SACRIFICE
in the Indian Scriptures
By the late Adhyaksha Anubhavananda Kesava Raya Sarma Mandapaka
(Adapted, Introduced and with an autobiographical Afterword
by Professor Prabhu Guptara)
Most Indians, including many of our priests and gurus, are quite ignorant of our
religious heritage, and this little booklet has been prepared so that we can
understand one key aspect.
It is curious fact that all human communities, since times immemorial, have had
some sort of concept of sacrifice – that is, for the need for living things to be killed
so as to set things right between human beings and God.
This outline of the concept of sacrifice in the Indian scriptures was compiled in the
Telugu language by the late Adhyaksha Anubhavananda Kesava Raya Sarma
Mandapaka. It was translated from the Telugu by H. Kaveriba in the 1960s; and
Professor Guptara has merely adapted the material for readers today, introduced it
and added an autobiographical Afterword.
You have probably seen Brahmins offering rice, flowers and fruit by means of an arati
(waving it in a circle) before the object to whom or to which these are sacrificed. But you
probably do not know that these aratis are only the remnant of a much larger and more
elaborate system of sacrifices which is there in our ancient traditions. In addition to these
waved offerings (arati), there were burnt offerings (havana/yagna), offerings by slaughter
(bali), offerings that were poured out (jal or doodh chadhana), sacrifices offered
symbolically, for example by touching the object or placing one's hand over the object
(naivedyam).
Why is this? This leaflet is a simple and rather brief explanation of the background to these
practices. However, the practice of sacrifice died out in most parts of India, leaving only
the vegetarian tokens of it that we have in most aratis today, except in the remote and
marginal areas of the country, where animals are still sacrificed in certain parts of India, for
example in Bengal, in the deserts and in the hills. The Adhyaksha's explanation does not
mention the fact that most of these sacrifices began to disappear in India as a result of the
impact of Jain influence in India from about the 3 rd century BC. It was Jain influence which
was responsible for vegetarianism in India. Prior to Jain influence, and outside areas of
Jain influence, India was and remains non-vegetarian. The Buddha himself ate meat and
the early Buddhists were all meat eaters, till Buddhism began to be influenced by Jain
ideas. The ideas of reincarnation and karma were worked out by the Jains with much
more intellectual and philosophical rigour than by Buddhists. However, Buddhist
philosophy came to dominate once Buddhism became more popular and better patronised
than Jainism, following the adoption of Buddhism as the state religion by the emperor
Ashoka and his sending of Buddhist missionaries with ambassadorial status to what is now
Pakistan and Afghanistan and other areas of Central Asia, as well as to Tibet and China
and Myanmar and Thailand and Sri Lanka. Both the Jains and the Buddhists rejected the
earlier beliefs about God, nature, humans, sin and sacrifice which had marked original
Indian religion. However Jain and Buddhist ascendancy later began to disappear as a
result of their own degeneration, as I explain in my Afterword.
An examination of the Vedas reveals that sacrifice is spoken of as the only means of
salvation.
-
"Prathamani Dharmani" - "Sacrifices are the foremost of our first duties."
"Yagnovai Bhuvanasya Nabhih "— "Sacrifice is the mainstay of the world."
"Yagne Sarvom Pratishthitam" — "It is sacrifice that bestows all things."
"Yagnovai Sutarmanowh "— "Sacrifice is the bark (boat) that enables one to live
well."
- "Yagnena Va Deva Divangatah "— "Only by means of sacrifice did the gods attain
heaven."
- "Rutasyanah Pathanaya Ati Viswani Durita" — "Deliverance comes by way of
sacrifice"
So it is clear that the Vedas declare sacrifice to be the foremost of all penances that must
be performed for the atonement of sins.
Let us also see what the Bhagavad Gita says:
"Sahayagnah Prajasrushtva Purovacha Prajapatih Anena Prasavishyadhwam
Eshavostvishta Kamadukh" - "In the beginning itself, along with the creation of human
beings, God instituted sacrifice, and told them, 'May this grant the desires of your heart'."
"Yagnakshapitakalmashah"- "Those whose sins have been effaced by means of
sacrifice."
"Nayam lokostyayagnasyah kutonayah kurusattama"—"Oh noble Kuru, there is no
place in this world for him who does not perform each and every one of these sacrifices;
how then shall he obtain heaven?"
The Aitareya Brahmanam too says, "Yaja-manah pashuh yaja manameva suvargam
lokam gamayati"—"He who offers the sacrificial animal; therefore, he who performs
sacrifices goes to heaven."
In this way, the importance of sacrifice is taught.
Yet in the Mundakopanished we are told that "Plava hyere adrudhayagnarupah"—The
timbers of the bark of sacrifice are unsound."
In the seventh chapter of the Skanda Puranam Yagna Vaibhava Khandam, we read:
"Plava eyete sura yagna adrudhashcha na samshayah" —"Ye gods, sacrifices are like the
timbers of a bark; there is no doubt that they are unsound."
The Tandya Maha Brahmanam says, "Yagnota avati tasya chhaya kriyate"—"It is a
sacrifice that saves. What is being performed, is the shadow of sacrifice."
In the Rig Veda, we read, "Atmada baladah yasya chhaya-mrutam yasya mrutyuh"—
"He whose shadow and death become nectar shall, by his shadow and death, confer the
spirit and strength."
The four sayings given immediately above clearly reveal that the sacrifices performed
by human beings do not themselves confer salvation, but they are the shadow of a great
salvation-giving sacrifice.
In the Satpatha Brahmanam we read, "Prajapatir yagnah" —"God himself is the
sacrifice."
In Tandya Maha Brahmanam of the Sama Veda we read, "Prajapatir devebhyam
atmanam yagnam krutva prayachhat" —"God would offer Himself as a sacrifice and obtain
atonement for sins."
The
Satapadha
Brahmanam
says,
Tasya
prajapatirardhameva
martyamasidardhamamrutam" —"God became half mortal and half immortal." That means,
He united in Himself the human and the divine.
In the Purusha Sukta we read, “the God Brahma is sacrificed”.
What is evident from all these teachings is that the true and great redeeming sacrifice
would be the one performed by the Sovereign Lord of this world, who putting on both
mortality and immortality and becoming incarnate as God-man, would Himself be like
the sacrificial animal and offer Himself as a sacrifice to redeem mankind from their
sins.
This is what the Rig Veda says about the sacrificial animal:
1. It must be a goat without blemish.
2. The "balusu" bush must be placed round its head.
3. It must be bound to a sacrificial post.
4. Nails must be driven into its four legs till they bleed.
5. The cloth covering the goat should be divided among the four priests.
6. None of its bones must be broken.
7. The goat should be given a drink of Soma juice.
8. After it has been slain, it must be restored to life again.
9. Its flesh should be eaten.
These details are highly unusual and give us an unmistakable picture of what is
needed for us to identify the sacrificial death of the incarnate God-head.
But we do not read any such thing written about the incarnations of our country, nor
in the Shastras. There is no God-incarnate-man, who died a sacrificial death, to save
sinners.
If we turn our attention, however, to a short distance beyond Afghanistan and Iran,
we find a country called Palestine in the west of Asia, on the Mediterranean coast, in the
centre of the great land mass of the world. In this country was born of a holy virgin's
womb, the incarnate God, in Whom were fulfilled all the details of the description given
about the God-man.
He was absolutely without blemish. He lived a perfectly holy life, He was both
mortal and immortal, that is to say, He was both human and divine. From the beginning
He foretold His sacrificial death to save mankind, and foretold also that He would live
again as death's conqueror. He voluntarily surrendered into the hands of wicked men,
who loved sin, hated His teachings and wanted to kill Him.
If we examine the way in which he was killed, we find that the sacrifice of God
Brahma as described in the Purusha Sukta and all the details given about the sacrificial
animal in the Rig Veda were clearly fulfilled in this incarnation in the following manner.
1. It must be a goat without blemish—He was the sinless God-man.
2. The "balusu" bush must be placed round its head—A crown of thorns was placed on
His head.
3. It must be bound to a sacrificial post—He was crucified on the cross.
4. Nails must be driven into its four legs till they bleed— He was nailed hands and feet to
the cross.
5. The cloth covering the goat should be divided among four priests—Those who nailed
Him to the Cross divided His garments among themselves.
6. None of its bones should be broken—Not one of His bones was broken.
7. The goat should be given a drink of Soma juice—He was given vinegar to drink.
8. After it has been slain, it must be restored to life again— He rose again, as death's
conqueror.
9. Its flesh should be eaten—a remarkable requirement in a country which is largely
vegetarian. Before His death, Jesus told His disciples that they should eat His flesh
and drink his blood which were sacrificed for the redemption of the world, and that they
should, while often remembering His death, symbolically partake of bread and wine.
This continues to be observed to this day, two thousand years later.
The incarnation of the Creator God Brahma that took place in Palestine fulfilled the
atoning sacrifice for the saving of sinners. It is evident therefore that this was the true
Incarnation of God Whom sinners should take hold of for their salvation. This incarnation
is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Purusha Sukta says, "Nanyah Pantha Ayanayavidyate"— „Except through God
Brahma who offered Himself as sacrifice, heaven cannot be attained even by a thousand
works. So Sayanulu has declared in the Bhashyam.
Therefore, except in Jesus Christ, there is no salvation in any other.
Afterword
I became an atheist at the age of eight when my father died. Even though I was only
eight, I already knew that all created things have to die, so I did not question the fact that
my father had to die sometime, even though I was upset and pained that he had gone, and
that I would never see him again on this earth. But what my little eight-year-old mind could
not understand was one simple thing about my father’s death. Its timing. I still do not
understand why this is so but, due to something to do with the “maturity” of certain
insurance and pension policies, if my father had died only a month later than he did, the
family would have come into quite a lot of money from such insurance and pension
payments. What I could not understand was: why had God arranged for my father to die
at that particular time, with the result that we were left practically penniless?
It should probably be explained that the family name (Guptara) was originally the more
commonly-found surname “Gupta”. We are Aggarwals, Baniyas – traders and
businesspeople for at least some two thousand three hundred years (or so the family
tradition has it). My father, who had completed his education at Oxford University in
England, had stopped believing in caste, so he did not want to continue to have a surname
that indicated his caste. However, at that time, it was in practice impossible not to have a
caste-name because, if you did have such a name, or a surname that people could not
place in the caste hierarchy, they inevitably asked you what your caste was. So my father
changed his caste-name (Gupta), which literally means “hidden”, to “Guptara” which
literally means “hidden star”. In his own way, he was a hidden star. Whether the rest of us
deserve that sort of name is an open question. However, you understand that we come
from a rich baniya family, with plenty of wealth in it (my grandfather owned large parts of
the town of Bareilly, in U.P., and certainly my uncles were pretty well-to-do according to
the standards of the time, as one uncle owned a sugar mill, another a bicycle-distribution
franchise, another a bookshop and so on. My father's first cousin was married to the
owner of Bhagirath Palace and the Bhagirath Palace Hotel in Delhi). However, because
my father rejected caste, and therefore the family religion, when he died, we were
disinherited. Perhaps it is my mother who is the real hidden star of the story: as the
consequence of the disinheritance, she had to slave away as a single mother at a time
when it was culturally extremely difficult to be accepted as a single mother, let alone to be
able to provide for your children. With a child of eight (myself), a child of five (my brother)
and a child of four (my sister), she had to work extremely long hours (she was a trained
nurse) in order to provide for our needs, taking on both day and night shifts when these
were available and, when free, returning home to do the cooking, cleaning and the usual
motherly job of providing for our emotional and educational needs. There were many
weeks when she went entirely without sleep as she sometimes had to take on a night shift
as well as a day shift simultaneously. Even when she had only day-duty or night-duty, she
usually slept only a few hours at most. Of course when she had neither a night nor a day
shift of work, she did not earn anything at all. We calculated that if she worked just one
day or night in a month, we could have just enough to buy bread and vegetables and milk,
the consumables needed for the month. If she did a week's worth of day or night shifts, we
could pay for the rent and all other necessities. If she had work available and did it for
longer than that, we could buy clothes and other "luxuries". With us it was always feast or
fast. There was either plenty of money or no money at all - but overall it was quite tight.
My mother always tried to give us the best of everything. I remember being utterly
astonished when I brought home my first pay (as a result of a summer job which I was
privileged to get when I was seventeen) that my mother chose to go with me for a holiday
to Kashmir (like we used to do when my father was alive) because I had a Kashmiri friend
who had invited us to their home. I am sad to say I have completely lost touch with this
Muslim friend, Muzaffar Chishti, and I remember him and his family with much fondness
and wish that I could be back in touch with them. There were many others, Hindus,
Muslims, and Christians, who were kind to me and my family, and I wish that I can repay at
least some of them in some way sometime. However, the dominant state of mind for my
mother was a struggle between much anxiety on the one hand and, on the other hand,
trust in God that He would provide for all our needs. She worked unimaginably hard not
just that we might survive but that we might have the best of every material thing and
every opportunity that she could possibly give us.
I do not provide all this background in order to interest you in the family name or family
history. I provide all this background so that you can understand the particular grounds of
my rejection of God: it was to me inconceivable that there could possibly exist a God of
love since a trivial change in the timing of my father’s death would have saved my mother
at least some work and worry.
However, when I came to my teenage years, in the same way as other teenagers start
questioning the religion in which they have been brought up, I started re-examining my
atheism.
I quickly realised that, though the grounds for my earlier atheism did make some sort of
sense, atheism explained nothing at all. It did not provide any answer for why I was on the
earth, or indeed for why the earth and the universe existed at all. Atheism provided no
answer for the suffering and immorality I saw and experienced not only in my own life but
also in the life of our country.
Even my fourteen year old mind realised that if there is no God, then the universe (and all
human beings and I myself) must be the result of chance. If so, neither the universe nor
human life, and certainly not a particular life such as my own, could have any inherent
meaning or significance. If there is no God, then people who are in materially comfortable
circumstances can of course make up some sort of meaning for themselves.
Nevertheless, life must be in essence "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing".
On the other hand, IF God exists, then there is at least a possibility of meaning and
significance in the universe and in human life and in my own life.
That of course does not prove that God exists. It only demonstrates that the possibility of
significance and meaning is tied up in the question of whether God exists: if God, then
meaning and significance; if no God, then no meaning or significance either.
So I started searching for whether there might be a God. And where better to start than
among the many saints and sadhus and pujaris of the innumerable religions we have in
our country? Since we did not have much money, and I was only a boy, I went to each
temple or gurudwara or church or mosque that I could find in the vicinity of my home in
Delhi (right near Connaught Place as it was called then). There were of course not many
of these temples and so on in our vicinity but there was at least one of each. And as I
grew stronger and later acquired a bicycle, I could cycle as far as Old Delhi in one
direction and the All India Medical Institute in the other, quite a radius. This acquainted me
with more or less the whole of Delhi as it was in those days, and many more religious
people whom I could visit, including many of the centres of more modern religions such as
Jehovah's Witnesses and the Moonies. In each of these institutions, the priests or leaders
or sants or pujaris were kind and welcoming. They tolerated my questions with grace
and tried their best to answer my questions. Some of them gave me leaflets or books to
read in English or Hindi. Later, when I started studying at university, I read the English
translations of Karl Marx's Das Kapital, and Existentialist writers such as Sartre and
Camus and the whole of the Koran and the Bible and Chairman Mao's Little Red Book and
the works of Mary Baker Eddy and the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita and every
other religious or philosophical book that I could (though I must say at that stage not the
Vedas).
Undoubtedly, I spent more time reading such material and talking to religious leaders than
I spent speaking with my teachers or reading what I was supposed to be studying.
However, neither the priests nor the materials they gave me were able to actually answer
my questions: what evidence is there for the existence of God? What kind of a God is he
or she or IT? If there is a God, how come there is so much suffering in the world, does
God not care, or can't God do anything about it? What difference does it make to my life
whether or not God exists? What difference does it make to India and the world whether
or not God exists?
They all had a pretty individual-centred religion which had nothing to do with the economic,
social and political life of the country or the world, they all said that one must believe
before one understands the answers to these questions, and none of them had
satisfactory answers to suffering.
Of course, my searching for these answers took place side by side with looking after my
brother and sister, with my studies, with at least some games with friends, excursions to
nearby picnic spots, and so on.
But my questions remained unanswered and I stopped going to these temples and so on,
particularly as the time for a particular exam for that year approached. My mother, a
Christian from Kerala, insisted that we go to church regularly, so I did that in order to
please her - it was the least I could do in return for all that she did for us. A music group
was visiting one of the nearby churches and I had actually wanted to go and listen to that
but of course exam preparation came first.
Well, the exams came, and I was submerged in them, and one by one they were behind
me. My last exam was on a Monday morning and as I had had a whole weekend in
between, and had worked hard for that last exam, I decided to go for a walk and get some
fresh air. We used to live just behind the YMCA and I walked through it (as one could in
those days) and towards Jantar Mantar, thinking I would enjoy the greenery and the fresh
air and maybe climb up the main structure for a distant view in contrast to the close view of
my books, when I suddenly remembered that it was the last evening for the music group to
perform in the Free Church nearby, even though the very last concert might have finished
by now. As I walked there, the sound of music was still coming out of it, so I stepped in
and slipped into the last row, where there were a few unoccupied seats. The music lasted
only another ten minutes or so, it was attractive and captivating modern western music
performed by a group of young people, then the young leader of the music group stood up
and spoke for about three minutes on the theme of power. The power of the atom bomb
and the power of God as demonstrated in the raising to life again of Jesus the Lord and
the political power someone like President Kennedy . By the way, he spoke, it seemed to
me that I must go and ask him my questions. So, even though I needed to rush back to
my studies, I went up to him after his speech and the event was over and asked to speak
with him. Having posed my first question, I was surprised that a thoughtful look came over
him and he asked, "If I was able to answer that question, would you then become a
believer?".
"No, no", I said, "I have another question".
"Oh, and what is that?", he asked.
So I told him. And he again responded, "And if I was able to answer that question, would
you then become a believer?".
"No", I said, "because I have another question"…and so it went, till I had asked I guess
five or six of my key questions, and each time he had replied with the same phrase, "if I
was to answer that question, would you then believe?". Well, I wasn't just in it for the fun
of it, I was reflecting on his response. Finally I thought, and said, "Yes, if you answered all
these questions, I probably would become a believer".
What he did next utterly astonished me. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, "My
brother, you are far more intelligent than I am, and I have never even thought about such
questions." I was of course pleased at his compliment but disappointed at his answer,
when he went on to say, " But I can tell you about someone who can answer your
questions".
"Oh, who is that?", I asked eagerly.
"Jesus", he replied.
Now I was disappointed and a little angry. "But how can Jesus answer my questions?", I
asked.
"You just need to pray to him", he said.
"I don't even believe in him, and you think that praying to him will magically answer my
questions?", I protested.
"Think about it", he said, "if there is a God who is worth knowing, he must be even more
interested in answering them than you are in asking them, and there is no great problem is
speaking to him".
"How can you speak to someone you don't believe exists?", I asked.
"That doesn't make the slightest difference", he replied, "if he is there, he will answer and if
he is not there he cannot".
I was nonplussed. His reply was utterly logical. I had gone around asking all kinds of
people my questions, but I had not actually asked God Himself my questions. But I did not
at that moment know how I could do so, or indeed whether I should.
Seeing that I was thinking, the young man asked, "If I was to pray a prayer with which you
agreed, would you then repeat it after me?".
"Yes, with pleasure", I replied. So he closed his eyes and bowed his head, as did I, and
then he sort of lifted his head and said, "Lord I thank you that you have shown me that you
exist, and now please give to my brother here the grace to show him too that you exist as I
pray for and with him." After that he sort of turned towards me and said, "Here is the
prayer that you can pray if you like 'God, if you exist…', and I repeated that phrase, and he
then went on '…please answer my questions and enable me to come to know you'. Well,
that was certainly a prayer which I could accept, so I repeated that.
We opened our eyes, and nothing special had happened. But he pulled out a New
Testament and gave it to me and said, "Well, I must finish our packing up and go, but read
this and God will answer your questions through it".
I took it and went home, everyone else had left by then. I did read a chapter a day for
about a week, but there was nothing new in it (I had of course already read through the
whole of the Bible by then, just as I had most scriptures of other religions). So I stopped
reading it.
However, the church where the musical event had taken place had a new "youth pastor"
and he came to my home the next day and told me that the young man who led the music
group had told him about my conversation with him, as he thought I might like to be invited
to join his youth group at least on its picnic the next Sunday. When I arrived at his home,
which is where the picnic expedition was to set off from, he called me into the house,
shouted for the servant, and took us both into his library which was on the right of the
entrance room saying, "This sahib is always welcome to our house and whenever he
comes at any time of day or night he is allowed to take any books from the library". I was
astonished, not at the number of books (which was very large for a home library though I
was used to large libraries at home as my father, an Oxford-educated Professor, had had
a much larger library at home, as I recalled) but I was astonished at his generosity toward
a fourteen year old boy whom he barely knew. I asked him what sorts of books I should
start with, and he said that in view of the sorts of questions I had, he would start with
probably two philosophical books and one autobiography, and any other books I cared to
take. I recollect that I borrowed six books on that occasion, finished reading them,
returned them and came back for others, so that in some six months I had made a good
way through his library. Eventually, in some two years, I finished reading all the books that
interested me in his library, and I must confess that I never started on his Greek and
Hebrew and Latin or indeed on his massive tomes of commentary on the Bible. But what
I did read was a good range of books through which God answered my basic questions,
though he took several months and the ordinary process of reading by which to do it.
It would take too long here even to summarise the answers I received regarding my
questions, but I wanted to give this background so that you understand a little regarding
my own search and the process by which God found me and answered my questions. In
time, I hope to write more about the answers I received. It was that reading which laid the
foundation for my later reading, among other things in Indian philosophy and history and
culture.
On the basis of that reading, I finally found the answer to the question at the start of this
booklet:: why did the tradition of animal sacrifice disappear from most parts of India? Why
do we have the sort of sacrifices we have now?
The Vedic system of sacrifice continued unabated till about the 3 rd century BC. By that
time, our priests, who are quite corrupt even today, had become intolerably corrupt. They
used the system of sacrifices to make themselves rich and to oppress the poor even more
than they do today, because everything from birth to upnaina (the equivalent of baptism)
to marriage to success at work or business to health and sickness and the seasons of the
year and indeed death itself came to be governed by some sacrifice which needed to be
peformed, according to our priests, who became richer than us baniyas (business caste)
and more powerful than the kshatriyas (the warrior, administrative or ruling class).. That
was why the people and even kings and emperors started turning away from our priests to
the teachings which we today call Jainism and Buddhism.
Most Hindus do not know that the notion of reincarnation does not originate with us but
with the Jains. Jainism is a very old tradition, and according to their own thinking goes
back to times immemorial. However, Jain ideas were not popular in India till they became
a mechanism by which we could escape the power of our priests which had become
unbearable for us, and we Hindus then converted to Jainism and Buddhism in large
numbers, specially after the Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century himself converted to
Buddhism at least partly to undercut the political power of the brahmins (priests).
As Buddhism particularly became popular and had political and financial patronage, it
developed huge universities, such as at Taxila which became well-known throughout the
then-known world (one of the reasons by Alexander the Great wanted to come to India
was so that he could discuss things with the philosophers at Taxila and Nalanda, and he
did not just bring his army with him but also historians and philosophers for that specific
purpose). At these universities, Jain philosophical ideas were integrated into Buddhism
and developed further, so that Buddhist philosophy came to outrank Jain philosophy.
However, both Buddhism and Jainism, in contradiction of their own tenets, developed their
own tradition of priests, who also became quite corrupt in the popular and degenerate
forms of Buddhism and Jainism that developed.
As the people became discontented with popular Buddhism and Jainism, the old Hindu
priests in the temple integrated Jain and Buddhist notions and practices, reducing the
kinds and number of sacrifices performed, and accepting the Jain/Buddhist practice of
idolatry (which developed in India at some time between the first century BC and the first
century AD). That is one reason why "temple Hinduism" is such a mixture today, and why
yogic practices on the one hand and philosophical disquisitions on the other hand are not
integrated with it.
In addition to temple Hinduism, yoga/tantra and philosophy, the other deviant tradition
which emerged was that of bhakti, and that led directly as well as indirectly all the way to
the present-day forms of guruism.
The impact of Islam from the seventh century AD onwards was to reinforce a sense of the
unity of God (as against the pantheon of gods in which we had come to believe; though
most Indian families even today owe primary allegiance only to one of these gods, having
a merely notional or occasional or "when necessary" recourse to one or more of the other
gods).
The impact of Christianity from the 1st century to a certain extent but mainly after the 18th
century was to produce Christianised forms of Hinduism (that is, including concern for
education and the downtrodden and society and the environment) which began to take this
world and its issues a little more seriously.
Years later, I discovered, on the basis of my study of the history of the West, that sacrifice
is the basis not only of our individual relationship with God but also the basis of which the
greatness of the West was built. All the political freedoms and economic prosperity of the
West was won at the cost of the sacrifice of the lives and wealth of thousands and indeed
millions of reformers. For details, please read the books mentioned in the list below.
It is that traditon of sacrifice and self-sacrifice which continues to struggle against illiteracy,
disease, corruption, oppression and every other manifestation of evil, and continues to
bless the West, India and indeed the whole of the world today in every way political and
social and in relation to the environment, peace, justice, health and prosperity.
Further reading (the most important books are starred):
* Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews
Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Hinduism, Penguin Books, UK, 1981
Edmund P Clowney, Christian Meditation, InterVarsity Press, UK, 1981
* Prabhu Guptara, Indian Spirituality, Grove Booklets, UK, 1984
* K. Ingham, Reformers in India 1793-1833, Cambridge University Press, UK, 1956
* Kennedy, What if Jesus had never been born?
* Kennedy, What if the Bible had never been written?
Rabi R. Maharaj, Death of a Guru, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, USA, 1977
Vishal Kumar Mangalwadi, The World of Gurus, Vikas Books, New Delhi, 1976
Vishal Kumar Mangalwadi, The Book of the Millennium
* Vishal Kumar Mangalwadi, India: The Grand Experiment
* Vishal Kumar Mangalwadi, Truth and Social Reform
Vishal Kumar Mangalwadi, What liberates a woman?
* Vishal Kumar Mangalwadi, William Carey: A Tribute (specially the first chapter titled "A
Quiz")
(Mangalwadi has several other books and much of his work is available free on
http://www.VishalMangalwadi.com)
* Sadhu Sundar Singh, With and Without Christ, CLS, Madras, India, 1969
* R.C. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane, Oxford University Press, 1972.
* R.C. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane, Oxford University Press, 1972.