Hinduism has no provision for teaching the beauties of Hinduism

• Hinduism has no provision for teaching the beauties of Hinduism •

• One of the reasons why Christianity is increasing in India ? •

--------------------------

- Pandit Ganga Prasad Upadhyaya

Hinduism has no provision for the teaching of the beauties of Hinduism. Even so-called higher castes are as ignorant. Take any unit of a ten thousand educated and enlightened Hindus, respected and respectable, and ask them about the Vedas. Hardly ten will say that they have ever seen the Vedas and hardly one that he has read any portion of them. No Hindu homes have the Vedas, and if any has, they are more the object of worship than of reading. If you ask them the essentials of Hinduism, they will scratch their head and look vacantly at you. Essentials? What does it mean? Are we not Hindus? Why? Because born in a Hindu home. They have seen the Hindu priest visit their houses on auspicious occassions. That is all.

The educational institutions of the Hindus are of two kinds. The first and foremost in number and importance are Anglo-Vernacular or Vernacular schools in which for reasons too well-known not only no religious instructions are imparted, but at the same time efforts are made to create in the minds of the young students a contempt for religion and God. For several generations the ordinary educated Indian has been breathing in the atmosphere of irreligion and materialism and even the old marks of old tradition are fast vanishing in Hindu homes. Upto a few decades ago, female education was absent or very rare among the Hindus. This was by itself a very bad thing. But this evil also had a bright aspect. It kept the old religious ideas alive. When males forgot all about their ancient culture, their women-folk, though ignorant and superstitious, and therefore quite ignorant of the spirit of religion, at least kept intact the form, though of course, a soulless form. Something was better than nothing. But now with the spread of modern education, what ever was left has also been swept away and nothing better has taken its place. The second type of institutions is Sanskrita Pathshalas. They are attended by a very infinitesimally small population- mostly a few old and orthodox Brahman families. You may, perhaps, say that at least these Brahmans or Sanskrit students know their religion. But that is not the case. Our Sanskrita Pathshalas concentrate their main attention to the Sanskrita Grammar, which is too dry to protect our culture from decay or foreign onslaughts. Our Pandits are as ignorant of the spirit of religion as uneducated persons. They do keep a form, but that form is quite useless or practically useless. There are no Pathshalas to teach Vedic Dharma. If there is any Sanskrita Pathshala where the Vedas are taught, it means nothing more than to memorize parrot-like a few Veda mantras or to learn to recite them at the Homas without understanding them. To recite a few formulas blindly is no teaching of religion. It cannot ennoble our life. It cannot imbibe us with spirituality. It cannot resist foreign onslaughts. It is why our so called Pandits have been either careless about or too weak to meet the alien religionists on their own ground. So much has been written against Vedic religion by Moslems and Christians and not a finger has ever been raised. Several English translations of Hindu religious books, done with the help or under the influence of Banares Pandits contain most damaging, and foully unfair remarks which have never been challenged or contradicted. When our youths receive only one sided notions about our religion and culture, it is but natural that they should be susceptible to alien influences and fall victim to foreign snares.

[Source: Christianity in India, second end, 1956, p. 132-135, presented by: Bhavesh Merja]