“From the beginning of her history, India has adored and idealized, not soldiers and statesmen, not men of science and leaders of industry, not even poets and philosophers, who influence the world by their deeds or by their words, but those rarer and more chastened spirits, whose greatness lies in what they are and not in what they do; men who have stamped infinity on the thought and life of the country. To a world given over to the pursuit of power and pleasure, wealth and glory, they declared the reality of the unseen world and the call of the spiritual life.”
Commenting on the teachings of Christian missionaries as Plotinus, Clement, Gregory, Augustine and the like, Dean Inge observes: “They are the ancient religion of the Brahmins masquerading in the clothes borrowed from the Jewish, Gnostic, Manichaen and Neo-Platonic allegories. That is why Mahatma Gandhi told Romain Rolland in Switzerland on his way back to India from the Round Table Conference (1911) that Christianity is an echo of the Indian religion and Islam is the re-echo of that echo.”
(Ancient rishis’ path to Hinduism)
” India is not only the heir of her own religious traditions; she is also the residuary legatee of the Ancient Mediterranean World’s religious traditions.” “Religion cuts far deeper, and, at the religious level, India has not been a recipient; she has been a giver. About half the total number of the living higher religions are of Indian origin.” he said.
(Source: One World and India – By Arnold Toynbee)
The commercial ties between India and Europe were more direct than they have ever been over the last ten centuries. Indian monks and their disciples lived and taught for several hundred years in the Middle East and founded large monasteries, the traces of which can be seen mainly in Antioch and Alexandria.
(Source: The Genius of India – By Guy Sorman (‘Le Genie de l’Inde’)
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan has said: “Buddhism which arose in India was an attempt to achieve a purer Hinduism. It may be called a reform within Hinduism. The formative years of Buddhism were spent in the Hindu religious environment. It shares in a large measure the basic pre suppositons of Hinduism. It is a product of the Hindu religious ethos.”
(Source: Religion and Culture – By S. Radhakrishnan)
In an interview in Detroit in 1894, Vivekananda said, “Our religion is older than most religions and the Christian creeds came directly from the Hindoo religion. It is one of the great offshoots. The Catholic religion also takes all its forms from us, the confessional, the belief in saints and so on, and a Catholic priest who saw this absolute similarity and recognized the truth of the origin of the Catholic religion was dethroned from his position because he dared to publish a volume explaining all that he observed and was convinced of.”
(From Vivekananda, New Discoveries by Marie Louise Burke)
COMMENT: The above extracts are from ‘Surya’s Tapestry”
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 