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In Search of an Indian Christianity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
1 Nostra Aetate is to be understood within the wider context of other Conciliar documents, especially the Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity (Ad Gentes). The continuing need for inculturation into Indian (and other Asian) traditions is recognised and encouraged by recent documents such as Ecclesia in Asia (1996) and Fides et Ratio (1998).
2 See, for example, Arulsamy, S., ‘Latin Church in India: Question of Identity and Present Challenges,’Jeevadhara Vol. XXXIII No.196 (2003), 289-309Google Scholar and D'Souza, Archbishop in Amaladoss, M., John, T.K., Gispert-Sauch, G (eds) Theologizing in India (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1981), 14-20Google Scholar
3 Mundadan, A.M., ‘Hindu-Christian Dialogue: Past Twenty-five Years,’Jeevadhara Vol.XI No. 65 (1981), 375-394Google Scholar; The Jesuit theologian Redington likewise distinguishes between a ‘first generation’ of Hindu-Christian dialogue emphasising intellectual and spiritual engagement and a ‘second generation’ movement emphasising liberation and social transformation.
4 ‘Towards an Indian Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism: Our Ongoing Search.’ Statement of the Indian Theological Association Thirteenth Annual Meeting, 1989’ in K.Pathil (ed), in Pathil, K. (ed) Religious Pluralism: An Indian Christian Perspective (Delhi: ISPCK, 1991), 338-49Google Scholar; 340. The papers and statements of the Association for 1988 and 1989 are contained in this volume.
5 A major influence on the work of Indian theologians in this regard is the work of the Sri Lankan theologian Aloysius Pieris. He argues that any genuinely Asian liberation theology has to promote both human liberation and interreligious dialogue. Pieris, A. An Asian Theology of Liberation (New York: Orbis Books, 1988)Google Scholar.
6 The Indian terms used present problems for pronunciation. Instead of introducing diacritics I have used standard versions of these terms when current. Other terms are simply left without diacritics.
7 A sophisticated study of this is in Barnes, M. S.J. Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (Cambridge: CUP, 2002), 133-181CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 In a standard study of the evolution of Indian Christian theology, Robin Boyd depicts Christian theologies in India, Catholic and Protestant, as generally leaning either to Advaita or bhakti. In Boyd, R. An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 1974), 252-3Google Scholar. For the history of and theological reflection on Christian encounter with Hindus see especially Coward, H. (ed) Christian -Hindu Dialogue: Perspectives and Encounters (New York: Orbis Books, 1990)Google Scholar; Brockington, J. Hinduism and Christianity (London: Macmillan, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robinson, B. Christians meet Hindus (Delhi, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 Hardy, F. Viraha Bhakti: the Early History of Krisna Devotion in South India (Oxford: OUP, 1983) 13Google Scholar.
10 Ibid. 13-17
11 Fides et Ratio refers to and calls on Indian Christians to engage with these intellectual and spiritual traditions, ‘Our thoughts turn to Eastern shores, which have been enriched from of old with ancient traditions of religion and philosophy. Amongst these India takes a prominent place. An immense spiritual impulse compels the Indian mind to an acquiring of that experience which would, with a spirit freed from the distractions of time and space, attain to the absolute good. It is in this process of seeking for liberation that the great metaphysical schools are constructed. This is the time above all for Indian Christians to unlock these treasures from their inheritance which can be joined to their faith and so enhance the richness of Christian teaching.’ (FR 72)
12 For an outline and discussion of neo-Hinduism see Halbfass, W. (ed) Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta (Albany: SUNY, 1995), 227-350Google Scholar and Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding (Albany: SUNY, 1988), 197-262Google Scholar. The terminology of neo-Hinduism and neo-Vedanta is taken from Hacker. The same movement is often referred to as the Hindu renaissance or Hindu reform, or as modern Hinduism.
13 Dhavamony, M. The Love of God According to Saiva Siddhanta (Oxford: OUP, 1971), 1Google Scholar
14 Visistadvaita is ‘non-dualism of the differentiated,’ usually, but misleadingly, translated as ‘qualified non-dualism.’ Dvaita is ‘dualism.’ There have also been a number of other theistic Vedantic systems, especially the Dvaitadvaita or Nimbarka and the Suddhadvaita of Vallabha.
15 For the life and work of de Nobili see A. Sauliere SJ His Star in the East, revised and re-edited by S. Rajamanickam SJ (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1995). For a description and appraisal of the missionary period of encounter, including de Nobili see Halbfass (1988) 36-53. For de Nobili as a model for a modern intellectual encounter between Christian and Hindu theology see F.X. Clooney SJ Hindu God, Christian God (Oxford: OUP, 2001), 3-7 and as a model of inculturation see Barnes (2002), 143-53
16 For the life and work of Upadhyay see Lipner, J.J. Brahmabandhab Upadhyay: The Life and Thought of a Revolutionary (Delhi:OUP India, 1999)Google Scholar
17 Lipner (1999), 178-204, 255-280
18 G.Thibaut The Vedanta Sutras of Badarayana with the Commentary By Sankara, Sacred Books of the East Vol 34 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890), ix-cxxviii. Upadhyay, for instance, used Thibaut and his early views on Advaita were informed by Thibaut's introduction, which reflects the understanding of Advaita being put forward at the time, though without the admixture of the more constructive elements introduced by the neo-Vedantins. Thibaut commends Shankara's commentary as expressing the orthodox Brahmanical theology, as philosophically the important product of Indian thought, as most generally thought to be the right understanding of the Sutras and Shankara's school as that to which the majority of the best thinkers of India have belonged.
19 The main writings of Johanns on the Vedanta are gathered in Greef, T. de, Patmury, J. (eds) The Writings of P.Johanns, To Christ through the Vedanta Vols 1 &2 (Bangalore: United Theological College, 1996)Google Scholar, is an English translation of Vers le Christ par le Védanta, Louvain: Museum Lessianum, 1932), being the collection of a series of articles which were originally printed in the journal, The Light of the East (1922-34) edited by Johanns and Georges Dandoy. Articles on Hinduism by these and other Jesuits of the same and subsequent generation are found in the various stages and reprints of Religious Hinduism (3rd edition, Mumbai: St Pauls Press 1996), edited by Smet, R. de, Neuner, J.Google Scholar.
20 Grant, S. RSCJ Sankaracarya's Concept of Relation (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999)Google Scholar; Grant, S. RSCJ Towards an Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Non-dual Christian (edited by Malkowsky, B.J.) (ed, University of Notre Dame, 2002)Google Scholar
21 Malkovsky, B.J. (ed) New Perspectives on Advaita Vedanta: Essays in Commemoration of Professor Richard de Smet S.J. (Leiden: Brill, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Personhood of Samkara's Para Brahman in Journal of Religion 77 (1997), 541-562.
22 Panikkar, R. The Unknown Christ of Hinduism (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1964)Google Scholar. In the second edition of this book (1981) Panikkar moves away from the idea of the Vedantic account being brought to fulfilment or completion in the Christian one towards the idea that both traditions represent complementary insights into the divine Mystery.
23 Panikkar (1964), 126-131; (1982), 155-162
24 Lipner (1999) 205
25 For an outline and exposition of the work of Monchanin, le Saux and Griffiths see Trapnell, J. in ed. O'Mahony, A., Kirwin, M. (eds) World Christianity: Politics, Theology, Dialogues (London: Melisende, 2004), 257-284Google Scholar; Grant recounts her own experiences in (2002), 63-78.
26 Grant (2002), 63-78.
27 This parallel was first explored by the neo-Hindu Keshub Chandra Sen (1838-84), followed by Upadhyay who composed a Trinitarian hymn in Sanskrit. This hymn is still used today in the Indian Church.
28 Abhishiktananda, Swami (Henri le Saux) Saccidananda: A Christian Approach to the Advaitic Experience (1974), the translation and second edition of Sagesse Hindoue, Mystique Chrétienne:du védanta a la Trinité(1965). Like Panikkar, Abhishiktananda has moved from a fulfilment to a more complementary account of the two traditions.
29 Influential and short introductions to Advaita include Deutsch, E. Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1968)Google Scholar, M, Hiriyanna The Essentials of Indian Philosophy (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1995 (Indian Edition), 151-174Google Scholar.
30 For an account of the various schemes for distinguishing reality in Advaita see Hacker in Halbfass (ed) (1995), 137-154.
31 Upadhyay himself initially rejected Advaita on the basis of the version he found in Thibaut. Lipner (1999), 133ff.
32 Johanns (1996), 10-18
33 Johanns (1996), 186-206; 32-33.
34 Lipner (1999), 255-280. Upadhyay directly rejected the account found in Thibaut. Instead, he argued for a set of correspondences between the Thomist and Advaitic correspondences between the accounts. In Lipner's view, however, Upadhyay's basis for arguing such convergence is an often loosely defined Advaita that had been previously re-read in neo-Scholastic terms.
35 The life and work of de Smet is portrayed in Malkovsky (2000), 1-17.
36 Grant (1999, 2002) has further articulated de Smet's lines. Some western Indologists, such as Hacker have also wanted to distinguish between genuine and spurious works of Shankara and between Shankara and later Advaita. See Halbfass ed. (1995). De Smet knew Hacker's work, though he wanted to go further towards a realist reading of Shankara.
37 De Smet, R, Religious Hinduism (1996), 80-96. Also see‘Sankara and Aquinas on Creation’Indian Philosophical Annual 6 (1970)Google Scholar; ‘Is the Concept of Person Congenial to Sankara's Vedanta’Indian Philosophical Annual 8 (1972)Google Scholar
38 De Smet (1996), 90-92
39 In the Thomist account the world is said to be really related to God, as created being, but God only notionally related to the world, as creator, since a real relation would indicate that God undergoes change in creating (ST 13, 7; 45,3). The parallel between Shankara's account and the Thomist account of mixed relations is explored in some detail by Grant (1999).
40 (1996), 95
41 The epistemological difference between samsara and moksa are more fully developed in Grant (1999), 59-79
42 De Smet (1996), 95
43 Malkovsky (2000), 15-16
44 Malkovsky (2000), 11-12
45 Grant (2002), 54-6
46 Burrell, D. B., ‘ Act of Creation with its Theological Consequences,’ in Weinandy, T., Keating, D., Yocum, J. (eds) Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 27-44Google Scholar; 38-40
47 As Lott, E.J. God and the Universe in the Vedantic Theology of Ramanuja (Madras: Ramanuja Research Library, 1976), 159-60Google Scholar
48 Grant (1999), 189-191; 2002, 53. Also Malkovsky (2000), 12
49 As Panikkar (1964), 132-138
50 Grant (2002), 4; Malkovsky (2000), 13
51 R. Panikkar, ‘Indic Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism from the Perspective of Interculturation,’ in Pathil (19910, 252-299.
52 For an account of Ramanuja's thought see J.J. The Lipner Face of Truth: A Study of Meaning and Metaphysics in the Vedantic Theology of Ramanuja (Albany: SUNY, 1986)Google Scholar; for a clear account of Visistadvaita and Sri Vaishnavism see Chari, S.M Srinivasa Visistadvaita (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1988)Google Scholar; Vaisnavism: Its Religion, Theology and Religious Discipline (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994)Google Scholar
53 For an exposition of Ramanuja's account and its relation to the Thomist account of creation, see Ganeri, R.M The Vedantic Cosmology of Ramanuja and its Western Parallels: from contrast to complementarity: the embodiment cosmology of Ramanuja and the doctrine of creation of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford, 2003)Google Scholar, D.Phil Thesis.
54 Appasamy, A.J. Christianity as Bhakti Marga (Madras: Christian Literary Society of India, 1930); Francis, T.D. (ed) The Christian Bhakti of A.J. Appasamy (1992) 321-332Google Scholar. An outline and appraisal of Appasamy is in Boyd (1974), 118-143.
55 For an outline and appraisal of Johanns and de Smet on Ramanuja see Ganeri (2003), 7-25.
56 Ganeri (2003), 150-219.
57 Boyd comments that Abhishiktananda's account of creation in Vedantic terms seems to combine Ramanuja with Shankara, even though Abhishiktananda does not explicitly mention him. Boyd (1974), 291-2
58 Grant 1999, 189-91. Panikkar is willing to recognise that Ramanuja's account may contain a parallel for the idea of created participation (1964), 129.
59 Lipner, J.J., ‘The Christian and Vedantic Theories of Originative Causality: A Study in Transcendence and Immanence’ in Philosophy East and West Vol.28 No 1 (1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
60 Lipner, J.J., ‘The World as God's Body: In pursuit of Dialogue with Ramanuja’ in Religious Studies Vol 20:1 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Ramanuja the embodiment concept is not a metaphor within his particular dualist understanding of embodiment.
61 A. Kanjamela,' Redemptoris Missio and Mission in India,’ in Burrows, W.R Redemption and Dialogue: Reading Redemptoris Missio and Dialogue and Proclamation (New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 195-205: 197Google Scholar.
62 For example, Raj, A., ‘The Dalit Christian Reality in Tamilnadu,’Jeevadhara XXII No.128 (1992), 92-111Google Scholar
63 S. Arokiasamy, ‘Theology of Religions from Liberation Perspective’ in Pathil (1991), 300- 323
64 Ibid. 311
65 Barnes (2002), 170-2
66 For instance, S. Painadath, ‘Atmabodha -The Challenge of Indian Spiritual heritage to Christian Theological Reflection,’ in Pathil (1991), 45.
67 As G. Gispert-Sauch has argued in Hindu-Christian Dialogue in India (1992), 14
68 As Barnes notes (2002), 172.
69 Panikkar (1991), 282-86. Likewise, Painadath (1991), 46; also Grant, S., ‘Towards an Indian Theology of Liberation,’ Jeevadhara X No. 59 (1980), 389-403Google Scholar
70 For a brief outline and reflection on this see F.A. Thomson, ‘ Christian Views of Hindu Bhakti’ in Coward Hindu-Christian Dialogue (1989), 176-190
71 Lipner (1999), 335-40
72 P. Fallon, P in various articles in Religious Hinduism (1996), 108-129, 220-230, 292-313
73 For instance in Lipner, J.J. Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge, 1994)Google Scholar; Clooney, F.X. Hindu God, Christian God (Oxford: OUP, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
74 G. Gispert-Sauch, ‘Devotion to the Lord in the Light of the Bhakti Sutras’ Jeevadhara XXXIII No 195 (2003), 208-215. By way of contrast, Johanns, writing seventy years before, shows much esteem for the work, but expresses misgivings about Krishna and the naked gopis as a good model for devotion since they seem to have forgotten any sense of the majesty of God. (1996), 377-383
75 Klostermaier, K. K. Hindu and Christian in Vrindavan (London: SCM, 1969), 115Google Scholar;Kristvidya (1967), 31-2
76 For a detailed discussion of the Christological use of avatara see Robinson (2004), 273-284 and Boyd (1974), 239-41
77 For instance, Anand, S, ‘Avatara in the Bhagavata Purana,’Jeevadhara XXXIII No 195 (2003), 216-225Google Scholar.
78 For instance, Veliath, C. SJ The Mysticism of Ramanuja (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1993)Google Scholar; J. Manickath, ‘Ramanuja's Devotional Approach to Spirituality’ Jeevadhara (1984); Clooney, F.X. Seeing Through Texts: Doing Theology Among the Srivaisnavas of South India (New York: SUNY, 1996)Google Scholar
79 Veliath (1993), 111, 124; Brockington (1992) 128
80 For instance, Boyd (1974), 253
