Before the transcendentalists, Americans
showed little understanding of or sympathy for
India and Hinduism. Cotton Mather, spokesman
for militant Christianity, maintained a keen inter-
est in the East, but only as a field in which Chris-
tian missionaries might preach, teach, and convert
the “heathen.” In 1721, Mather’s India Christiana
outlined the methods he felt were best suited to
drawing Hindus into the flock of Christ.
Later in the 18th century, tangible evidence
of contact with India reached American eyes.
In 1784, the ship United States sailed to Pondi-
cherry and returned to stock Boston, Salem, and
Providence with cloth, teas, spices, and crafts.
By 1799, William Bentley, minister of the Second
Congregational Church of Salem, Massachusetts,
set up the East India Marine Society and became
the first notable collector in America of Oriental
art and artifacts.
The first attempts to understand Hinduism
and the East were those of American thinkers who
were inheritors of the spirit of the Enlightenment,
a time in which redefinition of religion was cen-
tral. In Europe, Voltaire hailed Confucius as one
of history’s great men, and English deists found
Oriental religions of equal merit with Christianity.Old Vedanta temple in San Francisco, California, dedicated in 1905 (Constance A. Jones)K 464 United States