The Role of Christian Missionaries Towards Formulation and Spreading of Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) in India

Chattopadhyay Banerjee, Subrata

doi:10.1007/978-981-13-7755-6_4

The Role of Christian Missionaries Towards Formulation and Spreading of Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) in India

Subrata Chattopadhyay Banerjee²

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First Online: 18 May 2019

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Abstract

‘If in that land you do give the people knowledge without religion, rest assured that it is the greatest blunder, politically speaking, that ever was committed’ proclaimed Reverend Alexander Duff , a Scottish missionary, during his address delivered before the General Assembly of the Church, on 25 May 1835. At this moment actually, Alexander Duff was referring to the evolving methodology of propagating Christianity in India. By advocating for knowledge-based religion propagation, he paved the way for the dissemination of Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). This single statement connected the three themes of religion, education and politics in colonial India, which crossed paths often. This time, however, the connection ranged from Europe to India. During the nineteenth century, European scholars stumbled upon significant scholarly discoveries, of which, arguably, Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) received the greatest contemporary following. It so happened, naturally, that the long-struggling Christian missions in the land of ‘130 million of idolaters’, to quote the speech of Reverend Duff, AIT would play a central role. In this chapter, I explore the struggle and growth of Christian missions in India, their ambivalence about the best methodology for the propagation of the Christian faith and finally, how they dealt with the emergence of AIT in Europe and its subsequent propagation in India. The main argument in this chapter is that the Christian missions kept in synchrony with the Indian social reform movement and ultimately utilized AIT as a sophisticated method for their mission. This tremendously boosted the sociocultural acceptance of AIT, which otherwise, rested on the flimsy foundation of evidences from the nascent field of philology. In a more general perspective, this brings forth the idea that development and propagation of a theory in nineteenth-century scientific world was intertwined with the social, economic, political and religious landscape. The propagation of AIT is a prime example to that effect.

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Notes

1.
Kingsley (1859) The idea of accommodating religious beliefs, while slowly pushing the boundary of rational thoughts were to be found also in the studies of philology, ethnology and geology, among others.
2.
Bynum (1984, pp. 153–187).
3.
Forster and Marston (1999, pp. 26–27).
4.
Desmond and Moore (1991, pp. 34–35).
5.
Lane (2012).
6.
Green (1996, p. 231).
7.
Jensen (1970, pp. 63–72).
8.
Barton (1998, pp. 411, 434–435).
9.
Liddon (1894, pp. 76–77).
10.
Elizabeth Jeffreys (Editor) (n.d., p. 952).
11.
Johnston (n.d., p. 1) Of course, this is one of the reasons. Missionaries were also needed to give sermons, perform baptism, marriages and burials.
12.
Macaulay (1910, p. 96).
13.
George Smith C.I.E. (1909).
14.
Buchanan, LLC (2007).
15.
Neill (2004).
16.
Buchanan (1766–1815, p. 65).
17.
Beyreuther (1955, pp. 54–55).
18.
Edited by Klaus Koschorke (2007, p. 51).
19.
Ziegenbalg (2010, p. 57).
20.
Carey (1792) A part of the duty for the newly arrived missionaries was to send home tracts with arguments and pleas that would gather financial aid to spread the activities further.
21.
Hiney (2001).
22.
Neill (1982, pp. 189–190).
23.
Cox (1792 to 1842, p. 2).
24.
Cox (1792 to 1842, p. 17).
25.
One star pagoda is equivalent to £7 in 2015, according to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagoda_(coin)] and was the most valuable coin introduced by British East India company at that time.
26.
Longman (1823, p. 5).
27.
Longman (1823, p. 14).
28.
Longman (1823, p. 25).
29.
Longman (1823, p. 37).
30.
Smith (1885, p. 145).
31.
Buchanan (n.d., p. 2).
32.
Buchanan (1766–1815, p. 37).
33.
Buchanan (1766–1815, p. 45).
34.
Brahmins belong to priest class having a strong command over Hindu scriptures.
35.
Ballantyne (1813–1864 Published 1859, p. 1).
36.
Young (n.d., pp. 14–20).
37.
Young (n.d., pp. 14–20).
38.
Gore (1868, p. 2).
39.
Gore (1868, p. 2).
40.
Collet (1914, p. 18).
41.
Collet (1914, p. 19).
42.
Collet (1914, p. 22).
43.
Pruthi (n.d., p. 191).
44.
Anon (1833, p. 636).
45.
L. Zastoupil(2010, pp. 27–28).
46.
Collet (1914, p. 60).
47.
Seely (n.d.).
48.
Collet (1914, p. 68).
49.
Collet (1914, pp. 70–72).
50.
Collet (1914, p. 78).
51.
Collet (1914, p. xliii).
52.
Smith (1879, p. 40).
53.
Smith (1879, p. 85).
54.
Smith (1879, p. 105).
55.
Smith (1879, p. 107).
56.
Jonstone (n.d.).
57.
Jonstone (n.d., p. 38).
58.
Jonstone (n.d., p. 38).
59.
Jonstone (n.d., p. 39).
60.
Jonstone (n.d., p. 41).
61.
Smith (1879, pp. 56–57) No single missionary shook up the life of Calcutta like Rev. Duff. He narrated many such accounts first-hand on how the students in his school grew steadily, how they broke the ritualistic traditions and how they questioned the age-old Hindu belief systems. However, the scientific education prompted them to question the Christian narratives as well.
62.
Smith (1879, p. 63).
63.
Smith (1879, p. 75).
64.
Smith (1879, p. 39).
65.
Smith (1879, p. 108).
66.
Smith (1879, p. 109).
67.
Smith (1879, p. 117).
68.
Smith (1879, pp. 195–196).
69.
Buchanan (1766–1815, p. 195).
70.
Smith (1879, p. 61).
71.
Jonstone (n.d., p. 40).
72.
Penelope Carson (n.d., p. 111).
73.
Penelope Carson (n.d., p. 111).
74.
Buchanan (1766–1815, pp. 39–40).
75.
Buchanan (1766–1815, pp. 13–14).
76.
Buchanan (1766–1815, p. 49).
77.
Smith (1879, p. 130).
78.
Collet (1914, p. 222).
79.
Collet (1914, p. 261).
80.
Max Müller (1861, p. 47).
81.
Poliakov (1878, p. 260).
82.
Poliakov (1878, p. 151).
83.
Müller (1888, p. 120).
84.
Müller (n.d., p. 172).
85.
Müller (1848, 13th June, p. 97.98).
86.
Chaudhuri (n.d., p. 313).
87.
Müller (1848, 13th June, pp. 153, 154).
88.
ibid (n.d., p. 154).
89.
Müller’s (1902, p. 123).
90.
Muller (n.d., p. 49).
91.
Müller’s (1902, p. 122).
92.
Müller’s (1902, p. 204) One may in fact wonder if these omissions were intentional. For his contest in the Boden Professorship of Sanskrit in 1860, he wrote in the application letter—‘I shall lose no time in collecting Testimonials from the most eminent Sanskrit scholars in Europe and India, and submitting them to Members of Convocation. I shall likewise submit Testimonials from Missionaries in India, explaining the assistance they have derived from my publications in their endeavours to overthrow the ancient systems of idolatry still prevalent in that country, and to establish the truths of Christianity among the believers of the Veda.’
93.
Müller’s (1902, p. 204).
94.
Silva (2013, p. 89).
95.
Müller’s (1902, p. 152).
96.
Anon. 19 November (1827, p. 2).
97.
Dowling (n.d., p. 164).
98.
Müller’s (1902, pp. 236–238) (this letter 13th July, 1860).
99.
Müller’s (1902, p. 112) This brings also another case of the fallacy of presumption, to which Müller succumbed multiple times.
100.
Muller (2012).
101.
Müller’s (1902, p. 182).
102.
Müller (n.d., p. 95).
103.
Müller (n.d., p. 95).
104.
Müller (1848, 13th June, p. 262).
105.
Müller (n.d., p. 263).
106.
Max Müller (1892) Müller pointed out that his plan in framing these lectures was ‘to show that, given the human mind such as it is, and its environment such as it is, the concept of God and a belief in God would be inevitable’. The proofs that he cited, by drawing examples from older religious texts, were doubted by his critics as outcomes of mere human intelligence and thus, his entire effort leading to nothing but heretical thoughts of challenging divine revelation.
107.
Rozario (1846, pp. 11–12) Kopf (n.d., pp. 164–165).
108.
Lahiri Ramtanu (1907, pp. 109–110).
109.
Sen K. C., Keshub Chunder Sen’s Lectures in India (1901).
110.
Sen K. C., The Brahmo Somaj: lectures and Tracts (1870).
111.
Hem Chandra Sarkar (S. 13, 14).
112.
Lahiri Ramtanu (1907, p. 112).
113.
Müller (n.d., p. 75).
114.
Müller (n.d., p. 76).
115.
Müller (n.d., p. 80).
116.
Müller (n.d., pp. 86–87).
117.
Müller (n.d., p. 77).
118.
Jose Kuruvachira (n.d., p. 20).
119.
affrelot (1996, p. 16).
120.
Roy (1884, p. 11).
121.
Arvidsson (2006, p. 298).
122.
Thapar (1996, pp. 6–7).
123.
Thapar (1996, pp. 6–7).
124.
Wilson (n.d., p. 56).
125.
Strachey (1888, p. 225).
126.
Society, Winter (1951, pp. 49–57).
127.
(ibid).
128.
Bas (1831, p. 20).
129.
(Ibid, p. 21).
130.
Hawes (2013, pp. 85–6).
131.
Jonstone (n.d.).
132.
Smith (1879, p. 148).
133.
Babington (2013, pp. 566–567).
134.
Smith (1879, p. 193).
135.
Macaulay (1835, 2nd Feb, pp. 107–117).
136.
Day (n.d., p. 474).
137.
((Correspondence Relating to the System of Education in the Bombay Presidency, 1860, Bombay, Education Society’s Press, 65. For such an incident at the General Assembly’s Institution in Madras, see Correspondence Relating to the System of Education in the Bombay Presidency, 1860, Bombay, Education Society’s Press, 65. For such an incident at the General Assembly’s Institution in Madras (Suntharalingam 1974, pp. 35–36)) (Smith 1879, p. 147).
138.
Smith (1879, p. 142).
139.
Millar (1992).
140.
Kopf (n.d., p. 164) kopf (1846, p. 9).
141.
Coleridge, Published (1872, p. 145).
142.
Coleridge, Published (1872, p. 153).
143.
Mazumdar(n.d., pp. 206–208).
144.
Müller (n.d., p. 77).
145.
Macpherson (n.d., p. 55).
146.
Mukherjee (2000, p. 112).
147.
Duff (1840, p. 679).
148.
Kopf (n.d., p. 171).
149.
Banerjea (1875, p. 88).
150.
Banerjea (18881, p. 19).
151.
Kopf (n.d., p. 172).
152.
Banerjea (18881, pp. 23–24).
153.
Müller (n.d., p. 78).
154.
Müller (n.d., p. 91).
155.
Müller’s (1902, p. 330).
156.
Müller’s (1902, p. 331).
157.
Müller’s (1902, p. 331).
158.
wife (n.d., pp. 105,107, 108).
159.
Warren (n.d.).
160.
Ballantyne (2002).
161.
Raychaudhuri (1988).
162.
wife (n.d., p. 120).
163.
Müller (n.d., p. 71).
164.
Müller (n.d., p. 79).
165.
(ibid p. 82).
166.
Müller’s (1902, p. 160).
167.
wife (n.d., p. 216).
168.
Philip (n.d.) Sharma (2004, p. 186).
169.
Advocate (1840, p. 35).
170.
Philip (n.d.) Sharma (2004, p. 186).
171.
Bhattacharya (1999, p. 2).
172.
Smith (1879, p. 60).

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Subrata Chattopadhyay Banerjee

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Chattopadhyay Banerjee, S. (2019). The Role of Christian Missionaries Towards Formulation and Spreading of Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) in India. In: The Development of Aryan Invasion Theory in India . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7755-6_4

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Published: 18 May 2019
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