Virchand Gandhi

Virachand Raghavji Gandhi (Gujarati: વીરચંદ ગાંધી; Hindi: वीरचंद गाँधी) (August 25, 1864 - August 7, 1901) was a Jain scholar who represented Jainism at the first World Parliament of Religions in 1893. A barrister by trade, he worked to defend the rights of Jains, and wrote and lectured extensively on Jainism, other religions, and philosophy.

Quotes by Virachand Gandhi

 * Europe is today only nominally Christian. It is really worshiping Mammon.

Christian Missions: A Triangular Debate, Before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York (1895)

 * We all understand that the debasement of a nation's coinage is very pernicious and must prove disastrous to its commerce. How much more dangerous is the debasement of the spiritual coinage!


 * All religions worthy of the name are now making great efforts to purify their doctrines and return to their original standpoint, all except Christianity! You surely know that the nineteenth century Christianity is not the religion taught by Christ. Christ's religion has been changed and corrupted.


 * The central ideas of Christianity, an angry God and vicarious atonement, are contrary to every fact in nature, as also to the better aspirations of the human heart; they are, in our present stage of enlightenment, absurd, preposterous, and blasphemous propositions.


 * Christians well know that the much-decorated statue of the Church, as it now stands, is not of pure chiseled marble, but of clay, cemented together by blood and tears and hardened in the fires of hatred and persecution.


 * Even the street-sweeper is frequently more profoundly versed in subtle metaphysics and divine wisdom than the missionary sent to convert him.