Why does Christianity have stronger missionary tradition that Hinduism?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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is it that the why is it that Christianity seems to have a strong missionary spirit as Hinduism does not have it is not exactly that Hinduism did not or does not have you know in India also there was a very robust intellectual tradition where there would be debates among scholars and there were six systems of philosophy and there would be big big in Indian tradition also the Advaitavad, Advaitavad and before that there was Nyaya and Vaisheshika, Sankhya these different systems of philosophy, robust intellectual debates were there but they were mostly limited to the intellectuals and if one intellectual would get defeated and converted from one school of thought to another then his followers would also get converted so the preaching to the masses in general that was more of something similar in all over the world, there were some priests the priests would tell people to do some practices in India it was more organic in the sense that there was every village would have some sadhus, some saintly people and they would teach some spiritual principles, in India it was the formal institutionalization was not there so much but as far as going to distant lands and converting that spirit was not so much there in the past because understanding was everybody is in their spiritual journey from wherever they are they will move on onwards so it was more of a spirit of letting things grow at their own pace but that was not necessarily the norm you see Ramanacharya, Madhvacharya they travelled all over the country Chaitanya Mahaprabhu travelled all over the country so if you look at Christians also it is not that all Christians have a missionary spirit there are some Christians who do have a missionary spirit so I would say that the spread of Christianity happened at a time when also the human spirit of exploration and conquest was also there so the imperial the age of imperialism when Britain in particular Europe in general, they colonized the rest of the world so that, that spirit of exploration and conquest was also used by Christianity so it is that’s one way of looking at it but another way of looking at it is also that because they had this belief, this was the only belief they felt that we have to save others, they said we have to convert, they felt it more as a religious imperative which was not felt by the Hindus or by the followers of the Vedic tradition in general so there was a robust tradition, intellectual tradition of discussion debate, confrontation and even conversion we could say but it was not as vigorous as in Christian tradition but that is also because there was an understanding that people are at different levels and they will move onwards from where they are but it is not similar in that if you consider much of what is South East Asia Malaysia, Indonesia Singapore, Hong Kong there are many places where actually culturally as well as religiously Indian so many of these places, Malaysia for example, there are so many religious artifacts which are clearly of Vedic origin so there was some amount of spreading that happened in other parts of the world also so overall because of the focus on more on intellectual discussion and debates and that is not for the masses and because science as a means of exploration, the scientific thoughts were not so much in India so that was, that way of preaching that Christians adopted in the medieval times and modern times that was not so much there but in the modern times if we see today’s world there are there is the recognition that we need to make our voice heard so what is happening in modern times is most Hindus focus on their own individual careers and on their own family but they don’t think in a broader community so Jews are very small in number but they have penetrated into areas which influence society, which influence public opinion so for example, the media, journalism the entertainment industry the law politics and there is no community in the world which is so small in number and so great in influence as the Jews so Indians on the other hand have been more of centered in their own world now gradually that is changing Indians have become more self-aware by Indians I refer to Hindus over here Hindus have become more self-aware and they are recognizing that if we don’t make our voice heard, somebody else is going to speak on our behalf and they are going to misrepresent us so I think the ethos is changing gradually but because of various circumstances because especially India was quite poverty stricken and religion was given in the world India was a very religious country so most Indians focus more on not religious propagation but more on material improvement and now especially in America and UK say for example I am one of the NRIs who are reasonably well to do financially many of them become culturally more inquisitive about their religion they want to understand it more they want to present it more so it’s a mixture of various factors because of which Christianity had a much more of a missionary spirit than Hinduism had