Bhakti and Christian Missions

Abstract

Both bhakti and Christian missions have a long history in India, dating back to the beginning of the Common Era (or perhaps before, in the case of bhakti). The earliest text that uses bhakti as a technical term, describing it as a path for salvation, is the Bhagavad Gita, which many scholars date to the 1st century ce. On the other side, the most ancient Indian Christian traditions date their origins to the arrival of the missionary St. Thomas in 52 ce, although historians are more confident assigning a somewhat later date, perhaps the 3rd century, to the genesis of Indian Christianity. The St. Thomas or Syrian Christian communities were nourished for well over a millennium by fellow believers from Mesopotamia. The Roman Catholic Church commenced the first Western (as opposed to Middle Eastern) Christian missions to India around the year 1500. Protestants began missions to India around 1700, sponsored by the king of Denmark. The advent of Pentecostal and Charismatic missions, which were initiated by Indian Christians, can be dated to approximately 1900. While the first Western Christian missionaries were Europeans, Indians have always been deeply involved in the missionary movement, and were actually more effective and successful than Europeans in mission work. Almost all contemporary Christian missionaries in the subcontinent are Indian. Due to the nature of scholarly literature on bhakti and Christianity, this bibliography focuses on the interaction between bhakti and Western Christian missions: Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Pentecostal/Charismatic. Definitional problems immediately present themselves when one starts to delve into this literature: How are bhakti and Christian missions to be identified? Indeed, the understanding of neither has been static for the past five centuries; both have been variously interpreted by those who have practiced and studied them. The multiplicity of definitions and perceptions continues, and even proliferates, today. For the purposes of this article, bhakti will be understood as devotional movements with origins in Hinduism, but permeating—and being influenced by—other religious traditions in India. Bhakti places an emphasis on the affective dimensions of religious devotion, and on popular religiosity. Christian missions will be understood as the many and diverse attempts—with varying degrees of success and a variety of positive, negative, and mixed results—to spread Christian beliefs, practices, and benevolence in every human culture and language. Both bhakti and Christian missions involve practices of body, mind, and emotions. This bibliography is restricted to English-language materials. Moreover, it does not employ diacritical marks except when they are included in titles of works.