an Englishman) that it translated a part of the Bible (the four gospels) into the vernacular. And this is the only translation of the Scriptures ever made and published by the natives of India.

The Syrian Church now numbers 248,741. That part of the Syrian community which the Romish Church compelled, by the inquisition, to unite with it numbers 322,586.

2. From the fourteenth century the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH has continued to send out her emissaries and missionaries to that land.

Jorda.n.u.s and his brave band of missionary a.s.sociates were her first representatives.

But it was only from the arrival of Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese conquest four centuries ago, that the influence of that Church began to be seriously felt and its triumphs recorded.

By the sword and cruel Inquisition not only were Syrian Christians compelled to transfer their allegiance to the Pope; non-Christians also were, for perhaps the second time in the long history of the land, subjected to the bitter restraints and inhuman inflictions of religious persecution. It is a curious fact that the hideous and b.l.o.o.d.y monster of religious intolerance was hardly known in India until, first, the followers of Mohammed and, secondly, the disciples of the meek and lowly Jesus began to invade the land.

Then follow the devoted and heroic labours of the saintly Xavier. He was a man of princely extraction, of royal bearing, of Christian devotion and self-denial. He wrought, according to his light, with supreme loyalty to his Lord and with a divine pa.s.sion for souls in South India. Many thousands of the poor fishermen on the coast was he permitted to baptize into the Christian faith. It is much to be regretted that, like nearly all subsequent Romish missionaries, he gave himself, all but exclusively, to the ceremonial salvation, rather than to the ethical transformation and the spiritual regeneration, of the people. It has always been a much easier thing, in India, to gather the people for the reception of the mystical ordinances of our faith than it has been to prepare them, by patient teaching and guidance, to exemplify its precepts by their lives.

After Xavier came the accomplished and wily Jesuit, Robert de n.o.bilibus-the nephew of Cardinal Bellarmine. A believer in the Jesuitical principle that the end justifies the means, and ardently desiring to bring the Brahmans over to his faith he proclaimed himself, and in every way a.s.sumed the role of, "the Western Brahman." He lived scrupulously as a member of that haughty caste and, until recalled by the Pope on account of his deception, wielded much influence over the Brahmanical hierarchy in Madura.

Men of great power and supreme devotion to their faith followed as representatives of that great Church in India. Such names as de Britto, Beschi, the Abbe du Bois are a crown of honour to that community. Many like them spent lives of great self-denial for the cause of Christ and faithfully wrought for the redemption of the people; so that at present the power of the Romish Church and the devoted energy of its leaders are known in every section of the Peninsula. After nearly six centuries of effort its community in India has reached the total of 1,524,000 souls.

For a long time, it has not enjoyed much increase in its membership. In many places it finds numerous accessions; but not a few of its people backslide and return to their ancestral faith. The marked defects of Romanism in that land have been its concessions to, and compromise with, the religion of the land both on the side of idolatrous worship and of caste observance. I have discussed the subject with Indian Roman Catholics in the villages and find that to them the worship of saints, through their many obtrusive images, is practically the same as the idolatry of the Hindus-the only marked difference being in the greater size of the Romish images! In like manner the Jesuit has adopted and incorporated into his religion, for the people of that land, the Hindu caste system with all its hideous unchristian divisions. All this makes the bridge which separates Hinduism from Roman Catholic Christianity a very narrow one; and it reduces to a minimum the process of "conversion" from the former faith to the latter. But an easy path from Hinduism to Christianity means an equally facile way of return to the ancestral faith. If the Hindu has little to surrender in becoming a Christian, neither has such a Christian any serious obstacle to prevent his return to Hindu G.o.ds and ceremonies when it suits his convenience to do so. Hence it is that the new accessions to Romanism hardly exceed the number of those who leave it in order to resume their allegiance to the faith of their fathers.

3. PROTESTANT MISSIONARY EFFORT began late. In India it was introduced with the Dutch conquest in the early part of the seventeenth century. But the proselytizing methods of the Dutch in those days savoured too much of the Romish inquisition under the Portuguese. When the pressure of religious compulsion by the civil government was removed, consequent upon the English conquest in Ceylon and India, the people apostatized in a body.