December 13, 2014

Christian Incarnation and Hindu Avatars

December 13, 2014

Unwinding Culture
Teotonio R. de Souza
Teotonio R. de Souza is the founder-director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa (1979-1994). He
presently resides in Portugal, where he is a University Professor and Fellow of the Portuguese Academy of
History since 1983 and tweets @ramkamat

Is it possible for a human being to opt out of culture? It would be like jumping out
of ones skin or for a fish to live out of water. It is essential for the survival of the
human species, by exploring and exploiting its physical environment. An
Indian sanyasi could try renunciation of earthly desires in a later stage
or ashrama of his life, a sort of retirement stage of moderation in earlier lifes
excesses. But he always depends upon the goodwill and alms of the society.
The Buddhist nirvana refers to afterlife. The Mahayana grandeur and wealth of
Buddhist monasteries made them an attraction to the hordes of Islamic invaders
into medieval India. One of the explanations for the disappearance of Buddhism
in its land of birth. The Hindu moksha or the Christian salvations too are goals for
after-life, but while a Hindu is bound by karma, a Christian is called upon to share
in a vision of human fraternity.
As we approach the Christmas season it may be worthwhile to reflect upon the
meaning of this Christian festival, or what it meansGod assuming humanity and
dwelling among us. Why did he choose the Jews? A quick-witted friend told me
that God bets on the winning party. He foresaw that capitalism would rule the
earth. Doesnt the Psalmist refer to the Jew who depends on hands and tongue

to do his business? What could be the direst punishment for a Jew if he forgot
Jerusalem, the holy site of the Temple? The Psalmist has the answer: Let my
right hand wither and my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth (Ps. 137) The New
Testament refers to those with more talents producing more talents? And the
one with one talent had it taken from him?
Following the globalization of the desert religions, particularly after Islamic
expansion and the modern globalization through European colonialism, it
became necessary to take note of the cultural resistances and soften the colonialimperial impositions by adopting discourse and practices of acculturation or
inculturation. Gods incarnation provided the right argument for the missionary
strategy. Paternalism was always the essence of colonial cultural adaptation. It
is so even today in the West where immigrants are handled with a policy of social
insertion.
In China and in India, the Italian and the German Jesuit missionaries showed
greater willingness to adopt native cultures. Matteo Ricci and Robert de Nobili
are classic representatives of this trend since early seventeenth century. Neither
Italy nor Germany had attained the intensity of cultural nationalism that had
tainted the older west European missionaries till the last quarter of the nineteenth
century.
Germany and Italy grew into modern nation-states only after the French
Revolution and as a reaction to Napoleonic remoulding of Europe, breaking
themselves free from the Austro-Hungarian domination. The Oratorians of St.
Joseph Vaz also adopted this missionary model of inculturation in Sri Lanka of
the seventeenth century, under the influence of the Jesuit school of De Nobili in
Malabar Province, and when Portuguese colonial presence was banned in that
island.
But these stray missionary attempts, designated as the Chinese and the Malabar
rites, ended when the so-called second Industrial Revolution and the European
imperialism replaced the earlier phase of colonialism. It was marked by superior
military power and cultural arrogance. The western anthropologists and
orientalists were scouring the East to take the cranial measurements of the
primitive societies and build scientific theories of Indo-European linguistic
lineages.
A new phenomenon in Christian missionary activities the world over, including
Europe and the colonies, was the growing presence of women assistants and
women congregations. The wars of Reformation and the wars unleashed by the

French Revolution had played a demographic havoc in Europe, causing a gender

unbalance and a corresponding socio-economic crisis. Large numbers of widows
and orphan girls had to be integrated in the society.
That was something similar to what had happened in Portuguese India in the late
sixteenth century, leading to the founding of the Convent of Santa Monica, where
white widows and orphan girls could not find marriage partners and could
dedicate their virginity to God, as the Goa Municipal Council wrote to King Philip
of Spain and Portugal in its petition to endow the monastery. But in the context
of the nineteenth century the women religious entered into serving the colonial
societies as active spiritual-colonial agents of their home countries with health
and educational services.
By way of conclusion, we may beware of spiritual wisdom and religious
discourses, but also welcome the crumbs that fall as a result from the tables of
the neo-liberal patrons, waiting with hope without hope that God may choose
another race for the next incarnation. Hinduism is richer culture with several
avatars, and the promise of Kalki yet to come!