The Theosophist

"At the time of Xavier’s death, in 1552, there were more than two hundred Jesuits in various missions established on both coasts of India. Their chief seat was Goa. Here, in the space of a few years, they erected ten princely churches on the ruins of Hindu temples, many of which were razed to the ground ; besides this, they founded religious schools for the young converts. But they were bad teachers of the Gospel."

"They employed all methods to allure the Hindus and the Musulmans to embrace Christianity, and published tracts and books in Tamil and other languages. Such was the state of things when the great Emperor Akbar, desirous of inquiring into the nature of the Christian faith, invited the Jesuits to his Court, about the year 1582, and asked them for the life of Christ. The crafty priests, thinking that the simple life would not attract and captivate his Oriental imagination, attempted to palm upon the sovereign a false life stuffed with fables, such as are found in the mythological books of the Hindus. But the trick lost the game ! Akbar detected the fraud and dismissed them from his Court. Thus they used to conceal from the natives the essential peculiarities of the Gospel ; they accommodated its doctrines to the most absurd notions of the populace. Nor was this all. They brought from Rome heads and skulls of false saints, and rumours were artfully spread abroad of prodigies and miracles wrought by these relics ; images were moved by wires, which they pretended were miraculously moved by Heaven ; a certain tomb at Meliapur, on the Coromandel Coast was fraudulently given out for the sepulchre of St. Thomas, in allusion to an ancient tradition that the Apostle crossed the Indus and penetrated into the south as far as the Carnatic, and there, after preaching the glad tidings, suffered martyrdom. With the bones of such saints they fought ludicrous combats with the devils, and thus deceived the eyes of illiterate men. A large volume would be required to contain an enmumeration of the innumerable frauds which these artful priests practised to delude the people of India."

"Its journal, The Theosophist, was widely circulated in Indian cities like Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta and even reached the Buddhist revivalists in Ceylon."

"The Theosophist was an immediate success..."

"The tone of The Theosophist was distinctly pro-Indian and equally anti- Christian, stating plainly that Theosophy was an 'ancient Wisdom-Religion dating back to Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus of the Neoplatonic School at Alexandria, ..."

"‘The Theosophist made clear in its first edition that the paper would feature “the best native scholars of India."*! The motto of the society, “There is no religion higher than truth’ adopted from the Maharajah of Benares appeared across the banner of the journal and clearly telegraphed where their loyalties lay? A growing list of members of the Indian aristocracy were listed as subscribers in the end pages of each edition, While their own special role as mediators was made clear, Blavatsky ‘wrote in 1880 that Theosophists could assist in the process, but “the moral regen- eration of India and the revival of her ancient spiritual glories must exclusively be the work of her own sons”*® Skirmishes with Swami Dayananda Saraswati and the Arya Samaj also demonstrated the limits of cooperation between Theosophists and Hindu reformers."