The Vedic doctrine of the creative Sacrifice of Purusha and the Christian doctrine of redemptive Sacrifice of Yeshua as the keystones of Hinduism and Christianity

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On August 30th, 2022 Vivekananda International Foundation organised a talk titled “The Vedic doctrine of the creative Sacrifice of Purusha and the Christian doctrine of redemptive Sacrifice of Yeshua as the keystones of Hinduism and Christianity” by Prof. Maria Krzysztof Byrski, Professor emeritus of the Warsaw University, Poland. This talk was intended to experiment the ways in which Hinduism and Christianity can come together for a dialogue. Dr. Arvind Gupta, Director, VIF chaired the event and welcomed the speaker and handed over to Prof. Shashi Prabha Kumar to give an elaborate introduction of the speaker.

Prof. Byrski is known for his long term engagement with Sanskrit studies from Master’s level (at Warsaw University) to PhD (at Banaras Hindu University) especially focussing on the Vedas and Sanskrit drama. He has the experience of teaching Sanskrit and Hindi language in Poland and teaching Polish language in Delhi University. In 1978, he was awarded the title of “doctor habilitatus” for the thesis entitled “The Methodology of the Analysis of Sanskrit Drama”. His talk at the VIF event was based on his ongoing research which explores into the chosen hymns of Rigveda and Atharvaveda from the point of view of the so called ‘culture Christian’ with an intention to show that Vedic idea of creative sacrifice of Purusha is compatible with Christian idea of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The Purusha Sukta and Nasadiya Sukta were the main suktas that were discussed in the talk in which the speaker used to express the above mentioned thought. The maxim of ‘Yagna’ that is embedded in the Hindu cosmology of creation which is often loosely translated as sacrifice is compared by the speaker with the Christian idea of sacrifice of Jesus.

In the concluding session it was highlighted that there would be ontological disagreement from the Hindu position for this comparative study. However, it was also mentioned that sharing of thoughts are indeed opening new ways for a dialogue between Hinduism and Christianity. Even if the dialogue may lead to subjects and issues that are debatable, on a positive note they would only help to understand these two communities to know each other better.