Confrontation Between Hinduism and Christ

Extract

The problem of Christ and world religions is both significant and urgent. It is significant because the very universality of Christ is at stake in the current dialogue among the great religions of the world. The problem is urgent, because, now that the old solutions no longer hold, we must find a new answer to the problem. The whole Church is everywhere on the move and so is seeking out new paths; and in this particular case what she is looking for is a response that is free at once of the exclusiveness that has sometimes unhappily characterized the end of syncretism. We have now, I believe, reached a turning point in the history of Christianity: even Vatican II has already considered other religions as paths to salvation.

In the first part of this paper I wish to speak of three aspects of the confrontation of Christ by Hinduism, and in the second part I shall try to conclude the discussion by showing what a confrontation of Hinduism by Christ might suggest.

My first section could be entitled: ‘‘The Misunderstanding’, for we cannot deny that there is a fundamental misunderstanding in the dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism. All the historical exceptions only prove the rule of what the Abbé Monchánin called ‘the great misunderstanding’. I should like to begin by quoting a proverb known in many languages which asks: ‘What is the first requirement if you want to teach Gopal Sanskrit?’ A rationally minded person would immediately answer: the first requirement is that you know Sanskrit.