}INDIA- 192.5 | A MISSION INVESTIGATION ONE OF THE PALADIN SERIES | Published by the Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade | qos “ + | > | = y " F Fm THiS » % 4 i . é; . t AA | | ss “That America mary know and serve the JNissions” THE CATHOLIC STUDENTS’ MISSION CRUSADE The Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade is a federation of American Catholic students’ societies for the promotion of mission knowledge. The Crusade was organized in the year 1918. The national headquarters are established at the Crusade Castle, Shattue Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. The governing body in the Crusade is the Executive Board, the members of which are elected in the general conventions of the Crusade. Active direction of the Crusade is entrusted to the Secretary-Treasurer, whose headquarters are at the Crusade Castle and who is assisted by the Director of Unit Activities. The Executive Board is aided in shaping the policies of the Crusade by the Advisory Board, whose members are the directors of various mission training insti- tutions, mission aid societies and organizations otherwise interested in missionary enterprises. The organization of new centers is entrusted to a corps of Field Secretaries, who are appointed by the Chairman of the Executive Board. THE PALADIN SERIES Though the booklets of the Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade’s Paladin Series are intended especially to serve as guidebooks for Study Circles of the Cursade Units, they offer readable presentations of missionary topics to Catholics in general who have even a passing interest in the missions. The Paladin Series of mission investization books is published exclusively by the Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade, from national headquarters, Crusade Castle, Shattue Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. Copyright, 1925, By Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade. Price, Fifty Cents INDIA -19 25 A MISSION INVESTIGATION WRITTEN BY REV. MICHAEL A. MATHIS, C.S.C., 5.T.D. HOLY CROSS FOREIGN MISSION SEMINARY BROOKLAND, D. C. CATHOLIC STUDENTS’ MISSION CRUSADE PALADIN SERIES CRUSADE ROUND TABLES A Crusade Study Circle is called a ‘““Round Table.’’ It should have at least six members, but must not have more than twelve. When more than twelve Crusaders engage in a special investigation of the missions, a new Round Table must be established. Thad purpose of a Round Table is discussion of some mission problem or® mission field with a view to using the information acquired in the discussion to the immediate advantage of Catholic missions and the Crusade. Membership in any Round Table is purely a matter of choice. One can be a Crusader without being a Round Tabler. A Round Table is organized by a group of Crusaders electing a ‘‘Chief,”’ who will lead the ‘“‘investigations,’. and a ‘‘Seribe,’’ who will act as secretary. The Tablers then select a booklet from the Paladin Series and provide themselves with individual copies. The Chief appoints a Leader for the first meeting and assigns the topies of ‘‘Special Investigation” to each of six Tablers, as explained in one of the following paragraphs. A new Leader is appointed for each meeting and the Special Investigation topics are assigned so that every Tabler has a turn at least at alternate meetings. The name of the Leader and the topics for Special Investigation are designated by the Chief at the close of each meeting for the meeting next to follow. Each booklet is designed to afford matter for ten meetings, which are to be held not oftener than once a week. Meetings of the Round Table One chapter of the booklet chosen by the Tablers is made the subject of each meeting. A thesis or proposition is established in each chapter, which has been printed at the end of the chapter whenever feasible. Several references are added, under the heading of ‘“‘General Investigation,’’ to enable the Tablers to prove. the thesis more definitely than the limited treatment in the chapter would permit. The reading of this thesis by the Leader opens the meeting. The Leader then proceeds to discuss the chapter, proving the thesis by recounting at least half a dozen facts which he has obtained from the booklet itself or from the side reading indicated under the heading of ‘“‘General Investigation’’ at the end of the respective chapter. Not only the Leader, but all the members of the Round Table as well, should carefully prepare the chapter for each meeting and should have noted in a private copybook at least half a dozen facts which seem the strongest proofs of the thesis in question. After the introductory talk by the Leader, a general discussion will follow, in which each member will determine the value of the facts he has chosen to prove the thesis. Members of the Round Table should preserve the notes which they have written in preparing for the discussion. Immediately after this general discussion, the “‘Special Investigation”? is led by six Tablers appointed previously by the Chief. Each of these Special Investigators has been assigned one of the questions listed under the heading, ‘‘Special Investi- gation.”’ These questions and the references added to each chapter are intended to lead the Tablers to a fuller knowledge of the matter under consideration, which can only be treated briefly in the chapter itself. The suggestions for “‘Achievement Discussion”? at the end of each chapter are especially for the guidance of Round Tablers who wish to win membership in the Order of Round Table Paladins. The Order of Round Table Paladins Membership in the Order of Round Table Paladins is conferred upon any Crusader who has attended ten Round Table meetings and accomplished some public achievement, with the Crusade or the missions as its object, as a result of the attendance at the meetings. ‘ The achievement entitling to membership in the Order may be any of the following works: the giving of a lecture on the Crusade or the missions; the writing of an essay on these subjects which has been put into print; the compo- sition of a mission hymn which has been used publicly; the execution of a work of art with the missions or the Crusade as its theme. Whenever the nature of the activity permits, copies of the achievement must be filed with the Crusade when the application is made for membership in the Order of Paladins. The Order of Paladins has a distinct emblem and members are given special certificates of enrollment. Blanks for application for membership are supplied to Round Tables by the national Crusade headquarters, Cincinnati, Ohio. All appli- cations will be passed upon by the National Executive Board of the Crusade. Simple enro!lment in the Order may be had without the payment of a fee. Applicants who qualify and wish to have the special emblem and certificate are required to send a registration fee of one dollar with their application blanks. CHAPTER ONE A LAND OF TREMENDOUS CONTRASTS The unique thing about India and the lives of her three hundred and twenty million people is contrast. This contrast is tremendous— contrast within the country itself and contrast with other lands. The Country India is shut off on the north by a wall of perpetual snow. One peak of these Himalayan ranges towers so high above the other mountains of the earth that if Mount Blanc were piled upon Pike’s Peak the combined elevations would barely reach the dizzy heights of Mount Everett. In these eternal snows the three great rivers of India, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra, are born and rush madly down to the sea, carving out in their passage the arid, scorching valley of the Punjab on the west and the fertile, steaming plains of Bengal on the east. The rest of the peninsula pushes southward into the sea like the prow of a mighty ship, one-half the size of the United States, forming a plateau which rises abruptly from the Indian Ocean on the western coast to an average height of 2,000 feet and then slopes gradu- ally eastward to the Bay of Bengal. Over and above these striking geographical contrasts, which pre- suppose almost every temperature of the earth’s surface, there is such a thing as an Indian climate, whose chief characteristic is the three- fold season. _from November to March, India is an earthly paradise. The temperature seldom rises above 90 degrees and never falls below 50. Toward the end of February a western breeze begins to blow. With each day it becomes warmer until by April it is like a blast from a furnace, scorching vegetation and driving hot sands into whirlwinds. By the middle of June, the sand storms give way to the monsoon. Then for three months water reigns supreme, all delta regions are inundated, vegetation springs forth into riotous life, and all India is happy again until, with the receding waters, cholera and fever proclaim the advent of winter. 6 INDIA - 1925 The People America has been called the melting pot of the nations because our population absorbs elements from so many divers peoples. India is, even more so, a pot, where many more nationalities mingle but never mix. There are forty-eight distinct ethnic groups varying from naked savages to highly cultured Aryan people, speaking one hun- dred and fifty different languages. Hence, it will be readily seen that we can not think of India as a homogeneous nation in the sense in which that term is used in the western world. And yet, in spite of these racial and linguistic contrasts, there are some qualities which clearly distinguish the Indian from the inhabi- tants of all other lands: a diet of rice and curry; a social convention called the caste system; an intense interest in the spiritual, as opposed to the material, world; and, in our day, a national aspiration to restore India to her ancient religious, economic, and social ideals. Religion Religion enters into the minutest details of Indian life, to such an extent that, without considering its religions, nothing in India can be fully understood. Perhaps 217,000,000 classify themselves as Hindus, but very few believe exactly the same thing. In fact, the whole gamut of belief, from the grossest animism to the highest monotheism, is followed with perfect equanimity by Hindus. There are almost 70,000,000 Mohammedans, whose belief in one God is frequently interwoven with many superstitions which are purely animistic. Comparatively few Buddhists, nine and one-half million, will probably carry out their esthetic worship of flowers and preach Nirvana, but in the real trials of life resort to nats (devils and goblins). ' From the worship of sticks and stones to the contemplation and mortification of the ascetic, India presents a vast labyrinth of religious beliefs and practices. One religious contrast, Hinduism versus Moham- medanism, is a latent antagonism which frequently bursts forth into violence and bloodshed. And yet, in spite of this complexity and diversity, there are some religious ideas and practices which are clearly Indian. There is the overmastering power of religion in the daily routine of life and the striking religious ideal of the Indian people, namely, the ascetic, the saint. Occupation India is decidedly an agricultural country. Seventy-three out of every hundred people—two hundred and twenty-four millions in all— are supported by cultivating the soil and by pasturing. Only twenty- seven per cent of the people follow other occupations. In this respect, the contrast with the western world is striking. In England, for example, only eight per cent of the inhabitants earn their livelihood by agriculture. INDIA - 1925 an 8 With so vast a population cultivating the soil, the returns are too small for a subsistence, such as it is. Hence, almost every farmer follows a secondary occupation. Formerly each village or two provided itself with artisans and menials and protected or enslaved each occupation by caste restric- tions. All workmen were allotted their traditional tasks, for which- each received a yearly remuneration. More frequently it was a share in the crops. Western education, more rapid means of communica- ‘tion, and machinery are gradually breaking up this old system, except in central India and Rajputana. The net result of the various occupations in India has produced a livelihood (a family of five can subsist on an annual budget of $76.00) between the bejeweled upper classes, who live in comparative luxury, and one-sixth of the population which retires to rest at night not knowing if it will eat at all on the morrow, East and West Since Alexander’s invasion of the Punjab in 325 B. C., India has attracted the Western World. During the intervening centuries, Indian cargoes of precious stones, spices and finely woven cloth lured the adventurous spirits of the West until in the sixteenth century the Portuguese went in search of her by sea. A new route to India led to the accidental discovery of America by Columbus. Eventually, Portuguese, French, and English merchants, often accompanied by missionaries, landed in India. The most successful of these western expeditions was the British East India Company. It landed at Surat, near Bombay, in 1599. With the crumbling empire of the Moguls, government collapsed in India, and the Company was often obliged to protect its commerce by military force. From a commercial enter- prise the East India Company gradually developed into the dominant governing body of the land. Soon, however, the exercise of governmental function and com- merce led to such grave abuses that an act of Parliament compelled the Company to cease its commercial business. This was in 1833. The final struggle for sovereignty took place at Plassey in 1857, when a young adventurous clerk, Clive by name, defeated the Nawab of Bengal. The following year the British Crown took over the reins of government. Today the British Raj governs directly two hundred and forty-seven million Indians and indirectly, through native rulers, seventy-two million inhabitants. Along with English commerce and government, a _ distinctly western education was introduced, largely through the influence of MacCauley, who answered the obvious objection that it would lead to the eventual overthrow of British rule by the noble dictum, ‘““When- ever it comes, it will be the proudest day in British history.” Politics Led by a genius, clothed in home-spun and revered as a saint, Mahatma Gandhi, India today demands political freedom from the ‘8 INDIA - 1925 Government of the land, not with weapons of steel, but with the sword of “satyagraha”’ (soul-force). The immediate background of this extraordinary political adventure is the conflict of East and West in India, British govern- ment, western progress, and English education have stirred up a national consciousness in this otherwise non-homogeneous land by furnishing law and order, a common language for national inter- course, and means of communication on a national scale. This growing consciousness was suddenly brought to the surface in 1905 by the victory of Japan over Russia. It demonstrated that the uni- versally accepted superiority of the West over the East was at least debatable. As early as 1909 the Morley-Minto Reforms recognized the new spirit by enlarging the share of Indians in their own government. This negative power did not satisfy the Indians who expressed them- selves through the Indian National Congress, organized in 1885. To satisfy the ever increasing demands for political freedom and to reward the loyalty of India in the World War, the Government of India Act was passed in 1919. It was the generous conception of a group of magnanimous English statesmen, such as one meets with in every period of Indian-British history, who, in this instance, were led by Mr. Montagu, almost as much of an idealist as Gandhi himself. The act provided legislative machinery for India to acquire experience in self-government with safeguards against misrule on the part of the British, and inconsiderate action on the part of the Indians, and with provisions for enlarged powers as India should prove herself capable of using them. The successful working of this act depended largely on mutual confidence, which was perilously wounded by the removal of Mr. Montagu from office. Distrust was further inflamed by Moham- medan dismay over the fate of Turkey in the peace treaty, and the brutal killing of almost 400 in a mob that would, not disband at Amritzar. At this point the dominating personality of Gandhi united India in opposition to the Government of India Act by refusing to cooperate in fulfilling the provisions of the act. This led to civil disobedience and bloodshed for which Gandhi did voluntary penance. In the midst of these turmoils, Gandhi was arrested, convicted of fomenting rebellion, and imprisoned for six years. As a consequence, non-cooperation wore itself out, and the normal antagonism of Hindus versus Mohammedans reasserted itself. Gandhi’s unexpected release from prison in 1924 has again turned all eyes on India. Round Table Aids for Chapter One I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS Chapter Issue or Thesis: India is a land of such tremendous contrasts that it challenges world attention. Prove this by enumerating six facts. INDIA - 1925 9 II. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 1. What are some of the natural wonders in India’s wonderland? Reference: National Geographic Magazine, November, 1921. 2. Gandhi and Tagore, who are they? References: For Gandhi: Van TYNE, India in Ferment, Chap. V. WILSON, Gandhi, India’s Prophet (in Review of Reviews, May, 1922). See also other articles referred to in The Bengalese, June, 1922. Nation, April 23, 1924. For Tagore: TAGORE, My Reminiscences. (This is an autobiography.) THOMPSON, Rabindranath Tagore. ri What is the immediate background of the Non-cooperation Movement in India? References: Van TYNE, India in Ferment, especially Chap. I. Living Age, March 8, 1924. Gandhi and Non-cooperation (Nation, December 21, 1921). Gandhi’s Passive Resistance Triumph (Literary Digest, January 14, 1922). Non-cooperation Movement (Nation, December 21, 1921). 4. Would modern farming methods and organization of new industries raise the standard of living in India, and, if so, is that desirable? : References: Census of India, Vol. I. Chap. XII. HIGGENBOTTOM, The Gospel and the Plow (a Protestant missionary’s views). See also Gandhi’s views in Van TYNE, India in-Ferment, pp. 100 ff. 5. Who are the Holy Men of Indiai? References: India and Its Missions, pp. 52-53. National Geographic Magazine, December, 1913. Century, November, 1924. The Bengalese, December, 1923, January and March, 1924. Van TYNE, India in Ferment, pp. 99 ff. and Chap. IX. 6. Climbing Mt. Everest, the Top of the World. References: BRUICE, The Assault on Mount Everest. Battling with the Last Unconquered Height (Travel, Vol. 42, pp. 29-38, March, 1924). Mount Everest Again (Science, Vol. 59, pp. 191-2, February 22, 1924). Toward the Top of the World (Nation, April 30, 1924). MALLORY, Everest Unvanquished (Asia, Vol. 23, pp. 636-638, 1923). Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS 1. Make a relief map of India. For practical suggestions, write to Rand- McNally Company or to Mr. Raymond Mirch, C.S.C., Holy Cross College Brookland, D. C. 2. As the poltical situation in India is changing almost daily, write a short account of events since September, 1924. References: ‘Current periodicals, as noted in the Index for Current Periodical Literature, which may be found in any library. CHAPTER TWO UNDER THE TURBAN To the trained eye, the Indian turban goes a long way in telling the story of the man, his race, his creed, and his country. Character of the Indian “One cannot live among them without finding them a truly lovable people and without imbibing genuine respect and admiration for the simple dignity of their lives, the quiet courtesy of their man- ners, their uncomplaining endurance of hardships, their unbounded hospitality, and the feeling for spiritual values which, in Spite of gross superstitions, is unmistakable in the Indian atmosphere”’ (Pratt). Dress and Physical Appearance The headdress of the Indian varies from ‘the heavy white turban of the Punjabis to the wee and gaily embroidered black skull caps of 10 INDIA - 1925 the Bengalee Mohammedans. There is great variety in the types of dress worn in the various districts of this land. In any Indian city one may see well clothed Bengali babus (native gentlemen), the upper half of their persons arrayed in coat and vest and the lower half swathed in loose flowing garments, move leisurely along in the quiet dignity of the Orient. Voluminous pajamas, loose jackets, and large white turbans mark the Punjabis. Groups of Mohammedans, in long’ black coats, baggy white trousers, and funny round black hats of gaily embroidered cloth, chat merrily as they pass. Madrasis look like women at a distance because their long hair is tied in a knot at the back of their heads. They are picturesquely garbed, however, in jackets and skirt-like cloths of bright colors. Tall black hats that resemble our silk hats, if one can imagine them cut off at. an angle, point out the Parsis. These more picturesque garbs must always be thought of, however, in their proper setting, a host of well oiled and scantily dressed coolies who mumble a rhyme as they dog- trot under huge burdens balanced upon their heads. I shall never forget the sight of six.coolies trotting along the crowded streets of Calcutta with a piano on their heads. The more common garment for Hindu men is the dhoti, a single piece of cloth which varies in size from a mere loin cloth to improvized trousers. For full dress effect a shawl is thrown over the shoulders. It varies in shape from a Roman toga to a mere towel. Moham- medans, in place of the dhoti, wear either baggy trousers or a petti- coat of colored cloth reaching to the ankles. The graceful sari is the ordinary dress for women. It isa long piece of cloth wrapped around the body in modest spirals, veiling the head. The higher caste Hindu women and many Mohammedan ladies veil their faces in public and gape at visitors through the holes of a hood. From the bluish black of the Dravidians in the south to the flushed ivory of the Kashmiri beauties in the north, every shade of brown may be seen in Indian faces, whose features, like stature, follow racial] lines. Indian teeth contrast sharply with their shaded setting. Their pearly whiteness is preserved by a rather crude though effective scrubbing with a handful of loam or sand which is applied vigorously each morning at the river edge. A sleek black and an occasional dark brown is ordinarily the color of Indian hair. It is usually straight, often oiled with pungent perfumes, which are sometimes pleasant and sometimes otherwise. Indian eyes are lustrous, often large, and invariably dark brown. Unusual keenness of vision was proved to me on more than one occasion by the uncanny ability of the native to see a snake in the darkest path of the jungle. Race The fact that the Indian population lacks a national] racial type is due not so much to the presence of many different races in, India INDIA - 1925 BE as to the institution of caste, which has artificially stopped that inter- mixture of racial blood which elsewhere has produced a national taype. Forty-eight distinct racial types can be shown to exist in India, but for the scope of this brief survey it will suffice to describe the seven principal families of races. The Dravidians of the south and some Aborigines in the north (e. g., those of Choto Nagpur) are the earliest inhabitants of whom we have any knowledge in India. Their low stature, black skin, long heads, broad noses, and relatively long arms distinguish them from the rest of India’s population. The Mongoloid type today inhabits the Himalayas, Nepal, Assam and Burma. The head is broad, com- plexion dark, with a yellowish tinge, hair scanty, stature short, nose fine to broad, face characteristically flat, and eyelids often oblique. The Turko-Iranian type is represented by the Afghans and other races in Baluchistan and in the northwest frontier provinces. The stature of this type is above the average, complexion fair, head broad, and the nose narrow and unusually long. The most numerous type, the Indo-Aryan, occupies the Punjab, Rajputana, and Kashmir. [It resembies the previous type and differs from it chiefly in the fact that in stature its members are taller and the nose, though narrow and prominent, is not unusually long. The remaining three groups are very ancient mixtures of foreign races with the Dravidians. The Aryo-Dravidian or Hindustani type is found in the United Provinces and Bihar. The higher representa- tives of this type approach the Indo-Aryan, while the lower are not very far removed from the Dravidians. The habitat of the Mongoloid- Dravidians or Bengali type is Bengal. This type is a blend of the Dravidian and Mongoloid elements, with a strain of Indo-Aryan in the higher groups. The most prominent examples of the seventh group are the Scytho-Dravidians, or the Marathas of western India. This type is distinguished by medium stature, long head, and short nose. With a few marked exceptions, the native of India is of slighter build and of weaker frame than the European; his diet is, often from choice and often from necessity, wholly or mainly vegetarian; he is deficient in energy for sustained hard labor; his earnings are much smaller, but his wants are fewer and more easily met; food-grains are cheap, houses inexpensive, and clothing is often a matter of decency rather than necessity. Tribe A tribe is a collection or group of families bearing a common name; generally claiming common descent from a mythical or histori- cal ancestor; in some parts of the country held together rather by the obligations of family feuds than by traditions of kinship; usually speaking the same language; and occupying, or claiming to occupy, a definite tract of country. A tribe is not necessarily endogamous, 12 INDIA - 1925 that is, it is not an invariable rule that a man of a particular tribe must marry a woman of that tribe. The different kinds of tribes are not in complete correspondence with, though they bear a relation to, the seven racial groups treated above. There is correspondence only where caste is not strong, for where caste is especially vigorous, it has succeeded in changing old tribes into new castes. Caste ‘“‘A man’s social status varies inversely with the width of his nose.” This is the epigrammatic way in which perhaps the most prominent authority on the subject, Mr. Risley, states the problem of caste in India. It is an institution by which the accident of birth detemines irrevocably the course of a man’s social] and domestic life. This holds, in its strictest application, to the Hindu population. Yet in a limited way, it applies also to the population as a whole. ‘Last year I was a Jolaha (weaver); now Iam a Sheikh (judge); next year, if prices rise, I shall be a Sayid (lord).’”’ This expresses the less rigid character of caste distinction even among the Mohammedan population. From the four original castes, the Brahman (priests and teach- ers), the Kshattriya (warrior), Vaisya (farmer), and Sudra (manual laborer), at least 2,400 others have developed in time. Marriage between members of different castes is always prohibited. This is strong confirmation of the contention that caste in India is essentially an attempt to prevent white blood from intermixture with colored. Social intercourse is restricted in varying degrees. In Bengal, for example, Mr. Risley has grouped the various Hindu castes into seven classes. The precedence and relations between these are typical of caste life generally. The first class is always the Brahmans. In Bengal they number a million souls. But even among Brahmans there are subcastes between which the social gulf is so great that the Rarhi, who claim descent from an ancient Brahman family, will not take water from the Barna Brahmans who serve the lowest caste, as priests, teachers and cooks, Next in the social scale come the Rajputs (many are land- lords), the Baidyas (physicians by profession), and the writer-class of Kyasthes, but between them there is a constant struggle for precedence. Family trees are assail, and the Kyasthes go so for precedence. FEamily trees are assailed, and the Kyasthes go as _ far as to accusg the Baidyas of having been low caste till a century ago when they bribed the Brahmans to acquiesce in their pretentions to move up to the second rung of the social ladder. The third class numbers three millions. Confectioners, perfume- venders, beetle-growers, oil men, gardeners, potters and barbers figure in this group. Brahmans will take water from any caste of this class and will serve them. The fourth class included only two castes, from whom water is taken by high caste but whose Brahmans are held to INDIA - 1925 13 be degraded. The fifth class is a miscellaneous assortment of castes from whom the higher classes do not usually take water. Although the village barber will shave them, he will not cut their toe nails, or take part in their marriage ceremonies. The sixth class includes many castes, numbering eight million souls. They abstain from eating beef, pork and fowls, in common with all Hindus, but the higher classes will not take water from them. The regular barbers refuse to shave them, but most of them can get their clothes washed by the village dhodie. Class seven represents the lowest grade in the Bengal system. Its members eat all kinds of meat. The very shadow of these creatures pollutes. No Brahman, no matter how degraded, will serve them, and for them neither barber nor washerman will work. This class includes the scavenger and leather workers. Then follow the outcasts, several million souls, who cannot even enter a Hindu temple, nor drink at public fountains. Although each caste has a traditional function, many members change their occupation. Birth, not occupation, is the essential criterion of caste. Modern movements to break down the barriers of caste, especially in behalf of the outcastes, will be ,taken up in Chapter Ten. Language At least one hundred and fifty distinct languages are spoken in India. There are more scripts found in India than in all the rest of the world combined. Eleven languages are spoken by more than ten million people each. Seventy-five million people speak Hindustani, though many more understand it. The next largest group whose members all speak the same language is Bengali, about forty-eight million. In Assam there is a new language for almost every one hundred square miles of territory. By a strange anomaly, English is the language in which national conventions are commonly held in India. FPhilologists group these languages into five great families. From the point of view both of the number of people speaking a; language and of its influence on Indian literature, the most important is the Aryan group. Two-thirds of India’s population speak the nineteen vernacular languages which have been developed from Sanskrit, the form in which the original Aryan dialect became fixed, as the literary tongue, about 300 B. C. When the Aryan tongue came into contact with the uncivilized language of the aborigines, the latter invariably went to the wall. The Aryans refused to speak it, and the necessity of intercourse compelled the aborigines to use a broken “pigeon” form of a language of a superior civilization. As generations passed, the mixed jargon approximated the original, and the aboriginal died a natural death. Every stage of this transformation can still be seen on the ethnic borderlands of India. 14 INDIA - 1925 The second family is the Dravidian. It is principally in the south, where the Aryans did not come into contact with the aborigines, that this family of aboriginal languages has survived. It comprises four- teen vernaculars, spoken by about. sixty-seven million people. The third group is called the Munda family. Six languages, spoken by three and one-half million aborigines, make up this family. Choto Nagpur is its principal habitat. None of the Munda languages has as yet either a distinct script or literature. Both the Mon-Khmer and the Tibeto-Chinese families are usually © grouped under the common name Indo-Chinese, This group includes more than one hundred languages spoken by about forty million people, descendants of Mongolian immigrants who came from north- western China down the Irriwaddy into Burma, and down the Brah- maputra into Assam, and up the same river into Tibet. Round Table Aids for Chapter Two I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS Chapter Issue or Thesis: The physical appearance of the Indian and his social organization present a uniqueness and complexity not found, in the same extremes, elsewhere in the human family. Prove this by enumerating six facts. II. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 1. Is there a silver lining to India’s cloudy sobriety ? References: EHA, Behind the Bungalow. Bandurah Tin Horn, published monthly by the Rev. John B. Delaunay, C.S.C., Ph.D. Copies may be had by applying to The Bengalese. See same writer’s articles in back volumes of The Bengalese. The Worship of Hari’s Feet (Asia, April, 1923). 2. Are the sari and Indian jewelry and cosmetics as beautiful a dress and ornament for women as western aids to beauty? References: India and Its Missions, pp. 40-48. MATHIS, With the Holy Cross in Bengal. See Chap. I. on Daceca’s beautiful fabrics and jewelery and Chap. II. for native dress. The Indian Year Book (under title ‘‘“Manners and Customs’’). 3. How does the boy live in India’s most cultured household? References: TAGORE, My Reminiscences. 4. Is there any similarity between the castes of India and the classes of society in the ancient Roman civilization or in the so-called distinctions between the white and colored populations of our own America? References: DILL, Roman Society in the last days of the Western Empire, especially Book III. Chap. I. on the Theodotian Code. India and Its Missions (Index on “Caste’’). India in Ferment, p. 187. 5. What do you think of Ghandi’s argument in favor of India’s adherence to her social structure on the ground that it-has existed for 24 centuries and witnessed the decay of Grecian and Roman civilization? References: India in Ferment, especially Chap. V. 6. What do India’s leaders think of caste? References: The Bengalese, July, 1924. fake in Ferment, pp. 227-229. EMERSON, This is India (Asia, March, 1928). III. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS _ 1. Make plaster of paris models of representatives of each of the seven principal families of races in India. 2. Make or paint costume, including headdress and jewelry, most commonly used by men and that employed by women in India. 3. Write an essay on the possibilities of a democratic form of government, like that of the United States, in India. References: MONTAGUE, Self-Government for India (Asia, March, 1923). Democracy in India’s Politics (The Outlook, February, 13, 1924). DAS, Compro- mise or Republicanism in India? (Nation, March 5, 1924). India in Ferment. INDIA - 1925 te CHAPTER THREE WHERE RELIGION RULES India’s greatness is not in stone, or marble, or any externa] thing. It is internal—the flight of its poets, the teaching of its sages, and the mortifications of its ascetics. The ascetic is India’s religious ideal and him: alone will she follow. This is, in substance, Tagore’s description of India’s religious character, during a conference which the famous Bengali poet and sage gave me in his Calcutta home. Brahmanism Brahmanism is the controlling force in the labyrinth of India’s non-Christian religious wandering. Its genius is to hold only a mo- dicum of essential religious notions, with a strange power of grad- ually, almost imperceptibly, absorbing all rival tendencies. The absorption is, however, always at the price of compromise, the mo- dicum of fundamental notions being constantly colored by tthe re- ligions absorbed. Hence, modern Hinduism, which is the latest phase in the evolution of three thousand years of Brahmanism, ranges from gross animism to the highest monotheism. Brahmanism, in all its varying stages and aspects, has been set down in innumerable writings (principally in the Sanskrit language) which in time have become canonized as sacred books. The Vedic Hymns, the Brahamanasg and the Upanishads might be called the three testaments of Brahmanism. The Vedic is the most ancient, and its religious notions resemble those of the Iliad and Odyssey. The Brahmanas are the priestly writings in which the ritual and importance of sacrifice are noted. These two so-called testaments preceded Buddhism. The Upanishads are mystical, philosophical and ‘theological writings of succeeding periods. Perhaps the modicum of religious notions commonly accepted in Brahmanism is twofold, that true knowledge leads to supreme bliss by absorption into God and that an endless cycle of existence (transmigration) is given to man to reach this blessedness. With the introduction of transmigra- tion into Brahmanic religion, the chief emphasis of practical religion was placed on the means of escaping rebirth into lower forms of life. The exclusiveness of the Brahman caste in reserving to itself the ascetic life as a means of eScaping rebirth and thus reaching supreme bliss and itS arrogance in pretending to secure divine favors through bloody sacrifices, when offered by themselves alone, caused a re- ligious revolt which gradually led to Buddhism and Jainism without, however, destroying Brahmanism. 16 INDIA - 1925 Buddhism Historically, both Buddhism and Jainism represent an assault against Brahmanic Supremacy. And since this supremacy hinged on sacrifice, caste and ascetic life, Buddhists and Jains opposed all kill- ing of animals by the doctrine of ‘‘ahinsa’’ (a sacred regard for ani- mal life), disregarded caste restrictions and threw open the door of ascetic life to all, extending its privileges even to the lay people by enrolling them into a kind of third order. The doctrine of ahinsa has left a permanent mark on the character of the Orient, the spirit of “live and let live,’’ even where Buddhism has long since passed away. Buddhism became a State religion under Asoka about 250 B.C., and it was brought to the whole Orient by missionaries at that time. By a strange paradox, Buddhism is practically extinct in the land of its birth, while it flourishes throughout the rest of the Orient. The eleven million Buddhists of the Indian Empire live in Burma, Ceylon and Tibet. In spite of the fact that Buddha’s religion is one of pessimism, without mentioning God, and offering its adherents only the hope of one day being released from pain, notwithstanding the fact that Bud- dhism is only an esthetic veneer which goes well in times of pros- perity but which is abandoned for pagan- gods and demons in the vital concerns of life, the hold of Buddha on the heart-strings of Asia’s millions can be explained only by the remarkably lovable per- sonality of Buddha himself, and, in a secondary way, by the brother- hood of yellow-robed monks who keep ever fresh the ascetic ideal of the founder. Nursed in the lap of oriental luxury, Buddha left all to seek true happiness with the ascetics of his day. Like them he tried, by mor- tifications and meditation, to avoid reincarnation. Suddenly, Buddha became enlightened. Then he announced the fourfold truth: “Life is the vanity of vanities; birth and rebirth are the result of passion and desire; that to escape these evils, desire must be destroyed by what is called the eightfold pact—right belief, right resolve, right words, right acts, right life, right effort, right thinking, right medita- tion.’”’ This gospel Buddha preached, accompanied by extraordinary gentleness, in the neighborhood of Benares for many years. The date of his death is fixed by the latest critics at about 508 B.C. Jainism Like Buddhism, Jainism was a revolt against Brahmanic suprem- acy. For both, Nirvana (blessedness) is the goal, but it has a dif- ferent connotation for each. With the Buddhists it implies extinction, with the Jains, an escape from the body, not from existence. They have practically the same moral laws with the difference that em- phasis is placed on different practices. With the Jains, asceticism is emphasized to such an extent that today it survives in a repulsive form. The Jain monk will never leave hig cell except to take food, INDIA - 1925 Li while the afternoon walk is a part of the Buddhist monks’ daily regime. Buddhist monks carry a ‘‘chastity fan’’ to guard their eyes from passing women, while one branch of the Jain monks go about naked. The Jain is also more careful of animal life than his Bud- dhist brother. The Jain carries a fan of goat’s hair to remove all vermin from the road, lest inadvertently life be taken. For the same reason the clothes of the Jain sect which permits such luxury are cov- ered with vermin. The yellow-robed Buddhist monk is dapper in com- parison. Jainism also differs from its confederate in that it has not absolutely broken with Brahmanism in philosophy and feeling. The result is that the Jains continue to exist in the land of their birth and today count one and one-half million souls. Practically all Jains are merchants for the reason that it is the only occupation in which there is no danger of taking animal life. The chief cities and marts of western India are their strongholds. Modern Hinduism While the non-Brahmanic revolutions were under way, Brahman- ism was not asleep. Its old genius for absorbing rival religious ten- dencies was at work. Gradually the Buddhists were eliminated and the Jalins lived on such friendly terms with the Hindus that now Jains look upon themselves as a Hindu sect. Brahmanism, at the same time, has been colored by the absorption of these non-Brahmanic faiths. Likewise, with the extension of the Aryan supremacy over the aboriginal races, the absorption of the animistic element has gone on to such an extent that the primitive Brahmanic belief has been profoundly altered. The result is that modern Hinduism, which dates back at least to the fifth century of our era, is such a jumble of religious notions that recently the leading Hindu authorities gave twenty-one conflicting definitions of the essential tenets of their re- ligion. Modern Hinduism includes almost every religious notion from animism to monotheism. Abstracting from the various stories and attributes of the thou- sand and one gods in the Hindu pantheon, Hindus today may be classified as worshippers of Siva or worshippers of Vishnu. The former may be looked upon as the conservative and simple element of the population. Siva is conceived of as having charge of the whole course of animated nature, the incessant round of birth and death. His attributes are indicated by the symbols of natural reproduction which are painted in red across the forehead of his devotee and are objects of worship at the principal shrine. Siva needs not the gor- geous ceremonial of Vishnu. A few flowers and water will suffice. Vishnu, on the contrary, has a luxurious ceremonial and lax stand- ard of morals which appeal to the moneyed middle class. The chief characteristic of Vishnu sectarianism is that Vishnu himself is not often worshipped, but one of his many incarnations. Krisna and Rama are the most popular. A third form of sectarianism is found chiefly in Bengal, goddess- worship. Kali is the most popular goddess. Outside of the educated 18 INDIA - 1925 classes and a few leaders, this sectarianism means little to the mass of the people, who are ignorant of the sect to which they belong. The “rank and file’ will worship any g0d whom one deems powerful for good or evil, visit any shrine hallowed by sanctity and follow the advice of his guru (religious teacher), who is usually a member of the ascetic orders, Reforms of Hinduism have been attempted down to our own time. The monotheism initiated by Ram Mohan Roy and the grandfather of Tagore is called the Brahma Samaj. i No description of Hinduism is adequate without a note on the ascetic. The ascetic renounces the world and, more usually, takes his begging bowl and sets out for the northern hills to join the five million holy men and for ten years to live in apprenticeship. Con- templation and mortification are the ascetic’s means of obtaining the coveted escape from reincarnation and eventual union with the divinity. Animism This is the religion of the aborigines, and, although many of them have become Hindus, Buddhists and Mohammedans, their an- cient belief has not only colored Hinduism but still exercises a tre- mendous influence in all non-Christian religions in the real trials of life. The tenets and practices of the Hindus, Buddhists and Moham- medans seem to satisfy the converted aboriginal so long as all goes well, but in difficulties recourse is invariably had to the nats (demons and goblins). The leading features of animism, according to Mr. Risley, the most eminent authority on the subject, are the following: “It conceives of man as passing through life surrounded by a ghostly company of powers, elements, tendencies, mostly impersonal in their character, shapeless phantasms of which no image can be made and no definite idea can be formed. Some of these have spheres of in- fluence of their own: one presides over cholera, another over small- pox, and another over cattle diseases; Some dwell in rocks, others haunt trees, others again are associated with rivers, whirlpools, waterfalls, strangely hidden in the depths of the hills. All of them require to be diligently propitiated by the reason of the ills which proceed from them, and usually the land of the village provides the means for their propitiation.”’ Mohammedanism During our Middle Ages, Mohammedans entered northern India, established first the Afghan and then the Mogul empire, and con- verted many of their seventy million adherents of today to the teach- ings of the Prophet. One-third of India’s Moslems are Bengali. With the collapse of Mogul rule and with the rise of the British’ Raj, the Mohammedans quickly degenerated. Today they are more illiterate than the Hindus. The recent nationalist movement and the defeat of Turkey in the World War, however, have aroused in them a sense of religious consciousness. INDIA - 19255 19 ne pc a a a cr Ad a ro A eS a wv RA IE De OP DL eR oe The belief and practices of the Moslems are based upon their characteristic profession of faith, ‘there is no other God but the true God and Mohammed is His Prophet.” This is the first of the five fundamentals of Mohammedanism. The others are fasting, prayer, alms-giving and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Prayer is prescribed five times a day, at dawn, midday, after noon, sunset and before mid- night. The most notable fast occurs during the month of April. This Mohammedan ‘‘Lent” is called Rumazan. The greatest bless- ings are promised those who keep this feast. Each day of Rumazan, from sunrise to sunset, all eating, drinking, embracing, chewing of betel-nut, smoking, are interdicted. Moslems are obliged to give alms of five things, money, cattle, grain, fruit and merchandise, if any of these things have been in their possession for a whole year. The blessings held in store for those who make the pilgrimage to Mecca are so great that, for the devout Moslem, the idea of one day making this journey is never really out of mind. Round Table Aids for Chapter Three I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS Chapter Issue or Thesis: The ascetic is India’s religious ideal. Prove this by enumerating six facts. II. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 1. How does religion enter and influence the life of India? References: RANKER, The Material Side of Religion (The Edinburgh Re- view, July, 1924). India a Land of Religious Ideals (The Bengalese, September, 1923; also, The Bengalese, July, 1923). 2. What place do pilgrimages hold’ in the religious life of India? References: Hindu, Mohammedan and Catholic pilgrimages (The Bengalese, March, December, 1923, and January, 1924). The Port of Paradise (Asia, Janu- ary, 1924, 8. What is, first, the Jugarnath Car Festival; second, the religious mela? Sf tole LOTI, India, pp. 228-233. The Bengalese, December, 1923, pp. ‘ 4. What are the striking religious features of Benares, India’s most charac- teristic Hindu city? References: The Holy One of Benares (Atlantic Monthly, August, 1924). 5. How does Buddha affect oriental peoples? References: ANDREWS, Where Race Line Ends (in Living Age, August 30, 1924). The Bengalese, March, 1924. 6. What are the kinds, character and importance of asceticism in India? References: The Holy Men of India (Century, November, 1924). See also all references to Question 5 of Special Investigation at end of Chapter One. Ill ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS 1. Make plaster of paris model of Jugarnath Car Festival. For information confer with the Committee of the Vatican Missionary Exposi- tion, Rome, for picture of this model shown at the exposition. ‘See, also, The Ben- galese, April, 1925. 2. Write a short colorful description of Benares, Delhi, Amritzar and Kandy, the religious centers of the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Jain and the Buddhist, respectively. 20 INDIA - 1925 CHAPTER FOUR CROSS-BEARERS THROUGHOUT THE CENTURY \ Unlike Catholic missions in most pagan lands, the history of the apostolate in India not only antedates missionary effort in most of Christian Europe but also holds a special place in every succeeding period of missionary achievement. Saint Thomas Christians The Catholic world was profoundly stirred, in the last century, when the first missionary to follow Commodore Perry’s warships into Japan discovered there a community of native Catholics, descendants of the Japanese converts made by Saint Francis Xavier in the sixteenth century. A price upon their heads, without priests or bishops, cut off from contact with the rest of the Catholic world, these heroic Catholics, held to their faith during three centuries of bitterest persecution. Something of the same sensation must have been felt by Catholic Europe when, in 1498, the Portuguese set foot in India and found along the western coast some 200,000 Christians, with bishops and clergy, churches and chapels, and a well organized Catholic life. While critics dispute whether Saint Thomas was in India, the tradition of the Syriac Christians is unmistakable. At Cranganore on the western coast the Apostle found a colony of Jews. Upon their conversion, they turned their synagogues into churches. The tradition goes on to relate how Saint Thomas converted many Brahmans as well as lower caste Hindus, erecting some seven churches, and ordaining priests and bishops for them. Making his way eastward over the Ghats, the Apostle preached at several places in southern India. He was finally martyred at Mylapore on the eastern coast. His tomb was the most sacred shrine in India until the advent of Saint Francis Xavier fifteen centuries later. Pilgrimages were con- tinously made to it from Malabar throughout India’s Middle Ages. In 3825, at the Council of Nice, a bishop registered as “John of all Persia and India.’’ During the intervening centuries only inter- mittent communications were maintained between the Syrian Chris- tians of Malabar and those of the Near East. It seems quite certain that their bishops came from the great eastern patriarchates, particu- larly Babylon. In 496 the patriarch of Babylon, fell into the Nestorian heresy, and gradually the bishops sent from this see tried to introduce the heresy. These efforts, however, did not affect the rank and file of the INDIA - 1925 | 21 people. Greater trials came with Vasco da Gama’s discovery of a new route to India in 1498. Goa became the new seat of ecclesiastical power in the Orient, and eventually the Syriac Christians were placed under Portuguese jurisdiction. Bishops from a schismatic see naturally caused misgivings at Goa, and Latin bishops were appointed instead. This was resented by the Syriac Christians, and they sought bishops elsewhere. A schismatic bishop, thus selected, was arrested by the Portuguese on his arrival in India. This action aroused such a pitch of feeling that.the Syrian Christians revolted. Pope Alexander VII sent the Carmelites to bring back the Syrians to the fold, and so successful have they been that today the Syriac Catholics number about four hundred thousand. In 1898 Pope Leo XIII gave them bishops of their own nationality and rite, and only this year the reign- ing pontiff created a Syriac hierarchy, the vicar apostolic of Ernaku- lam becoming the first archbishop with four suffragan sees. The Missionaries of Portugal Portugal has the distinction of being the first European nation to inaugurate Christian missionary work iin India, and for a time it seemed that it would be the only Christian power at work in Hindustan. Pope Leo X gave to the Portuguese exclusive privileges of jurisdiction over the land discovered or to be discovered from Cape Bojador in Africa to farthest India; this was the famous Piadroado, or right of patronage, which in succeeding centuries was almost to split the Indian Church. With great energy the Portuguese sought to extend their empire in the East and to convert its pagan millions. The names of Saint Francis Xavier, Robert de Nobili, Blessed John de Britto, Costanzo Beschi, and Antonio Andrada form an immortal galaxy. Though they were not all Portuguese by birth, it was Portugal that assigned them to their field and supported them in their heroic labors. Down the west coast of India and northward along the east coast of Bengal, and even into Tibet, the Portuguese planted commer- cial colonies and missions, and these became the foundation of the Church in India as we have it today. The directory of priests at work in India in our time shows page after page of Portuguese names: Albuquerque, Almeida, Carvalho, Coelho, Costa, Cruz, Dias, Fernandes, Garcias, Menezes, Pinto, Rocha, Silva, and Vaz. No fewer than a hundred and six of the names in the, 1922 directory are Sousa or its variant, Souza. This does not mean that all these bearers of Portuguese names are Portuguese. The majority are rather the descendants of converts made by the Portuguese missionaries centuries ago, who took the name of a beloved priest upon receiving baptism and handed the name down as a precious heritage. Almost any gathering of Catholics in India will show representatives of this inheritance, for the short-lived Portuguese empire in India made an indelible impression upon the land, and especially upon the Catholic community. The story of how this impression was made is one of the romances of history. 22 INDIA - 1925 - Today, by virtue of the last concordat between the Holy See and Portugal (1886), all that remains of India missions under distinctive Portuguese jurisdiction is one ecclesiastical province, the archdiocese of Goa, with Demaun, Cochin, and Mylapore as suffragan sees. To Mylapore are attached about fifteen or twenty missions in Bengal and southern India. The population under the Padroado jurisdiction is one-fifth of the total Catholic population of the land. It includes Goa (325,000), Demaun (87,842), Cochin (108,711), and Mylapore (82.899). Saint Francis Xavier and the Era of Discovery The name of Saint Francis Xavier outshines every other in the story of the marvelous diffusion of the Faith during the ages of dis- covery. He is the ideal missionary. Probably no other man, with the exception of Saint Paul, has done so much to make the Catholic Faith known to pagans. Saint Francis landed at Goa in 1542, having been sent thither by Saint Ignatius at the request of King John III of Portugal. He came in the double capacity of papal legate and royal commissioner, though he made little use of his high powers. Xavier’s first work was the conversion of the demoralized Portu- guese at Goa. He began by catechizing the children whom he assembled by the ringing ofa bell. So effective was the Saint’s apos- tolate that occasionally one of these little converts protested against the crimes he witnessed in such a way as to abash the most hardened ruffians. To catch the attention of his little hearers he set the catechism to musical airs. This novel system has spread to all India, and well do I recall the “Ten Commandments” as rendered by the Bengalee children. The gusto of the singers showed plainly that their hymn was meant to pierce heaven. Some idea of the ingenuity of Xavier’s method may be gathered from the following practice. He used to go among the Portuzuese colonists, sometimes even inviting himself to dine with them. He would profit by these visits to ask for the children, whom he caressed, while treating their mother—often a poor slave—as though she were a respectable lady, speaking kindly to her and even praising her beauty to please his host. When left alone with him, however, the Saint would say, “You have a fair slave who deserves to be your wife.’’ Or, if she were ill-favored, whom the Saint knew the man would never marry, Francis used to exclaim, ‘“‘Good God, what a monster! How can you endure the sight of her in your house?’’ In this way he brought about a Christian union between persons living in sin and, where marriage was impossible, illicit union was dissolved. For three years Saint Francis labored in southern India, first, among a low caste of pearl-fishers at the extremity of the peninsula, and later among the inhabitants of the Malabar coast. The converted fishermen have remained staunch in the Faith and their descendants today glory in the title “Saint Francis Xavier Christians.’”’ The Saint then crossed the peninsula on foot to visit the tomb of Saint Thomas INDIA - 1925 23 the Apostle at Mylapore. There he sought heavenly light for a pro- posed mission to the Malay Straits. Shortly after, Xavier embarked on a sailing vessel from Mylapore. His work in the Straits lasted three years. On his way back to Goa the Saint stopped off to visit his converts of the fishery coast, who were delighted at seeing their ‘Great Father’? once more. He gave a retreat to the missionaries stationed there, urging them especially to study diligently the native dialect and to translate his “Christian Doctrine.” A flying visit to Ceylon resulted in the conversion of a native prince. A year went by at Goa while he made arrangements for a mission to Japan, meanwhile instructing the recruits and untangling the affairs of the Jesuit Fathers. From his arduous but fruitful mission to Japan the Saint returned to Goa in 1552 for the last time. He was now planning a mission to China. Maundy Thursday of the same year, having given his last instructions and advice to the brethren at the College of St. Paul, and having taken part in the beautiful rites and procession of the day, Saint Francis set sail from Goa, never to return. Death came to him on the lonely island of Sancian off the Chinese coast, November 2, 1552. The Successors of Saint Francis In 1570 Akbar, the Great Mogul, dispatched a: letter to the authorities at Goa, asking for theologians to instruct him in the Christian religion. You can imagine the joy this message must have brought to the missionaries. Two learned Jesuits, Aquaviva and Monserrate, were deputed for the mission to the court of the Moslem empire of northern India. They were well received, educated one of Akbar’s sons, but the Mogul’s interest in the Christian religion was found to be more eclectic than practical. The net result of the mission was the favorable attitude of the imperial court to the Catholic Faith and the founding of a mission in Agra which has survived to our own day. Less spectacular but vastly more important was the work done by the Italian Jesuit Robert de Nobili in the Madura district of southern India. He arrived in Goa in 1605, and shortly after was sent to Madura to study Tamil. Within a year he was able to write the new language with ease. Meanwhile he was studying mission methods. He had observed that his superior, Father Fernandez, during his fourteen years in India had not made a single convert among the Hindus. De Nobili’s conclusion was that the Hindus were repelled from the Catholic religion not on religious but rather on social grounds. To their minds, Father Fernandez was a Philistine ag bar- barous as the rest of the Portuguese, eating beef, drinking wine, and consorting with the outcastes. De Nobili determined to try out the maxim of Saint Paul about being all things to all men. MRe-entering the country in the dress of a Hindu ascetic, he introduced himself as a Roman rajah (afterwards as 24 INDIA - 1925 pees he oh ol NANT, bpp. Sh Uigpeey ah [Vt Yes PAIRS ARMA Re NENG SR Need 7 ta a Brahman) desirous of living in Madura to do penance and to study the sacred law. He isolated himself from Father Fernandez, lived on a frugal meal of rice, milk, and herbs, and followed other caste restrictions. The Brahmans were soon very curious, but he was slow to admit visitors, and his audiences were conducted according to the strictest Hindu etiquette. His mastery of Tamil and familiarity with Sanskrit poetry and philosophy charmed his guests. Gradually he won disciples, whom he baptized and allowed to keep the insignia and customs of their ranks as being purely social observances, An average of five thousand conversions was made each year and by, 1700 there was a Christian community of 150,000 in Madura and the adjoining districts. A successor'of de Nobili in the Madura mission, a Portuguese Jesuit, was to be raised to the altar of the Church as the Blessed John de Britto, martyr. Arriving in India in 16738, he crossed the Ghats on foot to reach Madura. He put on the yellow cotton robe of a noble caste, observing its food restrictions and etiquette. Through Madura and Tanjore he tramped On his missionary tours, instructing and baptizing those of good-will, gently arguing with the perverse, suf- fering fatigues, sickness, persecution, and finally martyrdom itself. He had converted a prince in the Marava district, who consented to set aside all his wives save the first. One of these, imitating the Herodias of the Gospel, succeeded in her venegeful aim of obtaining the missionary’s head, which was struck off February 11, 1693. The name of Costanzo Beschi, who labored in Madura during the following century, is remembered for his extraordinary facility in writing the native Tamil. From 1710, when he entered Madura, until his death in 1746, he astonished both Europeans and Indians by his profound scholarship and truly poetic genius. The “Tembavani,” his greatest work, is described by a modern German critic as “the noblest epic poem in honor of Saint Joseph in any literature, East or West.” It is a Tamil ‘‘Divina Comedia.’ In another long poem, ‘‘The Adven- tures of the Guru Kadey,”’ he satirizes with delightful wit and humor the foibles of the Hindu pretenders to wisdom. Missionaries of Propaganda Up to 1637, all missionary work in India was conducted under the patronage of Portugal. This was by virtue of the so-called “Padroado,” the right of patronage, arranged by a concordat between the Holy See and the Portuguese government. By it the Holy See conceded the right to nominate bishops for eastern sees to Portugal, which in turn, agreed to secure missionaries and support them in the field. The magnitude of Portuguese achievement is not underesti- — mated when I say that the hugeness of the task of converting India was too great for any one European power whose sun of oriental empire had already set. This was shown in a most essential element of apostolic enterprise, namely, the supply of missionaries, which by 1700 had practically come to a standstill.’ It was clear that this method INDIA - 1925 25: of conducting Catholic missions in the Orient would have to be sup- plemented. The newly organized Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide (1622) and European mission schools became the chosen means. The first Propaganda vicar apostolic was a Brahman convert from Goa, Matheus de Castro. He was educated at the Propaganda College in Rome and joined Saint Philip Neri’s new community, the Oratorians. He was consecrated bishop in 1637, and the territories of the Great Mogul were committed to his charge. A kinsman of his succeeded him as vicar, and in 1695 Italian Carmelites were placed in charge. The name of the Great Mogul was dropped when the British took over Bombay. It became known as the Bombay mission. At the request of the Carmelites, the Jesuits took over the mission in 1850. The second vicariate was that of Malabar. To win back the Syriac Christians who, as has been noted, refused to accept bishops of the Latin rite, a band of Italian Carmelites were sent to effect a reconciliation in 1657. Failing in this, the Pope appointed one of the Carmelites as vicar apostolic and withdrew the Saint Thomas Christians from the Padroado jurisdiction. This arrangement prevailed, with occasional modifications, until the Syriac Christians were given vicars apostolic and, in 1924, a hierarchy of their own. The present archdiocese of Verapoly, with its suffragan see of Quilon, on the Malabar coast, are the outgrowth of the old Malabar vicariate. The Hindustani-Tibet mission was begun by Italian Capuchins in 1703. It included the northern domains of the Great Mogul. From 1704 to 1808, thirty bands of Capuchin missionaries came out to India, varying in number from two to twelve. From this old mission- have come the dioceses of Agra, Allahabad, Lahore, Ajmere, and Simla, still in charge of Capuchins, plus a newly constituted diocese of Patna, recently confided to American Jesuits. French Jesuits and missionaries of the Paris Foreign Mission Seminary began operations from Pondicherry, the French colony founded by Bishop Palu, in 1674, and went westward as far as Malabar. This work was seriously hampered by the ruthless persecu- tion of the savage Sultan Tippoo of Mysore. Torture and death were used to effect the forcible conversion of Christians to Moham- medanism. Perhaps ‘tthe most striking personality of these French missionaries was the scholarly Abbe Dubois, who reached Pondicherry in 1792. To him was assigned the difficult task of reconciling the unfortunate Christians perverted by the Sultan Tippoo. At the capital alone he won back eighteen hundred apostates. For twenty years or more, he labored in Mysore, adopting the natives’ dress and social customs, to win their confidence. His agricultural schools, and his service in promoting vaccination against smallpox show his missionary statesmanship. During his leisure hours, the Abbe wrote down his observations on Hindu customs. The manuscript was translated into English and published in London by the Hast India Company in 1816. 26 INDIA - 1925 “This is the honestest book of the time,’ the poet Coleridge wrote on the margin of his copy, ‘as written by a Frenchman, that I have ever read.” With him agree scholars and statesmen of East and West down to our own day, for the book is still a classic. The French Revolution and the suppression of the Jesuits cut off the supply of missionaries to such an extent that, for want of priests, the Faith waned and died out in many a neglected field. In 1834 Gregory XVI tried to reorganize the wreckage and sent new recruits into the field. The restored Jesuits he sent to their old field, Madura. To Bengal, Madras, and Ceylon he gave new vicars apostolic, and many other vicariates were established and entrusted to the new missionary societies and congregations which sprang up at the time: the Oblates of Mary, Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, the Milan Foreign Mis- sionaries, Mill Hill, and the Congregation of Holy Cross. The difficulties between the Padroado and Propaganda mission- aries, where the two jurisdictions overlapped, caused many disedifying conflicts. A settlement was arrived at in 1886 when the Indian hierarchy was established. The two jurisdictions were limited within definite boundaries. The archbishop of Goa was made patriarch of the East Indies, with the suffragan sees of] Cochin, Mylapore, and Damaun. A series of isolated mission centers in southern India and in Bengal were attached to the diocese of Mylapore. With the excep- tion of the Syriac Province, all the other dioceses, vicariates, and prefectures apostolic were placed under Propaganda and are today administered by that Sacred Congregation in Rome. The benefit of these ecclesiastical arrangements in India may be judged from the results of the past fifty years. These years have been more productive of conversions than the previous three hundrd and fifty. From a total of 1,310,000 Catholics in 1871, the Church has grown to more than 3,000,000 in 1924. American Missionaries Last to arrive on the Indian scene were the missionaries from America. There are only two American societies that conduct mis- sions in India, the Congregation of Holy Cross and the Jesuits. The Congregation of Holy Cross has been in Bengal (present diocese of Dacca) since 1853. Up to 1903, when the mother house of the society was transferred from France to the United States, the American participation in the Bengal mission amounted to little more than the supplying of three bishops, Monsignors Louage, Hurth, and Linenborn, and a dozen missionaries. Since then, however, the two American provinces of the United States and Canada practically supply all the mission personnel. “The Bengalese,’’ a foreign mission monthly publication in behalf of Holy Cross missions, was founded at Holy Cross College, Wash- ington, D. C., in 1919, and, through the friends of this periodical, a special foreign mission seminary was opened in September, 1924, for those theological students of Holy Cross who volunteer for missions INDIA - 1925 ; 27 through a fourth vow. The Sisters of Holy Cross have also been associated with the Holy Cross mission by opening an establishment in conjunction with the Foreign Mission Seminary,.where they assist in the publication of ‘The Bengalese’ while preparing for the apostolate. As a consequence of the World War, a second American com- munity came to India. In 1916 the American Jesuits were called upon to send men to take the place of the German Jesuits repatriated or interned by the British Government in Bombay and Poona. The Maryland-New York Province of the Society sent four Fathers and two scholastics, who remained until the war was over and were then recalled to the United States. All returned save one scholastic, Henry P. McGlinchey, S.J., the brother of the well known director of the Propagation of the Faith in Boston. Young McGlinchey had lain down his gallant life in the service of the mission at Karachi in the Bombay Archdiocese. The Missouri province sent their quota of four priests, Fathers Westropp, Bennett, Kieffer and Rudden, and these remained in India, for in 1919 the Holy See assigned to the care of the Missouri Jesuits the newly -constituted diocese of Patna. In January, 1921, a fresh band of five priests departed from St. Louis to begin work in the new mission, and the other four Fathers in Bombay have been gradually transferred to Patna. An experienced Belgian Jesuit from Calcutta, Monsignor Louis Van Hoeck, who made a brilliant record in organizing Choto Nagpur’s school system, was appointed as the first bishop of Patna. The “Patna Mission Letter’’ gives bright news of the Jesuit mission in India. This periodical is published monthly at St. Louis. The two American mission fields, at Dacca and Patna, are both on the Ganges, only three hundred miles apart. Hardly fifty mis- sionaries in all, this little group forms the pioneer nucleus of what Wwe may hope will one day be a noble army of American priests, brothers, sisters, and lay missionaries in the land of the Indus and the Ganges. Round Table Aids for Chapter Four I. GENERAL INVESTIGATON AIDS Chapter Issue or Thesis: Unlike Catholic foreign missions elsewhere, the apostolate in India not only antedates the proclamation of the Gospel in most of Christian Europe, but also holds a unique place in every succeeding period of missionary achievement. Prove this by enumerating six facts. II. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 1. Was Saint Thomas in India? References: Catholic Encylopedia, article “‘The St. Thomas Christians’’ by Bishop Medleycott. MEDLEYCOTT, India and the Apostle St. Thomas. THURSTON, Review of Father Dahlman’s “Die Thomas-'Legende’’ (The Month, August, 1912). The Bengalese, April, 1922, p. 5. : 2. Who was Robert de Nobili, S.J.? References: DEHMEN, Robert de Nobili. ‘Catholic Encyclopedia, article “Nobili.”’ CASTETS, The Madura Mission. 8. Who was Costanzo Beschi? References: HOUPERT, Life of Father Beschi, S.J. (I. C. T. S. pamphlet). MIRANDA, Robert de Nobili (I. C. T. S. pamphlet). 28 INDIA - 1925 4. What evidences of at-homeness do the Catholics of the Risener tee Rite manifest ? References: GILLE, Christianity at Home in India. 5. What is the story of Portuguese discovery in India? ‘Reference: JAYNE, Vasco da Gama and His Successors. 6. What are the leading facts about Catholic American mission work in India? References: The Bengalese, Vols. I-V. Various editions of Patna Mission Letter. MATHIS, With the Holy Cross in Bengal. Ill ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS 1. Model a bust or paint a picture of Saint Francis Xavier, or write a drama or an essay about this modern apostle of the East Indies. References: Lives of Saint Francis’ Xavier by M. T. Kelley, and by Father Martindale, S.J., in the series: ‘In God’s Army—Commander-in-Chief.”” SETH- SMITH, The Firebrand of Zs Indies. Saint Francis Xavier’s Method (The Month, December, 1922). CHAPTER FIVE HOBNOBBING WITH THE MISSIONARIES The missionary One actually meets in Hindustan is more or less true to the types demanded by the various stages reached in the Cath- Olic occupation of India. The Vicar and the Chaplain The Portuguese missions were founded in the first instance to minister to the spiritual needs of Portugal’s traders and soldiers. In this, other colonizing nations followed Portugal’s example. The modern missionary inherits these legacies, which have survived in the form of parishes, over which is placed a vicar and military and railroad chaplaincies, whose chaplains administer to the descendants of Europeans and Anglo-Indians. These duties are much the same as those of similar posts in Christian: lands. There is another form of parish which has a different origin, the natural development of the mission center which had been established é&mcng converts from non-Christian belief. In the selection of mis- sionaries to act as vicars and often as chaplains, the policy of giving these posts to native priests, thus permitting the foreign missionary to work among the pagans, is followed in some dioceses. Missionary Work from Catholic Centers The type of missionary one meetS most frequently in India is a priest who is in charge of a mission center built up by on’e means or another in the past, from which the missionary works out into virgin soil. Some of the converts from the old centers, driven by famine or other economic causes, move away in search of a better livelihood. These wandering sheep the missionary must seek out and fortify with the sacraments. Thus, besides his flock at the central station, where he sometimes has the services of sisters in the schools, the missionary will come to have a score or more of sub-stations over INDIA - 1925 : 29 which he places a resident lay catechist who does everything but administer the sacraments—a few families in one village, an entire village farther on, and so on around the circle. The care of such a scattered Catholic population, living in an atmosphere which is satu- rated with traditional pagan superstitions, leaves missionaries of this type little time for organized effort on a large scale among the pagan population. : Yet, every missionary has abundant opportunity of making contact with pagans which will be utilized according to each missionary’s zeal and capacity. A marriage, a baptism, or a funeral afford opportunities which the missionary uses to preach the Catholic Faith for the benefit of interested pagan spectators. His very ar- rival in a village is sometimes an event attracting pagans along with the Faithful. In some districts he is besieged by callers who come, like Nicodemus, in secret, to inquire after the Christian religion. In other districts he is invited to accept the hospitality of the humble pagan villagers. Other opportunities come with his work of adjusting disputes, administering cholera specifics, giving advice and establish- ing cooperative banks for the Indian peasant who is ground into serf- dom by money sharks and merciless landlords. Missionaries to the Pagans This is of course the glorious work on the front line trenches upon which every true missionary has fixed his heart. Hardly any two conversions happen in precisely the same way. Accordinzly, there are no laws or formulas for convert-making, save only that of the true apostle, to try to save others by saving first himself. Then, when things look blackest, the miracle happens, and a movement to- ward the Church, sometimes of whole villages, has begun. The Choto Nagpur mission of western Bengal, conducted by the Belgian Jesuits of Calcutta, required many years of suffering and misunderstanding, of brave battling in the courts of the land for the rights of peasants against money sharks and landlords. Then suddenly the peasants began to respond. More quickly than elsewhere the response became a movement, so general in its scope that within ten years after it was initiated, from 1910 to 1920, the major portion of more than a thou- sand converts from paganism were not only baptized but also ele- vated socially, economically and educationally to a degree for which there is no parallel anywhere in modern missionary work. Then again a movement toward the Church may be started at the initiative of pagans, or it may have its origin in the enemies of the Catholic name. An especially consoling example of such a sponta- neous decision occurred in the Dacca Diocese about fifteen years ago, among the Garo hillsmen, during the administration of Bishop Hurth, of Dacca. A delegation of Garos traveled one hundred miles to ask the bishop for a priest to instruct them in the Catholic Faith. This was impossible at the time. So the bishop gave them a supply of cate- chisms and prayers printed in Bengali and promised to send a priest when he would be able to do so. The Garos returned to their homes 30 : INDIA - 1925 and told the story of their kindly reception among their neighbors. On their next visit to Dacca they knew their prayers by heart and their catechism word for word. In 1914, under Bishop Linneborn, a resident missionary was given them, and today a small mass move- ment is under way. The Missionary’s Lieutenants—The Lay Catechists The fewness of missionaries and the limits to the endurance of every missionary, even could he find the time to be always on the tour of his scattered flock and were there no rainy season to make travel impossible, makes it imperative for him to find some sort of lay assistants. It is to the native catechist that he turns for aid. A trained and salaried lieutenant, the catechist can be employed in the preparatory and follow-up stages of the missionary’s task. If he is unable himself to respond to the call of a family or a village for in- struction, it is the catechist whom he sends. Having prepared the family or village for the visit of the missionary, the catechist remains after their baptism to instruct the neophythes more fully in their new faith. He is thus the mainstay of the Christian villages during the long, enforced absences of the missionary. No mission can extend its work very far without its band of catechists. Many catechists are but little more advanced in knowledge and morals than the neophytes whose instruction is confided to their care, and the proper training of the catechetical staff is one of the foremost of missionary problems. In many dioceses a central training school has been opened for the benefit of the old and the new catechists. As an example of the methods followed in these schools we may cite the regulations adopted by the Jesuits of Choto Nagpur in their new schcol at Tongo. Each of the twenty-one stations in the mission is allowed to send one candidate, who must be a married man with cer- tain prescribed preparatory experience. The candidate brings his wife and family and is assigned a cottage for his use during the ten months’ session. While the husband follows the classes in the school the wife receives instruction from the sisters of Tongo Convent. The men study catechism, Bible and Church history, apologetics, hymns and common agrarian law. The women take up catechism and Bible history, the writing of ordinary legal deeds and keeping of bank ac- counts, elementary medicine and hygiene, gardening and needlework. The successful candidates receive a certificate at the end of the course which entitles them to a salary of at least ten rupees a month. Every year in August the graduates return to Tongo for a retreat and further instructions upon the difficulties experienced during the year. Mission Incubating—The Schools Closely allied and sometimes identified with the catechists are the mission teachers. Schools are a necessity for missionary work in that they are the only practical means through which children can be assembled for a training in the Catholic religion. Schools are INDIA - 1925 31 en i en le eal ER EY a Le ee ey SP also the surest agency for raising the standard of Christian converts and of attracting pagans. Schools and orphanages may be said to create Christian communities. Everywhere the people of India are eager for an education, which is indeed a luxury in a land where there is no universal or compulsory educational system. The experi- ence of one of the American missionaries in Patna illustrates this phase of missionary penetration very clearly. The missionary, Father Westropp, S.J., was recently assigned to the district of Choohari, and this is the report that he gives of his first tour around his new field: “T found the two hundred Christians here very nice people and willing to do almost anything I told them. Choohari lies like a little Catholic island in a sea of Hinduism. Upon inquiry I found that a large percentage of the population were outcasts and that they would ultimately not object to the Christian religion if we could supply them with schools. So I visited the various villages, of which there are hundreds in the neighborhood, and all showed their anxiety to have a school. Our object will be not to bother much with the old people but to teach the children the prayers and the Christian religion and bring them to church. “On market day I went over to the bazaar and I espied a nice little boy there running about. I gave him a copper, which he prompt- ly invested in a quart of plums, and I received a quart of affection in return. He is now an almost inseparable companion. By such devices I have opened a way into the children’s hearts. They now rather stay here than at home. “The next day I went over to a fishermen’s village nearby and I placed Saint Feter ‘in charge of their task. They, too, wanted a school. With Father Joachim we flew over the country on our bicycles, at which the children shouted with glee, as very likely they had never seen any animal like that before. Wherever we went we found very happy and affectionate children, all anxious for a school. “We should really have two scholastics (why not brothers?) to organize the schools here properly. We should also have, a con- vent of sisters somewhere up here, for they could open up a good English school. There is no getting away from the fact that the person who knows English is always the top dog anywhere out here and that he can always get higher pay and get much more authority.”’ Native Clergy and Religious India has almost aS many native priests as Japan, China and Indo-China combined, about fifteen hundred, and yet these are not nearly aS many as are necessary to administer to the Catholic popula- tion of the land. If the proper number were available, greater prog- ress could be made in the conversion of the country, for it would free many of the foreign missionaries, now serving the Catholic pop- ulation, for pioneer work among the non-Christian people. The em- phasis laid on the fostering of native clergy for India has been due 32 INDIA - 1925 largely to the providential insistence of Pope Leo XIII on this point. To crystallize his efforts in behalf of the native clergy, this Roman Pontiff established the papal seminary of Kandy and later that of Puthenpally in Malabar. The Kandy institution already numbers six Indian bishops among its alumni.. Besides these theological semi- naries there are some twenty-two others. Almost every diocese fol- lows some organized efforts in recruiting the native clergy and in fos- tering religious life. There are about three thousand native sisters in the land, and almost every religious order and congregation that is engaged in missionary work has a novitiate for priests and brothers. The most common institution, for recruiting not, only native priests and religious, but also lay catechists and lay teachers is the “apostolic school.” In Indo-China they use a more colorful name for this institution—the ‘House of God,’’ whither all those who wish to enter the divine Service come to complete their education and to be chosen for the special service for which they have an apitude. Father John Delaunay’s apostolic school at Bandhura, in the Holy Cross mission, is a good example of these institutions. The apostolic students live in a separate establishment close enough to our best jungle high school to enable them to attend its classes. All are ex- pected to finish the high school course, which approximates the first- year studies of our American colleges. The spiritual training goes hand in hand with the intellectual. The close contact of the director with the students enables him to pick those who are Suitable for the clerical and religious state from those who should be married and serve the missions as lay teachers and catechists. At the end of the course the Selection is made, the clerical and religious students en- tering either the seminary or novitiate and the prospective lay cate- chist and teacher being married off. Round Table Aids for Chapter Five I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS Chapter Issue or Thesis: From the types of missionaries one meets in India. it is clear that the total force of foreign missioners cannot be devoted, to the con- version of pagans until native priests can be recruited in sufficient numbers to eare for the Catholic population, Prove this by enumerating six facts. Il. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION, QUESTIONS 1. How are mass movements to the Catholic Church actually started in India? References: The Bengalese, May, 1924, pp. 8 ff. Van Der SCHUEREN, The Belgian Mission of Bengal. 2. How do boys and girls study in India? References: TAGORE, My Reminiscences. DAY, Bengal Peasant Life, Chaps. XII, XVII. 3. Who are the lay catechists, how are they trained and what mission work do they do? References: The Bengalese, January, 1922; April, 1923. India and Its Missions, pp. 224 ff. Catholic Missions, October, 1920. 4. What is the character of India’s first native religious orders for men, the Carmelite Tertiaries of the Syro-Malabar Rite? ! References: Catholic Encyclopedia, article ‘‘Verapoly.” GILLE, Christian- ity at Home. MIRANDA, A Native Indian Clergy. _ ,5.. What is the character and work of a native sisterhood among the ab- Dates #8 7 Ags eferences: an Der UEREN, The Belgi issi ; i NEEion eM doe Thea ee: gian bat ies of Bengal. Catholic INDIA: - 1925 33 III. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION Write a biography of the typical India missionary of today. References: The Bengalese, January, 1921, p, 70; March, 1925, pp. 6 ff. Van Der SCHUEREN, The Belgian, Mission of Bengal. CHAPTER SIX . THE WHITE ANGELS OF THE JUNGLE The unique opportunity which India offers to missionary women grows out of womankind’s place in Indian society. Behind the Purdah _ “Purdah” (‘“‘gosha” in the south) literally means veil or curtain. When applied to Indian social life it designates the barriers which were erected by the Hindus, at the time of the Mohammedan conquest, ‘to shield the lives of their womenkind from the view of all men not of the immediate household. In the Hindu home the women occupy special quarters called the ‘‘zenana,’ and when they appear in public they are veiled, the higher the caste the more complete the veiling. The Hindu home opens almost always southward. The zenana is in the northern section of the house. The separation is effected by a veil, or by a corridor, or by a curtained vestibule. If the owner is rich, the women’s quarters are often built around an open court. Even among the poor of the lower castes an open space in the village or “‘bari’ is usually sacrosanct to the women. Life in the Zenana All the women and girls of an Indian household. comprise the membership of the zenana. As a householder’s sons bring their spouses to the paternal bari, the women folk of the zenana vary in number. Ten would be a good average. The queen of the zenana, and for that matter of the home, is the wife of the patriarch. So potent and universal is the sway of the house-mother over her own daughters and over her daughters-in-law that her virtues and foibles supply the bright and funny side to almost every piece of native literature. Every zenana usually has several] venerable ladies, grand- mothers, aunts, or widows of the household. Perhaps they, more than any other agents, are the most powerful forces of Hinduism, for they constitute a kind of family inquisition, scenting innovations and insisting upon practices hallowed by hoary tradition. The first thought of an Indian maiden on waking in the morning are of God, voiced in the ejaculation: “Ram, Ram, Sita, Ram.’ Ram is a god and Sita is the model Hindu woman. After rising, the first act is to pour water in liberation of the spirits of the dead who may 34 INDIA - 1925 be lurking around the tulsi plant or before the household gods whose images are placed on the family altar, which is often only a shelf in the corner or a niche within the wall. The wealthier Hindus have a private oratory. There is also frequently an oratory for, the whole population of a village. A cheerful procession of the zenana inmates then winds its way to the river, creek, or tank for the morning bath, which is prayerfully and modestly made without removing the sari. At this time the statues of the household gods and goddesses aré piously bathed. For higher caste zenanas, the procession and bath are veiled from public view by enclosures, The bath over, women and girls return to the zenana to pare and slice vegetables and to prepare the rice, ghee, and condiments for the mid-day meal. This, as well as all work that can possibly be so done, is performed by women seated either on mats or on low wooden platforms. The meal is then cooked, but before tasting it the whole household takes another bath, and then repairs to family altar or oratory for a short prayer (usually for some temporal favors). If time permits, a portion of the sacred books is chanted. The favorite zenana books are the epic Ramayana, the Gita, and the, Lachmi Puran (the story of the goddess of luck). Frequently also other “pujas’’ (acts of worship) are performed, especially “arti” (the offering of fire). This is offered to various deities, accompanied by the ringing of a bell which announces the puja to passers-by. In the evening the fire is carried through the house and incense is placed in it to drive out the evil spirits. Louder bell-ringing announces another puja, the feeding of the gods. A tithe of rice is each day set aside for this purpose. After the gods have been attended to, the family assembles in the courtyard, if possible, for the mid-day'meal. The men and boys of the house are served first, with the utmost devotion, by the women. The women and girls patiently await their turn: The time is often taken up in feeding apart small boys and girls and also by learning riddles from some venerable dame. The inmates of the zenana eat in a small enclosed square in the kitchen. This is a sacred place into which no alien foot may tread. After the mid-day meal the men either go back to their work or more frequently to sleep, and the women, of the zenana assemble on a mat to sew. While they sew one of the older ladies reads from a book, teaches reading and writing, or tells a tale until sleep stills her tongue. From noon till early evening, at least during the warm weather, all nature, even the crow, nods. Between three and four o’clock the house-mother arouses the zenana for the work of the evening. ‘‘Pan”’ is first prepared. It is a narcotic leaf, smeared with catouchan and slacked lime, and in it are wrapped chopped betel nuts and spices. A clove is stuck into the leaf to hold it-together in a three-cornered billet shape.. Pan is eaten everywhere and at all times. The rice is then husked, or grain is INDIA - 1925 35 ground into meal. The children’s and girls’ hair is oiled and combed. Such great pains are taken with the hair that the art of plaiting is one of the zenana’s principal sources of rivalry, jealousy, and tears. When the preparations for the evening meal are well under way, the older women oil and dress their own hair. The same care and fuss is shown by the grown-ups in the adornment of their black tresses. The widow alone sits by with shaven head to make sugges- tions and to help others adorn what is denied her by Hindu practice. After sunset, there is the evening bath. The gods, too, must be bathed again and put to bed. The altar is covered and the oratory is closed for the night. The twilight is spent in garden, courtyard, on the roof or terrace. This/is the time for folk-lore in the zenana. Children and girls crowd around the most elderly of the women for the story. An oft repeated tale or a new one is told. The eager listeners follow with open eyes and mouths the strange oriental stories of which we have some glimpses in Aladdin with his lamp and Ali Baba with his forty thieves. The evening meal is much like the mid-day, curry and rice, except that the former is a bit lighter. When the meal is over, the zenana either retires to rest or gathers for playing cards or “pachisi.” There is a variety of card games, and pachisi is played with counters on a board which resembles a Maltese cross. At last, night and sleep overtake all, and the zenana is at peace. India’s High Priestesses Life within the zenana, as described in the preceding paragraphs, is so highly spiced with religious acts that it will not be necessary to enlarge upon the subject here. Yet the singular fact that Hindu religious devotion is so largely ruled from the zenana must be pointed out and the source of this power noted. Practical Hindu life is the faithful carrying out of a system of minute regulations that rules meat and drink, all the natural functions and personal wants of the body, dress, recreation, coming and going, and every want, ordinary and incidental, of each life. There are exact rules for birth, betrothal, marriage, and death. The women, especially the elder and aged, are the hinges on which these rules depend. By circumscribing woman’s education and activities to the narrow limits of the zenana, religion became woman’s only outlet and recre- ation, her only wand of power. Opportunity for Women Missionaries | The opportunities of women missionaries grow out of the zenana and woman’s power in the field of religion. It is clear that the con- version of purdah women cannot be effected by missionary men, foreign or native. As men, they are barred from the zenana. Mis- sionary women, on the other hand, may enter behind the veil. With a good knowledge of the language, and with a little aptitude in the corporal works of mercy, contact can be established by them between 36 INDIA - 1925 the Church and the zenana. The conquest of the zenana is also practically essential for subsequent missionary work among the men folk of the Hindu household, for as high priestess of Hinduism the woman will see to it that no other religion save the one which meets her approval will be tolerated. The Work of the Missionary Sisters The institutional relief of destitution and suffering in orphanages, leper asylums, dispensaries, homes for the aged, and for widows, hospitals, and convent schools of India is largely in the hands of nuns, both Huropean and Indian. There are over sixty different communities of sisters at work. The following list of institutions may be informational: foundling asylums, 12; orphanages, 202; homes for aged poor, 23; widows’ homes, 17; leper asylums, 6; dispensaries, 68; and hospitals, 6. ‘Besides the six Catholic hospitals, there are eleven government hospitals in which sisters or Catholic lay nurses have charge of various departments. Of course, it must be borne in mind that, besides institutional relief, a great deal of charity is performed by the individual missionary which in the aggregate amounts to much more than the former. “Nine-tenths of the children brought to the creche are poor, miserable weaklings,’’ writes Bishop Cappius of Kumbakoman, ‘‘whom death has already marked with its seal, and it is their good angels that have brought them in order to make little paradise-thieves of them.’ In one year six thousand of these dying babies were baptized by the Sister Catechists of Mary Immaculate in their six dispensaries and while on tour in the diocese of Kumbakonam. The Little Sisters of the Poor maintain homes for the aged in five Indian centers where they care for from five to six hundred persons, gathering the necessary support for them by daily begging. The Franciscan Missionaries of Mary also have similar institutions. The cheerful family spirit of the poor old people at their Mylapore home and the sisters’ work in rescuing the aged women of Bombay slums touched me deeply. | A special social problem of India is that of the widow. According to Hindu teaching, the widow, by her sins, is the cause of her hus- band’s death. Formerly she was burned alive on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband. She is therefore an object of reproach, assigned to a corner of the Indian hut and forbidden to remarry. The prevalence of child marriages leaves thousands of girls widows at an early age. Their only means of support is to seek employment in large cities, which often involves grave moral dangers. To meet this problem, at least ten dioceses have established homes where widows can find shelter and suitable employment. Workshops for husking rice and weaving cloth are attached to some homes. So successful has this apostolate been that an order of nuns, recruited only from widows, has been established at Trichinopoly. INDIA - 1925 37. The Catholic Medical Apostolate.is better organized in India than perhaps in any other pagan land. The word ‘‘apostolate” is deservedly applied to the labors of the ‘medical missionary. The quiet of a hospital ward, seconded by the cheerful and prayerful example of the sisters, induces many a patient to review the state of -his conscience and to seek a reconciliation with God, while pagan and Protestant patients are led to ask for the healing waters of baptism. Thus, the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, in charge of the pauper wards at the Colombo General Hospital, are instrumental in” effecting the baptism of about nine hundred patients each year. ae A special phase of the medical apostolate in India is the work among Hindu women, who for the most part are secluded behind the curtains of the zenana and who prefer death to medical treatment by male physicians not of the household. The Sister Catechists of Mary Immaculate specialize in this work, through their Gosha Hospital at Kumbakoman and their dispensaries, which are of two types— stationary and traveling. During 1921 these Sisters paid thirty thou- sand visits to sick women of zenanas, besides treating 13,220 cases at their five dispensaries in the Kumbakoman Diocese. Both from the medical and from the religious point of view, the traveling woman’s dispensary is the thing for India. The Lay Woman Missionary At present the only practical work for lay women missionaries in India is the medical apostolate. There are two foreign missionary doctors and four foreign missionary nurses in the field. Dr. Anna Dengel is an Austrian young lady who studied medicine at the Uni- versity of Cork, Ireland, and, after receiving her degree, took a posi- tion at St. Catherine’s Hospital, Rawal Pindi, Punjab. This hospital 1s at present directed by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, and it was established by the pioneer in the modern medical apostolate for Catholics, a convert, Dr. Agnes McLaren, who went to India as a mis- sionary when she was past eighty years of age. The other doctor is Catherine O’Connor, M.D., a young Irish physician and surgeon, who went out to India as a medical missionary in February, 1923. Dr. O’Connor is stationed at the Gosha Hospital of Kumbakonam. The four nurses are the pioneer Catholic medical missionaries from the United States. They are serving in a government hospital at Akyab, Arakan, Burma, a part of the American Holy Cross mission to India. The nurses went out in the fall of 1924 under the joint auspices of the Holy Cross missions and of the Medical Mission Board of the Catholic Hospital Association of the United States and Canada. Round Table Aids for Chapter Six I GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS Chapter Issue or Thesis: There is a unique opportunity at present for the woman missionary in India. Prove this by enumerating six facts. 38 INDIA - 1925 Il. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 1. What is the status of woman in India? References: CATTEL, Behind the Purdah. Indian Women of the Outside (Asia, October, 1924). z. Why is Gonesh the favorite god of the zenana? References: Behind the Purdah, pp. 17 ff. Indian women of the Outside (Asia, October, 1924). 3. What), are the striking, characteristics of Indian folk-lore? References: The Singing Voice of India (Asia, October, 1924). Du BOIS and BEAUCHAMP, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies. 4. How are marriages arranged and celebrated in Hindustan? Keferences: ‘Ihe Bengalese, February, 1921, p. 93; April, 1924, p. 7. Asia, April, 1924. (Behind the Purdah, pp. 77 ff. 5. What is the position of the widow in the Indian household? References: The Bengalese, August, 1922. Behind the Purdah, pp. 42 ff. and 88 ff. In the Indian Mofussil (Asia, June, 1924). 6. What is the status of the Catholic medical apostolate in India? References: India, a Medical Survey (Catholic Hospital Progress, February and March, 1924. KEELER, India, a Medical Survey (‘Catholic Medical Missions). Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION Write a short story taken from Indian folk-lore for The Shield. References: The Bengalese, November, December, 1924; February, 1925. CATTELL, Behind the Purdah., CRIAR CE RSSEMEN CATHOLICS AND SOCIAL ACTION Every nation and tribe is at home in the Catholic Church. The divine mark of Catholicity makes it so. Another divine mark makes Catholics one, in doctrine and morals. And yet each nation expresses the one true doctrine externally in its own way, which often varies throughout the world. Catholics as You and I The striking diversity and contrast in India’s population and country are reflected in the Catholic population of India, as in everything Indian (on a national scale). To complicate things still further, the tnree bodies of Catholic Indians, Syriac, Padroada, and Propaganda, are each relatively strong and tenacious of their rights. And yet, in spite of diversity and difference, the Catholics of India are much like the Catholics the world over. The south of India is farthest advanced in diocesan organization, while the north remains, for the most part, in the difficult pioneering stage. Three-fourths of the Catholics of India live south of a line drawn west from Cafcutta to Bombay. The one particularly bright spot in the north is the Choto Nagpur plateau, in the archdiocese of Calcutta, where what is known as a mass movement has developed, within forty-three years, a flourishing community of almost 200,000 converts. INDIA -.1925 39 The Oriental Atmosphere of Catholic Indian Devotion Among the Syriac Christians the Church has long been “at home” in a distinctly Indian setting. This fact was brought home to me ina striking manner at a High.Mass in Trichur. The sanctuary choir was accompanied by typical Indian musical instruments, drums, cymbals, and other contrivances which, to the western ear, would be good noise-producers. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of Catholic devotion for all India is the pilgrimage. I had the happiness of witnessing the greatest of these, the pilgrimage to the miraculously preserved body of Saint Francis Xavier at Goa, on the occasion of the most recent exposition of this missionary’s hallowed remains. The pilgrimage meant a journey of more than a thousand miles by railways, steam- boats, and bullock carts. At almost every railway station in Mysore we met groups of pilgrims who were en route either to Goa or returning from the exposition. ‘Phe Catholic atmosphere of these groups was most attractive. The pilgrims said their morning and evening prayers aloud, and huddled together at night to suffer patiently the cold of these Deccan highlands. The closer we approached to Goa, the more frequent were the groups, until event- ually the returning and the newly arriving pilgrims formed an almost unbroken procession. Each family carried its own babies, cuisine (several brass and earthern pots), and bedding. The exposition grounds were literally swarming with pilgrims. Some idea of the numbers may be gathered from the fact that a daily average of 12,000 kissed the feet of Saint Francis’ holy body. The Church of the Bom Jesu, once the chapel of the Jesuit com- munity in Goa, is distinguished by the fact that it contains the beau- tiful marble tomb of Saint Francis Xavier. During the exposition, however, the gold and silken coffin is ‘removed from the tomb and placed in a golden catafalque. In the catalque itself there are large apertures for glass windows through which One can easily see the incorrupt body of the Saint. The lower end of the catafalque is opened at seven in the morning and closed again at sundown. It is here that the pilgrims come to kiss and touch their religious articles to the body of Saint Francis Xavier. The incorrupt body of the Saint and the daily miracles about the catafalque created an atmosphere of the miraculous. It is prac- tically impossible to ascertain the number of miracles wrought at this exposition of the Saint’s body, because the crowds were so huge, each pilgrim was left to shift for himself, and the Indian piety prefers to keep such heavenly favors as profound secrets. Mr. Pais, the secre- tary of the Catholic All-India Conference, told me, however, that he witnessed the deposition of two cures of blindness, before the Goa Medical Station, as well as one cure for lameness. The latter miracle received much publicity because the favor was granted to the brother of a well known Bombay physician, Dr. Jacob D’Sousa. 40 INDIA - 1925 Modern Troubadours One of the gifts of the Indian is a capacity for improvising poetry, and this he turns to account in learning and expounding his Faith. During the long evenings of Lent or the happy festivities of Christmas week, the younger men of a Christian village enact religious plays in which the dialogue, though based upon the Scripture narative, is often improvised on the spot. Even the questions and answers of the cate- chism are elaborated and chanted rather than recited, a practice which often constitutes one of the items in a village:celebration of any kind. It is said that Saint Francis Xavier began this interesting way of teaching Christian doctrine. Father Desrochers, C.S.C., tells some interesting stories of his cathechists and their talent for improvisation: “This Indian facility for improvising finds frequent expression in our training school for cathechists at Toomiliah. Here the catechists, having mastered the necessary dogmas of Catholic Faith, are given an opportunity for practice in explaining what they have learned. Teaching catechism, giving instructions, answering questions, are the ordinary forms made use of, but the ‘passalie’ is the favorite of the young students. “This is a catechetical:-joust, a dogmatic combat, in which the catechists, divided into two opposing forces, seek to vanquish their opponents by proposing questions beyond the latter’s learning. It is more than a prosaic disputation, since the responses are in verses, improvised then and there, and sung to the melody of some familiar song. Cooperative Banks Seventy-three per cent of India’s population lives from hand to mouth, from the soil. If the monsvon fails or arrives prematurely, the peasant’s little crop of rice is a failure. So small is the margin of profit that the sudden death of a bullock with which he cultivates his small acreage is nothing short of a calamity. For the money with which to buy a new bullock, he must apply to the rapacious money- lender, whose rate of interest varies from 37% to 150 per cent. Within a few years these exorbitant interest rates make a serf of the peasant. To help his people and to secure a hearing among the pagans, the missionary must turn banker. From one charitable source or another he accumulates a little capital, and with it he proceeds to establish a paddy bank, or something equivalent. Father Maurice Norckhauer, C.S.C., gives a brief explanation of how he undertook to meet this situation among his people in the marsh lands of south Bengal: , “With the money you sent me I have bought paddy (unprepared rice), almost a ton of it. Later I will give this over to some poor widows to husk. They will get about one-fourth of it for their work, another fourth will disappear ag waste husks, and in the end I will have nearly half a ton of prepared rice, which will be worth almost twice the amount of your donation. INDIA - 19215 41 “At rice harvest-time the people are short of money. They have plenty of rice, but no cash to buy cloth and other necessary articles. The rice merchants buy all the rice the people will sell, and they get it at a low price. But as-the year goes on, the people will run out of rice and} will have to buy. The merchants then make a tremendous profit. “There is where I come in. I sell the rice which I have bought and had prepared, and sell it without the rice merchant’s exorbitant profit. The profit that I do make goes, in turn, to the relief of other very poor people—and there are none poorer than these people of mine. I am looking after the widows and the children especially. Now you know where your money is going and what it is doing.”’ Other Lay Associations Assisting the missionary priests and nuns in the noble task of relieving misery and destitution are a large number of societies of laymen, some of which are branches of associations common to all Catholic countries, and others peculiar to India. The St. Vincent de Paul Conferences are an example of the international type of socie- ties. In India, Bombay has the largest number of conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, the first having been organized at Bombay as far back as 1862. Today there are twenty-seven conferences in the Presidency, giving relief to the deserving poor in food, clothing, and money to the value of about 12,000 rupees annually. There are seven conferences in Calcutta, three in Hyderabad, and others in Nagpur, Ceylon and Burma. Visiting the poor in their homes, assisting the needy, and caring for neglected youth, constitute the principal works of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in India. Still more numerous are the sodalities of the Blessed Virgin, which are established in every diocese and are now in process of being united into a_ federation of sodalities for all of India. A monthly organ, the ‘‘Morning Star,” is published for the sodalists at Trichi- nopoly, South India, and has a circulation of nearly three thousand. Many sodalists engage in social welfare work. But perhaps the most important activity of the sodalists is the publication and distribution of the hundred-odd tracts of the Catholic Truth Society of India. In the Wake of the Marian Congress One of the first national gatherings of Catholics anywhere in the Orient was the Marian Congress, held at Madras in January, 1921. Nearly every diocese and vicariate was represented by its most eminent Catholics, ecclesiastical and lay. The object of the Congress was to do honor to the Mother of God and to promote Catholic social action. In achieving the latter end, perhaps the outstanding accomplishments are the organization and subsequent programs of the All-India Catholic Conference and the movement now under way at Calcutta, Hyderabad, and other centers to promote the investigation of social problems through Catholic and social study clubs. 42 INDIA - 1925 The programs of the All-India Catholic Conferences include papers on the legal disability of Catholics, many varieties of Catholic cooperative societies, missionary crusades, educational associations, a Catholia news service, and social study clubs. One of the chief promoters of the social study clubs is Father Gille, S.J., the brilliant editor of the ‘‘Catholic Herald of India.’’ He has published, among other Works, three textbooks for the members of his Calcutta social study clubs: ‘‘The Catholic Family,” a ‘Dictionary for Social Students,’”’ and ‘“‘A Christian Social Crusade.’ The Catholics of Bombay have also taken a praiseworthy part in what is perhaps the most gigantic social work of any municipality, the housing of the homeless thousands who flock to this city to secure employment. Round Table Aids for Chapter Seven’ I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS Chapter Issue or Thesis: The Catholic Church is at home in every tribe and nation. And yeti each nation expresses the one true doctrine externally in its own way, which often varies throughout the world and is peculiarly interesting in India. Prove this by enumerating six facts. Il. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 1. What are the legal disabilities of Catholics in India? References: The Bengalese, June, 1925. SALDANHA, Civil Ecclesiastical Law in India (I. C. T. S. pamphlet). 2. To what extent do caste restrictions survive among Catholics in India? References: India and Its Missions, pp. 278 ff. To Defend the Cross (story of the Fourth General Convention of the Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade at the University of Notre Dame, 1923) pp. 65, 66. 8. Is the body of Saint Francis XKavier preserved miraculously ? References: GILLE, To Xavier’s Tomb. The Bengalese, March, 1928. The Miracle of the Body of St. Francis Xavier (I. ‘C. T. S. pamphlet). 4. What was the character, purpose, and achievement of the Marian Congress? References: Catholic Missions, May, 1921, pp. 99 ff. The Bengalese, April, RSPB lei oy sa hes fie 5. How do cooperative banking and insurance societies function on the foreign missions of India? References: Catholic Missions, February, 1922, pp. 36 ff. The Bengalese, April, 1922, pp. 7 ff. Van Der SCHUEREN, The Belgian Mission of Bengal. 6. Note the oriental atmosphere of Catholic religious celebrations. References: The Bengalese, September, 1922; March, 1923; December, 1924, Van Der SCHUEREN, The Belgian Mission of Bengal. GILLE, Christianity at Home in India. Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION Write a paper on the Catholic social study clubs of India and how they function. References: The Bengalese, July, 1925. GILLE, The Catholic Family. GILLE, A Dictionary for Social Students. GILLE, A Christian Social Crusade. INDIA - 1925 43 CHAPTER EIGHT CATHOLIC MISSION METHODS In India, on account of tremendous contrasts and great differ- ences, geographical, racial, social and linguistic, it is impossible to designate any one particular mission activity or method as being the most important for conversion to the Catholic Faith. We may, how- ever, characterize some six principal activities as being well fitted to extend God’s Kingdom under the peculiar conditions of this land. Care of the Native Catholic Population First of all, there is the care of the native Catholic population which numbers about three million souls. To administer and safe- guard this population and to fit it for its own peculiar mission serv- ice, in an atmosphere that is charged with age-old pagan traditions and superstitions, a large staff is required. Normally, this shepherding of the flock should be done by a native ministry. But, as a matter of fact, on account of the inadequate supply of native priests, many of the foreign missionaries must devote themselves to this work. It must not be inferred, however, that strenuous efforts are not being made to recruit the native clergy. In fact, on no other foreign mission field has such a concerted effort been made as in India and with more success. Pope Leo XIII insisted on the education of the native clergy to such an extent that he himself established two papal seminaries, Kandy and Puthenpally. There are altogether twenty- two theological seminaries with aS many preparatory schools. Yet, it is a striking fact, brought out by the 1925 Catholic India Directory, that the Indian clergy are not being recruited in what ought to be normal numbers, i. e., in a sufficient supply to care for native con- verts, thus allowing the foreign missionaries to engage in distinctly foreign mission work. From a missionary point of view too much attention cannot be given to the native Catholic population, because, as Pope Leo XIII has put it, it will only be the sons and daughters of India who will bring salvation to the teeming multitudes of this land. Hence, Indians themselves must be fitted to act as ambassadors of Christ. Catholic Indian educational, social and missionary societies are being organized and they are constantly doing’ much to translate into the convincing language of action the beneficent doctrines ef, Christ, Educational Missionaries In order that the Catholic population of India be safeguarded, it is essential that the missionaries weed out superstition. The only practical weapon to reach this end is the village school. It ought 44 INDIA - 1925 not to be required in America. to show the necessity of Catholic schools in a land like India. If we Catholics find it necessary to es- tablish and maintain a great parochial school system for the purpose of training and safeguarding the children of traditionally Catholic people in a Christian country, how much more necessary is not the Catholic school for children whose parents know little of the Catholic Faith and who live in an intensely pagan atmosphere? The official Government Indian Year Book for 1922 says of Catholic education: “The Roman Catholic Church ig honorably dis- tinguished by much activity and financial generosity in this respect. Her schools are to be found throughout the length and breadth of the Indian Empire; and they maintain a high standard of efficiency. The Anglican Church comes next, and the American Methodists have established some excellent schools in the large hill stations.’’ Catholic higher education is thus shown to be in fairly good shape. What is needed now, according to Father Gavan Duffy, is more teaching brothers, like the Brothers of the Holy Cross, who will supervise Catholic village education, both the normal schools for the training of native teachers and the work in the field, 6 Mission to Aborigines and to the Depressed Classes The aborigines are the descendants of the natives who were in the land when the Aryan invaders came, about the time in history when Moses led the. Israelites into the Promised Land. The Aryans separated themselves from the black-skinned aborigines by strict caste laws. They then sanctified these social restrictions by throwing about them the mantle of religion. There are about sixteen million aborigines and more than fifty-five million of the depressed classes. The latter are either outcastes or people of the very lowest caste. Missionary work among the aborigines and depressed classes pre- sents many opportunities for conversion in almost every one of the thirty-five dioceses and vicariates of India. The methods used are very simple, for these people have only a crude religious culture, which suffers by comparison with anything higher, as these straight- forward people readily see. In Choto Nagpur the conversion of aborigines has developed into perhaps the greatest mass movement toward the Church in modern mission history. Here, within the past forty-three years, upwards of two hundred thousand natives have been baptized. They have not only been baptized but they have been elevated educationally, socially and economically to a degree that is absolutely amazing. In almost every instance of mass move- ments the first contacts have been made through some humanitarian aid, such as procuring justice for the aborigines in the courts of the land, cooperative banking associations, etc. Just at present the aborigines in almost every mission field of India can easily be reached and can be converted in as great a number as we have missionary forces to throw into this glorious undertaking. As Father Gille, S.J., editor of the ‘‘Catholic Herald of India,” says this opportunity should be seized now while the seizing is possible, INDIA - 1925 45 7 geeeeaeba cats seniletlleanlli: nla celia ales ARMS a ee I Be ra a AE for in the India of the future converted aborigines and outcastes will be a power through the elevating influence of Christianity. Catholic Missions to the Caste People of India The third kind of missionary work in India is VeECVEGittieculiamele is the work among the castes, those classes into which social and re- ligious barriers separate the Hindu people one from the Other, and yet, these are the best representatives of India’s ancient religious cul- ture. This work has just begun anew. - This seems strange, after three or four centuries of mission work in India. Yet the explanation is simple enough. There are so many calls for missionaries to attend to the Catholic population or to go to the aborigines and depressed classes that it is often physically impossible to take up the more difficult mission to the caste people. I remember one Section of the Bengal mission where there are fourteen villages in a very small compass. These villages have been calling on us for the last three or four years to come to them and to bring to them the light of our holy Faith. Obviously Catholic missionaries will go first to those who are calling for them before they take up work among people who resent their coming. Perhaps the only great inroads the Catholic Church has ever made into the higher castes of India are by the natural growth of the population of the Saint Thomas Christians on the Malabar coast and by the method adopted by De Nobili, in the seventeenth century, and by his modern protagonist Upadhayaya, who died in 1910. One was a foreign miSsionary, the other a brilliant Bengali publicist and conver... The Saint Thomas Christians today number more than four hundred thousand and the average annual number of converts of De Nobili was five thousand. Upadhayaya’s missionary work lay in the field of journalism, debate and asceticism. He held public disputes with the leading Hindu controversialists of his time, initiated the first and only Catholic theological review India ever had, and, not- withstanding restrictions both ecclesiastical and civil (for the novelty of his doctrines caused misgivings and he was a swarajist), he did much to show Catholic missionaries that India. would be led to the foot of the Cross not by an indiscriminate condemnation of Hinduism but by a patient study of Hindu philosophy and social culture, by re- moving, through the emphasis of the catholic character of the Cath- olic Church, the popular Indian conception that Christianity is west- ern, and by the missionary coming to India in the garb and practice of the ascetic, India’s religious ideal. The Brotherhood of Catholic Indian Sannyasi (ascetics) which he founded still lives on, in Spirit at least, in the person of Animananda, one of Upadhayaya’s first disciples, who conducts in Calcutta an Indian school on Catholic lines but for high caste Hindu boys, similar to Rabindranath Tagore’s fa- mous school at Bolpur. Substantially the same method of approach to Hinduism was lived cut in the life and is now written down in the autobiography of Father W. Wallace, S.J.. who came to India a Protestant minister and 46 INDIA - 1925 who was led to the Catholic priesthood in his search to find the kind of spirituality that alone satisfied his Indian converts. Although De Nobili, Upadhayaya and Father Wallace have all since passed away, their missionary method survives in Bengal in a new school of Cath- olic thought whose mouthpiece is ‘‘The Light of the East.” Belonging to the same movement and coming to his conclusions independently of, and without any contact with the Bengal group, is Father Pessin, whom I accidentally met in Washington a year ago and who amazed me with the theme of a book which he is publish- _ing now in India. The author will show in his new work that, through Max Mueller, Dawson and other occidental scholars, the western world has been given a false notion of Hindu philosophy, especially in exaggerating the fact of the universal prevalence of the pantheistic element and by refraining from bringing to light the monotheistic. Father Pessin’s conclusions touched, just the point ‘on which I found myself utterly incompetent to pass judgment, and which, nevertheless, is of crucial importance for determining the merits of this new school of Catholic thought, which uses, however, the method of a missionary of the seventeenth century, the only method that has successfully made any large inroads into the ranks of high caste people, and which, I suspect, is also the method of Our Lord and Saint Paul. One of the most eminent Catholic Scripture scholars of the world, Doctor Meinertz, of Muenster University, Germany, who has already made important contributions to Scripture-mission study, will investigate the merits and demerits of this Suspicion of mine. This is also the place to note that Catholic mission scholars of Europe, especially those at Muenster University, which has several chairs of Mission Science, have taken up the study of the problem of the proper ap- proach of Christianity to Hinduism, and they have already produced two important works, ‘Swami Upadhayaya” by Doctor Schmidlin, and ‘‘Robert De Nobili, S.J.,’’ by Dr. Peter Dahmen, S8.J. In spite of the laudatory manner in which I have described the so-called mission method of De Nobili, I must note here another method of approach to high caste Hindus. It rejects the idea of ac- commodation between any conceptions in Hindu philosophy and Cath- olic thought, which is the characteristic feature of De Nobili’s method, for the reason, according to Father Hull, S.J., the late editor of the “Bombay Examiner,’’ that there is complete antithesis between them. The second method, accordingly, discards the so-called stepping-stones to Christianity in Hindu philosophy, and teaches the Catholic doc- trine in the simple words of the catechism. Perhaps the most suc- cessful employment of this method is at St. Mary’s Tope, a compound in Trichinopoly, where Brahman converts are received and enabled to live according to the regulations of their caste. Medical Missions and Women Medical Missionaries There are six Catholic hospitals in India, six medical missionary doctors, four Catholic American missionary nurses and many nuns in charge of nursing departments in Government hospitals, while INDIA - 1925 47 dispensaries range from well equipped and adequately staffed in- stitutions to the humble medicine chest of the missionary in his jungle hut. Asa matter of fact, practically every missionary, priest, brother, sister and lay catechist and teacher in India does medical work ac- cording to his or her ability and means. Of the six medical mission- ary doctors, three are foreign missionaries: Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart, of the Convent Hospital, Guntur; Doetor Anna Dengel, of St. Catherine’s Gosha Hospital, Rawal Pindi; and Doctor Catherine O’Connor, of St. Anne’s Gosha Hospital, Kumbakonam. The other three doctors are Indians, two Good Shepherd Sisters at St. Martha’s Hospital, Bangalore, and Doctor Fernandez, who is all that remains of Father Mueller’s Medical Brotherhood at Father Mueller’s hospital, Mangalore. In view of the widespread medical distress in India and of the disheartening inadequacy of the present medical personnel to relieve that distress, it must be clear that more medical relief of every de- seription is desirable. From India’s viewpoint, whether we approve of it or not, med- icine is bound up with religion, and medical practitioners will be looked upon as religious forces by the Indians. Hence, India offers the missionary a distinct advantage for the decisive moment of his relations with the people (namely, the introduction), if he comes to them as a medical missionary. With one portion of the population, the seventy-odd millions of Mohammedans, medicine is our only practical opportunity for even a hearing in behalf of Christianity. From the Catholic point of view, there is not only nothing against our missionaries going to pagans equipped as highly as possible with medical relief; there are strong, poSitive reasons for such action: (a) medical relief is a corporal work of mercy, and as such its prac- tice is recommended by God Himself; (b) the genius of Christianity, according to Our Lord’s own words, is charity (‘““By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another’’); and since medical relief is a form of charity, it is at the same time one of the most gracious forms through which Christianity can be revealed to pagans; (c) so frequently did the Master Himself use the method of charitable medical relief in His missionary work, that there is scarcely a page of the Gospel which does not chronicle medical aid to the Jews of His day. The appalling infant mortality in India has an importance for the church, as Mr. Rebello, founder of the Catholic All-India Conference, pointed out. Through the medical apostolate many of our Catholic infants can be saved to swell the number of the Faithful. Through medical missions, also, thousands of infants and even adults are bap- tized in the hour of death and not infrequently these denizens of heaven secure the conversion of their families on earth to the Cath- clic Faith. In spite of all the Government can do to prevent petty bribery on the part of minor native officials and servants in civil hospitals 48 : INDIA - 1925 and dispensaries, the evil goes on, and free medical aid is, as a matter of fact, not free. In practice, a native is never sure of getting what he calls “good medicine’ unless he pays for it by a petty bribe. Asa re- sult, both from the point of view of finance and of confidence, facilities offered by medical missions are patronized much more fre- quently than Government institutions. This country presents another unique difficulty. Respectable women will, on no account, submit to examination by a medical man. In many districts, Mohammedan and high caste Hindu women ob- serve gosha or purdah (veiled from public view) and may not even be seen by a strange man. Missionary women: alone can enter be- hind this veil, and if they have the added service of medicine at their command they can make a favorable contact for the Church with India’s women folk who in many ways rule, from their barred en- closures, the practical religion of their households, The Marks of Sanctity on the Missionary One idea to which I have referred again and again in this short study of India is one that I first learned from the lips of the famous world-poet and oriental sage, Rabindranath Tagore; the idea was con- firmed by other Indian leaders and by innumerable writings. Leas that India’s religious ideal is the sannyasi, the ascetic. Perhaps the full import of the idea can be grasped best by describing my inter- view with Tagore. Among many questions, I asked why it is that many of the Indian leaders were opposed to Christian missionaries. Tagore smiled in- quiringly and then asked if I would be offended in the event his reason would not prove complimentary to the missionaries. I assured the poet that he could speak out his mind frankly. He then ex- plained how the achievements, the science and the ideals of the West, great as they were in themselves, do not appeal to the Indian, because the West too often overemphasizes the materialistic at the expense of the spiritual. Then he used a beautiful phrase, “‘India’s greatness is not in stone or marble or any external thing. It is internal—the flight of its poets, the teaching of its sages and the mortification of its ascetics. The ascetic is India’s religious ideal and him alone will she follow.’’ d In our own day perhaps the most convincing proof that Hindus- tan can be surely led by one who measures up to this ideal is given in the spontaneous way in which more than three hundred million human beings follow Gandhi whom India reveres and follows because she thinks he is a “Mahatma” (a saint). : It is also a most striking fact that those missionaries who have had the marks of sanctity upon them, men like Saint Francis Xavier and Robert de Nobili, have made the largest number of converts in India. The progress now being made shows that there are mod- ern uncanonized missionary saints. Sanctity is indeed India’s chal- lenge and opportunity to the Catholic missionary. INDIA - 1925 49 rae Scan ATID Di ees Round Table Aids for Chapter Eight I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS Chapter Issue or Thesis: In India we ma activities as being well fitted to extend God’s tions prevailing in this land. Prove this by enumerating six facts. Il. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 1. What is the problem of the native priests and their course of training in India? References: India and Its Missions, pp. 282-291. Catholic Educational Review (India, Burma, Ceylon), Christmas, 1925, pp. 65 ff. MANNA-McGLINCHEY, Con- version of the Pagan World. MIRANDA, A Native Indian Clergy (i Coat aS. pamphlet). Student sports in India. Reference: The Bengalese, January, 1924, pp. 16-17. 3. How is a mission to the aborigines begun ? References: Catholic Encyclopedia on Choto Nagpur mission under term “Caleutta.”” The Bengalese, May, 1924, pp. 8 ff. 4. What was Robert De Nobili’s mission method ? References: DAHMEN, Robert de Nobili, S.J. Catholic Encyclopedia. MIRANDA, Robert de Nobili’s Mission (I. C. T. S. pamphlet). 5. What is the value of Catholic medical missions in India? Reference: KEELER, Catholic Medical Missions, pp. 105-164. 6. Does the effect of nationalism on Christianity offer any timeliness to the methods of Upadhayaya’s school at the present time? References: SCHMIDLIN, Swami Upadhayaya. International Review of Mis- sions, July, 1923, pp. 321 ff. Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION Write an essay or conduct a debate on the following subject: The mission method of De Nobili, that is, the principle of accommodation, should be followed by Catholic missionaries in approaching the high caste peoples of India today. References: SCHMIDLIN, Swami Upadhayaya. DAHMEN, Robert De Nobili, S.J. WALLACE, From Evangelical to Catholic by Way of the East. HULL, The Great Antithesis. Catholic Encyclopedia, article on Robert De Nobili. Van TYNE, India in Ferment. International Review on Missions, July, 1923, pp. 321 ff. y point out six principal mission Kingdom under the peculiar condi- CHAPTER NINE THE RENT IN THE GARMENT The history of Protestant missions in India has a special inter- est to the American public for the reason that our countrymen have played an important part in the movement. The Pioneers (1792-1813) Although Swedish and Danish Protestants took up missionary work in India as early as the Battle of Plassey (1758), no consistent missionary enterprise was successfully launched till the arrival in Calcutta of a young Scotch Baptist, William Carey, on November 11, 1793. The hostility of the East India Company to all missionary efforts within its territory forced Carey to begin his work at Seram- pore, in Bengal, which was then under the jurisdiction of the Danes. This settlement was, however, made only six years after Carey’s ar- rival in India, when an American ship brought other English mis- 50 INDIA - 1925 sionaries, of whom Marshman and W. Ward became the most emi- nent. In fact, these two and Carey are known as the ‘‘Serampore TTL Ons Carey had been a .cobbler, Ward a printer, and Marshman a school-teacher. But all three were men of strong personality, true courage and heroic diligence. Carey became such a brilliant student of Sanskrit, Bengali and Marathi that he was appointed pro- fessor of these tongues at the newly founded English Government College in Calcutta with the handsome annual salary of almost six thousand dollars. With this salary the ‘‘SSerampore Trio” built a strong mission center in this Danish oasis of Bengal. Ward, following his own craft, set up a printing press to publish such oriental works of Carey as Sanskrit dictionaries and grammars, a Bengali newspaper and translations of the Bible, and even scientific books. The school- master Marshman established two important schools. In spite of the fact that these activities were only indirectly missionary in character, they supported the mission centers which were subsequently founded. In fact, it was the unique purpose of the “‘Serampore Trio” to support by the labor of their hands and brains their missionary movement. The Baptist Missionary Society, which had been founded by Carey in the home country before his departure for India, finally took over the property and the numerous missions of the “‘SSerampore Trio.” Carey died in 18384. Advent of the Great Missionary Socicties From the Charter to the Mutiny (1813-1857) Besides the ‘“‘SSerampore Trio,’”’ there were other Protestant mis- sionary pioneers, but these came out largely under the direction and authority of home missionary societies. Perhaps the most eminent of these pioneers was Ringeltaube, a German, who had, through the aid of a Sannyasi, made a splendid beginning among the Shannans of Tranquebar on the ‘Madras side. This was also Danish territory. Ringeltaube came first to Calcutta, under the auspices of the Society ° for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, but the East India Com- pany made it impossible for him to do anything there. Accordingly, he joined the London Missionary Society and went 1o Tranquebar. The fight in. the home Parliament at London to force the East India Company to admit missionaries into its territories was waged for many years, and it was only at the renewal of the lease in 1813 that the coveted right was wrung from the company. The permis- sion was limited, however, to English missionaries. It was not until almost fifty years later that missionaries of other lands were allowed to work in India. Besides the Baptist Missionary Society of William Carey’s crea- tion, there were others, the General Baptist Missionary Society, founded in 1816, which limited its labors to Orissa, and the London Missionary Society. The latter kept its mission in Tranvancore and opened up new ones in Bengal. Side by side with these two great INDIA - 1925 51 ante he ec calles ak Sa RRR SMR ag ns er Oe eda, ES