Guest guest Posted May 14, 2007 Report Share Posted May 14, 2007 Om Namah Sivaya Excellent work Jay. I think the key to tackle conversion is to educate Hindus and make them proud of their own religion as well as respect other religions. I would like to share with this group how a Hindu Saint in Sri Lanka rescued Hinduism from the Christian missionaries: Arumuga Navalar (1822-1879) was a devout and brilliant Hindu working to re-educate the Hindu community of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, following the departure of the Portuguese and two centuries of foreign domination and anti-Hindu preaching. The Christian missionaries were converting the Hindus to Christianity by providing education, employment and concessions. There was a real danger of the preponderant majority of the Hindus to fall victim to these inducements and attractions, and eventually, losing their Hindu identity. In fact they managed to convert more than 50 % of Hindus. It was left to Arumuga Navalar to awaken the consciousness of the Hindus and to make them aware of this drift. The Christians were criticizing Hinduism as superstitious, childish and polytheistic, quoting from the Puranas to prove their point. Navalar boldly defended his faith, even translating the Bible into Tamil to show its own failings and immaturities (In fact his Tamil translation of the Bible is regarded as the most accurate and the best even today). The missionaries loved the Puranic tales which speak ("absurdly," Navalar declared) about the marriages of the Gods and promote a multiplicity of Supreme Gods. Navalar believed in the Gods, and worshiped Lord Skanda devoutly. But he knew his faith spoke of a single Supreme Being and wanted his fellow Hindus, who were languishing under missionary assaults, to understand the traditional view. He spoke against the storybook aspects of the Puranas, making it clear to Hindus that the Vedas/ Agamas are spiritually superior and should be the source of their faith and practice. He gave public discourse and lectures, wrote books on Hinduism and its philosophy. He was well versed in English and Sanskrit, gained good knowledge of Christian theology and Vedic literature. This helped him to expose the fallacy of the preaching of the Christian priests. He issued millions of free leaflets in the way of criticisms to counter the false propaganda of the Christian missionaries, both in Srilanka and Tamil Nadu in India. He was the first person to establish a Printing Press in the state of Tamil Nadu in India (but not for a commercial purpose). He united Hindus and collected funds to build many Hindu Schools to counter attack Christian missionary schools. He distributed his translated Bibles freely to those converted Christians together with books on Hinduism and its philosophy, this made those converted people ashamed for leaving a great Spiritual religion for BREAD, and most of them (at least 95%) went back to Hinduism. He imposed Hinduism as a compulsory subject in all Hinduschools. He succeeded in bringing Hinduism back to life by showing his people the true, mystical purity of Hinduism. Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for your free account today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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