Secularism in India, broadly borrowed from the West, embodies the concept of “Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava". Ironically, there is no Western equivalent of Dharma. Again, to fit India’s principled approach to the Western secularism template, Dharma is loosely equated with religion and, by extension, the philosophy of the Indian state is rooted in “equal respect for all religions”. By interchangeably using Dharma and Religion, the sweeping magnitude of timeless traditions is contained within a limited, cyclical, and dogmatic religious framework; the vastness of the civilisational inheritance is distilled into one truth and a world of binaries.
In the process, some of the beliefs and rituals
associated with these timeless traditions are negated, labelled as pagan and
branded as uncivilised. By tracing origins to a single biblical figure and
adopting a linear approach to history, with a beginning and an end to creation,
the narrow Western theological framework developed the concept of Religion’.
The word religio, with its Latin roots, was historically referred to as
a bond, an obligation or principled reverence to gods. An alternative
explanation suggests that the word ‘religion’ is associated with the Latin word
‘religare’ meaning to rebind, reconnect or renew. The Roman philosophers
described ‘Religion’ as a ‘dutiful obligation to divine matters’. However, with
covenants forming the bedrock of these Western faiths, despite various
interpretations, a reciprocal obligation remains their core doctrine. This
foundational concept sets the Western faith apart from the age-old traditions
of polytheism.
Indian culture, rooted in a polytheistic tradition,
has been syncretic and inclusive. But now, it is facing theological onslaughts from
the monotheistic Western worldview that continues to shape the dominant global
narratives. History bears sobering evidence of the decimation of the
polytheistic traditions at the hands of imperialistic monotheistic faiths.
Polytheism has been the default cultural way of living for millennia. Broken
temples, silenced gods and dilapidated structures in Greece, Syria and Anatolia
are a poignant reminder of fallen faiths. With Sanatana Dharma facing a
two-pronged attack from the proselytising monotheistic religions, it is
important to study their origins and doctrinal values and examine their
suitability for modern societies. Tracing the origins of monotheistic religions
from a historical perspective, Dr Rama Seshan C, in his debut book, “From Gods
to the God: Christianisation of the Roman Empire”, offers a comprehensive
overview of the theological foundations of Western civilisation.
The book, believed to be the first part of the series,
explores the origins of Christianity deeply embedded in Judaism. Structured into
seventeen chapters, the 532 page provides a comprehensive view of monotheism beginning
from the biblical figure Abraham. Besides a primary introduction to Judaism,
Christianity, Islam and polytheistic culture, the pedagogical approach to the
subject makes it very interesting. Be mused to find sections named Abrahamic
Religions 101, Geography 101, and The Hebrew Bible 101. True to their titles,
all of them lay a solid foundation to understand the concepts of monotheism and
polytheism.
Akin to a course plan at the beginning of the academic
curriculum which enlists the different aspects that would be dealt with during
the course of study, the introductory chapter clearly lists out all the aspects
of the book in an orderly manner. The initial chapters of the book exude a
rare pedagogical style of narration. A few pages into the book, the reader
would get the feeling of having enrolled on a Theology course. The unique
didactic approach adopted by the author would convince the reader that the
author must have been an excellent teacher.
What makes this historical treatise an interesting
read is the metrics plotted in a graph for the predicted proportional rise of
the Christian population in the Roman Empire and in India (factoring that for
every 100 Christians, one Hindu is converted every year). The book takes you on
a time travel starting from biblical Abraham, the migration of his grandson
Jacob (Israel) from Canaan (present-day Southern Levant) and his clan to Egypt
to escape severe famine along with his son Joseph. Enslaved by the Egyptians
for generations, freed during the Exodus and led by Moses, they eventually
conquer and settle down in the promised land led by Joshua.
The clan unite under King Saul, King David and King
Solomon. But after Solomon, under his son Rehoboam, 10 Northern tribes and two
southern states separate. The Southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin, loyal to
the line of King David and Solomon, establish the Kingdom of Judah with
Jerusalem as capital and inherit the temple built by Solomon. While the
Northern tribes, which subscribe to inclusive worship of Baal, Asherah and
Yahweh, make Samaria their capital.
Around the 6th century BCE, the Babylonians
destroy the First Temple and force Judah’s residents to Babylon. By around 539
BCE, the Achaemenid Empire based in Persia under Cyrus allows the exiles in
Babylon to go back to their homeland and helps them build the Second Temple in
516 BCE. Indeed, all the events related to Jewish people are marked by specific
covenants or reciprocal promises between God and people, where God offers
protection and direction while people agree to uphold the principles enunciated
by him. The book specifically refers to the Abrahamic Covenant, which
establishes Abraham as the father of many nations; the Mosaic Covenant, where
God promises to make Israel a treasured possession and, in return, people must
obey his commandments and Torah; Davidic Covenant, where God promises David
that one of his descendants will reign over Israel forever. All these covenants
are detailed in the Hebrew Bible.
The covenants form the bedrock of Christianity, which
draws its doctrinal principles from the Hebrew Bible. Effortlessly segueing the
story from the Promised Land to the times of Roman Occupation of Israel to the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the author incrementally introduces the reader to the
foundational framework of Christianity. Alongside, the book takes a deep dive
into the connection between Ancient Rome, Greece, and the Hellenistic Age,
providing a brief glimpse of the intellectual and cultural vibrancy of Greek
society. After the death of Alexander in 323 BCE, his vast empire was divided
among his four generals, forming Hellenistic Kingdoms.
After intense battles, Israel became part of the Seleucid
kingdom by around 200BCE. Till 178BCE, Jews were ruled by a council of priests,
the ‘Gerusia’, on behalf of the Hellenistic Kingdom, and they were allowed to
practice their faith as long as they paid taxes. But Seleucid Monarch
Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to impose Hellenic Law. The Hasmoneans, the
orthodox Jews, rebelled, triggering the Maccabean Revolt, following which they
were allowed to return to their old practices. The temple was also rededicated,
celebrated as Hanukkah, leading to the eventual establishment of the Hasmonean
Jewish Kingdom with King Simon as their first ruler.
The polytheistic Greek culture introduced Greek
culture and Gods but allowed the worship of old gods. As a result, a syncretic
society with two sets of gods and culture prevailed. But the Monotheistic
Judaism does not allow the worship of any other gods. For the first time, the
Hasmonean King John Hyrcanus, after conquering the neighbouring kingdoms,
attempted to convert non-Jews in response to Hellenisation. After 80 years of
Hasmonean Rule, due to bitter rivalry between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, the
Kingdom of Judah fell into the hands of the Romans in 63 BCE. Since then, Jews
were under foreign rule until 1948.
Romans ruled Judah through a puppet King, Herod the
Great, who belonged to the Edomite Dynasty whose ancestors were converted to
Judaism. Though he lavishly expanded the Second Temple, Jews disliked him as he
was a convert and not an ethnic Jew. It was during his reign that Jesus Christ
was born in Bethlehem. While Jesus was crucified by the Romans, Jews were held
responsible. The gospels of Christ, which appeared 40 years after his death,
were predominantly anti-Semitic. The epistles, especially those of the apostle
Paul, who was a Pharisaic Jew, steered such rhetoric and accused them of deicide
(p187).
The first generation of Christians increasingly
believed that they were living at the end of human history and that God would
lead the world through judgement after resurrection. The apocalyptic fervour is
part of the discourse of both Christianity and Islam. While this was toned down
with “good news” in later texts, this is still a dominant theme in Islam. “In
the Abrahamic worldview, god is apart from nature and not to be found in
nature, and there is nothing divine about nature”. In Hinduism, everything is
gods. In Islam, everything is God’s. The apostrophe makes all the difference.
(p203)
The stark fundamental differences between the
Abrahamic and Pagan faith systems became a point of intense friction as the
Christian population began to increase. Pagans didn’t care what you believed as
long as you didn’t insult their beliefs. All they demanded was appropriate
action and sacrifice. They believed anything about the gods or the world, and
hence philosophy and science blossomed, and society flourished without any
religious opposition. The Greco-Roman world before the onset of Christianity
was pagan. Pagans valued ancestral and cultural continuity. For Christians and
Muslims, “what is of supreme importance is one’s personal relation with God and
a seat in future heaven”. The focus on individual future progress without
regard to the collective values and ancestral traditions is reflected in the
apocalyptic verses of the New Testament (p216). Another glaring and notable
difference between the Pagan and Abrahamic religions is the absence of a
supreme feminine goddess. Ancient Romans and Greeks had a Mother goddess, a deity
of fertility. There is no divinity associated with Abrahamic religions,
especially Judaism and Islam, since the Virgin Mary was elevated to a
worshipable entity by Christians.
The Edict of Milan of 313, issued by Emperors
Constantine and Licinius, propelled the rise of Christianity as a marginalised
group into a dominant and powerful entity. Pagans, though a majority in terms
of numbers, were caught unaware by the slow and systemic rise of Christians
under the Emperors, feigned tolerance and never openly divulged their faith for
fear of losing the support of Pagans who were influential and majoritarian. Rulers,
decidedly anti-pagan, slowly began to admonish religious practices and rituals.
They imposed restrictions on their festivals, except those that generated money
and stripped off their rituals were allowed. Deeming divination and animal
practices as superstitions, people were warned from continuing such practices.
Special favours and tax waivers were bestowed on Christian majority areas.
Announcing capital punishment for idolatry and animal sacrifices, Pagans were
forced to abdicate their ancestral practices.
Over a period of time, temple valuables were looted,
idols destroyed, sacrificial places desecrated and vandalised, forcing pagans
to abandon them. Idols and books were burnt. The City of Constantinople was
raised and adorned with the spoils of temples in Greece. With the notable exception
of Emperor Julian, who returned to Paganism for a brief period, the Christian
rulers passed decrees and legislation targeting the priestly class, forcing the
closure of temples. Soon, pagans were denied government jobs and removed from
imperial jobs. Labelling them as heretics, they were not allowed to construct
any temples and imposed the strictest punishments for apostates or people who
relapsed into paganism from Christianity. Evangelisation, which began in the
countryside, spread like a storm engulfing various sections of society. The
upper class were quick to convert to escape the wrath of the rulers.
By 600 CE,
there weren’t any pagans left in the Roman Empire. In two centuries, even all
traces of paganism were wiped out. Christianity appropriated the Jewish Bible
as the Old Testament. Claiming
that its laws no longer applied to Christians, they nevertheless used selected
Old Testament verses, misinterpreting them as prophecies of Christ's coming.
Similarly, they removed myths from Greco-Roman texts and retained verses of
Pagan authors to make it appear to predict the coming of Christ. Cultural
appropriation is ingrained in the DNA of Christianity- else what explains the
practices of ghee lamps, Dwaja Stambha and hymns of Yesu Suprabhatam in
Catholic and Protestant Churches of South India?
The methodical erasure of the pagan faith system in
the Roman Empire is no different from the threats the majority in India, the
Hindus, are facing. Ironically, Christians who were once a minority pleaded
with the pagans to practice their faith. But once their numbers began to grow,
their overpowering caused the extermination of pagans.
The last chapter of the book, ‘Christianity in the
Present Secular World’, brilliantly dissects the various aspects of
Christianity-particularly its glorification of weakness and weaponisation of
suffering. The cardinal principle of favouring weakness and meekness finds
contemporary expression in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) rhetoric
and the reservation policies. Christianity, as the bedrock of Western
Civilisation, has profoundly shaped many concepts and values like secularism,
communism, social justice and Islamic theology, making an understanding of its
psyche, motivations, origins and end goal indispensable.
Busting some well-guarded myths through his
meticulously researched work, the author has daringly exposed the perfidy of the
religion of love where the use of force for conversion receives a religious
sanction. According to Paul, “conversion is not a betrayal of faith but
homecoming, as only one true god existed since the dawn of creation; demons
corrupted it” (p528). The book is an essential read and highly recommended for
researchers keen on rational analysis of faiths based on a theological
framework and for enthusiasts who want to understand global religious history.
I would like to commend the author for his painstaking
scholarship in producing this work, which offers a bold, balanced and
dispassionate articulation of Abrahamic faiths in general and Christianity in
particular. The work also
issues a stark warning to the world's only surviving major polytheistic faith,
urging it to critically reflect and assess the challenges posed by the
exclusivist Abrahamic traditions.
Printed
Pages: 576
Publishers:
BLUONEINK Pvt Ltd
No comments:
Post a Comment