In the ancient times, there were many civilizations around the world, but all of them managed to develop independently. In spite of the fact that the world is so diverse and the West seems to be too far from the East, different parts of the world have a lot in common. However, it is extremely hard to trace the common themes between the West and the East when it comes to religions without concentrating on their differences first. This paper is going to focus on the differences in the role of the prophets between the biggest religions of the two parts of the world – the East and the West. Prophecy is a common theme for almost all of the world religions; however, the representation of the prophets and their functions significantly differ. I have decided to concentrate on Confucianism and Buddhism from the Eastern side, and Islam and Christianity from the Western, as these are the ones that at some point in human history were able and had an urge to conquer the whole world, and thus, dramatically influenced it.
The theme of prophets and prophecy has never left the world since the ancient times. In their sinful daily routines, people waited for someone from above to rescue them and to open their eyes. Even now, there are many countries where people trust fortune-tellers and teachers who promise to help find enlightenment or predicts the future. First, let us look into the Eastern traditions of representing prophets and figure out the ways, in which people treated prophets and what kind of roles were assigned to them. In Confucianism, Confucius, the creator of the religion, was considered the main teacher and prophet. He came up with all of the rules and ethics, some of which were pretty archaic and discriminated against almost everybody but wealthy Chinese men. Van Voorst introduces extracts, where Confucius is called Master and is represented as an old and wise man who knows almost everything since the very childhood: “At fifteen, I had my mind focused on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right” (143) The character of Confucius is vividly described in the history of the religion that he introduced. Like the prophet of Islam, he was a simple man not related to God or anything divine. However, unlike the Western traditions, where prophets didn’t openly ask for respect from the people (prophet Muhammad didn’t want to be buried as a rich man and worshipped after death, and Jesus had never acknowledged himself a Messiah), Confucius expected full obedience and admiration. Although we used to think of Confucianism as a very political religion, after a deeper investigation, we can clearly see that it only encouraged people to love their emperor. During the ancient times, the emperors of China were considered divine, and the prophet was more of a teacher than a ruler. Confucius himself had never been a political leader, nor had he interfered into the politics.
In Islam, things were quite different. Prophet Mohammed was not divine, but he still was close to God and thus, the most important person in the Middle East. He was so significant that people didn’t just want to see him as a prophet, but also as a political leader. During the times of his reign, Mohammed conquered several cities and converted their civilians to Islam. According to the history of Islam, Mohammed freed Medina from the pagan tribe that lived there and brought his people and the new faith into the city. Since then, the trip from Mecca to Medina is considered sacred and should be travelled by every Muslim who is healthy, wealthy and wants to be saved by Allah. In the East, prophets didn’t take part in political conquests. If one remembers Buddhism, one can clearly understand why Buddha was so much against politics: he promoted peace and unity with nature and with one’s inner self, and politics was just another attachment that Buddha opposed. According to Buddhism, attachments were harmful for human beings as once we got attached, we could no longer let all the burdens and all the worries go; thus, everywhere, there has to be a limit: “Restraint in the eye is good, restraint in the ear is good, restraint in the tongue is good.” (Voorst 91).
As a prophet, Mohammad has done a lot more for the the development of the political life of the Middle East than that of the spiritual life. He delivered the word of God and introduced some of the most important rules of how to be a proper Muslim, and there the role of the prophet had ended. In spite of the fact that Jesus was not a political leader, nowadays, the politics and religion are deeply connected in Christianity. Buddha embraced poverty and detachment from all the wealth that he had. Interestingly enough, if we compare the reaction of Buddha and Mohammed to the power that was given to them, we can immediately spot the significant difference between the two faiths. Mohammed was eager to become a ruler and had fought for his land to expand. On the other hand, Buddha who was born a prince, refused from his power when he found out does the real world was not as perfect as his father claimed it to be. After being so disappointed in the world, Buddha decided to leave this wealthy family and concentrate on finding a way out of the endless cycle of life and death. The same can be said about Jesus, who was related to famous David, but who never claimed his royal origin or took advantage of them.
People only have one life if they are Christian or Muslim, and that is why another significant difference takes place. In the East, prophets are less of a human nature and more of a divine, in spite of the fact that there is no direct relation between the god or gods of the East and the prophets. In Buddhism, Buddha was the only one who managed to get out of Samsara, and no one else was and still is able to do that. Buddha had something that no one else had, and thus, people have always known that there was no way they can be like Buddha. In the West, on the contrary, prophets interacted with people more; Mohammed was not a sage or the enlightened one. After his death, any decent and honest Muslim could take his place. He was a real person who went out to the world and spoke with the people. They still, however, consider him divine, as they never draw his and Allah’s faces. Jesus was the son of God, but he never openly acknowledged the fact that he was the Messiah. As the Bible says, Jesus spent a lot of time with people, talking to them and educating them. Unlike in the East, where prophets were more legendary than real, in the West, they strengthened their authorities by being close to the common people.
The attitude of the Eastern and Western prophets towards privacy was quite different. In the East, everything was about privacy; the relationship between a human being as the divine was something that was not supposed to be seen by everyone. As Smith says in his description of Hinduism, “pleasure is private” (61) There is no such thing as privacy in the West. People there want to be vocal about their religious backgrounds, and that is why history remembers a number of Muslim and Christian conquests, both of which left a bloody trace on the humanity. These two religions were so eager to convert the whole world that they slaughtered the whole nations in order to establish the rule of their faiths. The East stands out also because neither Confucianism nor Buddhism have ever triggered off a holy war, which was a common thing for Christianity and Islam. In Christianity, it was a sin to kill a human being except of the cases when such deed was done for the thrive of Christianity. In Islam, holy war is one of the sacred duties that a faithful Muslim has to perform in order to prove his love for God. Nowadays, the West is considered to be more liberal and progress and the East is referred to as conservative and stagnant, which is an ultimate paradox: the Western rulers and prophets were those who encouraged people to kill each other based on religious backgrounds and made half of the world their colonies.
This paper has talked about prophets in the Western and Eastern religions, mainly concentrating on Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism and Christianity. During the research, I have explained how two parts of the world differ when it comes to prophets and prophecies. While in the East, prophets are less human and more divine (although they don’t claim to have any divine roots) and live a solitary life, in the West, prophets pay a lot of attention to building a bond with the people. Both Jesus and Mohammad were supported by the huge crowds that followed them everywhere and were ready to die for their teacher. There was no such thing in the East, where religion was private, and the prophet didn’t interfere in the political life of the country. Another surprising fact was that prophets of the East didn’t value power that was given to them and were ready to give it up to be closer to the divine (like Buddha who had a royal origin), and in the West, power was a key element in gaining authority.
Works Cited
Smith, Huston, and Huston Smith. The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991. Print.
Voorst, Robert E. Anthology of World Scriptures. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1994. Print.
