New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious DevelopmentsMorrison, John
Religion
New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments
Morrison, John
Christianity and other religions; India -- Civilization; India -- Religion
In like manner, the new religious associations seem to feel themselves
directly in the presence of God. Congregational worship, a feature new
to Hindus, is a regular exercise in the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j or Theistic
Association of Bengal, the Pr[=a]rthan[=a] Sam[=a]jes or Prayer
Associations of Western India, and the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j or Vedic
Theistic Association of the United Provinces and the North-West of
India. When Rammohan Roy, the theistic reformer, opened his church in
Calcutta in 1830, he introduced among Hindus congregational worship and
united prayer, before unknown among them and confessedly borrowed from
Christian worship.[124] The public worship in all these bodies is indeed
not unlike many a Christian service, consisting of Prayer to God, Praise
of God, and expositions of religious truth. In a small collection of
hymns, "Theistic Hymns," published some years ago for the use of members
of the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j, we find many Christian hymns expressive of this
personal relationship to God. We find "My God, my Father, while I
stray," and "O God, our help in ages past." Neither of these hymns,
however, it must be noted, contains confession of sin. Curiously
incongruous to our minds is the inclusion among these hymns of poems
like "The boy stood on the burning deck," and "Tell me not in mournful
numbers," and "There's a magical tie to the land of our home," etc.[125]
Even among the Hindu revivalists, judged by that test of the incoming of
public worship, we perceive the growth of the idea of personal
relationship to God. A recent publication of that party is "_Songs for
the worship of the Goddess Durga_." One of them, we may note in passing,
is the well-known hymn, "Work, for the night is coming." All such
personal relationship, we again repeat, is incompatible with pantheism,
and almost equally so with the popular sacerdotalism. Not without
significance do the new theists of Western India call their associations
the Pr[=a]rthan[=a] Sam[=a]jes or Prayer Associations, and give to the
buildings in which they worship the name of Prayer Halls instead of
temples. Let not men say that religion and theological belief belong to
separable spheres.
[Sidenote: The idea of sin naturally accompanies the new monotheism.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account