Strayer chapter 16

I didn’t quite understand the reference by Vasco da Gama “in search of Christians and spices,” so out of curiosity, I looked up a realiable academic source.; I thought perhaps it meant the Portugese were looking for Christians already in India, but they were actually looking for converts and enemies of Christianity.:

"1498. Calicut. [Arrival.] That night (May 20) we anchored two leagues from the city of Calicut, and we did so because our pilot mistook Capna, a town at that place, for Calicut. Still further there is another town called Pandarani. We anchored about a league and a half from the shore. After we were at anchor, four boats (almadias) approached us from the land, who asked of what nation we were. We told them, and they then pointed out Calicut to us.

On the following day (May 22) these same boats came again alongside, when the captain-major sent one of the convicts to Calicut, and those with whom he went took him to two Moors from Tunis, who could speak Castilian and Genoese. The first greeting that he received was in these words: "May the Devil take thee! What brought you hither?" They asked what he sought so far away from home, and he told them that we came in search of Christians and of spices. They said: "Why does not the King of Castile, the King of France, or the Signoria of Venice send thither?" He said that the King of Portugal would not consent to their doing so, and they said he did the right thing. After this conversation they took him to their lodgings and gave him wheaten bread and honey. When he had eaten he returned to the ships, accompanied by one of the Moors, who was no sooner on board, than he said these words: "A lucky venture, a lucky venture! Plenty of rubies, plenty of emeralds! You owe great thanks to God, for having brought you to a country holding such riches!" We were greatly astonished to hear his talk, for we never expected to hear our language spoken so far away from Portugal." http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1497degama.asp

For Columbus, he said he “hoped they’d become Christians,” but he was more interested in acquiring spices and openings to new markets for his Spanish financiers than getting converts. The Puritans weren’t interested in converts from the Native American population, but they wanted their land regardless. Catholic missionaries spread the majority of missionary orders around the world. Europeans saw their military and political conquests as by divine right by God.

Missionary efforts in Asia in later centuries occurred more specifically around the time of the Ming Dynasty, but China was not a country that could be easily subdued, with mostly missionaries and traders coming there. The missionaries actually needed permission of the Chinese authorities to do their proselytizing. Jesuits in particular made efforts to learn Chinese and exchange eastern and western ideas. It was hoped that by drawing parallels with Confucian teachings that Christianity would be more easily embraced. However, the Chinese really didn’t need Christianity since their native faiths were well established, and they didn’t wish to reject Chinese traditions that Christianity would ask them to give up. The Chinese were suspicious of missionaries claims of miracles, which they considered superstition.

Islam experienced a broad expansion and revival at this time, but there was a certain amount of syncretism that occurred that Islamic authority tried to clamp down in African and India, for example. Hinduism experienced a tradition called Bhakti in which caste distinctions were sometimes ignored in favor of a direct experience with the divine without the intercession of Brahmin priests, which emphasized art, dance, and poetry. This movement was very appealing to women. Using Confucian values as a framework, China experienced a period somewhat analogous to The Enlightenment in which scholars sought to establish a scientific method to verify facts through research with evidence a.k.a.  “kaozheng”  during the late Ming Dynasty. There was also a lot of revival and inquiry into works of antiquity during the Qing period.