SADHU SUNDAR SINGH, 1889-1929
“Some man” in California gave this old hardback book to my husband years ago. Now browned with age, the book has traveled with us for over forty years. Since my own pastor often quoted from Sundar Singh, I knew it was a valuable book, especially since it is autographed by Sundar Singh himself and has an old black-and-white snapshot attached to the last page with a paper clip. It is a photo of Singh with a young girl with blonde curls.
The photo is dated c. July 1920, in San Francisco. The child is/was Elizabeth Stearns (?). The front inside of the book has the name of Florence Whitwell penciled in.
That page also has the Sadhu’s autograph with a notation, “Come unto me. Jesus” The biographer chose to use the name “Mrs. Arthur Parker” although her initials are R. J., but we don’t know her name. (p. 124) Sundar hmself wrote an endorsement in Roman-Urdu. Its translation says that he saw her manuscript and said it was written “without any mistake.”
My new daughter-in-law, Prathiba (Pratty) Yazala Gravely, is from southern India and got excited that I owned a copy of such a book. Her own mother had told her about the Sadhu’s ministry.
So, who was Sadhu Sundar Singh? Where should I begin?
According to a friend of ours from India, Muttathu Shajan, Sundar Singh was an apostle of India and is well known there. Shagan has read many of his books.
Sundar was the son of a wealthy Sikh landowner in Rampur, State of Patiala, India. His mother was friends of the ladies at the American Presbyterian Mission and permitted their visit to her home. She wanted her son Sundar to become a holy man, a sadhu. By age seven, she had taught him the Bhagavagitȧ in its entirety in Sanskrit. She taught him that peace of heart was the chief thing to seek in life.
He read the sacred books of the Sikhs, the Hindus, and the Muslims. But he hated the Christians’ Bible he was given where he attended school because it seemed contradictory to the Sikh book, the Granth. His hatred was so intense that he burned the New Testament given to him by a missionary. He continued his search for peace (shanti), a “comprehensive Hindi term that means not only peace but a full satisfaction of soul. But the more he longed the greater was his disappointment when he found himself growingly filled with a deep soul-hunger that nothing would satisfy.” (p. 18)
His cherished mother died when he was fourteen. About two years later, he was so miserable in his fruitless search for contentment that he decided to end his misery on the train track below his father’s garden. The Ludhiana express passed there at 5:00 a.m. each day. He night before he bathed and retired to his room for reading, mediation, and prayer.
Just before dawn Sundar became conscious of a bright cloud filling the room, and in the cloud he saw the radiant figure and face of Christ. As he looked upon the vision it seemed to him that Christ spoke saying, “Why do you oppose Me? I am your Saviour. I died on the cross for you.” His determined enmity was broken down for ever as he looked upon that Face so filled with Divine love and pity, and with conviction came a sublime sense of forgiveness and acceptance with Christ. At that moment there flashed into his heart the great shanti he had sought so long. Rising from his knees the vision faded, but from that hour Christ has remained with him, and shanti has been his dearest possession. With a heart brimming over with joy Sundar went to his father’s room and told him that he was a Christian. Unable to believe that his son could be in earnest, the father urged him to go to rest, and believing all was right he fell asleep again. But that memorable night the thorn-crowned Jesus had called Sundar Singh to follow in His steps, and from that night the cross of Jesus was to be his joyous theme, until that cross shall lift him into the presence of his Saviour for evermore. (pp. 20-21) [Sundar was still active when the book was written but was last seen alive in 1929 on a preaching tour in Tibet. Just as the biographer, Luke, wrote about the Apostle Paul before his death, the main character’s death is not included because he is still alive at the time.1]
Sundar’s family and associates persecuted him, but he refused to give up his new faith. He eventually cut off his hair, to show that he was no longer a Sikh. He was disowned by his father, so he went to live with some Christians in Ropur. He was baptized on his sixteenth birthday, September 3, 1905. Then on Oct. 6, 1905, he made the decision to become a Christian sadhu and offer himself to be used to bring others to Jesus. He “adopted the simple saffron robe that was to mark him off for all time as one vowed to a religious life. With bare feet and no visible means of support, but with his New Testament in his hand and his Lord at his side, Sadhu Sundar Singh set out on the evangelistic campaign that has lasted to this day.” [1920] p. 31
WHAT EXACTLY IS A SADHU?
The British author sheds light on the place of a sadhu in Indian culture in her first chapter. She explains:
Perhaps in no country in the world is more importance attached to the proper observances of religion than in India, and the greatest reverence is felt towards men who adopt a religious life. For ages Indians have learnt to place the man who renounces the world above him who rules and conquers it….outside the priestly caste there are numbers of men who take up a religious life, and chief amongst them are those known as sadhus….
The sadhu life is one of untold possibilities…it is a type of heroism which dares to lose the world and all the world may offer in its absolute self-abandonment. To one who perfectly carries out this ideal, the proudest head in India will always bow in reverence and humility. [Sadhus adopt]...the saffron robe—the time honored dress which gives them the freedom of all India. The simplicity of their life is such that they have no home and carry no money, and amongst Hindus it is an act of religious merit to provide them with shelter and food.
…this kind of life has had great attractions for the pious minds of India, and during the centuries men have sacrificed the world and all it stands for that …they might satisfy the deep longings of the soul. Numberless times men of noble aspiration have by this means striven to obtain peace of soul and absorption in the deity.
The ideal is a great one. Christianize this ideal, make it a renunciation for the sake of others, that remaining “in the world but not of it” a man “shall endure all things” in an untiring search for other souls [not his own benefits], and we have the noblest life attainable on earth. (pp. 1-4)
Sundar Singh’s father resisted the Christian faith for fourteen years. Finally, in October, 1919, during a visit in his old home, “his aged father welcomed him with joy, and during the few days they were together Sundar had the great happiness of hearing that his father had at last given his heart to the Saviour.” (p. 125) The father financed for Sundar an extended preaching tour to the West.
Sundar’s life can be researched on the Internet. I recently found that some are skeptical of some of his accounts in Tibet and perhaps his view on salvation that smacks of universalism. But he remains a hero in India and a source of inspiration to those who read of his total surrender for the sake of the gospel.
An online search on Abe Books yields many copies of this same book in stock. Maybe it’s not as rare as I thought, but our copy is unique in that it is autographed and contains a photo of a contemporary with Sundar.
(http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=Mrs.+Arthur+Parker&sts=t&tn=Sadhu+Sundar+Singh+Called+of+God)
Amazon Books also has a large selection of books about and by Sundar. You Tube offers movies about his life in English, Spanish, Urdu, Tamil, Hindi, and Telegu, as well as readings of his teachings.
See slide show below.
1. Josh McDowell and Dave Sterrett, Is the Bible True…Really? [A Dialogue on Skepticism, Evidence, and Truth], Coffee House Chronicles. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2011, pp. 67-68.