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CHAPTER VIII
VOICE OF FAITH
AS ALREADY SEEN, due to the Western impact, the Indian mind in the mid-nineteenth century showed signs of a rationalistic attitude and this was what Nature intended the human mind all over the world to develop as part of its preparation for a higher consciousness, the destined goal of human evolution. The impact also brought in forces that threatened to disrupt life and culture in India through a conflict of ideals between the progressive West and the conservative East. It was this difficult, if not critical, situation with which the Brahmo Samaj movement was confronted in its first two stages. Rammohun, the leader at the first stage, and Devendranath at the second, were both fully conscious of the gravity as well as the urgency of the peculiar condition under which they sought to give effect to their plan of reformation for the all-round welfare of their country. Though the Brahmo Samaj was just one way of how they wanted to do it, yet its importance grew in proportion as most of its enlightened members gave their support to the various movements then started in Bengal. And nearly all of them, being products of Western education, were rationalists and champions of rationalism as the sole governing factor in all the activities of life. Most of the outstanding figures among them belonged to this new class of educated Indians of the time. No wonder in its first two stages the Brahmo Samaj was guided mainly by reason, by mental judgment, and, therefore, could be no more than fundamentally ethical in outlook. Undeniably, that was the need of the time. When the Brahmo leaders were vehemently attacking the idolatry of the Hindus they were not merely expressing their convictions but also trying to save the country from the corroding evils of medievalism, the worship of idols as idols being one among many, although the true truth behind was, apparently at any rate, missed.
Idols are never worshipped as idols in India. They are symbols of one or other of the infinite aspects of the Supreme Divine or the Supreme Sakti, to whom as an embodiment of that particular aspect and not to the idol as such, the heart of the devotee spontaneously offers itself. An ancient Sanskrit verse says that the worshipper adores his idea (bhāva) of the Divine through the icon and not the stone or wood of which the icon is made. It cannot be said that this was not known to the Brahmo Samaj leaders. The severity of their attack on idolatry was perhaps due, on the one hand, to the rationalistic or Western bias of their mind, and on the other, to the excesses of externalism that passed for religion in those days. There
was, of course, the Indian approach to the problem which, required an affirmation of the true truth of religious worship and this affirmation could be made only by one who knew that truth not by his mind but by his soul, and who could awaken others to that truth. And it was Sri Ramakrishna who did this, and his influence on Keshubchandra led to a definite change in his attitude to idolatry and other Hindu rituals.
But religion can never thrive on reason or mental formulas alone; more so in India whose vital sap is spirituality. If it was necessary that the mind of India should be revitalised through an arduous discipline of rationalism crowned with ethical excellence, it was also necessary that the heart and soul should also develop so that an integration of all the faculties might produce the best result: the cultural and spiritual synthesis, the ultimate aim of all her past endeavours. Devendranath made his contribution towards this end when he tried to combine knowledge with devotion and reason with intuition and thus enrich and enliven the Brahmo Samaj activities. Even Rammohun before him had made this attempt. But the cause of integration and synthesis demanded a more ardent effort for introducing devotional fervour into the worship offered hitherto by reason and intellect. Keshubchandra came with every promise of fulfilling more richly the Brahmo Samaj movement and, through it, of helping the country's progress at that stage of its evolution. His was indeed a voice of faith, of devotion that rang in accents of fire burning within him. T am a man of faith,' Keshub once said. And it was his faith that gave him glimpses of the coming Dawn—'the Kingdom of Heaven', 'the Divine Humanity', as he called.
'Faith', says St. Augustine, 'is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of faith is to see what we believe.' 'Faith', says Rabindranath, 'is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.' Says Sri Aurobindo, 'Faith is in reality an influence from the Supreme Spirit and its light a message from our supramental being which calls the lower nature to rise out of its petty present to a great self-becoming and self-exceeding. And that which receives the influence and answers to the call is not so much the intellect, the heart or the life mind, but the inner soul which better knows the truth of its own destiny and mission.' What Keshub saw of this light of faith—'Faith is direct vision', he said,—he tried to proclaim to the world through words which might be of his mind but which certainly had a touch of his intuition, the breath of his soul. The why of these inner impulsions none knew more than Sri Ramakrishna with whose divine love Keshub had the rare privilege of being blessed,—even though he was not a professed devotee of that God-man.
Keshub himself could not properly explain some of his own actions and for this many of his associates left him, many questioned his sincerity, and many knew not what to do with one who was to them 'an emotional paradox'. Devendranath and others could not bring themselves to support every movement and utterance of Keshub because they wanted their country to advance according to its ancient ideals which they held were the highest ever conceived and upheld by man. The difference Widened into schism and told upon the influence of the Brahmo Samaj but Keshub made up for it by the exuberance of his faith from the fullness of his emotional nature which it was his constant care to sublimate into an utter devotion to God whom in his later years he used often to address as the Mother.
Keshubchandra Sen was born in Calcutta on 19 November 1838, in the well-known Sen family which traced its descent from Ballal Sen, the famous Sena King of twelfth-century Bengal. Keshubchandra's grandfather was Ramkamal Sen who by sheer industry and zeal overcame all difficult conditions and rose to high offices in the Government the last of which was the Dewanship of the Bank of Bengal. A devout Vaishnava, he was a scholar of distinction, appreciated even by well-known English intellectuals. For his plain living and high thinking, his name was a household word in Bengal. Keshub's father Pearymohon Sen, a man of piety and integrity, succeeded his father to the high office of Dewan of the Bank of Bengal. Because of his early death, the charge of Keshub's upbringing fell on his mother Sarada Devi, a deeply pious and religious soul.
The morning of Keshub's life showed the brighter day to come. Indeed his early days were marked by a rare combination of those qualities of mind, body and heart that made him a leader of boys over whom his moral influence was very great. 'He was a born king in our boyish world', wrote P. C. Mozoomdar, Keshub's friend and biographer. No wonder when Maharshi Devendranath Tagore saw Keshub for the first time he recognised in him the future Acharya (leader) of the Brahmo Samaj and it was not before long that he called Keshub 'Brahmananda', Bliss of Brahma. Since then he has been known as Brahmananda Keshubchandra.
Keshub completed his education in the Hindu College imbibing whatever of value there was in Western education but realising also the fact of its 'utter Godlessness'. 'The English education', he said, 'unsettled my mind, and left a void; I had given up idolatry but had received no positive system of faith to replace it... Through Divine Grace, however, I felt a longing for something higher; the consciousness of sin was awakened within me and it gave me the secret of spiritual life, and that was prayer to which I owed my conversion ... I felt profoundly the efficacy of prayer in my own experience. I grew in wisdom, purity and love. But after this I felt the need of the communion of friends from whom I might be enabled, in times of difficulty and doubt, to receive spiritual assistance and comfort.'
In 1857 Keshub established a small fraternity which he called 'The Goodwill Fraternity' where he emphasised to his friends two doctrines —'God our Father, and every man our brother'. When he wanted a Church and found none answering to his purpose, there came into his hands a Brahmo Samaj publication written by Rajnarayan Basu, which made him feel that it, to use his own words, 'corresponded exactly with the inner conviction of my heart, the voice of God in the soul'. Keshub at once decided to join the Brahmo Samaj and became its member in 1857,—a significant year in Indian history when 'an old order' began to give place to 'a new'.
Keshub soon proved to be a most enthusiastic worker in the cause of the Brahmo Samaj which in his hands gained a fresh life and took a new turn. The year 1859 was marked by his two new activities. One was the staging of a drama on widow remarriage, the first in modern India of the so-called social 'problem-plays' after Kulin-kula-sarvaswa, the first Bengali drama and a frontal attack on kulinism, a degenerate way of maintaining the prestige of birth. The play was attended by all classes of people including the great Vidyasagar, and its effect was deep and abiding. The other work of Keshub in the same year was the founding of Brahma Vidyalaya (Brahma School) which held classes every Sunday in which Devendranath and Keshubchandra discoursed respectively on the theological and philosophical aspects of Brahmo Dharma. Besides giving a rational basis to Brahmo Theism, the school produced a number of well-trained workers whose 'sympathy and devotedness and active cooperation made all future progress of the Brahmo Samaj possible'.
The year i860 saw the publication of the discourses of Devendranath and Keshubchandra at the Brahma Vidyalaya which were an inspiring reaffirmation of the Brahmo Samaj ideal. Some of these tracts of Keshub embody his matures views on such important subjects as prayer, God-vision, unity, patriotism. Here are a few extracts : 'Prayer forms the gateway of faith.....It is the hunger of soul which God-vision alone can satisfy.'
'Philosophy of intuition is limited to a few, for everyone is not a philosopher. But intuition is a universal property, its truths are the patrimony of the human race.' 'The universe is the cathedral, Nature the high priest, every man, whether an illiterate rustic or a profound philosopher, a throned monarch or a ragged clown, a native of Europe or India, a man of the first or the nineteenth century has access to his Father, and can worship and serve Him with faith and love.' Keshub believed in the truth of the teachings of all scriptures and in their efficacy in helping the growth of man's inner life. 'Thus the psalms of David bring relief to the most afflicted. The precepts of Jesus make the heart grow warm with love and the soul strong with faith. In Hafiz we drink plenteously the sweets of God's love. The sublimities of the spiritual world described in the Upanishads lift man to the exalted joy and strength of a higher nature.' In his famous tract entitled 'Young Bengal—This is for you' Keshub made an impassioned appeal to the youths of the country to participate in the great task of national reconstruction and this, he said, they could effectively do by living the truths of religion. 'If in our country intellectual progress had gone hand in hand with religious development, if our educated countrymen had initiated themselves in the living truths of religion, patriotism would not have been mere matter of oration or essay but a reality in practice.'
Another institution started in i860 was the Sangat Sabha, a closer circle for intimate spiritual fellowship, the name being given by Devendranath after the manner of the Sikhs. Keshubchandra was its presiding genius, and the young men who had been drawn to the Brahmo Samaj movement through his lectures regularly attended its sittings. The Sangat Sabha, says Sivanath Sastri, 'may be truly said to have been the seed-plot of New Brahmoism'. Its young members under the influence of their young leader daily imbibed a new inspiration, the Christian character of which, however, has been the subject of much controversy.
The Sangat Sabha's part in the growth of the religious seeking of the generation was objective in the sphere of social and moral improvement. With exemplary punctiliousness its members framed and observed the following code of conduct: Caste must be given up; so must every badge or mark savouring of idolatry or caste; the sacred thread, implying superiority of man to man, must be abjured; no countenance must be given to the dancing of public women; all members must practise temperance, impart to their women-folk the light of knowledge and religion they had themselves received, make their wives true partners in life, and be scrupulously clean and honest in their dealings with neighbours.
Keshub now began to consider how to further the cause of the Brahmo Samaj and make the propagation of its ideal more effective. He had already won universal fame as an outstanding orator. He would always speak extempore; 'words came to him in such ceaseless torrents and clothed with such heavenly fire that they fell like thunderbolts on the audience.' His enlightened audience at Madras actually called him 'the thunderbolt of India'. In every one of his speeches he would carry the day. But to organise the work of the Samaj on a wider scale and to carry its message to every part of the country, a band of workers was the immediate need. Keshub himself showed the path by sacrificing his post in the Bank of Bengal where he had his employment in 1859. Keshub's renunciation was followed by other members of the Sangat till 'the Brahmo Samaj came to possess a body of apostolically workers'. The other need was a paper which through the joint efforts of Devendranath and Keshub came out in August 1861, entided The Indian Mirror, the English organ of the Brahmo Samaj, as the Tattwabodhini Patrika was its Bengali organ. The idea was Keshub's, initial funds were Devendranath's. The Mirror had a distinguished carreer. Started as a fortnightly, it subsequently became a weekly, and in 1871, it became the first Indian daily paper in English. It reflected in its columns the thoughts, aspirations and efforts of Indians, and for a considerable number of years it continued to educate public opinion in favour of national reconstruction then in progress.
So far, Keshub was Secretary of the Brahmo Samaj, a post he had been holding for several years. In April 1862 Devendranath announced Keshub's ordination as Acharya (Minister) which he had so long been himself. In installing Keshub in this office Devendranath said : 'After the manner of the Agnihotris of old, who used to preserve the holy fire, you shall keep alive the flame of the Brahmo faith.' From now on Devendranath came to be known as Pradhanacharya (Chief Minister) of the Brahmo Samaj.
Keshub was married in 1856 to an intelligent little girl not more than nine or ten years old, according to the prevalent custom of early marriage arranged by his guardians. Years later Keshub realised the truth of the Hindu ideal of how a dutiful wife could help her husband in fulfilling the obligations of Dharma.
From his own experience Keshub felt that a better system of education was the crying need of the time. He developed in his mind what it should be like. In 1861 in a meeting of the Brahmo Samaj, specially convened by him, 'he pleaded for the sovereign necessity of leading an all-round life of thought, feeling and action, of meditation, devotion and service, and the urgent need of spreading education far and wide with a view to national reconstruction.' He indicated three main fines of work : first, radical reformation of the existing system of education; secondly, the education of the lowlier classes; thirdly, spread of education among women. As a result of the agitation for educational reform, the Calcutta College was started in 1862 for higher education of young men with Keshub as Principal, Devendranath bearing the initial expenses of this institution Also a number of Brahmo schools were opened in various parts of Bengal where the influence of Brahmo Samaj reached through the missionary activities of its preachers Prominent among them was Vijaykrishna Goswami belonging to a famous Vaishnava family of Navadwip. He joined the devoted band of Sangat Sabha renouncing all connections with worldly life.
In 1863 was founded the 'Society of Theistic Friends' for the promotion of spiritual and general culture and of unselfish activity amongst the members of the Samaj. One of its aims was to encourage habits of study amongst Hindu ladies shut up in the zenana, for whom annual examinations were held according to fixed standards, and prizes distributed to successful students. With a view to pushing forward female education, there appeared in the same year the Bamabodhini, the first monthly for women under the able editorship of Principal Umeshchandra Datta. To this cause Keshub gave a yet more vigorous turn when in 1865 he inaugurated a prayer-meeting called Brahmika Samaj exclusively for ladies.
In 1864 Keshub started on a tour through the Presidencies of Madras and "Bombay in order mainly to discuss with the leading people there the possibilities of establishing societies on the lines of the Brahmo Samaj. His lectures in both the Presidencies made a profound impression upon all sections of the community, especially upon enlightened and influential Indians many of whom heartily welcomed his idea and declared their conviction that it was high time that reform and reconstruction of society were attempted. Thus came about the expansion of the Brahmo Samaj as an all-India movement.
While the young members of the Brahmo Samaj were very particular about giving whatever form they could to Keshub's plan of social reforms, the old ones were not in favour of any radical change. Devendranath and his supporters holding the views they did urged gradualness in the matter of social reform which they thought would develop of itself along with liberal religious ideas as education spread. But the young enthusiasts would not wait. It was through their efforts that several intercaste marriages and widow remarriages were celebrated and these were too much for the old group to bear. Here began to differ the Old from the New, the gulf between them widening as the Old stuck to their ancient ways, and the New moved forward with novel ideas. So far as Devendranath himself was concerned, he differed not only on social but also on religious matters; he firmly believed that in religion and philosophy India had nothing to borrow from the West. Even in social reform Devendranath was in favour of doing it in an Indian way based on religion. But in their ideas and practice of social reform the new party was influenced by Western ways.
The year 1865 saw this difference sharpen into a division. And in January that year in his anniversary sermon at the Samaj Keshub declared his vision of universal Brahmo religion : 'Our cathedral is the universe, our object of worship is the Supreme Lord our scripture is intuitive knowledge, our path to salvation is worship, our atonement is self-purification, our guides and leaders are all the good and great men. In this catholic Brahmo faith there is no trace of sectarianism, no cause of dissension. It is the property of all, hence it is not a sectarian body. It belongs to all those who, as worshippers of the One True God, will love Him and do the work He loves.' If the year 1865 opened with this proclamation, it ended with another in which Keshub revealed what true faith is : faith is direct vision, it beholdeth God and beholdeth immortality.... Faith is wisdom which is noble and divine... Faith is surrender of the self to God.' This faith found voice in Keshub; this faith inspired his vision of a universal church.
In 1866 he delivered in Calcutta his celebrated lecture on 'Jesus Christ, Asia and Europe' 'as a counterblast to the bigoted and sectarian utterances of a Christian speaker who vilified the natives of the country in one of his speeches'. In his lecture Keshub not only registered his strong protest against the attack but paid the homage of his heart to 'the Prince of Peace'. He said : 'Blessed Jesus, immortal child of God ! For the world he lived and died. May the world appreciate and follow his precepts !'
But Keshub's approach to Christianity was of an Asian. 'In fact Christianity was founded and developed by Asiatics and in Asia. When I reflect on this, my love for Jesus becomes a hundredfold intensified; I feel him nearer my heart, deeper in my national sympathies ... In Christ we see not only the exaltedness of humanity but also the grandeur of which Asiatic nature is susceptible.' If these two aspects of the Christ were pondered over, Keshub said, mankind everywhere would understand the universal significance of his teachings. 'And thus in Christ, Europe and Asia, the East and the West, may learn to find harmony and unity.' These words do not sound objectionable in the sixties of the present century, but in the sixties of the last century when by their haughty behaviour the Christian missionaries had already antagonised the Hindus, these innocent words evoked severe criticism and gave a handle to Keshub's opponents who declared publicly that he was going to embrace Christianity.
The same year Keshub delivered another lecture on 'Great Men' in which what he said seemed to be a combination of Emerson's idea of great men as representative men and Carlyle's idea of 'heroes and heroic in history'. His views on the functions of great prophets seemed identical with those of Victor Cousin's, one of Keshub's favourite authors. Keshub, however, uttered some truths which might be his own perceptions. One such was : 'If, then, incarnation means the spirit of God manifest in human flesh, certainly every man is an incarnation. And great men are pre-eminently so, for they exhibit a larger measure of the divine spirit. They are singularly brilliant manifestations of that Eternal Light which all men in some measure reflect.' This lecture, too, did not soften the Brahmos of the old schools who read into it 'the aberrations of a self-seeking mind'.
A proposal had already been there for the formation of a new society and when about the end of the year 1866 the supporters of the new school rose to a large number, a meeting was convened and the Brahmo Samaj of India was formally established.
The followers of Keshubchandra wanted him to be the head of the new Brahmo Samaj of India; he declaimed and caused it to be declared in a resolution that the Brahmo Samaj of India had no human head, 'God alone was its Head.' Its membership was open to all men and women of every race and community. Its scripture, so long based on Hindu sastras only, now included extracts from the Bible, the Koran, the Zend Avesta, and the Hindu sastras. Men from all parts of the country became its members, men whom Keshub during his extensive travels had known to be enthusiastic theists in Bombay, Madras and the Panjab. Its motto in Sanskrit was : 'The wide universe is the temple of God; wisdom is the pure land of pilgrimage; Truth is the scripture everlasting; Faith is the root of all re- ligion; Love is the true spiritual culture; the destruction of selfishness is true asceticism : so declare the Brahmos.'
Keshub now set about carrying the message of the new Samaj to other parts of the country. He chose East Bengal and toured some of its districts. Everywhere he received an enthusiastic response. There was however some opposition from the Hindu orthodoxy who tried to put all sorts of obstacles in his way. Keshub went on undaunted through these trials. But a strange turn came upon him about the beginning of 1867. The rupture with a revered elder like Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, the unpopularity of his lectures on Jesus Christ, serious differences among his companions, might be the reasons for the sorrow that seemed to be deepening in him. The sorrow led him to pray daily and prayers roused his devotion, and devotion, grown intense, threw him into the ecstasy of a new life with all the characteristic ardour of his nature. Thus the spirit of the Vaishnava religion,' writes P.C.Mozoomdar, 'entered into Brahmo devotions at the time. Vaishnava hymns, commonly called saṅkīrtan, adapted to Vaishnava tune and sentiment, began to be sung to the accompaniment of Vaishnava instruments of music... A new epoch dawned upon the Brahmo Samaj in the history of which was opened a new chapter of the Bhakti movement of Sri Chaitanya.' Vijaykrishna Goswami, a scion of a renowned Vaishnava family of Navadwip, and Trailokyanath Sanyal, the inspired singer, made important contributions to this movement. Later there were organised nagar saṅkīrtans, singing processions throughout the city. This public demonstration by Brahmos of their devotional fervour was not at all liked by the Brahmos of the old school.
About the middle of 1868 Keshub went on a visit to the Himalayas which inspired him to write a most powerful exhortation beginning with 'Sons and Daughters of India, dearly beloved brethren,—Awake, arise, the blessed morning of your redemption is come... Rise from your deathlike sleep; let your ears hear the joyful sound of salvation; let your eyes drink the sweet light of the new day.' It was his faith that opened to Keshub this vision of the glorious future of India, whatever the immediate meaning that might be read into it.
Keshub returned to Calcutta towards the end of 1868. In his anniversary lecture that year he outlined his idea of 'the Future Church': 'Instead of a hundred hostile churches there shall be upreared, in the fullness of time, one vast Cathedral where all mankind shall worship, with one heart, the Supreme Creator ...Its cardinal doctrine will be the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man....But the Church of India must be thoroughly national; it shall be essentially an Indian Church. The future religion of the world I have described will be the common religion of all nations, but in each nation it will have an indigenous growth and assume a distinctive peculiar character. All mankind will unite in a universal Church; at the same time it will be adapted to the peculiar circumstance of each nation, and assume a national form.' This new outlook of Keshub found expression in the Bharatvarshiya Brahma Mandir which he opened on 22 August 1869. The architecture of the building was a harmonious blend of the Hindu, the Gothic, the Buddhist and the Saracenic styles 'setting forth in externals the heart of harmony within, which the Future Church stood for'. The declaration that Keshub made on the day was almost on the same lines as those in the Trust Deed created by Raja Rammohun Roy for the Brahmo Samaj.
Early in 1870 Keshub sailed for England, his object being, as he himself said, to learn so as to be able to serve the cause of truth and that of his country all the better. Indeed, all his life, Keshub was a learner. He said : 'I have never looked upon myself as a teacher, and never shall. I came as a learner, I am still learning and for ever shall remain a disciple....To learn is my trade, my life, my happiness, my salvation.' In England Keshub met a large number of prominent men in every walk of life, with most of whom grew up his permanent friendships. One of them was Max Mueller, who said : 'Keshub's stay in England was a constant triumph.' A momentous event was the Welcome Soiree attended by famous representatives of English Society and of every English denomination. His lecture in this gathering was an impassioned appeal to Englishmen no longer 'to withhold from us (Indians) that active sympathy, that friendly cooperation which you have for a long time denied us.' In his lecture on 'England's Duties to India' addressed to another gathering Keshub passed certain strictures on the treatment which the natives of India got from their 'vigorous' Anglo-Indian neighbours and also on the attitude of the Government of India towards the whole subject of liquor traffic. This irritated the Anglo-Indians in India who abused Keshub bitterly and though the fury died down when he returned home, for a long while afterwards Englishmen regarded him with very suspicious feelings. The patriotic fervour of Keshub's soul blazed forth when in this famous lecture addressing Englishmen in England he said : 'You cannot hold India for the interest of Manchester, nor for the advantage of those merchants who go to India, live as birds of passage for a time and never feel any abiding interest in the country. Those days are gone by never to return when men thought of holding India at the point of the bayonet. If England seeks to crush down two hundred million of people in this glorious country, to destroy their nationality, to extinguish the fire of noble antiquity and the thrill of ancient patriotism and if England's object in governing the people of India is simply to make money, then I say, perish British rule this moment..' A truer and bolder expression could hardly have been given to the agony of India in subjection.
Yet did Keshub believe, as all progressive Indians of the time did, that 'there was the hand of God in England's rule in India' through which India would be in contact with Western ideas of freedom, reason and dignity of man. This is not to say that Keshub accepted that rule with his eyes closed to its character. Rather did he foresee the dire consequences of the evils of foreign domination. In another lecture he said : 'I hope and trust that the merciful God who has called you to govern our nation will give you wisdom, faith and purity enough to rule our race properly. If not, India will not be long in your hands. You will be forced to leave India to herself and we shall do our business in the best way we can.' Whatever might have been the reactions of Englishmen in England and Anglo-Indians in India to these lectures, there is no doubt that they raised India in the estimation of the world, raised her in the estimation of her own self-oblivious children. After about eight months' sojourn in England—a triumphant campaign in every way—Keshub returned home.
The very first thing he did after his return to Calcutta was to establish the Indian Reform Association in November 1870 for 'the social and moral reformation of the Natives of India through cheap literature, charity, education of men and women, and temperance'. To propagate his ideas, and educate public opinion, he started a weekly called Sulabh Samachar, the first pice-paper in Bengal, which made a great sensation and met with an unexpected success. While in England, Keshub was very much impressed by the intelligence and refinement of English women. With a view to developing these qualities in the women of his own country, he established the Normal School for Native Ladies where women of high-class Hindu families gave and received instruction in the most advanced branches of knowledge. Keshub initiated also a temperance movement and exposed by facts and figures the evils of the Government's liquor policy. He organised charity on enlightened and economic principles and opened an Industrial School where large numbers received training in branches of technical knowledge.
Keshub's quest was for the secret of a higher life in the harmony of the Spirit. As this seeking became more and more intense Keshub began to find himself unable to follow any rule, any standard, either of Brahmoism, or of any particular faith. That is how he adopted the Vaishnava ideas of Bhakti, and later the fourfold classification of devotees into disciples of Yoga, Bhakti (Devotion), Jnāna (Knowledge) and Sevā (Service) or Karma (Works), each one of which as also the teaching of Christianity he defined according to his own experience and insight. The Christ was to him an ideal comprising Socrates, the Buddha, Sri Chaitanya and other true sons of God.
Keshub had to encounter another trial in 1878 on account of the marriage of his daughter with the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, both of whom were below the marriageable age—for girls fourteen, for men eighteen—according to the Marriage Act III of 1872 in the framing of which Keshub had had a hand. Keshub gave his assent to the marriage on personal grounds one of which was that it had the sanction of his conscience. After the marriage which had to be performed according to the wishes of the bride's party, and could not, therefore, be a Brahmo marriage, most of the Brahmos and Brahmo Samajes made a vehement protest against Keshub's action so much so that it developed into another schism and led to the formation of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj which meant the separation from Keshub of many of those who had been formerly his friends and collaborators.
Many of these seceders were prominent in public life for their distinguished work in the cause of national reconstruction. They sincerely believed that Keshub's action with regard to his daughter's marriage was not in consonance with the Brahmo Samaj ideal. And this was not the only cause of their secession. There had already been growing in them a feeling of dissatisfaction with some of Keshub's utterances and activities to which it was difficult, if not impossible, for those who value the importance of principles in the growth of institutions, to reconcile themselves.
Those among them who took a leading part in the formation and development of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj deserve mention for the service that the new Samaj under their wise guidance rendered to the cause of India's uplift. Anandamohan Basu's active association with the progressive social and political movements of the time have been already mentioned. An English writer called him the Gladstone of India. Though the youngest of all, yet he was in the beginning the head of the new Samaj to which he gave a safe and constitutional basis. A scholar of distinction and a jurist, he was modest in his nature, a man of piety and integrity—qualities that endeared him to all and enabled him to do so much for the new institution, of which he was President for a number of years. Sibchandra Deb who belonged to the first generation of English-educated students in Bengal trained under the influence of Derozio of the Hindu College, was the first Secretary of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, and from its second year its President for seven years. He joined the Brahmo Samaj with Maharshi Devendranath and was a member of the latter's Tattwabodhini Sabha. Sibchandra was one of those rare souls whose devotion to the ideal of his life was exemplary. 'After the schism', writes Sivanath Sastri, 'his house at Konnagar (Dist. Hooghly) became something like a place of pilgrimage to the members of the new Samaj. They would often flock there to be inspired by his example of earnest piety, inborn humility, wide range of knowledge, methodical performance of the minutest duties of life, moderation in speech and conduct and constant attention to the good of others. Indeed he was the living embodiment of an ideal Brahmo life.' It was due to Sibchandra's noble efforts and large munificence that Konnagar had almost all the public institutions—High English School, Girls' School, Public Library, Brahmo Samaj, Post Office, Railway Station, main roads, and Hari Sabha which shows that though a Brahmo he was alive to the religious needs of his Hindu brethren. A noted writer and educationist, Umeshchandra Dutta was the first to introduce social reforms into his native village Majilpur, 24 Parganas, for which he had to suffer great persecution. He was a saintly character— a source of inspiration to many; and the new Samaj throve well under his fostering care.
Sivanath Sastri's was another eminent contribution to the growth and expansion of the Brahmo Samaj movement. A scholar and writer of repute, he was an authentic exponent of the ideals of the Brahmo Samaj, and was for many years its President. He was one of those Brahmo Samaj leaders who for his love of God was blessed with the divine love of Sri Ramakrishna. Sivanath wrote the first history of the Brahmo Samaj. A remarkable but not-very-well-known fact about Sivanath was his concern for the political condition of his country. He organised a party with himself as the leader. The aim of the party was to recognise no other form of government than self-government as the only God-ordained way of ruling the country. The members were to take the pledge that they would not observe caste distinctions, would try their best to spread education among the masses, themselves practise and help others to practise horse-riding, shooting, lathi-play etc., would not acquire money for themselves but put all their earnings into a common fund out of which everyone would draw according to his need. The members would dedicate their lives to the cause of their country's welfare. Bipinchandra Pal was an enthusiastic member of the party who kept to this pledge to the last day of his life doing in his own way his exemplary work for India's freedom. The above facts have been gathered from his Bengali writings about Sivanath.
Vijaykrishna Goswami's missionary activities gave no less an impetus to the expansion of the Brahmo Samaj movement. He however left the Samaj when he found it developing sectarianism.
By helping forward the cause of the Brahmo Samaj these great souls helped forward the cause of India's uplift, because the Brahmo Samaj was then the only progressive movement attempting an all-round national reconstruction.
To come back to the leader of the other party—Keshubchandra Sen. Apart from his distinguished co-workers disowning him, Keshub had also to face severe persecutions and he felt deeply distressed at the thought that the work of 'national regeneration', so dear to him, would suffer owing to the disunity among those who had once done so much to promote it with all their sincerity and enthusiasm. Keshub now began to pray fervently for light and guidance when in a moment of inspiration he revisioned what he had seen in 1875—'the light of New Dispensation' 'vouchsafed by Providence for India's salvation'. 'The light of Heaven,' he had then said, 'has dawned upon our Fatherland. May we labour and pray so that the light may shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day and bring joy and peace and salvation into the homes of all men in this land—The light we see in our country today is only the dawn of brighter and fuller light yet to come. As time rolls on brighter dispensations of saving truth will be revealed by Providence here and in other countries.'
The New Dispensation became now a new phase of the Brahmo Samaj movement under Keshubchandra's leadership. But before dwelling on it, note may be taken of the fateful meeting of Sri Ramakrishna with Keshub in 1875. Sri Ramakrishna had already gone through all the principal religious disciplines of Asia and had arrived at the great truth that all religions are so many paths to the same divine goal. He was in full possession of spiritual powers and lived, moved and had his being in the Divine Mother. Commanded by Her he came to see Keshubchandra who, he had learnt, was a great devotee of God.
Nineteenth-century educated Indians, yet under the spell of reason, could hardly conceive of the higher powers of life. A fervent voice of faith in that wilderness of disbelief, Keshub had leanings towards Christian ideas which were no bar to the free growth of his own spiritual life. But the need of the hour was a living force of the Spirit in its all-embracing completeness which is the very essence of India's soul. Sri Ramakrishna, having realised in his own life this sublime truth of India, was therefore chosen by the Divine Mother to hurl himself upon the very citadel of the then cultural life through Keshub who with all the influences of the West was yet open to the influences of the Spirit. The first thing the God-man revealed to that lover of God and which the latter readily accepted was the truth that since the existence of Brahman was admitted by the Brahmos they had to admit as well the power of Brahman and that both Brahman and Its power are eternally one; so also Brahman and the great universe which is the manifestation of Its power, were non-different, like fire and its burning power. Sri Ramakrishna called this creative power of Brahman the Mother. This revelation revolutionized the whole of Keshub's mind and his spiritual outlook. It may be that he had in him in seed-form an idea of the Motherhood of God waiting to sprout forth under auspicious conditions. After his meeting with Sri Ramakrishna, Keshub was found openly declaring this as the central principle of his faith. The other idea that the Master brought home to the Brahmo leader was the meaning of idolatry : 'Just as formless water gets condensed into ice having a form on account of cold, so formless Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, condensed on account of devotion, assumes forms.' These ideas began henceforth to influence the Brahmo Samaj movement.
'The acquaintance of this devotee which soon matured into intimate friendship,' writes Mozoomdar, Keshub's associate and biographer, who was present during most of the meetings between Keshub and Sri Ramakrishna, 'had a powerful effect upon Keshub's catholic mind. The very first thing observable in the Paramahaṁsa was the intense tenderness with which he cherished the conception of God as Mother' which became 'a subject of special culture with Keshub.... However much European taste might dislike such a development, Keshub's religion perceptively gained in popularity with Hindu society by this mean .... His adoption of the various Hindu aspects and conceptions tended on the one hand to enrich the monotheism of the New Dispensation and on the other to offer a reasonable explanation of Hindu polytheism.' „
How this change in the leader influenced the Brahmo Samaj movement is recorded by Swami Saradananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna in his Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master, a gem of the hagiographical literature of the world : 'The custom of addressing God by the sweet name of Mother and worshipping Him as Mother were introduced into the Samaj; the Master's ideas and ideals entered into the music, literature, etc. of that society and filled it with sweetness. That was not all. The leaders of that Samaj could know through the Master's life that there was much to learn from and think about those ideals and practices of the Hindu religion, from which the Samaj had seceded, cutting itself off under the impression that they were erroneous and superstitions.'
But this was only the first phase of the working of Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual force which did not take long to permeate the mind, heart and soul of the country—the first phase as well of a world movement. When he understood this force more and more Keshub in his speeches and writings would often refer to Sri Ramakrishna's teachings, to his all-embracing spirituality in particular, born of his vision of the Infinite Mother whom he saw in all and in whom he saw all. Keshub is thus the first to present Sri Ramakrishna to the educated public of Calcutta and this, as willed by the Mother, was the beginning of that great upsurge of India's soul by which her children woke up to the truth and light of a New Dawn. It was for this that the Mother brought Sri Ramakrishna to Dakshinewsar from where he could easily contact the Indian rationalists of the nineteenth century and conquer them for Her work. It was in the quiet retreat of Dakshineswar that the Master had visioned the Mother and had received Her Command to initiate Her work through the chosen instruments who would respond to Her Call. And from here started the first powerful phase of the work of India's spiritual renaissance with a clear reorientation of her outlook and of the world's.
In his famous Indian lecture on 'God-vision in the Nineteenth Century', delivered in 1880, Keshub voiced his vision of the Mother : 'Right and left, everywhere is this omnipresent spirit, to which my life tenaciously clings, and from which nothing can separate it. What is this spirit ? A Mother's spirit. Yes, our beloved Mother is here present. Behold a huge breast, the infinite breast of the Mother, overflowing with the milk of life ! O Mother, Mother ! Universal Parent ! present everywhere, present here before me, Thou art encircling us with Thine arms and suckling us all. Thine unseen face, beloved Mother, so sweet, so beau- tiful to the eye of faith ! How Thy breast is pouring into us nourishing milk! Charming vision! My Mother have I seen....Ye sons and daughters of India, let faith and hope fill your souls and hearts. Rejoice, for the good and golden age of beatific vision is coming....The reign of the Supreme Mother shall be proclaimed and established throughout the world amid universal rejoicings, and many nations with myriad voices and diverse instruments shall sing that sweet name, Mother.' Along with his vision of the Mother Keshub proclaimed his vision of 'the dawn of God's Holy Light upon our country'.
When Keshub was convinced of the Motherhood of God he felt that women should be provided with opportunities of spiritual culture. Accordingly he organised Arya Nari Samaj. A new movement was thus started—a movement for encouraging inward pursuits among women. Keshub's work for the spread of education among women has been already noticed. His view that women should not be trained in the same way as men was not shared by the Brahmos of the old school.
Sri Ramakrishna's revelations made Keshub change his views on idolatry. 'Hindu idolatry,' he said, 'is not altogether to be rejected or overlooked. As we explained, some time ago, it represents millions of broken fragments of God. Collect them together, and you get the indivisible Divinity....The believer in the New Dispensation is required to worship God as the possessor of all those attributes, represented by the Hindu as innumerable or 330 millions. To believe in an undivided Deity, without reference to the aspects of His nature is to believe in an abstract God, and it would lead us to practical rationalism and infidelity. If we are to worship Him in all His manifestations, we shall name one attribute Lakṣmī, another Saraswati, another Mahādeva, etc., and worship God each day under a new name, that is to say, in a new aspect.'
In his Bengali sermons about this time, says Mazoomdar, 'Keshub took up Hindu gods and goddesses by name, and explained the ideas that underlay each. This made him exceedingly popular with large sections of the Hindu community.' He introduced ārati, a Hindu mode of adoring deities, and homa, a Vedic mode of offering, as the rituals of the New Dispensation, the former for the worshipper to articulate his devotion, the latter to purify his being. All these brought Keshub and Nava Vidhān—his new church, as he called it—immense popularity with large sections of the Hindu community. Keshub's catholic outlook included in the rituals adaptations of the Christian ceremonies of Baptism for which the blessings of the Vedic god Varuna were invoked. Keshub desired every follower of the New Dispensation to say : 'The Lord Jesus is my will, Socrates my head, Chaitanya my heart, the Hindu Rishi my soul, and the philanthropic Howard my right hand.' In this 'New Gospel' Keshub included choice extracts from the teachings of the living religions of the world—an approach to the harmony of all religions which found its most glorious embodiment in Sri Ramakrishna in the whole history of mankind. Keshub said : The harmony of religions is the real mission of the Brahmo Samaj'—a subjective ideal, no doubt, which Sri Ramakrishna realised in his soul and which Keshub ardently seized upon by his mind and heart. Speaking of Keshub's inner development Sri Ramakrishna once remarked that Keshub had risen to the status of one who can live both in divine bliss and earthly life just as he pleases. The love that Sri Ramakrishna bore to Keshub is best expressed when on the passing of the latter he said : 'My right arm is paralysed.'
Two things uppermost in the heart of Keshub during the last years of his life were the Supreme Mother and the New Dispensation. So full was his heart of the Mother that he had every utensil in his household labelled or engraved with the word Mā (Mother) and the emblem of the New Dispensation made of the Cross, the Crescent, the Trident and Vedic Om. On i January 1884, he consecrated the new place of worship as 'New Sanctuary to the Mother', saying Namo Saccidānanda Hare, 'Salutation to the Redeemer who is Esistence, Knowledge and Bliss'. 'Accept, dear brethern,' he said, 'this infinitely Loving Mother, and ever rejoice in Her.' These may be said to be Keshub's last words to his followers : he left his body seven days after, on 8 January the same year amid the chanting of the Mātṛ Stotra (Adoration of the Mother) by the devotees.
Thus ended an eventful career leaving its significant mark on the cultural history of modern India. Beneath a covering of beliefs and ideas—not always so important in themselves—lay the inner being of this earnest seeker, moved and guided by his soul's urge to rise above form and institution, and grow in knowledge and devotion towards that which was for him the highest ideal—concord and harmony in the oneness of the Infinite.
Keshub began as an exclusive adherent of the Christ. Then he became a Brahmo, and lastly a 'universalist' when Sri Ramakrishna revealed to him the Mother of the Universe and the underlying truth of every religion. By the way, contact with Sri Ramakrishna turned many a rationalist of the time to the light of the Spirit. It may be noted that the changes in Keshub had much to do with the course of the Brahmo Samaj movement and more or less with the progressive movements in nineteenth century India.
Above all, what lent additional lustre to this illustrious figure was the strength of his faith and his intuitive perception of the future of India and humanity. Be it his vision of 'God's Holy Light', or of 'the Divine Mother', 'the Life Divine', or of 'the future universal church of mankind', he saw in each the golden glints of the Dawn waiting to break upon his country and upon the world—the Dawn of India's future Glory. His own words are so expressive : 'Let not your evolution then stop at hu- manity, let it go on. The same law, the same science of evolution which has enabled you to conquer matter and animality, will enable you to conquer humanity, and attain Divine Life. The highest evolution is regeneration—the destruction of the lower type of humanity and the evolution of a new species of godly humanity—the life divine instead of life human.'
The Brahmo Samaj movement from its very inception represented the endeavours of English-educated Indians to rebuild their religion and society on the basis of what appeared to them to be truth and reason necessary for the India of the time for her all-round development. Although their approach to the problems and the means they adopted for their solution were not always Indian, that is to say, inherently spiritual, yet with the rise, growth and expansion of the movement are associated those activities that furthered the cause of India's national progress in several fields of life. Not only in Bengal where the movement originated, but in Bombay, Madras, Panjab and other parts of northern India earnest efforts were made by progressive Indians to give shape to the social, religious and educational ideals of the Brahmo Samaj of which a later and popular phase was Keshub's New Dispensation. In Bombay the movement took the name of the Prarthana Samaj and did notable work under the leadership of that great reformer Mahadev Govind Ranade. It had a number of branches in Gujarat and Madras. In the Panjab the start was given to it by a 'large-hearted' domiciled Bengali named Navinchandra Rai who with the enthusiastic collaboration of several prominent Panjabis founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1863. The visits of Devendranath, Keshubchandra and other Brahmo preachers from Calcutta inspired its members to work for their Samaj with all sincerity and devotion to which was largely due much of the social and educational progress of the Panjab. Navinchandra gave much help to the Bombay movement too.
The history of a movement in the region of its origin is indissolubly bound up with the life and work of its pioneers. Raja Rammohun indicated the principal lines of India's national evolution; Devendranath upheld the Raja's ideal and gave a wise lead towards its realisation; Rajnarayan saw the vision of free India and her future glory and showed the path to its attainment; Keshub with his mind illumined by the flame of his faith perceived 'the Dawn of Heaven's Light' on India.
Keshub was indeed the first 'to make use of the platform for public address and revealed the power of oratory over Indian mind'. 'His mission to England, though, not distinctly political', says Bipinchandra Pal, 'reacted very powerfully upon the awakening political consciousness of the Indian people. His success in England raised the entire educated community in India in their own estimation and very considerably strengthened the new sense of conceit of their intellectual and moral equality with the members of the alien ruling race in their country. The political freedom movement inaugurated by Anandamohan Basu and Surendranath Banerjea through the Indian Association owed its psychological origin to the ideal of freedom emphasised in the Brahmo Samaj and the new national self-confidence and self-consciousness quickened by the Brahmo Minister's visit to England.' References have already been made to the pioneer-work towards the same end of the Tagores under Devendranath's leadership and of Rajnarayan the first prophet of Indian nationalism.
It is a notable fact that most of the early political leaders belonged to the Brahmo Samaj and that all of them were imbued with Western rationalism the very life-breath of which was freedom. Freedom of the soul, as everybody knows, is the essence of Vedantic teaching. And Vedanta was one of the shaping forces in the life and work of the Brahmo leaders. It is a truism that the spirit of freedom, once awakened in any direction, bursts its bounds and extends in every other direction. That is why history has been able to record the first voice of freedom in the movements initiated by the Brahmo Samaj. It is now evident that the later movements culminating in India's independence were but more dynamic forms of the growth of this seed-idea sown in India's body politic by the Brahmo Samaj leaders. Resurgent India and future history will never forget their invaluable contributions, an on-the-spot study of which by the famous Russian Indologist LP. Minayev who visited India in the seventies of the last century, led him to say : The Indian people are beginning to assert their rights to self-government. The best of them are thinking about the welfare of India in general and not in terms of the welfare of a separate caste or a separate religious community.'
One of the principal aims of the Brahmo Samaj was to reform the religion of the Hindus. Nothing definitive it could do in that direction because Hinduism lives by its essential spirituality; its deformations could not be reformed merely by an outward rejection of rituals and by purging it of its excrescences. It could be done by a Master of Yoga and spiritual knowledge who after living the eternal truths of that religion himself would reaffirm them and dynamise the spiritual principle in the very life of the country. It is however a fact that the personal example of the great leaders of the Brahmo Samaj did help in stimulating spiritual seeking in their followers. The ethical idealism originating mainly from Western and Christian ideas, and promoted by the Brahmo Samaj had some effect on the religious life of the people, but a rigidly meticulous observance of moral principles being an exclusive mental movement was, oftener than not, found to retard the spontaneous expansion of the soul. Besides, the original largeness of the Samaj ideal got circumscribed in the vision of its later followers whose sectarian aloofness and absence of idealism enfeebled the Samaj as an instrument of national progress. Fortunately, most of the reforms it sought to introduce into the social and cultural life of the country have been accepted and are being worked out or are proving effective factors in the reconstruction of national life. Its work of social reform was motived as much by the rationalistic idea of the dignity of man as by the Vedantic idea of the freedom of the Spirit. The stopping of conversions by Christian missionaries was another service of the Brahmo Samaj leaders to the country. And this gave an indirect impetus to a resurgence of the true spirit of Hinduism.
Yet another important fact for which the Brahmo Samaj will live in history is that all its leaders from Raja Rammohun Roy to Brahmananda Keshubchandra Sen were the first in those days of darkness to perceive the Dawn behind the clouds, the Dawn that would usher in the Glorious Day. This perception inspired efforts, at that time and afterwards, that have set the country moving on its march to unending progress. , |