Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism Author: Coward, Harold G
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cover cover next page > title: Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism author: Coward, Harold G. publisher: State University of New York Press isbn10 | asin: 0887065724 print isbn13: 9780887065729 ebook isbn13: 9780585089959 language: English subject Religious pluralism--India, Religious pluralism-- Hinduism. publication date: 1987 lcc: BL2015.R44M63 1987eb ddc: 291.1/72/0954 subject: Religious pluralism--India, Religious pluralism-- Hinduism. cover next page > If you like this book, buy it! file:///C:/...,%20Harold%20G.%20-%20Modern%20Indian%20Responses%20to%20Religious%20Pluralism/files/cover.html[26.08.2009 16:19:34] cover-0 < previous page cover-0 next page > Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism Edited by Harold G. Coward State University of New York Press < previous page cover-0 next page > If you like this book, buy it! file:///C:/...20Harold%20G.%20-%20Modern%20Indian%20Responses%20to%20Religious%20Pluralism/files/cover-0.html[26.08.2009 16:19:36] cover-1 < previous page cover-1 next page > Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 1987 State University of New York Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Modern Indian responses to religious pluralism. Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Religious pluralismIndia. 2. Religious pluralismHinduism. I. Coward, Harold G. BL2015.R44M63 1987 291.1'72'0954 87-1943 ISBN O-88706-571-6 ISBN O-88706-572-4 (pbk.) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 < previous page cover-1 next page > If you like this book, buy it! file:///C:/...20Harold%20G.%20-%20Modern%20Indian%20Responses%20to%20Religious%20Pluralism/files/cover-1.html[26.08.2009 16:19:37] page_v < previous page page_v next page > Page v CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Introduction ix Part I: Responses from Within Hinduism 1. Gandhi and Religious Pluralism J.F.T. Jordens 3 2. The Response of the Brahmo Samaj J.N. Pankratz 19 3. The Response of the Arya Samaj H.G. Coward 39 4. The Response of the Ramakrishna Mission R.W. Neufeldt 65 5. The Response of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother R.N. Minor 85 6. The Response of Swami Bhaktivedanta R.D. Baird 105 7. The Response of Modern Vaisnavism * K.K. Klostermaier 129 8. Saiva* Siddhanta* and Religious Pluralism K. Sivaraman 151 9. India's Philosophical Response to Religious Pluralism J.G. Arapura 171 < previous page page_v next page > If you like this book, buy it! file:///C:/...20Harold%20G.%20-%20Modern%20Indian%20Responses%20to%20Religious%20Pluralism/files/page_v.html[26.08.2009 16:19:37] page_vi < previous page page_vi next page > Page vi Part II: Responses from Other Religions Within India 10. Parsi Attitudes to Religious Pluralism J. Hinnells 195 11. Modern Indian Muslim Responses R.E. Miller 235 12. The Sikh Response R.W. Neufeldt 269 13. A Modern Indian Christian Response J. Lipner 291 14. The Response of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Community in the Indian Exile E.K. Dargyay 315 Contributors 329 Index 333 < previous page page_vi next page > If you like this book, buy it! file:///C:/...20Harold%20G.%20-%20Modern%20Indian%20Responses%20to%20Religious%20Pluralism/files/page_vi.html[26.08.2009 16:19:38] page_vii < previous page page_vii next page > Page vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The preparation of this volume and the bringing together of the scholars involved was a project of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities. The Calgary Institute for the Humanities was established at the University of Calgary in 1976 for the purpose of fostering advanced study and research in a broad range of subject areas. It supports work in the traditional humanities disciplines such as languages and literatures, philosophy, history, and so forth, as well as the philosophical and historical aspects of the social sciences, sciences, arts and professional studies. The Institute's programs in support of advanced study provide scholars with time and facilities to carry out their work. In addition, the Institute sponsors formal and informal gatherings to work on specific scholarly projects. In this event the Institute was able to bring senior scholars from Australia, England the United States and across Canada to study Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism. The Institute also used its resources to prepare the final manuscript for publication. The Calgary Institute for the Humanities is pleased to acknowledge the support of the following who helped to make this research project possible: The Department of Religious Studies, the Faculties of Humanities, General Studies, and Education at the University of Calgary. Generous funding was provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Calgary Research Grants Committee. Financial and other assistance was provided by the Sikh Society of Calgary, and the Calgary Indian Community. Special thanks are due to Robert Baird and Ron Neufeldt who helped to conceive and structure the project. Inder Kher almost single handedly organized the banquet of fine Indian food so thoroughly enjoyed by all. But the greatest debt is owed to the Institute's Administrative Assistant, Gerry Dyer, who handled < previous page page_vii next page > If you like this book, buy it! file:///C:/...20Harold%20G.%20-%20Modern%20Indian%20Responses%20to%20Religious%20Pluralism/files/page_vii.html[26.08.2009 16:19:39] page_viii < previous page page_viii next page > Page viii all arrangements for bringing together such a far flung group of scholars, and organized all meals and rooms for the working sessions in such a pleasant way. The Calgary Institute for the Humanities has also been fortunate to find a publisher thoroughly committed to the topic and anxious to bring out the results of the research as quickly as possible. Working with William Eastman and his staff at SUNY has been a pleasure. HAROLD COWARD < previous page page_viii next page > If you like this book, buy it! file:///C:/...0Harold%20G.%20-%20Modern%20Indian%20Responses%20to%20Religious%20Pluralism/files/page_viii.html[26.08.2009 16:19:40] page_ix < previous page page_ix next page > Page ix INTRODUCTION Religious experience has been defined as the quest for ultimate reality. Many religions exhibit an inner tendency in pursuing this quest to claim to be the true religion, to offer the true revelation as the true way of salvation or release. It would seem self-contradictory for such religions to accept any expression of ultimate reality other than their own. 1 Yet one of the things that characterizes today's world is religious plurality. In the past century the breaking of cultural, racial, linguistic and geographic boundaries is on a scale that the world has not previously seen. For the first time in recorded history we seem to be rapidly becoming a true world community. Today the West is no longer closed within itself. It can no longer regard itself as being the historical and cultural center of the world and as having a religion that is the sole valid way of worship. The same is true for the East. Today everyone is the next-door neighbor and spiritual neighbor of everyone else. India has perhaps been living through this pluralistic challenge longer than the rest of us. Well before the advent of Christianity and Islam in the West, India was already experiencing the encounters of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism with one another. Other religions soon arrived to share India with the Hindus, Buddhists and Jainas. Christians seem to have been present in India earlyperhaps as early as the arrival of Jesus' disciple Thomas in the first century C.E.2 A small community of Jews also settled in India in Malabar, at Cochin, perhaps as early as the first century C.E. There is evidence of small Muslim communities in many of the coastal towns of the Indian Peninsula from the eighth century onwards.3 But from about 1000 C.E. North-West India experienced increasing invasion and occupation from Muslim emperors in Afghanistan until Islam became the dominant religion of the region.4 In the ninth century C.E. a group of Zo- < previous page page_ix next page > If you like this book, buy it! file:///C:/...20Harold%20G.%20-%20Modern%20Indian%20Responses%20to%20Religious%20Pluralism/files/page_ix.html[26.08.2009 16:19:40] page_x < previous page page_x next page > Page x rastrians left Persia to escape Muslim persecution and settled on the north-west coast of India. Their descendants still live there and today are known as Parsis. In the fifteenth century, in the midst of Hindu- Muslim turmoil yet another religion, the Sikh religion, was born with the aim of bringing peace to the conflicting encounter of religions. 5 Thus India, perhaps moreso than anywhere else, became a virtual "living laboratory" of religious pluralism with many of the world's religions living together in the same communities over several centuries. What has been the result? The aim of this book is to examine the way in which the various religions are responding to the challenge of living side by side with one another in modern India. Since Hinduism, the dominant religion in India, considers itself, and is considered by many others, to be a very tolerant religion, the study of how religious pluralism actually functions in India is especially fascinating. The book is divided into two parts. Part One focuses on the dominant religion, Hinduism, and examines how it has responded to the challenge of having other religions living in its midst, and more recently, to the awareness that it is living in a global community side by side with other religions.