History of Christianity in India

Question:

Describe about the comparative analysis of two faith philosophies towards providing health care, Christianity Providing Health Care and Buddhism Providing Healthcare?

According to the census of 2001, Christianity is the third largest religion in India. This religion constitutes of 24 million followers which constitutes 2.3% of India’s population. They constitute the major population in South India and North East. It was established in India in the 6th century AD. Buddhism emerged as a world region in ancient Kingdom of Magadha and this religion emphasized on teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. In today’s world Buddhism exist in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Followers of Buddhism are called Buddhists in India. The teachings of this religion existed only in oral traditions.

Christians developed a robust system which helped for caring the poor, orphans, widows and the people who were ill treated. The religion also catered to other members who were in need of care. In 251 A.D the church in Rome provided care to 1500 widows. Later they supported 3000 widows, poor, sick and travelers. This care was done through some volunteer societies. The churches inhibited the necessary resources and this aided the growth of church. This also led to persecution by the Roman government. The bishop of Alexandria said that deacons, presbyters and layman were responsible to take care about the sick persons and also there were few people who threw the dead bodies into streets. The medical care also supported the victims of plague.

Later on all these small services were finalized in a number of institutions that were the first hospitals. In the late fourth century the religion also came up with chargeable medical care facilities, which initially were in the form of montasories and later in form of hospitals.

Today in US people are also treated those who do not have insurance. They don’t run after money instead work on the principle of saving lives (Anbeek, 2005).

Buddha’s teachings stretch throughout Asia starting from Japan, South East Asia and China. In North there are countries such as Tibet, Russia, and Nepal. The society is practiced as a whole through Buddhist healthcare (Rk-world.org, 2015). Buddhism laid more emphasis on personal responsibility and motivation aspects as well Buddhists believe in rebirth. They think that human birth is very prestigious and precious for an individual. It is a complete development of compassion and mind. In Buddhism death is a transition phase to the next life. They prepare rituals so that peace is provided for person dying. They believe if a person is calm and composed while dying then they has greater chance for rebirth. According to Buddhists, after all the stages of death have taken place the spirit enters a “Bardo” which is the signal for next life. Long extensive prayers are done for that. Buddhists also follow strict rules on diet as maximum of them are vegetarian. They also believe in strict devotional prayers, mantra repetition, meditations. Mothers play an important role in bringing children and also taking care for them (Rk-world.org, 2015). Thus these are the main features of the health care in relation to the Buddhism.

Healthcare in Christianity

In this segment some key elements are compared of the two religions. These are as follows:

According to Christianity, God is divine and omnipresent. Their approach is that they believe that man was created by an external God and Christians are asked to follow their own god. They follow the teachings of Jesus and that come from God’s commands. Bible is the holy book for them and they follow its preaching (Rk-world.org, 2015). It the main source of their doings and they follow the guidelines that are provided in the book.

Whereas the Buddhists believe that there is no external concept of God.  They believe Lord Buddha as their god and it is a spontaneous rising. Buddha referred being awake and he referred this as nirvana which meant for self or individual.

Christians believed in core teachings which were considered to be Old Testament. The New Testament included a collection of writings that were collected from the disciples of Jesus. It was predicted that it would lead to second coming of Jesus, the Messiah, and he will have the power to save the souls of the people and give them life again. The Christian faith is driven by the self soul itself.

The Buddhist concept examined three signs of existence. The first sign is of dukkha which means that there is universality of suffering. It is believed that all individuals have suffered the sorrow of death of a friend or loved one. The second sign is of Anicca that means an individual is impermanent in terms of his existence. Individuals have to go through constant changes and challenges in life and if people can overcome another problem arises. The final one is Anatman which means no soul. It is believed according to Buddhism that there are no facts and evidence to support the soul of an individual. They believed that there are five forces that constituted a self of an individual. In this aspect we can see that Christianity depicted the relation between God and self individual which the Buddhists did not. They believed it as an cause and effect relationships of all things. They are highly devoted and committed to all things in their life. And this opposed the Christian mindset because they believed that everything has a link and connection with their God itself (Rk-world.org, 2015).

The two belief systems differ in terms of their views and perception but they both cater to same kind of suffering. Christianity believed that if any devotee rejects their God then they are bound to undergo suffering. It was also believed that if an individual continues to reject God then they would have to go through very bad experience in both earth and hell (Rk-world.org, 2015).

They believed that mankind is open to redemption from their God at any point of time. In Christianity individuals have to believe in God at most so that they can end their suffering. The only way to go to heaven is through the Christ himself. In the Ten Commandments all the core principles of Christianity are and Christ’s teachings are compared against(Rk-world.org, 2015)..

History of Buddhism in India

The Buddhists believed that their suffering was in a structure of beliefs. The end of suffering is obtained by the Four Nobel Truths. There is a famous quote that is ‘There is a path to the end of suffering’ and the paths were supposed to be those noble truths. It was explained that individual access to various optimistic experiences in life that individuals can distinguish one from the other. No experience is meant to be forever. As we grow every day we are able to fleet moments in life. As the happy moments passes by there comes sad moments too and individuals must overcome it (Christianity.co.nz, 2015). Second noble truth is of Tanha  that describes various desires of an individual. This means concept of self is changing every day. Third noble truth is to overcome Tanha. This means it is the desire to eradicate our self cravings sometimes. Since they believed that there are no external forces associated with a soul of an individual therefore it is the inner self to control such causes. Fourth noble truth included The Eightfold Path which is most essential principle for the Buddhists. The eight principles are: Right conduct, Right View, Right Speech, Right Resolve, Right effort, Right livelihood, Right Concentration and Right mindfulness (Christianity.co.nz, 2015).

Healing is an important aspect of Lord Jesus Christ. Individuals can heal their sickness through disciples of Jesus. Health not only included physical fitness but also complete wellbeing as a holistic term. To maintain a good quality in health an individual must main good relation with god (Pursuingthetruth.org, 2015).

 The Buddhists believed in Kamma that was associated with an individual deed and its consequences thereafter and they believed that one had to undergo such suffering. They believed that an individual cannot blame anyone for their suffering because it is their personal responsibility for health. This also enables an individual’s painful aspects of life (Christianity.co.nz, 2015). There is a cause and effect relation and that depends on the choices we have made in the past. However all the pain and suffering can be eliminated by seeking external means like pills, injections etc. It was also stated that Kamma had both social and individual dimensions as well (Christianity.co.nz, 2015).

Conclusion:

To conclude we can say that both these two religions are different in terms of their concept of divine. The Christians viewed of an external God, the Christ but the Buddhists opposed them in such an illogical approach. They believed that everything existed within an internal soul or the concept of self was realized by them. The Buddhists believed that all of it was out of any spontaneous rising with proper guidelines that are necessary to be followed.

References:

ANBEEK, C. (2005). Buddhism and Christianity. Bijdragen, 66(1), 3-19. doi:10.2143/bij.66.1.562903

Christianity.co.nz,. (2015). Worldviews: Hinduisim, Buddhism and New Age thinking. Retrieved 21 February 2015, from https://www.christianity.co.nz/truth4.htm

Lewis, C. (2001). Mere Christianity. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Missionfrontiers.org,. (2015). Bridging Buddhist Christian Worldviews: Communicating in Context for a Theravada Buddhist Breakthrough. Retrieved 21 February 2015, from https://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/bridging-buddhist-christian-worldviews

Pursuingthetruth.org,. (2015). A Christian Perspective of Healing: Prayer. Retrieved 21 February 2015, from https://www.pursuingthetruth.org/sermons/files/healing-prayer.htm

Rk-world.org,. (2015). Dharma World Buddhist magazine. Retrieved 21 February 2015, from https://www.rk-world.org/dharmaworld/dw_2008odhealth.aspx