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| Raja Ram Mohan Roy | |
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Raja Ram Mohan Roy is regarded as the Father of the Bengal Renaissance. |
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| Alternate name(s): | Roy Rammohun |
| Date of birth: | August 14, 1774 |
| Place of birth: | Radhanagore, Bengal |
| Date of death: | September 27, 1833 (aged 59) |
| Place of death: | Stapleton, Bristol |
| Major organizations: | Brahmo Samaj |
| Religion: | Brahmo |
Ram Mohan Roy (August 14, 1774 – September 27, 1833) was a founder (with Dwarkanath Tagore and other Bengali Brahmins) of the Brahma Sabha in 1828 which engendered the Brahmo Samaj, an influential Indian socio-religious reform movement. His remarkable influence was apparent in the fields of politics, public administration and education as well as religion. He is best known for his efforts to abolish the practice of sati, the Hindu funeral practice in which the widow was compelled to sacrifice herself on her husband’s funeral rite. It was he who first introduced the word "Hinduism" into the English language in 1816. For his diverse contributions to society, Raja Ram Mohan Roy is regarded as one of the most important figures in the Bengal Renaissance.
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Roy was born in Radhanagore, Bengal, in 1774[1]. His family background displayed an interesting religious diversity. His father Ramkanta was a Vaishnavite, while his mother Tarinidevi was from a Shivaite family. This in itself was unusual for Vaishanavites did not marry Shaivites at the time.
Rammohun's early education was controversial. The common version is
| The period in which the Raja was born and grew up was, perhaps, the darkest age in modern Indian history. An old society and polity had crumbled down, and a new one had not yet been built in its place. Devastation reigned in the land. All vital limbs of society were paralysed; religious institutions and schools, village and home, agriculture, industry and trade, law and administration, all were in a chaotic condition. An all-round reconstitution and renovation were necessary for the continued existence of social life and order. But what was to be the principle for organisation? For there were three bodies of culture, three bodies of civilisations, which were in conflict, - the Hindu, the Moslem, and the Christian or Occidental; and the question was, - how to find a rapport, of concord, of unity, amongst these heterogeneous, hostile and warring forces. The origin of Modern India lay there. The Raja by his finding of this point of concord and convergence became the Father and Patriarch of Modern India, an India with a composite nationality and a synthetic civilisation; and by the lines of convergence he laid down, as well by the type of personality he developed in and through his own experiences, he pointed the way to the solution of the larger problem of international culture and civilisation in human history, and became a precursor, an archetype, of coming Humanity.[4] —Brajendra Nath Seal |
His faithful contemporary biographer writes,
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During these overlapping periods, Ram Mohan Roy acted as a political agitator and agent, representing Christian missionaries[5] whilst employed by the East India Company and simultaneously pursuing his vocation as a Pandit. To understand fully this complex period in his life leading up to his eventual Brahmoism is not easy without reference to his peers,
In 1792 the British Baptist shoemaker William Carey published his influential missionary tract "An Enquiry of the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of heathens.[6]
In 1793 William Carey landed in India to settle. His objective was to translate, publish and distribute the Bible in Indian languages and propagate Chrisianity to the Indian peoples[7]. He realized that the "mobile" (i.e. service classes) Brahmins and Pundits were most able to help him in this endeavour, and he began cultivating them. He learnt the Buddhist and Jain religious works to better argue the case for Christianity in the cultural context.
In 1795 Carey made contact with a Sanskrit scholar - the Tantric Hariharananda Vidyabagish [8]- who later introduced him to Ram Mohan Roy who wished to learn English.
Between 1796 and 1797 the trio of Carey, Vidyavagish and Roy fabricate a spurious religious work known as the "Maha Nirvana Tantra" (or "Book of the Great Liberation")[9] and pass it off as an ancient religious text to "the One True God" actually the Holy Spirit of Christianity masquerading as Brahma. Carey's involvement is not recorded in his very detailed records and he reports only learning to read Sanscrit in 1796 and only completed a grammar in 1797, the same year he translated from Joshua to Job, itself a massive task[10]. (The explanation later given by Ram Mohan Roy to his family concerning his whereabouts during this period is that he went to "Tibet" then as far away as "Timbuktoo"). For the next 2 decades this amazing document was regularly and conveniently added to. Its judicial sections are used in the law courts of the English Settlement in Bengal as Hindu Law for adjudicating upon property disputes of the zamindari. However a few British Magistrates and Collectors begin to suspect its "convenient" forgeries and its usage (as well as the reliance on Pundits as sources of Hindu Law) was quickly deprecated. Vidyavagish has a brief falling out with Carey and separated from the group to go about his mendicancy but maintains lifelong personal and familial ties to Ram Mohan Roy.[11] (The Maha Nirvana Tantra's significance for Brahmoism lay in the wealth that accumulated to Rammohun Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore by its judicial use, and not due to any religious wisdom within although it does contain an entire chapter devoted to "the One True God" and his worship).
In 1797, Rammohun reached Calcutta and became a "banian" (ie. moneylender) mainly to impoverished Englishmen of the Company living beyond their means. Rammohun also continued his vocation as Pundit in the English courts and started to make a living for himself. He begins learning the rudiments of Greek and Latin.
In 1799, Carey was joined by missionary Joshua Marshman and the printer William Ward at the Danish settlement of Serampore.
From 1803 till 1815, Rammohun served the East India Company's "Writing Service" commencing as private clerk "munshi" to Thomas Woodforde, Registrar of the Appellate Court at Murshidabad[12] (whose distant nephew - also a Magistrate - later made a rich living off the spurious Maha Nirvana Tantra under the pseudonym Arthur Avalon)[13]. Roy resigned from Woodforde's service due to allegations of corruption. Later he secured employment with John Digby a Company collector and Rammohun spent many years at Rangpur and elsewhere with Digby, where he renewed his contacts with Hariharananda. William Carey had by this time settled at Serampore and the old trio renew their profitable association. William Carey is also aligned now with the English Company, then headquartered at Fort William, and his religious and political ambitions were increasingly intertwined[citation needed].
At the turn of the 19th century the Muslims, although considerably vanquished after the battles of Plassey and Buxar, still posed a formidable political threat to the Company. Rammohun was now chosen by Carey to be the agitator among them[14]. He thus embarked on a remarkable new career described by the contemporary biographer as,
Under Carey's secret tutelage[citation needed] in the next 2 decades, Rammohun launched his spirited attack against the bastions of Hinduism of Bengal, namely his own Kulin Brahmin priestly clan (then in control of the many temples of Bengal) and their priestly excesses. The social and theological issues Carey chose for Rammohun were calculated to weaken the hold of the dominant Kulin class (especially their younger disinherited sons forced into service who constituted the mobile gentry or "bhadralok" of Bengal) from the Mughal zamindari system and align them to their new overlords of Company. The Kulin excesses targeted include - sati (the concremation of widows), polygamy, idolatory, child marriage, dowry. All causes equally dear to Carey's ideals.
In the final analysis of Rammohun's life in this extraordinary period, we find that Rammohun's religious reform is but a tool to implement his powerful social reform agenda which lays the foundation for modern India.
Here is what Roy's contemporary biographer records for this period,
This was Rammohun's most controversial period. Sivanath Sastri commenting on his published works alone writes:-
"The period between 1820 and 1830 was also eventful from a literary point of view, as will be manifest from the following list of his publications during that period
It is indeed a matter for wonder how, in the midst of so much active work and such furious contests, Ram Mohan Roy could make time to write such masterly treatises on such a variety of subjects !"[16]
Ram Mohan Roy is best known abroad for his agitation against sati (the practice of burning a widow alive on her husband's pyre). Seeing his brother's widow cruelly forced to commit sati in 1812, and unable to stop it then, Roy set his mind to abolish the practice.
In 1831 Ram Mohan Roy travelled to the United Kingdom as an ambassador of the Mughal Empire to ensure that the Lord Bentick's regulation banning the practice of Sati was not overturned. He also visited France.
He died at Stapleton then a village to the north east of Bristol (now a suburb) on the 27th September 1833 of meningitis and is buried in Arnos Vale Cemetery in southern Bristol. A street 'Raja Rammohan Way' has recently been named in memory of him in Stapleton.[citation needed]
"To great natural talents, he united through mastery of many languages and distinguished himself as one of the greatest scholars of his day. His unwearied labour to promote the social, moral and physical condition of the people of India, his earnest endeavours to suppress idolatry and the rite of sati and his constant zealous advocacy of whatever tended to advance the glory of God and the welfare of man live in the grateful remembrance of his countrymen."