Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/807

 INDIA

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INDIA

representing the Goan community in Bombay; beside several otliers in English and sundry local idioms. On the whole the Catholic press confines its attention to Catholic interests without entering into the social or political affairs of the country. For the use of the clergy a " Promptuarium Canonico-Liturgicum " is published at Ernakulam. Mention should also be made of the "Madras Catholic Directory", giving the status of the dioceses for the whole of India, and pub- lished annually since the year 1851.

Protestant Mission.vrv Work. — The first Protest- ant missionaries to set foot in India were two Luther- ans from Denmark, who began work in 1705 in the Danish settlement of Tranqucl)ar. Their first step was to translate the Bible into Tamil, and afterwards into Hindu.stani. They made little progress at first, but gradually spread to Madras, Cuddalore, and Tan- jore. In 1750 Schwartz carried on the work thus begun and extended it to Tinnevelly near Cape Como- rin. ,4fter the Lutherans came the Baptists, who began work at Serampur near Calcutta. In 17.58 a Danish missionary first ilevoted attention to Calcutta. In 1799 there was a great outburst of energy at Seram- pur, whose missionaries are said in the space of ten years to have translated the Bible into thirty-one languages or dialects, and by 1816 had formed a com- mimity of 700 converts. The London Missionary Society entered the field in 1798. By the "New Charter" of 18i:i the East India Company provided for the establishment of the .\nglican ,\rchl:iishopric of Calcutta, with three archdeaconries, one for each presidency. This led the way to further enterpri-u on the part of the Church Missionary Society, which started in 1814, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which foUoweii in 1826. Their greatest successes were scored in Southern India, in the fields already opened liy the Lutherans. In 1835 the See of Madras was establisheil, and in 18:57 that of Bombay. In 1877 two missionary bishop.s assistant to the Bishop of Madras were appointed for the Tinnevelly missions, and new sees were erected at Lahore and Rangoon, in Burma. The missionary Bishopric of Travancore and Cochin was established in 1879. The first missionary sent by the Church of Scotland arrived in 1830. Since then the Presbyterian Church of Ire- land, the Wesleyan Methodists, the Salvation .-^rmy, and various other bodies, European and American, have been added to the list. Summing up the figures of progress, we find that in 1830 there were only nine Protestant missionary societies at work, with about 27,000 native Protestants in India, Burma, and Ceylon. In 1870 there were no fewer than thirty-five such societies, with an estimate of 318,363 Protestant Christians. In 1852 there were 4.59 Protestant mis- sionaries and in 1872 there were 606. Features of the Protestant methods of work are: the spread of the Scriptures in the local vernacular; education of children specially in vernacular schools; .special efforts in the way of female education; and a very extensive use of native missionaries, not only or- dained ministers, but also lay preachers both male and female (Hunter's "Indian Empire").

Great stress is sometimes laid on the rapid growth of Protestant numbers, and the relatively smaller in- crease of Catholic numbers. Thus Mr. J. N. Farquhar, writing in the " Contemporary Review" for May, 1908, offers the following comparisons (Catholics including Latins and Syrians, and comprising British and French but not Portuguese India; while Protestants include all native Christians in India excluding Burma) : —

1851 1871 1891 1901

Catholics.

Protestants.

From these and other figures he calculates that, whereas the Catholic increa.se for fifty years is only 111.5 per cent, t hat of the Protestants during the .same period is 857.2 per cent. The question is a compli- cated one, because we do not know the methods by which the Protestant figures are obtained, i. e. whether they include only really initiated Christians; what proportion of the conversions are permanent, or how far pecuniary assistance has to do with many of them. Putting this aside, it is to be noted that whereas most of our Catholic energy is taken up by permanent ministrations to numerous stable bodies of hereditary Catholics, Protestant missionary enterprise is to a great extent of recent origin, and has had before it an open field. The different missionary societies on

732,887

934,400

1,313,6.53

1,550,614

91,092 224,258 559!661 871,991

t:NriiANCE. SrMAHEE Temi'I.p:, Renahf.s

their first arrival find themselves free from pre-exist- ing ties, and can give their whole energy to breaking new ground in remote districts, where there is always the best chance of securing rapid results. Only after the pioneer work is finished, and the Protestant con- verts are settled down as hereditary (Christians, will the comparison of percentages provide a fair test. Moreover if percentages are left aside, and attention paid to the actual growth of numbers, it will lie found from the above figures that whereas Catholics have increased by 817,727, Protestants during the same period have only increased by 780,899. This fact puts quite a different aspect on the case.

Architecture and Archeology. — India is rich in archseological monuments of various kinds, and presents a remarkable variety of architectural works of highest excellence, embodying the history of the past. First come the stupas or topes connected with early Buddhism, and dating centuries before Christ. The chief of these are found at Sarnath near Benares, Gaya, Sanchi, and other parts of Northern India, the scene of the original Buddhist movement, and at Ajiuradhapura etc., in Ceylon. The country is also dotted over with Buddhist rock-cut temples and monasteries dating from a century before Christ to about the seventh century A. n., the most important being those at Ellora and Ajunta, Nasick, Badami,