Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 4: Essays Chiefly on the Science of LanguageMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 4: Essays Chiefly on the Science of Language
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Comparative linguistics; Folklore; Literature -- History and criticism; Mythology; Religions
What has happened in London seems to have happened in Bombay also. The
Zoroastrians, too, did not like to be told that their religion was
dying, and that their gradual decay was due to the absence of the
missionary spirit among them. We read in the “Oriental” of April, 1874,
“There is a discussion as to whether it is contrary to the creed of
Zoroaster to seek converts to the faith. While conceding that Zoroaster
was himself opposed to proselytizing heathens, most of the Parsis hold
that the great decrease in the number of his followers renders it
absolutely necessary to attempt to augment the sect.”
Lastly, Mr. Lyall stands up for Brahmanism, and maintains that in India
Brahmanism had spread out during the last hundred years, while Islam and
Christianity have contracted. “More persons in India,” he says, “become
every year Brahmanists, than all the converts to all the other religions
in India, put together.” “The number of converts,” he maintains, “added
to Brahmanism in the last few generations, especially in this country,
must be immense; and _if the word proselyte may be used in the sense of
one that has come, not necessarily being one that has been invited or
persuaded to come_, then Brahmanism may lay claim to be by far the most
successful proselytizing religion of modern times in India.”
The words which I have ventured to put in italics, will show at once how
little difference of opinion there is between Mr. Lyall and myself, as
long as we use the same words in the same sense. If proselytizing could
be used in the etymological sense, here assigned to it by Mr. Lyall,
then, no doubt, Brahmanism would be a proselytizing or missionary
religion. But this is mere playing with words. In English, proselytizing
is never used in that sense. If I meant by missionary religions nothing
more than religions which are capable of increase by admitting those
that wish to be admitted, religions which say to the world at large,
“Knock and it shall be opened unto you,” but no more, then, no doubt,
Brahmanism, or at least some phases of it, might be called by that name.
But what, according to my explanation, constitutes a missionary religion
is something totally different. It is the spirit of truth in the hearts
of believers which cannot rest unless it manifests itself in thought,
word, and deed, which is not satisfied till it has carried its message
to every human soul, till what it believes to be the truth is accepted
as the truth by all members of the human family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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