Marathi Christians - History

History

Most Marathi Christians converts from Hinduism, as a results of Christian missions such as the American Marathi Mission, Church Mission Society, and the Church of England's SPG Mission. Around the turn of the 19th century, British Baptist missionary William Carey was instrumental in translating the Bible into the Marathi language. Literate Hindu converts from high castes, such as Brahmin, often served as religious instructors to others.

In Ahmednagar, several such Hindus converted to Christianity, such as Ramkrishna Modak, a Chitpavan Brahman and ancestor of Marathi actor Shahu Modak, and Narayan Waman Tilak. Although today the Ahmednagar district has a fairly large number of Christians, these people identify as Indians first and Christians second. Addressing the aggressive American Marathi Mission, Tilak said "Pack up yea your belongings and be gone, if you do not love this sacred land of Hindus."

Read more about this topic:  Marathi Christians

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
    —Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    “Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.”
    —Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)