Of Prophets and Messiahs 1


 * Of Prophets and Messiahs, Part 1
 * by Jonathan I. Edelstein
 * 29 October 2001

Karam Chand ... Very little is known of the greatest of the Rajput prophets; sources disagree even as to his birth name. It is generally acknowledged that he was not a Rajput or an Ananite by birth, that he was born the youngest of twelve children in a poor Sumatran peasant family, and that he was sold into slavery by his parents while still a child. The masters he served and the labors he performed, however, are lost to legend...

... At the age of thirty, in SE 179 [951 CE], he was sold to an Ananite merchant captain in Padang port, who gave him the name by which he is now remembered. During his passage to India, he learned the teachings of the B'nei Mikra faith from the sailors and adopted it as his own. He took the creed of Anan ben David with him when he was sold to an agent of the maharaja of Udaipur, Someshvar Suryavanshi, and pressed into service as a soldier in the royal guard. The fragmentary records and stories that exist from this period of his life describe him as scrupulous in his duties, devout in his observances and passionate in his faith...

... As an Ananite convert enslaved to a lord of the same religion, Karam Chand was more indentured servant than slave. Unlike an eved nokhri, or foreign slave, an eved ivri -- "Hebrew slave" -- was liable only for seven years' service. Karam Chand's term of servitude was to prove shorter still; he won his freedom on a battlefield outside Pali in the autumn of SE 182 [954 CE], when his valor saved the maharaja from death at the hands of an enemy swordsman. The following Sabbath day, as the chronicles relate:

"And Suryavanshi summoned the soldier Karam Chand to his tent, and said unto him, you shall pray with me this day. And when the time came to read from the Torah, there were nine men only save Karam Chand, for Suryavanshi had invited but eight of his officers to pray with him.  And the officers said, where can we find a tenth man?  For the Torah cannot be read without ten men present, and slaves are not counted as free men are.  So Suryavanshi said, then let the soldier Karam Chand be freed." FN1

After the Sabbath ended, he was enrolled as an officer in the maharaja's army and rose quickly in rank during the next five years. It was during this time, at the age of thirty-three, that he first learned to read...

... The battle that was to change Karam Chand's life occurred in the summer of SE 188 [960 CE] on the plains of Jaipur. At the end of a three- day struggle, the Udaipuri army was defeated, and Karam Chand was wounded and left for dead while covering a retreat. However, he was not quite dead, although he would claim ever after that he had died and returned with a message from God. After a week of delirium during which he subsisted on rainwater, he recovered consciousness and made his way to the home of a peasant family. It was there, while regaining his health, that he wrote the Book of Time ...

... Although Karam Chand was fundamentally an Ananite prophet, the pages of the Book of Time clearly demonstrate the influence of the Buddhism of his birth and the Hinduism of many of his fellow soldiers. Central to Karam Chand's theology is the mahayuga, the four-stage Hindu cycle of time in which the world degenerates from good to evil before regaining its virtue. The Book of Time accepts the cyclic nature of the universe, both in terms of repetition of history and reincarnation of individual beings. Unlike Hindu or Buddhist theology, however, Karam Chand preached that the cycle could be broken -- that, even during the Kali Yuga, the world could collectively lift itself to a state of spiritual perfection and usher in the Messianic Age.

Karam Chand's description of the post-messianic world is similar in many ways to the Buddhist conception of nirvana, but it is not an individual achievement. An individual who obeys the mitzvot of the Torah and performs good works will improve his station in the next incarnation and accrue reward to be enjoyed in the messianic age, but he is powerless to break free from the cycle of reincarnation unless the entire world does so with him. It is therefore the greatest task of every believer to improve the state of the world. Men who pray in cloisters are not holy, no matter how much they honor God, because their prayers benefit only themselves. In contrast, men who bring peace and justice to the world, or who teach Torah to the unbeliever, "shall be counted in My eyes as priests, though they are but slaves..."

... Karam Chand taught that unbelievers should be converted only by persuasion and example, not by the sword. According to the Book of Time, "cursed is he who seeks to bring the heathen to the faith through misery, for he sows hatred against the true way and brings false belief into the world." In other words, although unbelievers could be forced to mouth the words of the Torah, the insincerity of their prayers and the resistance that would arise in areas yet unconquered would result in a net loss to the world's spiritual level. Moreover, although all would recognize the truth of the Torah during the messianic era, even unbelievers were capable of improving the world in the meantime. "Heathens who follow the laws of Noah and practice justice honor Me, and those who follow the mitzvot are even more to be honored, for they do so of their own free will."

Nevertheless, Karam Chand's theology was far from pacifist. In addition to being lawful for self-defense, war was an accepted means of combating injustice; a successful war against an evil state brought the world closer to messianic perfection. The Book of Time sets forth a theory of the "just war" remarkably similar to Augustine's, although it is highly unlikely that Karam Chand had ever heard of the great Christian philosopher. His concept of a just casus belli, however, was somewhat broader than Augustine's; although unbelief could not justify conquest, state- sponsored practice of evil was sufficient even in the absence of direct harm to the conquering nation. Karam Chand cautioned that only widespread, heinous and officially sanctioned sin counted as sufficient evil to justify war, but this admonition was not always honored by his later followers...

... The Book of Time unquestionably represented a revolution in Ananite theology, but it is important to remember what the Book did not change. Karam Chand did not dispute the oneness of God, the holiness of the Torah or the binding nature of the mitzvot. The holy calendar remained unchanged, including the holidays of Passover, Yom Teruah and the Fast of Esther. Although the Eastern influence on Indian Ananism was greater after Karam Chand than ever before, it remained firmly part of the Ananite metareligion...

... "In the fourth month after Karam Chand returned to Udaipur, he preached unto the maharaja Someshvar Suryavanshi, who saw the truth of his words. In that month was Karam Chand married to the daughter of the maharaja and made his heir..."