CHAPTER V

CHAPTER V

FORERUNNER

ALL down the ages it has been her spirituality that has kept up the lifeline of India's civilisation. Indeed every fresh endeavour, social, cultural and even political, has had at its back a renewal or a resurgence of this force. Awakened India would mean an India awakened to this inherent strength of her soul breathed into her first by the Vedic Rishis, and since then developing through vicissitudes of time and fortune towards her own self-realisation and the realisation of her mission in the world. A rebirth into that strength must therefore be the condition for a new resurgence of her national being. To that end India will have to pass through a process, largely psychological, which involves a preparation first by recovering the intrinsic values of her ancient heritage, and then by applying them to the activities of life for its spiritualisation. It is through this alone that the secret aim of evolutionary Nature in her onward march in history can fulfil itself.

With the life and work of a many-sided genius like Raja Rammohun Roy, began in modern times this necessary preparation of India's great future. Whatever he said and did was a foreshadowing of what was to follow. That which dominated the mind of Rammohun and motived almost all his activities was the spiritual ideal of monotheism of which the earliest affirmation was the Vedanta, the source of one of the principal lines of India's spiritual development in history. By reaffirming this, Rammohun continued that line along with the mystics of the time. An exclusive emphasis on the oneness of God was the outstanding feature of the philosophy prevailing in his time as before it.

The medieval mystics knew nothing but the One called by many names, and sang of His glory as the sole truth of life, the only source of unity underlying all diversity. Many of the saints of northern India who were Rammohun's contemporaries and many who were his immediate predecessors were ardent followers of the medieval masters. They were all worshippers of the 'One Supreme Light' who shines in the heart of man, and to see him there, they said, is to see Him in all. And for this no ritual, no image, no pilgrimage is needed. By love, devotion and sincere aspiration anyone, irrespective of caste, creed or race, could discover within him 'the Glory that the Light is'. This they lived and taught. Some of them were Muslims, some brahmanas, and some again of low parentage. But all had Hindus, Muslims and even Christians as disciples.

Prominent among them were Bhan Saheb of Kathiawad and Prannath

of Bundelkhand, both born round 1700. About the same time was born Daria Saheb in Bihar; he was a Muslim but his ancestors were kshatriya descendants of the ancient Vikramadityas. He left his body during the life-time of Raja Rammohun Roy. 1710 witnessed the birth in Uttar Pradesh of one of the greatest of these saints—the Rajput Sivanarayan. He was a pure monist and was against any form of image-worship. He is said to have been inspired by the spiritual ideas of the Mughul prince Dara Shukho. Santram or Ramcharan was born in 1720 in Rajputana. He lived and preached after the birth of Rammohun, as did Bhikha, born of brahmana parents, in the same year in Ajamgard. The years 1700, 1710 and 1720 are notable for the advent of a number of these great mystics of monotheism whose cardinal principles of teaching were devotion and brotherhood marked by some sort of synthesis. In 1757 was born Paltudas regarded as the incarnation of Kabir, who taught: 'He who has not seen Brahman in man has exiled him also from the temple'. About 1760 was born Tulsidas Hatharsi to whom worship of the heart was the only true worship. Born, in 1771, of a brahmana family in the Panjab, Dedhraj preceded Rammohun by three years and lived nineteen years more than the latter. Almost all his life he had to suffer for his spiritual convictions. 'God is one, unique, eternal, omnipresent and ineffable', was the keynote of his teachings. Women are admitted to his order which does not recognise caste distinctions.

At that critical moment of India's transition from the medieval age to the modern when her religious life, overlaid with morbid excrescences, seemed to be drifting away from her moorings, these master-souls of the race, these living affirmations of the oneness of God, kept up the spirituality of the land.

Though there is no evidence of Rammohun's direct contact with any of them, he may be said to have belonged to their line in spirit. But there was a distinction. Whereas the medieval mystics were almost exclusively absorbed in their spiritual pursuits with little interest in the affairs of life, Rammohun, a fervent champion of monotheism, left no sphere of life—social, religious, cultural, national, and even international —unstirred by the magnetic touch of his large heart, vast mind and vaster vision. This was the unique greatness of the precursor of the New Age in India. He was the first in modern times to call upon his countrymen to wake up to the truth of India's soul and be reborn into its light and strength and become themselves again. And his life too was a ceaseless striving towards this end.

To the historic district of Hooghly in Bengal belonged modern India's three greatest sons—Raja Rammohun Roy, Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Aurobindo. It is also the birthplace of a large number of distinguished men who took a prominent part in the various movements associated with India's awakening in modern times.

Rammohun was born at Radhanagar, a village in Hooghly District, in the year 1774, three years after the terrible famine had ravaged the province. The black cloud of this disaster had its silver lining. The distressed heart of Bengal rang out in the voice of Ramprasad, a child of the Divine Mother. Illumined by Her vision, he sang of Her from the fire-surge of his soul. His songs were the outpourings of Bengal's burning love for the Mother. 'Give us food, Mother, give us food'—he sent up the impassioned invocation to the Mother of Sakti to come to the rescue of his hapless land. The Mother responded. Her divine Grace came down in a form of Her Vibhuti : Rammohun, a believer in the Infinite One and a worshipper of the Infinite Sakti, saw the light.

Rammohun came of a respectable brahmana family. His great grandfather served the Nawab of Bengal who honoured him with the title of 'Rai Rai', afterwards contracted into 'Roy' which has since been retained as the designation of the family in place of the caste name 'Bandyopa-dhyaya'. Rammohun's grandfather held a high post under Nawab Siraj-ud-Doula. His ancestors on the father's side were Vaishnavas and on the mother's side Saktas. His mother, Tarini Devi, however, adopted Vaishnava practices after her marriage. Early in life, Rammohun showed his religious inclinations, however peculiar. His father, Ramkanta, recognised this, as also his talent and made whatever arrangements could be best at the time for his education.

Nothing of a definite nature is known about Rammohun's early life, though there are current a number of suggestions which the latest researches do not seem to justify.¹ He must have had his early training in the village pāṭhśāla (school), for up to his fourteenth year he stayed in his village home with his parents. According to the old prevailing custom of kulinism, Rammohun was married very early and that three times. When he was nine, in the course of one year, his father married him twice. His first wife died at a very early age. By the second, who died in 1824, he had two sons. The third survived him.

When Rammohun was fourteen, he met Nandakumar Vidyalankar, a Sanskrit scholar who later became famous as a Tantrik Yogi and came to be known as Hariharananda Tirthaswami. Around 1812 this Yogi visited Rangpur and spent a few years with Rammohun. This meeting has an important bearing on Rammohun's inner life. While taking his first lessons in Sanskrit from Nandakumar, the future leader seems to have been inspired by his scholarly teacher to delve deep into the treasures of the heritage of his country.

Most of his years as a teen-ager Rammohun lived with his parents. His father gave him early a practical turn of mind, showing him how to handle the affairs of the family, especially, how to manage its property.

¹ Brajendranath Bandyopadhyaya : Raja Rammohun Roy (in Bengali), Bangiya Sahitya Parishad publication.

No reliable chronological evidence is available of how he passed his years. From his own statements it appears that he spent some years at Patna studying Persian and Arabic and through the latter the Koran and Koranic literature, along with works of Euclid and Aristotle. This might explain the rationalistic bent of his mind. It was the view of the time that no education could be complete without a knowledge of Persian not only because it was the court language but also because it was considered a mark of culture—an evidence of Muslim influence on the Indian mind of the time. In dress and manners too this influence was there.

In his autobiographical sketch Rammohun says : 'When about the age of sixteen, I composed a manuscript calling in question the validity of the idolatrous system of the Hindoos. This, together with my known sentiments on the subject, having produced a coolness between me and my immediate kindred, I proceeded on my travels, and passed through different countries, chiefly within, but some beyond the bounds of Hindoostan, with a feeling of great aversion to the establishment of British power in India.' Three facts emerge out of this extract: alienation from his parents, his wanderings and his dislike of foreign rule in India.

It may be that Rammohun had his first lessons in Persian and Arabic before he left home as an itinerant. But this need not be the sole cause of the monotheistic bias of his mind, since Rammohun, when he was fourteen, had his first acquaintance with Sanskrit from Nandakumar Vidyalankar who possibly gave the young seeking mind an idea of the Vedic and Vedantic lores awakening in him his affinity with the life-line of Indian culture.

One of the passions of his soul was to reclaim his country from the morass it was then in, and the best way to do it, he thought, would be to turn its mind to the central truth of Vedanta. The worship of image as image was certainly not religion. Hence the need of reaffirming the One as the sole truth of religion. Rammohun perceived this very early in life. It is difficult to say if this perception along with his differences with his parents was the cause of his leaving home. Maybe, his monotheistic impression deepened in him so much that he took the life of a wanderer in search of the One as against His many 'perversions', and the latter cause was but a provoking of his parting from home. It is said that Tibet was one of the places he visited in his itinerary to study Buddhism which, Rammohun thought, might satisfy the quest of his soul; but the idolatry there made him quit the country soon. On his way to or from Tibet he stopped at Varanasi for a time to freshen up his Sanskrit and breathe the religious atmosphere for which that historic city is famous.

When he was twenty, Rammohun returned home 'recalled by my father and restored to his favour'. It must have been at the wish of his father that Rammohun now began to look after the affairs of his paternal pro-

perty and in that connection he had to go about certain places, one of them being Calcutta which he visited for the first time in 1797 and again in 1801. In Calcutta where he stayed for several years, Rammohun met English officials and Muslim scholars of the Fort William College with whose help he improved his Persian and Arabic. Among the officials was John Digby whose acquaintance Rammohan made, and under whom he served the East India Company. But before that, in 1803, he held for a short time the position of Dewan under Collector Woodforde of Dacca-Jalalpur (now Faridpur in East Pakistan). The same year he went to Murshidabad with Woodforde and there cultivated the friendship of Ramsay, another English civilian. These contacts of his restless Indian soul with educated Englishmen must have quickened his ideas of progress and uplift of his country which later became the primary concern of his life.

About the middle of the same year Rammohun lost his father and having had strong differences with the other members of the family over the performance of the śrādh (memorial) ceremony for his father, Rammohun did it in his own way in Calcutta—a fact pointing to his spirit of independence in thought and action. A further proof was his work entitled Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin, or 'A Gift to Monotheists'—a treatise in Persian with an Arabic preface, published from Murshidabad about 1803. It is a vigorous attempt to vindicate his conviction that the root of all religions is faith in one Supreme Being, and that all the rest is mere excrescence.

Rammohun's thesis in this book is that religion is not a bundle of of superstitions, prejudices, rituals and ceremonials. Neither is it a blind adherence to tradition or an unquestioning submission to authority. 'Belief in one Almighty God is the fundamental principle of every religion. Those who prefer the so-called invented revelation of mankind to the natural inspiration from God, which consists in attending to social life with their own species and having an intuitive faculty of discriminating good from evil, instead of gaining the union of hearts with mutual love and affection of all their fellow creatures without difference in shape and colour or creeds and religions, which is a pure devotion acceptable to God, the Creator of Nature, consider some special formulae and bodily motions to be the cause of salvation and received bounty from Almighty God.'

This may be taken as the first open testament of Rammohun's religious beliefs, the cardinal principle that motived all his earnest efforts to rebuild the religious life of his countrymen on the basis of an eternal truth. It need not have behind it, as some writers say, only his study of Islamic thought. On the contrary, it reflects in a way the religious thought of ancient India just as his soul reflected the spirit of ancient India at that critical moment of her history.

Born in an age when excesses of religious externalism were degrading the national life, Rammohun was impelled to emphasise the inner, that is to say, the fundamental basis of all religions in which, he believed, lay the unity and equality of all mankind. But his religion was not a mere personal belief. Its truth must prove its value in practice which for Rammohun was 'attending to social life with their own species', 'mutual love and affection of all their fellow creatures'. His social endeavours therefore were a natural sequel to his monotheistic conviction.

The other thing to which he refers in his first testament, is the use of 'the intuitive faculty of reason'—a strikingly peculiar phrase suggesting, however faintly, his capacity of rising above reason. Rationalism, the then dominant trend of the Western mind, was at that time directly or indirecdy influencing as a cosmic force all progressive thinkers of the world. Rammohun had it as an inborn faculty and developed it for purposes of his work. But his qualifying it by 'intuitive' betokens his racial inheritance. Intuition is an instrument of light, higher than reason. There is decisively a surer approach to truth when intuition guides reason. And Rammohun was a seeker of Truth.

Rammohun's association with John Digby as friend, master and superior official is a notable event in his life. Their intimacy grew and deepened through nine years from 1805, during which period Rammohun was transferred with Digby to several places one of which was Bhagalpur where occurred the following incident: One day when Rammohun was returning to his quarters in his palanquin, doors almost closed to shut out dust, he was ordered to stop by Sir Frederick Hamilton, Collector, Bhagalpur, standing on a brick-heap on the wayside. The bearers not stopping, Sir Frederick drove his horse and overtook them. Rammohun came out, showed him the respects due to a superior officer, reasoned with him to say that he had meant no disrespect. But the infuriated knight would not listen. Then in open defiance of the Collector's self-assumed authority, Rammohun got back into his palanquin and went his way, leaving the knight blustering to himself. Afterwards in a closely reasoned letter Rammohun reported the incident to the Governor-General Lord Minto who conveyed to the officer a mild admonition. Rammohun's sense of self-respect and national dignity, even while in service, was a shining example to his countrymen.

This letter, dated 12 April 1809, is the first English writing of Rammohun. In 1805, says Digby, Rammohun could only speak English on common subjects but by his diligence and assiduous application he was able in 1809 to 'write and speak it with considerable accuracy', which he acquired, says Digby, by regular reading of English newspapers in which topics on continental politics interested him. Besides, Digby's friendly help added to his 'ease and mastery over the English language'.

Rammohun spent about five years at Rangpur, where for some time

he served Digby, first as a clerk and then as Dewan—the principal native officer in the collection of revenue. Here at Rangpur Rammohun was preparing himself for his future work. And in this he received important help from Hariharananda Tirthaswami, formerly Nandakumar Vidyalankar, whom Rammohun had met in his fourteenth year. Already an erudite Sanskrit scholar, Hariharananda was now a Tantrik Yogi and a renowned commentator on Tantrik texts. He came to Rangpur, stayed with Rammohun and initiated him into the Yoga of the Tantras, from the practice of which Rammohun must have developed the will and the power to do the mighty work of his life as an undaunted hero, against innumerable odds. With the help of this scholar and Yogi, Rammohun studied Sanskrit, Hindu scriptures and philosophies in the original, and made his first Bengali translation of Vedanta called by him 'the most celebrated and revered work of Brahmanical theology, establishing the unity of the Supreme Being, and that He is the only object of worship'. It is possible that his other translations of the Upanishads, published in Calcutta in 1815, were also done at Rangpur.

While at Rangpur, besides giving proof of his generous and philanthropic heart, Rammohun used to hold regular discussions with representative men of various sects, Hindus, Jainas, Muslims and Christians not only to know how they reacted to his views but also to convince them of the soundness of his standpoint. A number of friends used regularly to meet in his house to discuss religious topics. They supported Rammohun's view that worship of the One is the true truth of religion and that the worship of idols was a hindrance to spiritual progress. In support of this view Rammohun would often quote the Koran and the Bible along with the Vedanta, stressing always the central truth of monotheism in all these scriptures. This provoked vehement protests from the local Hindu orthodoxy who condemned Rammohun's new doctrines as anti-Hindu, and succeeded in hounding him out of Rangpur. But this could never mean failure for Rammohun. Rather it put him on his proper career as the inaugurator of a new age in his country. Rangpur was too small a place to be the field of work for such a mighty soul, a power of God, an instrument of Bharata Sakti by whom he was chosen for a work which he only could do and which demanded a larger field.

And Rammohun came to Calcutta in 1814 and began his destined work. Calcutta was then the chief city of the Company's territories in India. It was, besides, the social and intellectual centre of Bengal, the home of those prominent men who were to be his collaborators in all that he did for his country. There were also in and about Calcutta a large number of English intellectuals including the Indologists already referred to. The missionaries of Serampore were also within easy reach. Rammohun's contact with them must have been an incentive to the ideas of educational reconstruction that he was then developing in his mind.

The history of India's spiritual evolution has all through been marked by the rise and growth of circles and orders like the early schools of Upanishadic mysticism, Tantrik Chakras, Buddhist Sanghas and Vaishnavite Gosthis, indicating collective practice of inner disciplines as a necessary and helpful part of spiritual life. Rammohun showed this inclination of his country's soul when at Rangpur he gathered round him a circle of intimate friends for interchange of thoughts and for 'discussion of the sublime method of the contemplation of the Infinite according to the Vedic Rishis'.

In Calcutta the first thing he did was to establish in 1815 the Atmiya Sabha (Society of Friends) where there used to be 'readings from the Vedas and singing of Brahma Sangit' (hymns in adoration of Brahma). Among those who regularly attended its meetings were Prince Dwarkanath Tagore (Poet Tagore's grandfather); Raja Kalisankar Ghosal, Joykrishna Sinha and Gopinath Munshi, all prominent in public life. Of the others who attended some left Rammohun 'because of his incessant attacks on Hindu idolatry'. Later still Rammohun made more than one attempt to form a society for the cultivation of spiritual fellowship.

It has been shown before that the impact of Western ideas was a vital factor in the rise and growth of resurgent India. And there is no gainsaying the fact that this began with the introduction of English education in which Rammohun played a most important part as he did in the first phase of every other progressive movement. There were of course others including a number of leading members of Hindu orthodoxy, but none took the initiative so purposively as Rammohun who himself started more than one school for the teaching of English and through them of Western sciences and humanities the knowledge of which, he believed, would liberate the mind of India from the medieval darkness into the fresh, clear light of the modern age. Rammohun however did not mean that everything should be Westernised. What he wanted was that Indians should develop again the faculty of reason so as to be able to make effective use of the eternal truths of their ancient culture. The wrong ideas of other-worldliness generated by the traditional interpretation of the scriptures made Rammohun feel the need for a liberal education which might implant in young minds a rationalistic attitude so necessary to the proper appraisement of cultural values. In his famous letter to Lord Amherst, dated 11 December 1823, urging 'the desirability of imparting instruction in useful branches of knowledge', Rammohun pointed out that 'the Sanskrit system of education would keep the country in darkness' and that for 'the improvement of native population the Government should promote a more liberal and enlightened system of instruction embracing Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy, with other useful sciences'.

But Rammohun was not indifferent to the need of study by young

learners of the ancient thought of India containing the deepest truth of pure Theism. What he wanted was that his countrymen should turn from the deadening superstition and mere idolatry. He therefore founded the Vedanta College in 1826 and appointed a Sanskrit scholar for the teaching of Vedanta philosophy and Sanskrit literature. He wanted it also to impart instruction in 'European Science and learning' and these through the medium of Bengali or Sanskrit. The College did not continue long, perhaps because of lack of sufficient supporters. But the pioneer must forge ahead, supporter or no supporter.

Another very important work of Rammohun for the enlightenment of the people was the starting of journals round 1822. The one, called Brahmanical Magazine, was bilingual in the beginning and later written in English; but it was short-lived. The other, Samvad Kaumudi, was a Bengali weekly, and the third, Mirat-ul-Akhbar, was another weekly in Persian. The first one was intended to 'vindicate the Hindu Religion against the attacks of Christian missionaries', the second and the third, to 'disseminate useful knowledge of a historical, literary and scientific character'. Rammohun himself regularly contributed illuminating articles to these. Samvad Kaumudi was a high-class journal, every issue of which was a rich intellectual fare. In his writings in it as well as in his other books and tracts Rammohun turned the Bengali language into a powerful instrument of expression for all purposes of national uplift. To read his writings, in the opinion of a contemporary, was itself an education. Speaking of Rammohun and his achievements in the field of Bengali language and literature, Sukumar Sen, the renowned historian of Bengali literature, observes : 'The least we can say is that without him Vidyasagar, Bankimchandra and Rabindranath would not have been possible'.

From the year 1815, that is to say, within a year of his arrival at Calcutta, Rammohun began to publish at considerable expense his Bengali renderings of several Upanishads with original texts and annotations. These he distributed free to all. Rammohun was thus the first to popularise Vedanta in modern times, the newly-introduced printing press helping him so much in this as in his other ventures for the intellectual improvement of his countrymen. His aim in these publications was to show that the truth of religion lay not in 'the current idolatry and superstition but in the Hindu monotheism of old'.

Rammohun's earliest writing Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin indicated his mental inclinations and the future to which they would lead him. It showed his iconoclastic zeal, his youthful impulse to reject everything that ran counter to his views. It seems his only aim then was to expose the hollow-ness of all religious practices. Of course his central thesis was what it has ever been—religion is belief in 'the only True God'. In his translations of the Upanishads Rammohun's main purpose was to establish that thesis 'taking his stand on the Vedas as the authoritative basis of Hindu

theism'. In his valuable introductions to them he gave his reasons for the new venture. The Vedas were to him 'extremely luminous works, affirmed to be co-eval with the creation and containing the whole body of the Hindu Theology, Law and Literature'. But he based his views on their fundamental truth and not on their traditional interpretation which he did not accept, and as a free thinker and seeker of Truth, could not. His principal object in rendering them into Bengali was to lift from over them 'the dark curtain of the Sanskrit language' and throw them open to all. Rammohun here followed the medieval mystics who like the Buddha of old used the spoken language of the people to propagate their ideas and to speak straight to their hearts. And why did he want to popularise his views ? Here are his own words : 'My constant reflections on the inconvenient, or rather injurious rites introduced by the peculiar practice of Hindoos idolatry which, more than any other pagan worship, destroys the texture of society, together with compassion for my countrymen, have compelled me to use every possible effort to awaken them from their dream of error, and by making them acquainted with their scriptures, enable them to contemplate with true devotion the unity and omnipresence of Nature's God... Most earnesdy do I pray that my writings may produce on the minds of the Hindoos in general, a conviction of the rationality of believing in and adoring the Supreme Being only : together with a complete perception and practice of that grand and comprehensive moral principle—'Do unto others as you would be done by.'' The last words from the Bible are no mere quotation but an evidence of Rammohun's love and admiration for the Christ and his teachings. For him religion always meant better and happier social relations.

While studying the ancient scriptures of his country, Rammohun had to encounter many an 'obstacle'. The problem for him was whether to follow the traditional method or the rationalistic. 'The best method, perhaps' he wrote, 'is, neither to give ourselves up exclusively to the guidance of the one or the other; but by proper use of the lights furnished by both endeavour to improve our intellectual and moral faculties relying on the goodness of the Almighty Power which alone enables us to attain that which we earnestly and diligently seek for.' No more an uncompromising iconoclast as in Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin, Rammohun is now in a larger frame of mind open to truth on both sides and a gentle believer in the power and goodness of God. And this change is even more marked when Rammohun conceded 'the worship of figured beings to those who are incapable of elevating their minds to the idea of an invisible Supreme Being'. Though he believed that idolatry and caste distinction 'destroy the texture of society and are not well calculated to promote their political interest', he knew that all could not approach God and live and move on the same level.

An idea of how Rammohun developed and propagated his ideas may be

had from his publications thirty of which were in Bengali and forty in English including original works, tracts and translations, on a wide range of subjects. His letters, memorials and representations are equally a mirror of his soul passionately bent on the uplift of his people. For wider circulation he translated some into Hindi which he might have mastered in the Fort William College then teaching Indian languages to government officials.

There is a view that Rammohun is one of the four earliest Hindi writers in modern India and that he foresaw its status as the national language of the whole country. It is interesting that of the other three Hindi writers one only was Hindi-speaking. Later, however, he held that English had an important part to play in the growth of India's unity. At the same time he recognised the need and importance of Bengali language as a medium of instruction in Bengal. He wrote a book of grammar of the current Bengali, and several other books on geography, astronomy and geometry in Bengali. The Bengali word 'jyamiti' for geometry was coined by Rammohun.

Rammohun's progressive views circulated through his publications met with adverse criticism from the conservative sections of Hindu society and soon led him into the thick of controversies. This he faced in a calm and dignified manner answering the charges with such logic, erudition and forensic skill that in every case he vanquished his adversary. One such discussion over idol worship was with a famous South Indian scholar, which was attended by the leading members of Hindu orthodoxy.

In 1820 Rammohun sprang a surprise upon his friends as well as his enemies by a departure from his old line of publications. It was a novel compilation with a novel title—The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Peace and Happiness, containing all the moral and spiritual teachings of Jesus, as recorded in the four Gospels, without the narratives of the miracles. The publication of this in the face of the prevalent strong national prejudice against Christianity was a daring venture no doubt. Introducing the book, Rammohun said : 'This simple code of religion and morality is admirably calculated to elevate men's ideas to high and liberal notions of one God.. .to regulate the conduct of the human race in the discharge of their various duties to God, to themselves, and to society'. This provoked hostile attacks from the Baptist missionaries of Serampore. Rammohun met them in their headquarters putting forward his arguments with his characteristic 'acuteness of mind, the logical power of his intellect and his unrivalled good temper'. When Marshman declared that Hinduism owed its origin to the 'Father of Lies', Rammohun answered : 'We must recollect that we are engaged in a solemn religious controversy and not in retorting abuse against each other'. This noble attitude along with his other 'sterling qualities of head and heart' impressed William Adam, one of the Serampore missionaries, so much so that he left Trinitarian Chris-

tianity, challenged by Rammohun, and adopted Unitarianism, supported by the 'Hindu Unitarian' as Rammohun 'delighted to call himself. Adam now started Unitarian propaganda with all help from Rammohun who along with friends and followers regularly attended the Unitarian service every Sunday morning. In reply to public criticism of this action of his he wrote : 'The Unitarian doctrine of the divine unity is firmly maintained both by the Christian Scripture, and by our most ancient writings commonly called the Vedas.' Mention may be made here that in order to study the Christian Scriptures in the original Rammohun had learnt Hebrew and Greek.

By the way, Rammohun's Unitarian ideas are said to have some influence on the first phase of American Unitarianism. His exposition of ancient Indian religious thought appealed to the American mind, particularly the Transcendentalists of Concord about the middle of the nineteenth century.

Rammohun's leanings towards Islam were due to the concept of divine unity in that faith. He held long and continued discussions with Muslim scholars both at Rangpur and Calcutta emphasising that the essential truth of Islam is oneness of God and that nothing should stand between Him and His human worshipper. And it is this which he stressed in his interpretations of the Shariat and the Hadis. This provoked Muslim antagonism against him, just as his strictures on formal Hinduism enraged Hindus ,and his strong views against Trinitarian Christianity irritated Christians. Indeed, Rammohun was against traditionalism of any kind—Hindu, Muslim or Christian—especially when it supported polytheism, which, according to him, retards the free development of soul and blocks up progress. The deepest core of his being was, be it repeated, tuned to one song, a spontaneous faith in the oneness of God to whom alone he offered all the worship of his heart. Indeed there was for him 'only one Theism, with certain historical varieties, e.g. a Hindu theism, an Islamic theism, and a Christian theism'. This was for Rammohun the basis of unity of all religions and of all mankind, the vision of which inspired his noble endeavours for the unification of all religions under the banner of Universal Theism. Yet this multiple personality was a Hindu of Hindus, a Muslim with Muslims, a Christian with Christians, so much so that after his death, Muslims claimed him for Islam, Christians for Christianity. Thus did Rammohun reflect the large synthetic vision of India, and thereby become the forerunner of the Dawn, the finder of the path that would lead India towards her resurgence.

But these beliefs of his created a division in the circle of Rammohun's friends and followers and alienated them to such an extent that the Atmiya Sabha founded in 1815 began gradually to dwindle. In 1821 he started with the help of William Adam the Unitarian Committee adopting for its principles certain teachings of Christianity. Its sittings were attended by his close friends and associates. But the interest of its members began to

flag and it did not last long. On the other hand, the supporters of Unitarian worship 'in the absence of one entirely suited to their views and principles', felt the need of a place of worship of their own. And Rammohun who from past experience was not inclined to do anything in this direction on his own initiative and had perhaps been waiting for his friends to make the suggestion, responded and the result was the Brahmo Sabha which he established in August 1828, with the cooperation of Prince Dwarkanath Tagore.

Rammohun's life was a constant quest for unity, freedom and happiness for all. His soul was all the time thirsting for the unification of the people of all races and creeds in one catholic worship of the common Father of all. When therefore the Brahmo Samaj—the name that the organisation took later—had a house of its own, its activities became more organised through a Trust Deed (dated 8 January 1830), drawn up by Rammohun and rightly called 'a landmark in the history of modern Indian renaissance'. The Samaj was to be the First Temple of Universal Worship of the One without a Second, 'to be used, occupied, enjoyed, applied and appropriated as and for a place of public meeting of all sorts and descriptions of people without distinction as shall behave and conduct themselves in an orderly, sober, religious and devout manner'. 'The worship was to be so conducted as would not only tend to the promotion of the contemplation of the Author and Preserver of the universe', but also 'to the promotion of charity, morality, piety, benevolence and virtue and the strengthening of the bonds of union between men of all religious persuasions and creeds'.

'The spirituality, the deep piety and universal toleration of this document', said M. G. Ranade, 'represent an ideal of beauty and perfection which it may take many centuries before its full significance is understood by our people'. What then is the central idea in this unique document by which its high-souled author made over to the public that unique institution of which he was the illustrious founder ? To Rammohun what was fundamental for the all-round well-being of his country as also of the whole human race was unity which, he thought, would come about through the growth of a confraternity of the followers of all sects and faiths under the banner of the One worshipped by all though in different names. Rammohun laid the foundation of this integral humanity in the invisible Temple of God within the heart of man. From this ethereal foundation his finger of destiny seems to be pointing, however vaguely, to the One World of Tomorrow.

But his motherland was always in his thoughts, and in all that he said and did. He knew how lack of unity was the main cause of India's subjection, how, as he wrote, 'in consequence of the multiplied divisions and subdivisions of the land into separate and independent kingdoms under the authority of numerous princes hostile towards each other, owing to the

successive introduction of a vast number of castes and sects, destroying every texture of social and political unity—the country was at different periods invaded and brought under temporary subjection to foreign princes, celebrated for power and ambition'. He also held that these social, religious and political divisions had 'entirely deprived the Hindus of patriotic feeling, totally disqualified them from undertaking any difficult enterprise'. That this was a deep feeling in him is evident in whatever he did for the social and religious advancement of his countrymen who were no longer only Hindus but men of all religious persuasions. This fact must have been in his mind when he conceived of the Temple of Universal Worship that the Brahmo Samaj was to be. The nucleus of a centre of spiritual fellowship continuing, no matter if in an attenuated form, the ancient line of collective practice of inner discipline for the mutual benefit of all participants, the Samaj was to be a meeting-place for the worship of One God. The worshippers might belong each to his own religious fold, Saivaite or Vaishnavite, Smarta or Vedantist; they might be Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Jain or Buddhist—none was expected to depart from his own religious tradition—yet they could join in communion with their brethren of other sects or faiths in order that such common worship might strengthen their perception of the central truth of the divine unity in all religions and thereby help in the growth of unity and confraternity among their followers. This central truth is the truth of the Vedanta in which Rammohun found the most satisfactory answer to the quest of his soul. In fact, a contemporary called the Brahmo Samaj a Vedanta Society. It is well known how the universal teachings of the Vedanta are today popular all over the world as 'the basic doctrine of a spiritual philosophy for the whole human race'. Rammohun echoed these teachings in a number of Bengali hymns which he composed and which are sung in the meetings of the Samaj. One of the most popular of them is :

'Meditate on the Only One

Who pervades land, water and air,

Who has created this universe of which there is no bound.

He knows all, but none can know Him.

He is Lord of Lords, the God of gods, the Master of masters :

Let us know this adorable One.'

The first meeting of the Brahmo Samaj was attended by more than five hundred persons consisting of Hindus of all castes including a large number of brahmanas, a few Christians and Muslims. Rammohun attached great importance to the Vedic Gayatri and made its use along with some Upanishadic verses part of a meditation on God, to be followed by a hymn from Mahanirvan Tantra. Rammohun believed in and practised the worship of Brahman through the gayatri mantra which 'indicates the

unity of the cosmic soul as symbolised in the sun and the individual spirit as throbbing in the heart'. It may be noted that the principle of Gayatri is Vedic but its practice is Tantrik. In his treatise on the meaning of Gayatri Rammohun includes its practice as the first and easiest method of realising the highest Beatitude in Wisdom and Bliss. His inclusion of the Tantrik hymn is also significant. Was it that, like Sankaracharya, Rammohun had a Vedantic mind and a Tantrik soul ? Anyway, the Brahmo Samaj ideal was an Aryan ideal based on the two principal lines of India's spiritual development in history. And this ideal, it goes without saying, is one of the spiritual ideals of the human race. By affirming it again and again Rammohun expressed the innate spirituality of the race to which he belonged.

For him, however, this spirituality was far above all institutional religion, creed, dogma, ritual or externalia of any kind. It is a pure light of heaven in which Divine Transcendence is brought within the reach of human aspiration without anything in between—it presages the spiritual religion of the future. All his monotheistic ideas and ideals which he expressed in his early and later writings and in the Trust Deed of the Brahmo Samaj, centre round this dominant trend of his soul. Here, as in everything he said and did, Rammohun is the forerunner of the Dawn. But being much ahead of his time, he was not only not properly understood but misunderstood and opposed by the orthodox Hindus of Calcutta who started an association called Dharma Sabha and a periodical named Chandrika in order to cry him down. Besides his friends and associates, the free and open mind of Europe had a wonderful perception of his greatness. The honour with which he was received in England and France, and a few of the views quoted at the end are an eloquent proof.

Yet Rammohun was a 'Hindu of Hindus', a brahmana upholder of the Vedanta, proud of the great past of India to which, he said, 'the world was indebted for the first dawn of knowledge.' Perhaps he had a feeling that this great past would bring in a greater future and so he worked for it with all the force of his reason and the intensity of his soul. As all his writings, especially on religion, show, Rammohun's chief concern was to help uplift his nation and further its progress in every possible direction. But society in India was 'anchored' to religion, and religion in his time was a mass of formulas and ceremonials. Rammohun therefore directed his efforts first towards the 'improvement' of the religious life of the people. His endeavours in this respect were intended for the national being to move—evident in the opposition he received from the conservatives—and what this movement meant is the country's later history. Rammohun's social and educational work for the country was part of his great work for its all-round advancement. And these efforts of his laid down the lines of later movements that paved the way for a resurgent India.

Rammohun knew that the waters of Indian life had become stagnant

and that they must be stirred and revived into fresh currents of activity. The impact of the West had made a beginning in that direction, and Rammohun had his share in it too. He saw the first phase and its unhappy repercussions in the life of the young products of the Hindu College. Rammohun believed in the efficacy of the teachings of Christianity in 'improving the moral state of mankind'. But he never liked these young men embracing Christianity, and vehemently opposed the conversions which Christian missionaries were carrying on in the country. In one of his open letters he quoted Rev. Abbé Dubois in support of his anti-conversion views. The form he gave to his broad vision of universal worship considerably weakened this movement. Many of the Derozians, members of 'Young Bengal', joined the Brahmo Samaj and became leaders of the progressive movements it initiated.

Rammohun was also alive to the evils that were then corrupting the social life of his people. In 1811 when he was at his village home, one of his elder brothers died and his wife burnt herself on the funeral pyre of her husband. Rammohun saw this and felt extremely distressed and took the vow that he would not rest till the inhuman practice of the Sati was abolished. Setting forth cogent arguments from the Hindu scriptures, he wrote and published two dissertations against the practice. The orthodox circles took strong exception to this, but Rammohun did not care. He went on agitating not only in India but in England where he went for the purpose, among other things, of opposing the appeal of the advocates of Sati after the dismissal of their case in India. Rammohun had the satisfaction of seeing the appeal also dismissed.

The inferior position of women in society was another evil obstructing the progress of the race. Rammohun took up this problem. In his treatise on the Sati, he pointed out how unfounded and erroneous were the current notions of 'the deficiency of women in point of intellect, resolution, trustworthiness, virtue, and of control over passions'. He showed with convincing logic that given proper opportunities, women could exhibit their mental capacities in no degree inferior to those of the great women of ancient India. Rammohun is said to have favoured remarriage of Hindu widows. He also contended that orthodox Hindus ought to consider śaiva marriage in which there is no distinction of age, caste or race, as valid as Vaidik marriage. According to a High Court Judge, Rammohun's legal writings 'would do credit to jurists of the highest standing'. In one such on the rights of women, he opposed polygamy, kulinism and the practice of selling girls in marriage. Much of India's degradation he attributed to the divisions of caste, and śaiva marriage was one of the things he proposed for its removal. Not only caste, even creed should not stand in the way of national unity. By adopting a Muslim boy he showed how in his large heart such external divisions had no place. Thus was Rammohun in advance of his time by more than a hundred years.

What he wanted his country to do then free India is trying to do today.

In his youth Rammohun had 'an aversion to British rule in India'. Later he 'gave up that prejudice, feeling persuaded that their rule, though a foreign yoke, would lead more speedily and surely to the amelioration of the native inhabitants'. But as a lover of freedom, he did not tolerate any unjust interference with the freedom of his countrymen. He believed in the free Press as one of the best safeguards of liberty. When the authorities issued an Ordinance against the publication of any newspaper or periodical without having obtained a licence from them, Rammohun submitted a memorial to the Supreme Court, which is regarded as 'the Areopagitica of Indian History'. 'Alike in diction and in argument, it forms a noble landmark in the progress of Indian culture in the East.' The memorial however proved unavailing. This was imperialism just in its embryo !

Early in 1829 a new Jury Act came into force, under which Hindus and Muslims were made subject to judicial trial by Christians, whether European or native, and Christians including native converts, by Christians only. This religious distinction made Rammohun raise his voice of protest. In that voice could be felt the throb of national aspiration that about a century later broke forth into the demand for self-rule. Here are his prophetic words : 'After one hundred years of contact with Europeans Indians will develop the spirit as well as the inclination to resist effectually any oppressive measures serving to degrade them in the scale of society.'

Rammohun's heart of sympathy leaned over the down-trodden and the oppressed. While on his walks one could see him stoop to help a labourer lift up his load. He carefully studied the conditions of the peasants under the Permanent Settlement Act of 1793 and found that they were worsening. In his written evidence to the British Board of Control he suggested the stopping of any further rise in rent as well as a reduction in the revenue demanded from the landlords so as to ensure a reduction in the ryot's rent. Incidentally, in those days when education was in a backward condition Rammohun considered Indians fit for the duties of Collectors. He also considered them well qualified to discharge all judicial duties. He was fully conscious of 'the economic drain of India' and 'prepared several tables to prove this...' In his Remarks on Settlement in India by Europeans—a paper of rare personal and national importance —Rammohun 'holds up to the people of India the prospect of having English as its lingua franca, India socially and in other respects Westernised to some extent, India possibly independent and India the Enlightener of Asia'. He held that the people of India 'have the same capability of improvement as any other civilised people'. He did not believe that Asians were naturally 'an inferior race'. In the course of one of his numerous religious controversies, 'a Christian having indulged in a tirade about persons being 'degraded by Asiatic effeminacy' Rammohun reminded him

that 'almost .all the ancient prophets and patriarchs venerated by Christians, nay, even Jesus Christ himself, were Asians'.

'He would be free or not be at all.. .Love of freedom was perhaps the strongest passion of his soul', wrote William Adam, a close friend of Rammohun. And this freedom he would have not for himself alone but for all. This with his cosmopolitan sympathies is revealed by the following instances. When the 'unhappy news' came to him of the failure of the revolution in Naples in 1821, Rammohun in cancelling his engagements wrote to a friend : T consider the cause of the Neapolitans as my own, and their enemies as ours. Enemies of liberty and friends of despotism have never been and never will be ultimately successful.' When he heard of the successful rising of the Spanish colonies in South America against the authority of Spain, he gave a public dinner at the Town Hall. 'So great was his enthusiasm over the developments of the latest French Revolution that he could think and talk of nothing else.' Months later on his voyage to England, he met with an accident to his leg for which he had to remain lame all his life. But bodily suffering could not damp his mental ardour and he landed at the Cape only to see 'two French frigates under the revolutionary flag, the glorious tri-colour, lying in Table Bay'. Rammohun considered the struggle between the reformers and anti-reformers in the Reform Bill agitation in England as 'a struggle between liberty and tyranny throughout the world; between justice and injustice, and between right and wrong !' Then in England he is said to have greeted the Manchester workers with the cry—'Reform for ever'.

While in England, Rammohun wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France asking for permissin to visit that country for which he had always cherished a great admiration. In that famous letter he outlined his ideal of International Fellowship through a Comity of Nations as the organised form of the underlying unity of mankind and this, it may be noted, more than a hundred years before the emergence of the United Nations. He wrote : 'It is now generally admitted that not religion only but unbiased common sense as well as the accurate deductions of scientific research lead to the conclusion that all mankind are one great family of which numerous nations and tribes existing are only various branches. Hence enlightened men in all countries feel a wish to encourage and facilitate human intercourse in every manner by removing as far as possible all impediments to it in order to promote the reciprocal advantage and enjoyment of the whole human race.' Continuing he said : 'The ends of constitutional government might be better attained by submitting every matter of political difference between two countries to a Congress composed of an equal number from the Parliament of each : the decision of the majority to be acquiesced in by both nations and the Chairman to be chosen by each Nation alternately. ..By such a Congress all matters of difference, whether political or commercial, affecting the natives of any

two civilized countries with constitutional Governments, might be settled amicably and justly to the satisfaction of both and profound peace and friendly feelings might be preserved between them from generation to generation.' It is remarkable that at a time when the nations had just begun to rise, there came to Rammohun the vision of one world not only through a fellowship of faiths but a closer fellowship of nations.

For a long time Rammohun had been cherishing a desire to visit Europe, see what Western life was in its social, cultural and political expressions, and also to vindicate his country's cause in England. The titular Emperor of Delhi, Akbar the Second, appointed Rammohun his envoy to the court of Great Britain where he was to place certain grievances of the Emperor, after having invested Rammohan with the tide of Raja as a mark of dignity and distinction attached to the position of Envoy. The British Government not having recognised the appointment, Rammohun sailed for England on his own account reaching Liverpool in April 1831. He was the first Indian to cross the seas then forbidden by Hindu orthodoxy. While in England, the welfare of his country was always in his thoughts. He repeated his arguments against the Sati in the appeal to the King filed by the advocates of that 'inhuman practice'.

When the Charter of the East India Company came up for renewal, he was invited to give evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons. Instead of personally appearing before the Committee, he prepared and submitted three papers on the Revenue System of India, the Judicial System of India, and the Material Condition of India, in which he advocated a number of measures, such as, the substitution of English for Persian as the official language, appointment of native assessors in the civil court, separation of judicial from revenue functions, separation of judicial from executive functions, codification of the criminal and other laws of India. In all these, however, Rammohun foresaw and suggested how the country's administration might be reorganised to the best interests of the people.

At the coronation of William the Fourth, Rammohun was honoured with a place amongst the Foreign Ambassadors and was personally presented to the King. The Directors of East India Company held a dinner in his honour. He met prominent public men of England and among the scholars he met were William Roscoe the historian of the Medicis, who blessed God saying he was happy to live to see the day of his meeting with Rammohun; and Jeremy Bentham, the famous Utilitarian philosopher to whom an English friend in India introduced Rammohun as 'an excellent and extraordinary man'. Bentham found in Rammohun 'his intensely admired and dearly-beloved collaborator in the service of mankind'. Towards the close of 1832 he visited France where the King received him with great honour. After a brief illness Rammohun left his body on 27 September 1833, in Bristol.

A career of vast significance for the future of India and the world came to an end leaving behind a rich legacy whose meaning has since been unfolding itself in the life of resurgent India. There was on his person the sacred thread of the brahmana, which he never discarded. It was his wish that his body should not be interred in any Christian cemetery. It was therefore laid at rest in a quiet corner of the surroundings of the house he lived in.

In its next issue after Rammohun's passing, the Court Journal, London, wrote : 'The Rajah, in the outer man, was cast in nature's finest mould : his figure was manly and robust: his carriage dignified, the forehead towering, expansive and commanding : the eyes dark, restless, full of brightness and animation, yet liquid and benevolent, and frequently glistening with a tear when affected by the deeper sensibility of the heart: the nose of Roman form and proportions : lips full and indicative of independence, the whole features deeply expressive, with a smile of soft and peculiar fascination...' 'He is indeed a glorious being,—a true sage', said Lucy Aikin, an English lady.

With Rammohun's life India herself returned to life and began to rise towards her great future. Swami Vivekananda told Sister Nivedita that acceptance of Vedanta, preaching of patriotism, and the love that embraced the Mussalman equally with the Hindu, were the three important points in Rammohun's message. In all these things the Swami claimed to have taken up the task that the breadth and foresight of Rammohun had mapped out.¹ 'The little stir', to quote the Swami again, 'the little life that you see in India begins from the day Raja Rammohun Roy broke through the walls of exclusiveness. Since that day history in India has taken another turn, and now it is growing with accelerated motion.'²

Rammohun was the first, says Nolini Kanta Gupta, 'to draw the country's consciousness from ages past, from the ancient ways, out into the free light and air of the modern day, the first to initiate the country into the new religion of the new age; in him appeared in seed-form the potentialities of all future creation; sparks of his illumined mind entered into every important domain of the collective life of the race—politics, society, religion, education, literature, language, etc.—and brought to the country a new birth, a new life, a new creation. He gave the broad outlines of the country's future fulfilment, the root principles of which he was the first to discover. The creators of later times have adopted them as solid bases for their new structures. Rammohun, to use the Upanishadic image, is the heart-centre where have met the thousand and one veins and arteries and from where they have spread out in different directions. In the same way in Rammohun are centred the various streams of the country's education and culture, the blossomings of the modem mind, and all these

¹ Notes on Some Wanderings with Swami Vivekananda.

² In his Lectures from Colombo to Almora.

have flowed from him into the awakened fields of the country's consciousness.'¹ Rabindranath hailed Rammohun as Bharata-Pathik, one who walked the ways of India's spirit.

T am sure that when India becomes a free and great nation, as under God she is sure to do at no distant day, she will recognise Rammohun Roy as in a large and true sense her immortal—what shall I say ?— MOSES or MAZZINI or WASHINGTON all in one.'²

Rammohun stands in history 'as the living bridge over which India marches from an unmeasured past to her incalculable future.. .He was, if not the prophetic type, at least the precursive hint, of the change that is to come'.³

'Thy spirit is immortal and thy name

Shall by thy countrymen be ever blest,

Even from thy tomb thy words with power shall rise,

Shall touch their hearts and bear them to the skies.'⁴

¹ In his Banglar Pran (Bengali).

² Said in 1933 by Rev. J. T. Sunderland of America, the illustrious author of India in Bondage (honoured by the British Government ban).

³ S. D. Collect in his Life and Letters of Raja Rammohun Roy.

⁴ Mary Carpenter in her The Last Days in England of the Raja Rammohun Roy.