a source to prove that the practice of religious tolerance was present in the Indian subcontinent?
Answers
At a time when religious bigotry has vitiated the air around us, it is worthwhile to investigate how old the idea of tolerance is and remind ourselves of the intolerance of our ancestors. Although early India had strong traditions of cultic and religious syncretism, there is plentiful evidence to prove the prevalence of religious and sectarian antagonisms from very early times.
In the 2nd century BC, Patanjali tells us that the relationship between Brahmins and Buddhists is like that between the snake and the mongoose; and its actual violent manifestation is supported by a plethora of historical evidence. Similarly, there is copious proof of the Shaiva-Vaishnava antagonism. The persistent animosity between Shaivism and Jainism, and the persecution of the latter by the former, is also well documented. In the 11th century Alberuni tells us that the Hindus are “haughty, foolishly vain and self-conceited” and “believe that there is no religion like theirs”.
But ignoring all this, Indian politicians constantly chant the aphoristic statement “vasudhaiva kutumbakam” (the world is one family) out of context.
Privileging Hinduism over others
The construct of tolerant Hinduism seems to be of relatively recent origin and to have first acquired visibility in the Western writings on India. In the 17th century, Francois Bernier (1620-1688), the French doctor who travelled widely in India, was one of the early Europeans to speak of Hindus as a tolerant people. In the 18th century the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Von Herder (1744-1803), the forerunner of the Romantic glorification of India, referred to the Hindus as “mild” and “tolerant” and as “the gentlest branch of humanity”. Around the same time, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) said that they “do not hate the other religions but they believe they are also right”. Such views find a more prominent place in the writings of Orientalists like William Jones, according to whom, “the Hindus...would readily admit the truth of the Gospel but they contend that it is perfectly consistent with their Sastras”.
In the 19th century, some Indians also began to speak of the tolerance of Hindus, but they clearly privileged Hinduism over other religions. Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883), who founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, claimed to believe “in a religion based on universal values... above the hostility of all creeds...”. But as a champion of the Vedic religion, he sharply opposed all other religions: to him, Mohammad was an “impostor” and Jesus “a very ordinary ignorant man, neither learned nor a yogi”. His contemporary Ramakrishna (1836-1886) spoke of the equality of religions, but in his view “the Hindu religion alone is the Sanatana Dharma”.
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