A Concise History of the World
Page 30
As the Safavids were expanding their empire and enforcing Shi'ite conformity, Guru Nanak (1469–1538), a spiritual teacher living in the Punjab area of what is now the India–Pakistan border, added his own insights to elements of Hinduism, Islam, and other traditions to found what was later called Sikhism, a word taken from the Sanskrit word for “learner” or “disciple.” His revelations centered on the absolute unity and majesty of God. God is—in words often repeated in Nanak's writings—unseen, infinite, formless, ineffable, and eternal. Salvation can come once one recognizes complete dependency on God, who bestows unmerited grace, an idea that parallels those of Protestants. Nanak emphasized that proper devotional discipline could be done by people living in families and involved with the ordinary things of the world. In fact, service to others was an important part of spiritual life and living in the world with a family was spiritually superior to renouncing family ties, a position very different from that of most Hindu teachers of Nanak's time.
Turning to God is difficult for humans to do alone, Nanak asserted, and in this they often need a teacher, or guru. In Nanak's writings, the word guru usually means the voice of God itself, akin to the Holy Spirit in Christian theology, but gradually it came to be applied to the series of men succeeding Nanak who built on his teachings and transformed his followers into a community. His followers spread the Sikh message, and both Hindus and Muslims converted, though converts included significantly more Hindus. The third Sikh guru, Amar Das (guruship 1552–1574), set up a system for overseeing believers and local leaders, and developed rituals and ceremonies for major life changes, including birth, marriage, and death. The fifth guru, Arjan Dev (guruship 1581–1606) compiled a collection of Sikh sacred writings, the Adi Granth (“first book”), which consists primarily of hymns and prayers written by the gurus to direct believers in their devotions. The Adi Granth contains the writings of Nanak, written in Punjabi, a language spoken in northwestern India, rather than in Sanskrit, the language of the ancient Hindu texts. Like the Protestant reformers who were preaching and translating the Bible in Europe at the same time, Nanak thought it was important that people who were not members of the educated elite have access to religious texts.
During Nanak's lifetime and for several decades afterward, the Sikh community was too small to be viewed with much concern by local Mughal authorities, who regarded Sikhs as simply yet another variety of Hindus or as one of the many movements that blended various traditions common in northern India. By the early seventeenth century this had changed, and intense conflict often erupted. Most later Sikh gurus were military as well as spiritual leaders, but they continued to emphasize that external practices without inner devotion are useless.
Religion and politics were also closely interconnected in Tibet, where nobles along with large Buddhist monasteries were the major landowners. During the Ming dynasty that ruled China after the ousting of the Mongols in the fourteenth century, there were diplomatic relations between Tibetan Buddhist leaders (lamas) and both the Chinese imperial government and the Mongols. The monasteries of Tibet followed various schools of Buddhist thought, which vied with one another and sometimes called on Mongol military leaders for assistance against their rivals or against attacks from outside Tibet. In the 1570s, Sonam Gyatso (1543–88), the leader of the quite new Gelug-pa school founded in the early fifteenth century, declared that Altan Khan, the major Mongol lord of the time, was a reincarnation of Khubilai Khan. Altan Khan in turn granted Sonam Gyatso the title “Cosmic Ocean lama,” or Dalai Lama, and declared Tibetan Buddhism to be the official religion of the Mongols. The position of Dalai Lama was understood to be handed down through successive reincarnation, and ties between the Tibetans and Mongols were strengthened when at Sonam Gyatso's death divinations and oracles showed that the next Dalai Lama was a great-grandson of Altan Khan. Not all Tibetans were happy with a non-Tibetan Dalai Lama, there was civil war, and he died under mysterious circumstances, but the fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617–82) unified Tibet with the assistance of Mongol armies and became its political as well as spiritual leader. Intrigue, civil war, rebellions, and complex foreign relations involving the Manchu Qings, the Mongols, various Central Asian states, Himalayan kingdoms, and eventually European powers continued, but gradually the moral and spiritual authority of the Dalai Lama was accepted by most Tibetan Buddhists. Many of them want the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso (1935–)—who fled Tibet in 1949 when the Chinese asserted control and now lives in exile—to have political authority as well.
In the periods in which Tibet was independent, religious and secular authority were fused, which was true for some other early modern states as well. In many more, including every Christian state in Europe, most Catholic colonies, most Muslim states, and initially most British colonies in North America, there was an official religion. Rulers and officials in these places thought it essential that everyone living within their territory follow the same religious tradition, or at least outwardly conform and not engage in practices that clearly aligned them with a tradition the ruler viewed as unacceptable. Those who defied such laws risked penalties imposed by secular political authorities, not simply by religious officials, which could range from fines and confiscation of property to gruesome executions. Those whose religion differed from that of the majority also faced mob violence, which authorities rarely controlled.
There are many examples of religious persecution and religiously inspired violence. In 1492, the armies of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile conquered Granada, the last Muslim state in the Iberian peninsula, and decided to further enhance religious uniformity by ordering all Jews who had not converted to leave Spain. (Columbus received the support he had been seeking for his voyage from Queen Isabella several weeks later, after he promised to use the wealth gained by the trip to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims.) About 200,000 Jews left Spain, many to the more tolerant Ottoman Empire, but at the same time Jews who lived in some North African oasis cities were killed by Muslims and their synagogues burned down. The Sunni Muslim Ottomans were relatively tolerant of Jews and Christians, but they arrested and charged people observed performing Shi'ite rituals, accusing them of being sympathizers of the Shi'ite Safavids, with whom they were often at war; conversely, as we have seen, Sunni Muslims were persecuted in the Safavid Empire. In Japan, peasants protesting oppressive taxes revolted on the peninsula of Shimabara on the southern island of Kyushu in 1637–38. Many of the peasants were Christian, and all of them, including women and children, were executed by a huge force sent by the central government, which increasingly viewed Christianity as a threat. Japan had absorbed and blended Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism with its own indigenous religious traditions, but Christianity, which demanded sole allegiance and had been introduced by European missionaries, was not to become part of this mixture. Missionaries were expelled, Japanese Christians were tortured and executed, and Christianity in Japan became an underground religion of “hidden Christians” (Kakure Kirishitan) in remote fishing and farming villages, in which lay leaders secretly taught and baptized, and people married within the group.
Some rulers and political authorities chose not to enforce specific religious practices. The Manchu Qing patronized Tibetan Buddhism as well as Chinese Confucianism, and allowed Christian missionaries to teach and preach in Beijing and other cities. In the Mughal Empire, the emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) built a special building where Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, and scholars of other faiths could discuss their beliefs and practices. A religious innovator himself, he later developed what he termed the “Divine Faith” that combined ideas and rituals from many religions, although it did not spread much beyond the court or last after his lifetime.
4.7 Scholars from many faiths, including Jesuit priests dressed in black, gather at Akbar's court, in this 1605 illustration by the Sikh artist Nan Singh, from the official history of Akbar's reign. Outside the wall are beggars holding a food bowl and a
groom with horses.
Long-distance trade often brought people with different religious traditions together in port cities or other commercial centers, where they lived side by side or even intermarried, creating households that were mixed religiously as well as ethnically. Political authorities seeking to support mercantile ventures and increase the wealth of their territory allowed religious diversity, a strategy that worked well. The Dutch Republic, for example, became prosperous in the seventeenth century in part because of its religious toleration. Jews fleeing the Iberian peninsula, French Protestants seeking refuge from religious wars, and religious radicals from all over Europe settled in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities, where they worshipped openly and established shops and businesses. This diversity in religious ideas created an atmosphere in which new scientific, philosophical, and technical ideas spread as well.
Visitors to places where there was religious toleration often remarked on how unusual this was, however. Rulers of the Ayuthia kingdom of Siam, for example, were strong supporters of Theravada Buddhism, but European traders commented with surprise that Christian and Muslim merchants were always welcome and there was no attempt to convert them. This changed, however, when the Siamese learned that French officials and missionaries were plotting to convert King Narai (r. 1656–88) to Christianity and bring in French troops; they expelled all French and became less open to European merchants in general.
The expansion and creolization of Christianity
Siam was only one of many places where Christian missionaries and colonial officials attempted to convert a local ruler, for the Reformation in Europe was accompanied by the expansion of Catholic Christianity around the world, a process in which members of new religious orders such as the Jesuits were particularly active. The colonial forces of Spain and Portugal, and later those of France, included Catholic missionaries who worked to convert indigenous people and to establish churches and church institutions for immigrants. They built simple churches and opulent cathedrals, opened monasteries and convents, and extended the system of church courts that handled marriage and morals issues as well as doctrinal ones. Missionaries also traveled beyond European colonies, although only in Japan and the kingdom of the Kongo did they gain significant numbers of converts. Protestant colonists also included a few clergy who preached to indigenous people, but these were far fewer than among Catholics; intensive missionary work by Protestants would begin in the nineteenth century, with the second wave of European imperialism. Missionaries initially preached to indigenous people in European languages, which few understood, and some missionaries began to learn native languages. Following a pattern that had allowed Christianity to spread in Europe, they often first converted rulers and other members of the elite, hoping they would convince more ordinary people to convert as well.
In the Americas, some missionaries were idealistic, seeing the New World as a place to plant Christianity anew, away from what they saw as the hopeless corruption of European culture. Indigenous religion would also have to be destroyed, however. Ceremonies were banned, religious statuary and objects smashed, temples and other sacred buildings pulled down, and Catholic shrines or churches erected on the same sites. Books were burned by soldiers, officials, and clergy, who could not read them but still considered them “picture-books of the Devil.” Along with explaining concepts central to Christianity, missionaries also attempted to persuade—or force—possible converts to adopt Catholic practices of marriage, sexual morality, and day-to-day behavior. Once one was baptized, following Christian patterns in terms of marriage and personal demeanor became a more important sign of conversion than understanding the Trinity or other aspects of Christian doctrine. The same pattern was followed in the Philippines, where the colonial government in Manila gave missionaries great authority. Priests collected taxes and arranged for the selling of crops, and the church became wealthy. In some parts of the Americas and in the Philippines, clergy moved indigenous people into compact villages or towns (termed reducciones) for conversion, taxpaying, and cultural assimilation.
Many people resisted Christian teachings and continued to follow their original spiritual practices. In some areas, such as the Andes of South America and the Philippines, women had been important leaders in animistic religions, and they were stronger opponents of conversion than were men; this pattern was enhanced by male missionaries’ focus on boys and young men in their initial conversion efforts. Far more people became Christian, however, including women, who sometimes became fervent in their devotions or used priests and church courts to oppose their husbands or other male family members on matters of inheritance or the marriage of children.
The process of conversion used to be described by scholars as a “spiritual conquest,” in which indigenous beliefs and practices were largely wiped out through force and persuasion. The spread of Catholic Christianity is now viewed differently, not simply as conquest and resistance—though it was that—but as a process of cultural negotiation and synthesis, during which Christian ideas and practices were selectively adopted, mixed with existing practices, and openly, unknowingly, or surreptitiously rejected, just as they had been when Christianity spread to Greeks and Germanic peoples in Europe. Scholars often refer to this process as “creolization,” taking this word from Crioulo, the mixture of Portuguese and African languages spoken first in the Atlantic islands. In the Kongo, for example, King Afonso I (r. 1509–1543) supported the development of Christian teachings and practices that blended elements of the existing Kongolese religion with those taught by Portuguese missionaries. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, a religious visionary and reformer, Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, went further, saying that the Virgin Mary and many of the saints were Kongolese and she herself was an incarnation of Saint Anthony.
Creolization included the creation of new social and marital patterns. Although officials tried to impose European Catholic patterns—monogamous marriage, male-headed households, limited (or no) divorce—where these conflicted with existing patterns they were often modified and what emerged was a mixture of local and imported practices. The prominent men who missionaries most hoped to convert often had multiple wives and concubines, and missionaries argued about whether they had to give up all but one before Christian baptism, or whether Christian practice would (they hoped) follow baptism. In China the debate centered on rituals venerating ancestors—were these traditional family customs or pagan worship of minor deities?—and on priests touching women on their bare skin during baptism, especially as this involved the priest's saliva along with salt, oil, and water.
Cultural synthesis happened everywhere and involved many aspects of Christianity, but the Virgin of Guadalupe can serve as a good example, particularly because she became so important and also so controversial. In the seventeenth century, published texts in Spanish and Nahuatl told of the appearance of the Virgin Mary in 1531 to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an indigenous farmer and Christian convert, on a hill near Tenochtitlan (now within Mexico City). Speaking in Nahuatl, the apparition told Juan Diego that a church should be built at this site, and her image miraculously appeared on his cloak. Shortly afterward a church dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe was begun, named after a monastery in Spain where various miracles associated with the Virgin Mary had been reported, including some involving Christian defeats of Muslim forces. The Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe soon far outstripped her Spanish counterpart in significance. Preachers and teachers interpreted her appearance as a sign of the Virgin's special protection of indigenous people and those of mixed ancestry (mestizos), and pilgrims from all over Mexico began to make the trek to her shrine (see Figure 4.8). The Virgin of Guadalupe was made patron of New Spain in 1746 and her banner was carried by soldiers in the Mexican War of Independence in 1810 and in the Mexican Revolution of 1910.
In the twentieth century, however, many scholars, including some members of the Mexican clergy, came to doubt whether the apparition had ever happened or Juan Diego himself had even existed.
They pointed out that written accounts were not published until over a century later, and that church officials and missionaries active in central Mexico in 1531 made no mention of the event or of Juan Diego. Specialists in Nahuatl culture note that the hill where the apparition was reported was originally the site of a shrine to Coatlicue, the mother of the most powerful Aztec god Huitzilopochtli, and that aspects of the veneration of the Virgin of Guadalupe were also part of honoring Coatlicue or other Aztec mother goddesses. In their view, the colonial Catholic Church had simply invented the story as part of its efforts to strip Aztec holy sites of their original meaning. The Catholic Church has addressed these doubts resoundingly, declaring Guadalupe the patron of the whole American hemisphere in 1999 and raising Juan Diego to a saint in 2002; he was the first fully indigenous American to be canonized. Many Mexicans have interpreted this canonization, like the Virgin of Guadalupe herself, as a symbol of the place of their heritage within the Catholic Church, while others view Juan Diego and Guadalupe as symbols of the destruction of indigenous culture. Certain recent portrayals of Guadalupe, such as those of the Chicana artist Alma Lopez who depicts her dressed only in strands of roses, have been denounced, but Lopez and other artists have justified their work, noting that through the centuries people have interpreted Guadalupe in whatever way they thought most empowering. The Virgin of Guadalupe, they argue, began as a symbol with multiple meanings, and they are simply continuing the tradition of synthesis that started with the first conversions in the New World.