Blessed Sadhu Sundar Singh (June 19th)

Edited by Bp. Joseph Boyd (Ancient  Church of the West) 

Today our jurisdiction remembers a great Indian missionary and ascetic, Sadhu Sundar Singh!

Sundar Singh was born into a Sikh family in the village of Rampur district, in northern India. Sundar Singh's mother took him to sit at the feet of a sadhu, an ascetic holy man, who lived in the jungle some miles away, while also sending him to Ewing Christian High School, Ludhiana, to learn English. Sundar Singh's mother died when he was fourteen. In anger, he burned a Bible page by page while his friends watched.

Sundar felt that his religious pursuits and the questioning of Anglican priests left him without ultimate meaning. Sundar resolved to kill himself by throwing himself upon a railroad track. He asked that whosoever is the 'True God' would appear before him, or else he would kill himself; that very night he had a vision of Jesus. Sundar announced to his father, Sher Singh, that henceforth he would get converted into the missionary work of Christ. His father officially rejected him, and his brother Rajender Singh attempted to poison him. He was not poisoned just once but a number of times. People of that area threw snakes in his house, but he was rescued from mistreatment by the help of a nearby British Christian.

On his sixteenth birthday, he was publicly baptized as a Christian in the parish church in Simla, in the Himalayan foothills, by an Anglican priest and was formally confirmed and received by the famous Missionary Bishop and theologian, the Rt. Rev. George Alfred Lefroy. Prior to this he had been staying at the Christian Missionary Home at Sabathu, near Simla, serving the leprosy patients there.

In October 1906, he set out on his journey as a new Christian, wearing a saffron turban and the saffron robe of a sadhu, an ascetic devoted to spiritual practice. Singh propagated himself as a sadhu, albeit one within Christianity because he realized Indians could not be converted unless it was in an Indian way.

"I am not worthy to follow in the steps of my Lord," he said, "but, like Him, I want no home, no possessions. Like Him I will belong to the road, sharing the suffering of my people, eating with those who will give me shelter, and telling all men of the love of God."

After returning to his home village, where he was given an unexpectedly warm welcome, Sundar Singh traveled northward for his mission of converting through the Punjab, over the Bannihal Pass into Kashmir, and then back through Muslim Afghanistanand into the brigand-infested North-West Frontierand Baluchistan. He was referred to as "the apostle with the bleeding feet" by the Christian communities of the north. He suffered arrest and stoning for his beliefs, and experienced mystical encounters. During this time, tens of thousands of Indians were influenced to come to the Christian Faith, and Singh had a huge following and many disciples. 

In 1908, he crossed the frontier of Tibet, where he was appalled by the living conditions. He was stoned as he bathed in cold water because it was believed that "holy men never washed." Later that year, he went to Bombay, hoping to board a ship to visit Palestine to follow in Christ’s footsteps, but was refused a permit, and had to return to the north. 

He realized during his stay around Indian in many missions that Western civilization had become the antithesis of original Christian values. He was disillusioned with the materialism and colonialism of western society and tried to forge an Indian identity for the Indian church. He used to lament that Indian Christians adopt British customs, literature and dresses which have nothing to do with Christianity and Christ. Instead, he advocated the return of new Indian Christian converts to the ancient paths or the Mar Thoma Tradition of Indian-Syriac Christianity.

In December 1909, Singh began training for Christian ministry at the Anglican college in Lahore and received ordination as a priest. As a priest, Singh was told to discard his sadhu's robe and wear "respectable" European clerical dress, use Western liturgies for worship, sing English hymns and not preach outside his parish. This lack of indiginization and appreciation for Eastern culture led Singh to formally resign from the Anglican ministry in 1910 and return to his life as a wandering monk. 

Stories from those years are astonishing and sometimes incredible and full of miracles which helped in conversion. Indeed, there were those who insisted that they were mystical rather than real happenings. That first year, 1912, he returned with an extraordinary account of finding a three-hundred-year-old hermit in a mountain cave—the Maharishi of Kailas, with whom he spent some weeks in deep fellowship.

According to Singh, in a town called Rasar he had been thrown into a dry well full of bones and rotting flesh and left to die, but three days later he was rescued.

The secret Missionaries group is alleged to have numbered around 24,000 members across India. The origins of this brotherhood were reputed to be linked to one of the Magi at Christ's nativity and then the second century AD disciples of the apostle Thomas circulating in India. Nothing was heard of this evangelistic fellowship until William Carey began his missionary work in Serampore. The Maharishi of Kailas experienced ecstatic visions about the secret fellowship that he retold to Sundar Singh, and Singh himself built his spiritual life around visions.

As his fame grew, Singh felt God’s call to rebuke western apostasy and materialism. He visited the West twice, travelling to Britain, the United States and Australia in 1920, and to Europe again in 1922. He was welcomed by Christians of many traditions, and his words searched the hearts of people who now faced the aftermath of World War I and who seemed to evidence a shallow attitude to life. Singh was appalled by what he saw as the emptiness and irreligion he found everywhere, contrasting it with Asia's awareness of God, even if pagan, and how the Asian culture was more concerned with theological questions than the “Christian West.” Once back in India he continued his Gospel-proclamation work, though it was clear that he was getting more physically frail.

In 1923, Singh made the last of his regular summer visits to Tibet and came back exhausted. His preaching days were apparently over and, in the following years, in his own home or those of his friends in the Simla hills, he gave himself to meditation, fellowship and writing some of the things he had lived to preach. 

In 1929, against all his friends' advice, Singh determined to make one last journey to Tibet. He was last seen on 18 April 1929 setting off on this journey. In April he reached Kalka, a small town below Simla, a prematurely aged figure in his yellow robe among pilgrims and holy men who were beginning their own trek to one of Hinduism's holy places some miles away. Where he went after that is unknown. Whether he died of exhaustion or reached the mountains remains a mystery.

In the early 1940s, Bishop Augustine Peters, another converted missionary from South India, sought out Singh's brother Rajender, led him to the Christian Faith and baptised him in Punjab. Rajender Singh referred to many reputed miracles performed by Singh and people converted to Christ under his ministry. It is from his brother’s memories that many of the mighty works of God were written down and stand as a testimony of God’s faithfulness in the life and ministry of Sadhu Sundar Singh!

(Based upon the text of Wikipedia.org)