Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Wed Feb 12, 2020 1:26 am

Robert Cutlar Fergusson
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/11/20

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Robert Cutlar Fergusson, 1768 - 1838. Judge; advocate-general, by Alexander Hay, 1836, National Galleries Scotland

Robert Cutlar Fergusson (1768–1838) was a Scottish lawyer and politician. He was 17th Laird of the Dumfriesshire Fergussons, seated at Craigdarroch (Moniaive, Dumfriesshire).

Life

Robert Fergusson was born in Dumfries, the eldest son of Alexander Fergusson, Esq., of Craigdarroch and Orraland House, Kirkcudbrightshire, who was an eminent advocate. His great-grandfather was Alexander Fergusson, the husband of Annie Laurie of folksong fame. He was educated at Edinburgh and studied law at Lincoln's Inn, being called to the bar in 1797.[1]

He was gaoled for a year in the King's Bench prison in the late 1790s for being associated with Arthur O'Connor and Father James Coigly, two United Irishmen who were trying to organise an Irish revolution.


Arthur O'Connor (4 July 1763 – 25 April 1852), was a United Irishman and later a general in Napoleon's army.

Born near Bandon, County Cork, O'Connor embraced the Republican movement early on as he was encouraged by the American Revolution overseas. From 1790 to 1795 he was a Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons for Philipstown...

In 1796 he became a member of the Society of United Irishmen. He and Lord Edward Fitzgerald petitioned France for aid in support of an Irish revolution. While traveling to France he was arrested alongside Father James Coigly, a Catholic priest, and three other United Irishmen. Coigly, who found to be carrying an incriminating letter, was hanged, whereas O'Connor was acquitted. He was re-arrested immediately and imprisoned at Fort George in Scotland along with his brother Roger...

O'Connor was released in 1802 under the condition of "banishment".[5] He travelled to Paris, where he was regarded as the accredited representative of the United Irishmen by Napoleon who, in February 1804, appointed him General of Division in the French army. General Berthier, Minister of War, directed that O'Connor was to join the expeditionary army intended for the invasion of Ireland at Brest.

When the plan fell through, O'Connor retired from the army. He offered his services to Napoleon during the Hundred Days. After Napoleon's defeat he was allowed to retire, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1818. He supported the 1830 revolution which created the July Monarchy, publishing a defence of events in the form of an open letter to General Lafayette. After the revolution he became mayor of Le Bignon-Mirabeau. The rest of his life was spent composing literary works on political and social topics.[6]

-- Arthur O'Connor (United Irishman), by Wikipedia


Father James Coigly (Rev. James Quigley) born in Kilmore, Co. Armagh (c.1761 – 7 June 1798) was a Roman Catholic priest and United Irishmen leader who was executed in Kent, England...

A United Irishmen, he worked at improving Catholic and Presbyterian relations. Coigly travelled to England and Paris, where he was involved with the United Britons and with James Napper Tandy.[2] While travelling to France, he was arrested alongside four other United Irishmen, one being Arthur O'Connor, a leader of the Rebels of Leinster. Upon his arrest, English authorities discovered a letter by the United Britons addressed to the French Revolutionary Government calling for an invasion of England, hidden in Coigly's garments...

He was hanged at Penenden Heath, Maidstone on 7 June 1798.

-- James Coigly, by Wikipedia


On his release he decided it would be wise to leave the country and therefore moved to India[2] where he worked as a barrister for some 30 years in the Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta. He was made acting Advocate-General of Bengal in 1817 when Edward Strettell left for England due to ill-health, holding the post until Robert Spankie arrived as Strettell's successor. When Spankie returned to England in 1823, Fergusson succeeded him as Advocate-General.

On his return to Britain he was elected MP for the Stewardtry of Kirkcudbright in 1826, sitting until 1838. He was appointed a Privy Councillor in 1834 and Judge Advocate General from 1835 to 1838.

Dwarkanath Tagore, the great Bengal entrepreneur, was apprenticed under him in 1810
, and Fergusson was one of the two leading influences in his life.[3]

References

1. "FERGUSSON, Robert Cutlar (?1770-1838), of Orroland, Kirkcudbright and Craigdarroch, Dumfries". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
2. Public Characters of All Nations: Consisting of Biographical ..., Volume 1. p. 90.
3. "History of the Adi Brahmo Samaj (1906)" p 27.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Robert Cutlar Fergusson
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Wed Feb 12, 2020 1:47 am

Brahmo
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/11/20

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


A Bengali Brahmo or the traditional Bengali elites are Bengal's upper class. They form the bulk of the historical colonial establishment of eastern India. Educated mostly in a select few schools and colleges, they were one of the wealthiest and most anglicised communities of colonial India. Presidency College's control over the development of and continued influence on the Brahmos and vice versa was complete in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Presidency University, Kolkata, formerly known as Hindoo College and Presidency College,[2] is a public state university located in College Street, Kolkata.[3] It is probably the oldest institution in the world to have no religious connection, having being established in 1817...

With the creation of the Supreme Court of Calcutta in 1773 many Hindus of Bengal showed an eager interest in learning the English language. David Hare, in collaboration with Raja Radhakanta Deb had already taken steps to introduce English language education in Bengal. Babu Buddinath Mukherjee advanced the introduction of English as a medium of instruction further by enlisting the support of Sir Edward Hyde East, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Fort William, who called a meeting of 'European and Hindu Gentlemen' at his house in May 1816.[9] The purpose of the meeting was to "discuss the proposal to establish an institution for giving a liberal education to the children of the members of the Hindu Community". The proposal was received with unanimous approbation and a donation of over Rs. 100, 000 was promised for setting up the new college. Raja Ram Mohan Roy showed full support for the scheme, but chose not to come out in support of the proposal publicly for fear of "alarming the prejudices of his orthodox countrymen and thus marring the whole idea".[10]

The College was formally opened on Monday, 20 January 1817 with 20 'scholars'. The foundation committee of the college, which oversaw its establishment, was headed by Raja Rammohan Roy. The control of the institution was vested in a body of two Governors and four Directors. The first Governors of the college were Maharaja Tejchandra Bahadur of Burdwan and Gopee Mohan Thakoor. The first Directors were Gopi Mohun Deb of Sobhabazar, Joykissen Sinha, Radha Madhab Banerjee, and Gunganarain Doss. Buddinath Mukherjee was appointed as the first Secretary of the college. The newly established college mostly admitted Hindu students from affluent and progressive families, but also admitted non-Hindu students such as Muslims, Jews, Christians and Buddhists.

At first, the classes were held in a house belonging to Gorachand Bysack of Garanhatta (later renamed 304, Chitpore Road), which was rented by the college. In January 1818 the college moved to 'Feringhi Kamal Bose's house' which was located nearby in Chitpore.[11] From Chitpore, the college moved to Bowbazar and later to the building that now houses the Sanskrit College on College Street.[12]

-- Presidency University, Kolkata, by Wikipedia


Drawn from the ranks of the newly emerging colonial ruling class, considered to be junior partners in the enterprise of the British Empire, the Brahmos were typically employed as Bengal Presidency governors, high court judges, commissioners, collectors, magistrates, railway managers, university vice chancellors, Presidency College and Calcutta Medical College principals and professors, research think tank directors as well as those who made their major profits in big business. Politically, they were considered to be moderates in nationalist politics, with the aim of joining council politics for the furtherance of the constitutional question within the framework of the Empire. Influenced by the teachings of the Upanishads.

Brahmo

Definition


A Brahmo (Bengali: ব্রাহ্ম) is either an adherent, with or without a diksha, of Brahmoism to the exclusion of all other sects, castes and even religions, except Hinduism, or a person with at least one Brahmo parent or guardian and who has never denied his faith. This definition has evolved from legal acts and juristic decree since previously "the word Brahmo did not admit of a clear definition."[1]

Spread

The 2001 Census of India [2] counted only 177 Brahmos in India, but the number of followers (Brahmo Samajists) who constitute the wider community of Brahmo Samaj (assembly for Brahmo worship) is significantly higher, and reliably estimated at about 20, 000 Sadharan Brahmo Samajists, 10, 000 other Brahmo denominations and 8, 000,000 declared Adi Dharmists.[3] Since the Brahmo Samaj does not sanction caste, many low caste Brahmo converts in Upper India, benefiting under India's social development policies, prefer to declare themselves as followers of Adi Dharm, a practice fostered by the Brahmo Samaj of North India since the 1931 census. A state-wise study by the Brahmo Conference Organisation has tabulated 7. 83 million Adi Dharm declarants in the 2001 Census.

Influence

A recent publication describes the disproportionate influence of Brahmos on India's development post-19th Century as unparalleled in recent times,[4] It states that the "... Brahmos are amongst the elite groups of modern India, along with the Parsis of Bombay, the Chitpavans of Pune, the Iyers, Nairs and Ayyangars of the South, the Kashmiri Pandits of Uttar Pradesh and the Kayasthas of the Punjab and Bihar..." This publication further states that the Brahmos are "... the most cosmopolitan, having been overwhelmingly drawn from three castes – Brahmins, Vaidyas and Kayasthas – while the others were from a single caste..." It was the Brahmos who played an important role in organizing the Indian Political Association, which was the forerunner to the Indian National Congress.

Brahmo Samaj

The Brahmo Samaj refers to the wider socio-religious community either following the principles for Brahmo worship or subscribing to membership of a Brahmo Samaj, which is an association established for maintaining premises for assembly and worship of Brahma. A follower or subscriber member of this community is referred to as Brahmo Samajist.

When is a Brahmo not a Brahmo Samajist?

One aspect of Brahmoism is recognition that not only explicit faith and worship makes for a Brahmo, but also genealogy, which is implicit. People with even a single Brahmo parent or a Brahmo guardian are treated as Brahmos until they absolutely renounce the Brahmo faith. This often causes tension within the Samaj, for example, when an offspring of a Brahmo follows communism or atheism or another religious belief without renouncing Brahmoism formally. There are differing views between the Theist and Deist streams of Brahmoism on the retention of such people within the fold. Additionally, a Brahmo who opts not to subscribe to membership of a Brahmo Samaj remains a Brahmo but ceases to be a Brahmo Samajist.[5]

Co-faith and conversion

Brahmoism does not forbid its followers from retaining other faiths like Islam or Christianity. Neither is formal conversion to Brahmoism required nowadays, thereby affirming a very well settled legal controversy between Sir J.C. Bose and Rani Bhagwwan Koer[6] which states that a non-Brahmo Brahmo Samajist does not cease to be (say) a Hindu or Sikh by following the Samaj.

Brahmo families

Banerjee


• Sasipada Banerji (1840–1924), Social reformer.
o Sir Albion Rajkumar Banerjee, CSI, CIE (1871–1950), Diwan of Cochin.
• Amiya Charan Banerjee (1891–1968), Vice Chancellor of Allahabad University.
• Probha Banerji, first lady magistrate of India.
o Kalyan Banerji, Deputy Managing Director of the State Bank of India.
o Milon K. Banerji (1928–2010), Attorney General of India.
 Gourab Banerji, Additional Solicitor General of India.

Chakrabarty

• Nikhil Chakravarty, Founder-Editor, Mainstream Weekly.[7]
o Sumit Chakravarty, Editor, Mainstream Weekly.
• Uma Shehanobis (née Chakrabarty), Principal, Patha Bhavan, Calcutta.

Chattopadhayay

• Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya, Principal, Nizam's College, Hyderabad.
o Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949), Politician.
 Padmaja Naidu (1900–1975), Governor of West Bengal.
 Leela Naidu (1940–2009), Artist.
o Suhasini Chattopadhyay, Indian freedom fighter.
o Virendranath Chattopadhyaya (1880–1937), Indian nationalist.
o Harindranath Chattopadhyaya (1898–1990), Padma Bhushan, Member of Parliament, Vijayawada.
o Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, Padma Vibhushan, Social reformer.
 Krishna Chattopadhyay (1935–2009), Singer.

Bose

• Rajnarayan Basu, Writer and intellectual of the Bengal Renaissance.
o Krishnadhan Ghosh (son-in-law of Rajnarayan Basu), Civil Surgeon, Pabna, Bengal.
 Sri Aurobindo, Indian nationalist; vice principal of Baroda College.
• Girindrasekhar Bose, Psychoanalyst.

Image
Jagadish Chandra Bose

• Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), Polymath who was Professor of Physics, Presidency College, Calcutta.
• Lady Abala Bose (1864–1951), Social reformer who founded the Nari Sikhshya Samities.
o Debendra Mohan Bose (1887–1975) (Sir J.C. Bose was his maternal uncle), Director, Bose Institute, Calcutta
• Anandamohan Bose (1847–1906) (brother-in-law of Sir J.C. Bose and paternal uncle of D.M. Bose), Co-founder of Indian National Association; first Indian Wrangler at Cambridge University.
• Rajsekhar Bose (1880–1960), Author
• Girindrasekhar Bose (1887–1953), Psychiatrist.

Das

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Chittaranjan Das

• Bhuban Mohan Das
o Chittaranjan Das, Mayor of Calcutta.
o Basanti Devi, Padma Vibhushan, Social reformer.
 Siddhartha Shankar Ray (grandson), Chief Minister of West Bengal.
 Justice Manjula Bose (granddaughter), Judge of the High Court of Calcutta.
 Jaidip Mukherjea (grandson) (1942-), Sportsman.
• Durga Mohan Das (1841–1897), Social reformer.
o Satish Ranjan Das (1870–1928), Law Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council; founder of Doon School.
 Shomie Ranjan Das (1935-), Headmaster of Doon School, Mayo College and Lawrence School, Sanawar.
• Rakhal Chandra Das
o Sudhi Ranjan Das, 5th Chief Justice of India.
 Group Captain Suranjan Das
 Anjana Sen (née Das)
 Ashoke Kumar Sen, Law Minister of India.

Image
Jibanananda Das

• Kusumkumari Das, Social Worker.
o Jibanananda Das, Poet.
 Chidananda Dasgupta, Filmmaker.
• Beni Madhab Das (1866–1952), Social reformer.
o Bina Das (1911–1986), Member, West Bengal Legislative Assembly, 1947–51.
• Arun Kumar Das, FRCS (Eng. & Edin.) (1924–2015), Orthopedist; Professor, NRS Medical College and Hospital, Calcutta.
• Nandita Dutta (1935–2007), Founder-Principal, Patha Bhavan, Calcutta.

Dey

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Saroj Nalini Dutt

• Brajendranath Dey, Esq., ICS (1852–1932), Bar-at-Law, Commissioner (Actg.) of Burdwan.
o Saroj Nalini Dutt (née Dey), M.B.E., (1887–1925), Social reformer.
o Hemanta Kumar Dey, Esq., Bar-at-Law, Presidency Magistrate, Calcutta.
o Lieutenant Colonel Jyotish Chandra Dey, (son-in-law), I.M.S., 2nd Indian Principal of Calcutta Medical College.
o Major (Hon.) Basanta Kumar Dey (1897–1975), 2nd Indian Commercial Traffic Manager, Bengal Nagpur Railway.
 Professor Barun Dey (1932–2013), Chairman, West Bengal Heritage Commission.

Dutta

Image
Romesh Chunder Dutt

• Romesh Chandra Dutta (1848–1908), C.I.E., Dewan of Baroda.
o Jnanendranath Gupta, Esq., ICS (son-in-law of R.C. Dutt), Commissioner of Chittagong.
 Sudhindranath Gupta, Esq., 1st Indian Commercial Traffic Manager, Bengal Nagpur Railway.
Akshay Kumar Datta (1820–1886), Poet.
o Satyendranath Dutta (1882–1922), Poet.

Ganguly

• Dwarkanath Ganguly (1844–1898), Social reformer.
• Kadambini Ganguly (1861–1923), First female medical graduate in South Asia.

Gupta

• Behari Lal Gupta, ICS, (1849–1916), Dewan of Baroda.
o Satish Gupta, IAAS.
 Ranajit Gupta, ICS, Chief Secretary, West Bengal.
 Indrajit Gupta (1919–2001), Home Minister of India (1996–98).
 Sunanda K. Datta-Ray (1937-), Journalist.
• Sir Krishna Govinda Gupta, ICS, Member of the Secretary of States Council in London.
o Atul Prasad Sen, Barrister-at-Law, Lawyer, composer and singer.

Mahalanobis

• Gurucharan Mahalanobis, President and Treasurer of Brahmo Samaj.
• Subodh Chandra Mahalanobis, Founder of the Physiology Department of Presidency College, Calcutta; 1st Indian Head of Department of Physiology, University of Cardiff.
• Prabodh Chandra Mahalanobis.
o Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, F.R.S., pioneer statistician and teacher of statistics, Member, 1st Planning Commission of India.

Mitra

• Braja Sundar Mitra, Excise Collector, Calcutta.
o
 Deba Prasad Mitra (1902–1978), Pathologist.
• Peary Chand Mitra (1814–1883), Deputy Librarian, Calcutta Public Library.
• Kishori Chand Mitra (1822–1873), Police Magistrate.

Mukherjee

Image
Subroto Mukherjee

• Nibaran Chandra Mukherjee, Social reformer.
o Satish Chandra Mukherjee (1865–1948), Educationist.
 Renuka Ray (née Mukherjee) (1904–1997), Politician.
 Subroto Mukerjee (1911–1960), First Chief of Air Staff of the Indian Air Force.
 Prasanta Mukherjee, Chairman, Railway Board.

Nag Chaudhuri

• Basanti Dulal Nag Chaudhuri, Physicist; Vice Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Pal

• Bipin Chandra Pal (1858–1932), Indian nationalist leader.
o Niranjan Pal (1889–1959), Playwright, screenwriter and director.
 Colin Pal (1923–2005), Film director.
 Deep Pal (1953-), Cinematographer.
o S. K. Dey (son-in-law), ICS, Union Minister for Panchayati Raj.

Palchaudhuri

• Ila Palchaudhuri, Member of Parliament, Nabadwip, 1957.
o Amitabha Palchaudhuri, Treasurer, Bengal Congress.

Ray

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Satyajit Ray

• Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury (1863–1915), Scholar and entrepreneur.
o Sukumar Ray (1887–1923), Writer.
 Satyajit Ray (1921–1992), Film-maker
 Bijoya Ray (1917–2015),
 Sandip Ray (1953-), Film-maker.
 Leela Majumdar (1908–2007), Author.

Roy

• Bidhan Chandra Roy, 2nd Chief Minister of West Bengal.
o Subimal Roy, Judge of the Supreme Court of India.
• Prasanna Kumar Roy (1849–1932), Educationist.
• Sarala Roy (1859–1946), Educationist.
o Charulata Mukherjee (née Roy), Social reformer.

Sanyal

• Trailokyanath Sanyal (1848–1950), Social reformer.
o Aruna Asaf Ali (née Ganguly), Indian freedom fighter and prominent leader of the Quit India Movement.
o Purmina Banerjee (née Ganguly), Member, Indian Constituent Assembly.

Sarkar

• Susobhan Sarkar (1900–1982), Professor of History, Presidency College, Calcutta.
o Sumit Sarkar (1939-), Professor of History, Delhi University.

Sen

• Bhupati Mohan Sen, Wrangler, 2nd Indian Principal of Presidency College, Calcutta, (son-in-law of Sir Nilratan Sircar)
o Monishi Mohan Sen (1920-2019), ICS Officer
o Subrata Kumar Sen (1924–2016), MIT Graduate, Electrical Engineering
o Abhijit Sen (son-in-law), Proprietor, Sen and Pandit Co. Ltd.

Sen family[8]

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Keshab Chandra Sen

• Keshub Chandra Sen (1838–1884), Religious reformer & founder of the Nababidhan Brahmo Samaj.
o Suniti Devi (1864–1932), Maharani of Coochbehar & founder of Sammilan Brahmo Samaj.
o Sucharu Devi (1874–1961), Maharani of Mayurbhanj.
o Saral Chandra Sen, Bar-at-Law
 Sunit Chandra Sen, Collector, Calcutta Municipal Corporation.
 Benita Roy, Politician.
 Sadhana Bose, Artist.
 Nilina Singh, Singer.
 Pradip Chandra Sen, Deputy Managing Director, Mackinnon Mackenzie.
o Pramathalal Sen (1866–1930) (nephew of Keshub Chandra Sen), Social reformer.
o Benoyendranath Sen (1868–1913) (nephew of Keshub Chandra Sen), Social reformer and leader of the New Dispensation.

Image
Amartya Kumar Sen

• Kshitimohan Sen (1880–1960), 2nd Vice Chancellor of Visva Bharati, Santiniketan.
o Ashutosh Sen (son-in-law), Chairman, West Bengal Public Service Commission.
 Amartya Sen (1933-), 1st Asian Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; Nobel Laureate in Economics.
• Barrister Kumud Nath Sen
o P.K. Sengupta, Income Tax Commissioner.
o K.P. Sen, Post-Master General, Eastern India.
o Malati Choudhury (née Sen), Social Worker.
• Nitish Chandra Sen, Mayor of Calcutta.
• Kamini Roy (née Sen) (1864–1933), Social reformer and poet.

Sinha

Baron Sinha family
• Satyendra Prasanno Sinha, 1st Baron Sinha (1863–1923), Politician.
o Rt. Honourable Sushil Kumar Sinha, ICS.
o Romola Sinha (1913–2010), Social reformer.
o Major N.P. Sen, IMS.
 Mohit Sen (grandson) (1929–2003), Politician.

Tagore

Tagore family[9]


Image
Rabindranath Tagore

• Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905), Social reformer.
o Satyendranath Tagore (1842–1923), First Indian ICS officer, (1863).
o Jnanadanandini Devi (1850–1941), Social reformer.
 Indira Devi Chaudhurani, Upacharya, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan.
 Surendranath Tagore, Author.
 Subirendranath Tagore
 Supriyo Tagore, Principal, Patha Bhavana, Santiniketan.
o Hemendranath Tagore (1844–1884), Religious savant, founder of Adi Dharm development of Brahmoism.
o Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), Bengali poet and Nobel laureate in Literature
• Swarnakumari Devi (1855–1932), Noted Bengali poet, novelist, musician and social worker.

Others

• Sir Nilratan Sircar(1861–1943), famous doctor, swadeshi entrepreneur, educationist, philanthropist, Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University
• Heramba Chandra Maitra, famous educationist after whom Heramba Chandra College is named
• Sir Nalini Ranjan Chatterjee, Judge of the High Court of Calcutta.
• Kalinath Bose, first Indian Superintendent of Police.
• Uma Bose (1921–1942), Singer.
• Kiran Chandra De, ICS, Commissioner, Chittagong.
• Sib Chandra Deb, Deputy Collector in Bengal.
• Umesh Chandra Dutta, Founder of the Harinavi Brahmo Samaj.
• Sucheta Kriplani, First woman Chief Minister of an Indian State.
• Subrata Mitra (1931–2001), Padma Shri, Cameraman; Emeritus Professor, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Calcutta.
• Sir Brojendra Lal Mitter, Advocate General of Bengal.
• Harish Chandra Mukherjee, Journalist.
• Girish Chandra Sen, Translated the Quran into Bengali.
• Sir Nripendra Nath Sircar, Advocate General of Bengal.
• Shree Suresh Chandra Roy, Padma Bhushan, Sheriff of Calcutta (1957, 1958).

See also

• Brahmo Dharma
• History of Bengal
• Indian National Congress
• Kayastha
• Prarthana Samaj
• Tattwabodhini Patrika
• Trust deed of Brahmo Sabha
• Vaishya

References & notes

1. finding of the Legal member of Viceregal Council Sir Henry Maine cited in Pt. Sivanath Sastri's History of the Brahmo Samaj 1911/1912 1st edn. p.229
2. Minor religious groups Census of India data dissemination publication of 2006, limited circulation.
3. "Brahmo Samaj FAQ Frequently asked Questions". brahmo.org. Archived from the original on 2010-01-24. Retrieved 2019-09-23.[dubious – discuss]
4. Roy, Samaren (2005). Calcutta: Society and Change 1690–1990. iUniverse. ISBN 978-0-595-79000-5: Fair use of extract vide section 52(1)(f) of Indian Copyright Act, 1957
5. "DELHI BRAHMO SAMAJ". brahmo.org. Archived from the original on 2010-12-29. Retrieved 2019-09-23.
6. Rani Bhagwan Koer & Ors v. J.C.Bose & Ors 1903, 31 Cal 11 in the Privy Council of British Empire upholding the decision of the High Court of the Punjab 1897.
7. "Mainstream Weekly". http://www.mainstreamweekly.net.
8. "SEN FAMILY". members.iinet.net.au.
9. "Tagore Family".

External links

• brahmo.org
• brahmosamaj.org
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:57 am

Brahmoism
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/11/20

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Brahmoism is a religious movement from the mid 19th century Bengal originating the Bengali Renaissance, the nascent Indian independence movement[1][2]. Adherents, known as Brahmos (singular Brahmo), are mainly of Indian or Bangladeshi origin or nationality. The Brahmo Samaj, literally the "Society of Brahma", was founded as a movement by Ram Mohan Roy[3]. In 1850 Roy's successor Debendranath Tagore broke from Hinduism and created the new religion of Brahmoism which was recognised as a religion distinct from Hinduism by the Privy Council in 1901, and by the Law Commission of Bangladesh in 2001[4].

Fundamental principles

The Brahmo articles of faith derive from the Fundamental (Adi) Principles of the Adi Brahmo Samaj religion.

• On God: There is always Infinite (limitless, undefinable, imperceivable, indivisible) Singularity - immanent and transcendent Singular Author and Preserver of Existence - "He" whose Love is manifest everywhere and in everything, in the fire and in the water, in the smallest plant to the mightiest oak.
• On Being: Being is created from Singularity. Being is renewed to Singularity. Being exists to be one (again) with Loving Singularity. (See Tat Tvam Asi.)

• On Intelligent Existence: Righteous (worshipful, intelligent, moral) actions alone rule (regulate [preserve]) Existence against Chaos (loss [decay, return, pervading emptiness]). Knowledge (Intelligence [reason, sentience, intuition]) of pure Conscience (light within) is the One (Supreme) ruler (authority [law, dharma]) of Existence with no symbol (creation [scripture, book, object]) or intermediary (being [teacher, messiah, ruler]).
• On Love: Respect all creations and beings but never venerate (worship) them for only Singularity can be loved (adored, worshipped).[5]

Articles of faith

The Articles of faith for Brahmos are:[6]

• Brahmos embrace righteousness as the only way of life.
• Brahmos embrace truth, knowledge, reason, free will and virtuous intuition (observation) as guides.
• Brahmos embrace secular principles but oppose sectarianism and imposition of religious belief into governance (especially propagation of religious belief by government).
• Brahmos embrace the co-existence of Brahmo principles with governance, but oppose all governance in conflict with Brahmo principles.

• Brahmos reject narrow theism (especially polytheism), idolatry and symbolism.
• Brahmos reject the need for formal rituals, priests or places (church, temple, mosque) for worship.
• Brahmos reject dogma and superstition.
• Brahmos reject scriptures as authority.
• Brahmos reject revelations, prophets, gurus, messiahs, or avatars as authority.
• Brahmos reject bigotry and irrational distinctions like caste, creed, colour, race, religion which divide beings.
• Brahmos reject all forms of totalitarianism.
• Brahmos examine the prevalent notion of "sin".
• Brahmos examine the prevalent notions of "heaven" or "hell".
• Brahmos examine the prevalent notion of "salvation".

Adherence to these articles are required only of Adi Brahmos or such Sadharan Brahmos who accept Adi-ism i.e. Trust deed of Brahmo Sabha (1830).

History

While Ram Mohan Roy aimed at reforming Hinduism from within, his successor Maharshi Debendranath Tagore in 1850 rejected the authority of the Vedas and thus broke with orthodox Hinduism. Tagore tried to retain some Hindu customs, but a series of schisms eventually resulted in the formation of the breakaway Sadharan Brahmo Samaj in 1878 based on Christian practices and dogmas.

So, in 1901, a decision of the Privy Council of British India found that "the vast majority of Brahmo religionists are not Hindus and have their own religion".[7]


The Brahma Dharma was first codified by Debendranath Tagore with the formulation of the Brahmo Dharma Beej and publication of the Brahma Dharma, a book of 1848 or 1850 in two parts. The Brahma Dharma is the source of every Brahmo's spiritual faith and reflects Brahmo repudiation of the Hindu Vedas as authority and the shift away from Ram Mohan Roy's Vedantic Unitary God per the Adi Shankara Advaita school. The traditional seed principles and Debendranath's Brahmo Dharma (or religious and moral law) now stand evolved as the "Fundamental Principles of Brahmoism" and are supplemented by precise evolving rules for adherents, akin to "Articles of Faith" which regulate the Brahmo way of life. In addition the assembly of Brahmos (and also Brahmo Samajists) for meeting or worship is always consonant with the Trust Principles of 1830 or its derivatives.

Brief history and timeline

• 1828 : Raja Ram Mohun Roy establishes Brahma Sabha (assembly of Brahmins).[8]
• 1829 : Asiatic Society admits the first Indians to its membership, the first of whom are Ramkamal Sen, Dwarkanath Tagore and Prasanna Coomar Tagore.[9]
• 1830 : Dwarkanath Tagore, Prasanna Coomar Tagore and Ors. establish the first Brahmo Place for Worship through a legal Trust Deed[10] at Chitpur (Jorasanko Kolkata India). Ram Mohun departs for Britain.
• 1833 : Ram Mohun dies in Bristol.
• 1839 : Debendranath Tagore forms Tattwabodhini (@Tattvaranjini) Sabha, the "Truth & Life Purpose Seekers" association on October 6, 1839.[11]
• 1843 : Tattwabodini Sabha merged with Brahmo Sabha [12] and Calcutta Brahmo Samaj established. Dwarkanath Tagore founds the Great Western Bengal Railway Co. in conflict with the State.[13]
• 1850: Publication of Brahma Dharma book in 2 parts by Debendranath. Repudiation of Vedic infallibility, separation from Hinduism, establishment of the new religion.
• 1855: Keshub Chunder Sen founds "The British India Society" later associated with Christian missionaries James Long and Charles Dall.[14] Dall, a roving Unitarian missionary,
is in a troubled marriage in Boston with female emancipator Caroline Wells Healey Dall, suffering a series of mental depressions, and is sufficiently persuaded to grant his wife a Boston divorce by sailing to India forever as the first foreign Unitarian missionary.[15]
• 1856 : Devendranath Thakur proceeds to hills of Simla.
• 1857 : Debendranath informs Unitarian preacher Charles Dall that he is no longer welcome at Calcutta Brahmo Samaj, and that "he would not hear the name of Jesus spoken in the Samaj". Dall then forms the Rammohun Roy Society to wean away the liberal Brahmos from Debendranath.[16] Keshub Sen then subscribes to Calcutta Brahmo Samaj while Devendranath is away in Simla. The Indian Mutiny erupts, almost every Trustee of Brahma Samaj supports the Crown while seeking exemplary punishment for the mutineers.
• 1860 : Charles Dall now openly attacks Debendranath and affiliates to liberal Brahmo neo-Christian group by promoting Theodore Parker and William Channing's methods to convert Hindus to Christianity.[16]

• 1866 : The First Brahmo Schism and Calcutta Brahmo Samaj is renamed as Adi (First) Brahmo Samaj to distinguish it from progressive breakaway group.
• 1871 : Adi Brahmo Samaj leaders publicly oppose the progressive faction over the divisive Brahmo Marriage Bill, 1871 with Debendranath stating "We are Brahmos first, and Indians or Hindus second."
• 1872 : The Marriage Bill is ostensibly not limited to Brahmos and enacted as the Special Marriages Act (Act III) of 1872. A declaration is required stating "I am not a Hindu or Muslim or Christian or Jew" to marry under this law which is used almost exclusively by Brahmos.
• 1878 : The breakaway faction splits again, the majority form the middle-path Sadharan (General) Brahmo Samaj and are formally welcomed back to Brahmoism by Debendranath Tagore and Rajnarayan Basu of the Adi Samaj. The eminent leaders of Sadharan Brahmo Samaj at the time include Sivanath Sastri, Ananda Mohan Bose and Sib Chandra Deb.[17]

See also

• Adi Dharm
• Brahmo Samaj
• Hindu reform movements
• History of Bengal
• Prarthana Samaj
• Sadharan Brahmo Samaj
• Tattwabodhini Patrika

Notes and references

1. The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind - David Kopf, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x0tkz
2. " The Brahmo Samaj became the first organized vehicle for the expression of national awakening in India" https://www.nios.ac.in/media/documents/ ... /CH.05.pdf
3. Chambers Dictionary Of World History. Editor BP Lenman. Chambers. 2000.
4. http://www.lawcommissionbangladesh.org/reports/36.pdf
5. Brahmo Samaj Website
6. brahmosamaj.in - BRAHMO SAMAJ
7. Official website http://www.brahmosamaj.in/ "In 1901 (Bhagwan Koer & Ors v J.C.Bose & Ors, 31 Cal 11, 30 ELR IA 249) the Privy Council (Britain's highest judicial authority) upholds the finding of the High Court of the Punjab that the vast majority of Brahmo religionists are not Hindus and have their own religion"
8. 403 Forbidden
9. Heritage Institute of India - article by Dr. Gautam Chatterjee
10. brahmosamaj.org - Banian "Trust" Deed Chitpore Road Brahmo Sabha
11. Mohanta, Sambaru Chandra (2003). "Tattvabodhini Sabha". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (First ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Archived from the original on 4 October 2006.
12. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-05-30. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
13. http://www.ccsindia.org/lssreader/14lssreader.pdf[permanent dead link]
14. Shivanath Shastri's Brahmo History (1911) p.114
15. "Daughter of Boston: The Extraordinary Diary of Caroline Dall", by Helen Deese. p.xv"
16. Jump up to:a b " Charles Dall Archived March 14, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
17. Primary Source: History of Brahmo Samaj by Sivanath Sastri 1911, Secondary Source: Official website brahmosamaj.org
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Brahmo Samaj
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Brahmoism
Scripture: Brahmo Dharma
Theology: Monotheism
Pradhanacharya-1: Ram Mohan Roy
Pradhanacharya-2: Dwarkanath Tagore
Pradhanacharya-3: Debendranath Tagore
Founder: Ram Mohan Roy
Origin: 28 August 1828, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Separated from Sanātanī Hinduism
Other name(s): Adi Dharm
Official website http://true.brahmosamaj.in

Brahmo Samaj (Bengali: ব্রাহ্ম সমাজ Bramho Shômaj) is the societal component of Brahmoism, which began as a monotheistic reformist movement of the Hindu religion that appeared during the Bengal Renaissance. It is practised today mainly as the Adi Dharm after its eclipse in Bengal consequent to the exit of the Tattwabodini Sabha from its ranks in 1839. After the publication of Hemendranath Tagore's Brahmo Anusthan (code of practice) in 1860 which formally divorced Brahmoism from Hinduism, the first Brahmo Samaj was founded in 1861 at Lahore by Pandit Nobin Chandra Roy.

It was one of the most influential religious movements in India[1] and made a significant contribution to the making of modern India.[2] It was started at Calcutta on 20 August 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Debendranath Tagore as reformation of the prevailing Brahmanism of the time (specifically Kulin practices) and began the Bengal Renaissance of the 19th century pioneering all religious, social and educational advance of the Hindu community in the 19th century. Its Trust Deed was made in 1830 formalising its inception and it was duly and publicly inaugurated in January 1830 by the consecration of the first house of prayer, now known as the Adi Brahmo Samaj.[3] From the Brahmo Samaj springs Brahmoism, the most recent of legally recognised religions in India and Bangladesh, reflecting its foundation on reformed spiritual Hinduism with vital elements of Judeo-Islamic faith and practice.[4][5]

Meaning of the name

The Brahmo Samaj literally denotes community (Sanskrit: 'samaj') of men who worship Brahman the highest reality.[6] In reality Brahmo Samaj does not discriminate between caste, creed or religion and is an assembly of all sorts and descriptions of people without distinction, meeting publicly for the sober, orderly, religious and devout adoration of "the (nameless) unsearchable Eternal, Immutable Being who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe."[7]

Doctrine

The following doctrines, as noted in Renaissance of Hinduism, are common to all varieties and offshoots of the Brahmo Samaj:[8]

• Brahmo Samajists have no faith in any scripture as an authority.
• Brahmo Samajists have no faith in Avatars
• Brahmo Samajists denounce polytheism and idol-worship.
• Brahmo Samajists are against caste restrictions.
• Brahmo Samajists make faith in the doctrines of Karma and Rebirth optional.

Divisions of Brahmo Samaj

• Adi Brahmo Samaj
• Sadharan Brahmo Samaj

Anusthanic versus Ananusthanic Brahmos

To understand the differences between the two streams of Brahmo Samaj it is essential to understand that these implicit distinctions are based on caste. The Anusthanic Brahmos are exclusively either Brahmins or casteless, and exclusively adhere to Brahmoism and have no other faith. The Ananusthanic Brahmo Samajists, however, are from the remaining main caste divisions of Hinduism like Kayastha, Baidya etc. and hence within the Karmic / Rebirth wheel to eternally progress (i.e. Sanatana Dharm) to God by moving up caste hierarchies, unlike anusthanic Brahmos for whom the next step after death is reintegration and renewal with 'God'.[9]

History and timeline

Brahmo Sabha


On 20 August 1828 the first assembly of the Brahmo Sabha (progenitor of the Brahmo Samaj) was held at the North Calcutta house of Feringhee Kamal Bose. This day was celebrated by Brahmos as Bhadrotsab (ভাদ্রোৎসব Bhadrotshôb "Bhadro celebration"). These meetings were open to all Brahmins and there was no formal organisation or theology as such.[10][11]

On 8 January 1830 influential progressive members of the closely related Kulin Brahmin clan[12] scurrilously[13] described as Pirali Brahmin ie. ostracised for service in the Mughal Nizaamat of Bengal) of Tagore (Thakur) and Roy (Vandopādhyāya) zumeendar family mutually executed the Trust deed of Brahmo Sabha for the first Adi Brahmo Samaj (place of worship) on Chitpore Road (now Rabindra Sarani), Kolkata, India with Ram Chandra Vidyabagish as first resident superintendent.[14]

On 23 January 1830 or 11th Magh, the Adi Brahmo premises were publicly inaugurated (with about 500 Brahmins and 1 Englishman present). This day is celebrated by Brahmos as Maghotsab (মাঘোৎসব Maghotshôb "Magh celebration").

In November 1830 Rammohun Roy left for England. Akbar II had conferred the title of 'Raja' to Rammohun Roy.[15]

Brief Eclipse of Brahmo Sabha

With Rammohun's departure for England in 1830, the affairs of Brahmo Sabha were effectively managed by Trustees Dwarkanath Tagore and Pandit Ram Chandra Vidyabagish, with Dwarkanath instructing his diwan to manage affairs.

By the time of Rammohun's death in 1833 near Bristol (UK), attendance at the Sabha dwindled and the Telugu Brahmins revived idolatry. The zameendars, being preoccupied in business, had little time for affairs of Sabha, and flame of Sabha was almost extinguished.[16]

Tattwabodhini period

On 6 October 1839, Debendranath Tagore, son of Dwarkanath Tagore, established Tattvaranjini Sabha which was shortly thereafter renamed the Tattwabodhini ("Truth-seekers") Sabha. Initially confined to immediate members of the Tagore family, in two years it mustered over 500 members. In 1840, Debendranath published a Bangla translation of Katha Upanishad. A modern researcher describes the Sabha's philosophy as modern middle-class (bourgeois) Vedanta.[17]. Among its first members were the "two giants of Hindu reformation and Bengal Renaissance", Akshay Kumar Datta, who in 1839 emerged from the life of an "anonymous squalor-beset individual", and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the "indigenous modernizer".[18]

First Covenant and merger with the Tattwabodhini Sabha

On 7th Pous 1765 Shaka (1843) Debendranath Tagore and twenty other Tattwabodhini stalwarts were formally invited by Pt. Vidyabagish into the Trust of Brahmo Sabha. The Pous Mela at Santiniketan starts on this day.[19] From this day forth, the Tattwabodhini Sabha dedicated itself to promoting Ram Mohan Roy's creed.[20] The other Brahmins who swore the First Covenant of Brahmoism are:-

• Shridhar Bhattacharya
• Shyamacharan Bhattacharya
• Brajendranath Tagore
• Girindranath Tagore, brother of Debendranath Tagore & father of Ganendranath Tagore
• Anandachandra Bhattacharya
• Taraknath Bhattacharya
• Haradev Chattopadhyaya, the future father-in-law to MahaAcharya Hemendranath Tagore[21]
• Shyamacharan Mukhopadhyaya
• Ramnarayan Chattopadhyaya
• Sashibhushan Mukhopadhyaya

Disagreement with the Tattwabodhini

In Nov 1855 the Rev. Charles Dall (a Unitarian minister of Boston) arrived in Calcutta to start his mission, and immediately established contact with Debendranath and other Brahmos. Debendranath's suspicion of foreigners alienated Dall, and in 1857 Debendranath Tagore barred him from the Sabha premises for using them to preach "the name of Christ who some people worship as God".[22][23] Debendranath then proceeded on spiritual retreat to Simla. Dall immediately formed a rival group, the "Friends of Rammohun Roy Society", and arranged for a protégé, Keshub Chandra Sen, to be admitted to Sabha. The presence of Sen (a non-Brahmin) while Debendranath was away in 1857 caused considerable stress in the movement, with many longstanding Tattvabodhini Brahmin members publicly leaving the Brahmo Sabha and institutions in protest against his high-handed ways. In September 1858, Debendranath returned to Calcutta to resolve the simmering disputes, but his natural caution prevented him from taking decisive steps. He proceeded on a sea voyage to Ceylon accompanied by Sen and his second son Satyendranath (a firm admirer of Sen), but no settlement was achieved. In 1859, the venerable and beloved Secretary of the Tattwabodhini Sabha Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar resigned from the Brahmo Sabha in the face of Debendranath's vacillation. A meeting of the Tatwabodhini was promptly summoned, and Debendranath resigned from the group he had founded. His third son Hemendranath Tagore, then a boy barely 15 years of age, and the favorite pupil of Vidyasgar, was commonly acclaimed as Debendranath's successor to head the Tattwabodhini. He would eventually become known as the MahaAcharya (or Great Teacher).

Expansion of the Tattwabodhini Sabha

Disgusted by politics within the Tagore family and the support to K. C. Sen's faction by his own brother Satyendranath Tagore, Hemendranath took the bold decisions to expand his Sabha out from Calcutta. His close associate Pandit Nobin Chandra Roy who had joined the new institution of "Railways" in 1860 as its "Paymaster" for Upper India was tasked to spread Brahmoism there. With a predominantly monotheistic populace following Islam and Sikhism it was perceived as fertile soil for Rammohun's message. The Tattwabodhini decreed that the uncorrupted faith of the original 1830 Trust Deed would be known there as the Adi Dharm to distinguish it from the distorted versions of the squabbling factions of Calcutta. The steps taken by Hemendranath Tagore, with the blessing of his father, was to institute in 1860 a suit before the Supreme Court to restore the title "Brahmo Samaj" to his faction. After losing in this suit in 1861, Keshub Sen's faction altered the name of their Samaj from "The Brahmo Samaj of India" to "Navabidhan (or the New Dispensation)". With victory in this suit and the promulgation of his Brahmo Anusthan (Code of Brahmaic doctrine and practice) in 1861, Hemendranath's Samaj-ists are henceforth known as the "Anusthanic" Brahmos (or Brahmos who follow the Code). The other factions were designated as "Ananusthanic" Brahmos (or those who do not follow the Code) (this distinction was again to be legally examined before the Privy Council of Great Britain in 1901 and in 1902 the Privy Council upheld the 1897 finding of the Chief Court of the Punjab that the Adi Dharm (anusthanic Brahmos) were definitely not Hindus whereas the Ananusthanics Brahmos of Calcutta fall within Hinduism).

Foundation of the Brahmo Samaj

In 1861 the Brahmo Somaj (as it was spelled then) was founded at Lahore by Nobin Roy.[24] It included many Bengalis from the Lahore Bar Association. Many branches were opened in the Punjab, at Quetta, Rawalpindi, Amritsar etc.

First Secession

Disagreement with the Tattvabodhini came to a head publicly between the period of 1 August 1865 till November 1866 with many tiny splinter groups styling themselves as Brahmo. The most notable of these groups styled itself "Brahmo Samaj of India". This period is also referred to in the histories of the secessionists as the "First Schism".[25]

Brahmo Samaj and Swami Narendranath Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda was influenced by the Brahmo Samaj of India, and visited the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj in his youth.[26]

Brahmo Samaj of South of India

The faith and Principles of Brahmo Samaj had spread to South Indian states like Andrapradesh, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, and Kerala with a large number of followers.

In Kerala the faith and principles of Brahmosamaj and Raja Ram Mohun Roy had been propagated by Ayyathan Gopalan, and reform activities had been led by establishing Brahmosamaj in 1898 in the Calicut (now Kozhikode) region. Gopalan was a doctor by profession, but dedicated his life to Brahmosamaj, and was an active executive member of the Calcutta Sadharan Brahmosamaj until his death.

The Calicut (Kerala) branch of Brahmomandir (Hall for conducting prayer meetings) was opened to public in the year 1900 (Now Ayathan School which runs under the patronage of Brahmosamaj at Jail road, Calicut). Second Branch of Brahmosamaj at Kerala was established at Alappuzha (South Kerala) in the year 1924 with a Brahmomandir(Hall for conducting prayer meeting's) established at Poonthoppu ,Kommady (now Grihalakshmi Gandhi Smaraka seva sangam).

DR.Ayyathan Gopalan was a great social reformer of Kerala and was also the founder of Sugunavardhini movement which was established in order to foster human values in children and to protect the rights of women, children, and the downtrodden sections such as the Harijan communities (Dalits) and to educate them. He established the Lady Chandawarkar Elementary School with the aim of educating girls and the underprivileged.

Ayyathan Gopalan translated the "Bible of Brahmosamaj" or "Brahmodarma[27] written by Maharshi Debendranath Tagore into Malayalam in 1910.

Current status and number of adherents

While the various Calcutta sponsored movements declined after 1920 and faded into obscurity after the Partition of India, the Adi Dharm creed has expanded and is now the 9th largest of India's enumerated religions with 7.83 million adherents, heavily concentrated between the states of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. In the Indian census of 2001 only 177 persons declared themselves a "Brahmo", but the number of subscriber members to Brahmo Samaj is somewhat larger at around 20,000 members.[28][29]

Social and religious reform

In all fields of social reform, including abolition of the caste system and of the dowry system, emancipation of women, and improving the educational system, the Brahmo Samaj reflected the ideologies of the Bengal Renaissance. Brahmoism, as a means of discussing the dowry system, was a central theme of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's noted 1914 Bengali language novella, Parineeta.

In 1866, Keshub Chandra Sen organised the more radical "Bharatvarshiya Brahmo Samaj" with overtones of Christianity. He campaigned for the education of women and against child marriages. But he nonetheless arranged a marriage for his own underage daughter Suniti with the prince of Coochbehar. The Brahmo Samaj of India split after this act of underage marriage generated a controversy and his pro-British utterances and leaning towards Christian rites generated more controversies. A third group, "Sadharan (ordinary) Brahmo Samaj", was formed in 1878. It gradually reverted to the teaching of the Upanishads but continued the work of social reform. The movement, always an elite group without significant popular following, lost force in the 20th century.

After the controversy of underage marriage of Keshub Chunder Sen's daughter, the Special Marriages Act of 1872 was enacted to set the minimum age of 14 years for marriage of girls.[30] All Brahmo marriages were thereafter solemnised under this law. Many Indians resented the requirement of the affirmation "I am not Hindu, nor a Mussalman, nor a Christian" for solemnising a marriage under this Act. The requirement of this declaration was imposed by Henry James Sumner Maine, legal member of Governor General's Council appointed by Britain. The 1872 Act was repealed by the Special Marriage Act, 1954 under which any person of any religion could marry. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 applies to all Hindus (including "followers" of the Brahmo Samaj) but not to the adherents of the Brahmo religion.

It also supported social reform movements of people not directly attached to the Samaj, such as Pandit Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar’s movement which promoted widow remarriage.

See also

• Hinduism portal
• India portal
• Society portal
• History portal
• History of Bengal
• Arya Samaj
• Brahmo
• Prarthana Samaj
• Tattwabodhini Patrika
• Brahmosamaj Kerala and Dr. Ayyathan Gopalan

References and notes

1. J. N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements of India (1915), p. 29
2. "Brahmo Samaj and the making of modern India, David Kopf, publ. 1979 Princeton University Press (USA)."
3. "Modern Religious movements in India, J.N.Farquhar (1915)" page 29 etc.
4. "Official Brahmo website". Brahmosamaj.in. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
5. "Bangladesh Law Commission" (PDF). Retrieved 15 October 2012.
6. page 1 Chapter 1 Volume 1 History of the Brahmo Samaj by Sivanath Sastri, 1911, 1st edn. publisher R.Chatterji, Cornwallis St. Calcutta. Brahmo (ব্রাহ্ম bramho) literally means "one who worships Brahman", and Samaj (সমাজ shômaj) mean "community of men".
7. Trust deed of Brahmo Sabha 1830
8. Source: The Gazetteer of India, Volume 1: Country and people. Delhi, Publications Division, Government of India, 1965. CHAPTER VIII – Religion. HINDUISM by Dr. C.P.Ramaswami Aiyar, Dr. Nalinaksha Dutt, Prof. A.R.Wadia, Prof. M.Mujeeb, Dr.Dharm Pal and Fr. Jerome D'Souza, S.J.
9. "Anusthanic Brahmos, Ananusthnic Brahmo Samaj". World Brahmo Council.
10. "Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India" By Kenneth W. Jones page 33-34, publ. 1989 Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 0-521-24986-4 This Sabha was convened at Calcutta by religious reformer Raja Rammohun Roy for his family and friends settled there. The Sabha regularly gathered on Saturday between seven o'clock to nine o'clock. These were informal meetings of Bengali Brahmins (the "twice born"), accompanied by Upanishadic recitations in Sanskrit followed by Bengalitranslations of the Sanskrit recitation and singing of Brahmo hymns composed by Rammohun.
11. "Modern Religious movements in India, J.N.Farquhar (1915)"
12. "A History of Brahmin Clans" (Brāhmaṇa Vaṃshõ kā Itihāsa) in Hindi, by Dorilāl Śarmā, published by Rāśtriya Brāmhamana Mahāsabhā, Vimal Building, Jamirābād, Mitranagar, Masūdābād, Aligarh-1, 2nd edn. 1998. and also footnotes to Bengali Brahmin
13. "Tagore, (Prince) Dwarkanath". Banglapedia. 22 April 2009. Archived from the original on 3 July 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
14. "Online copy of 1830 Trust Deed". brahmosamaj.in. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
15. Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India By Kenneth W. Jones page 34, publ. 1989 Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 0-521-24986-4
16. H.C.Sarkar-History of the Brahmo Religion (1906)
17. <2007: Brian Hatcher "Journal of American Academy of Religion"
18. "Brahmo Samaj and the making of modern India, David Kopf, Princeton University press", pp 43–57
19. "Rabindra Bharati Museum Kolkata, The Tagores & Society". Rabindrabharatiuniversity.net. Archived from the original on 7 March 2005. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
20. "Bourgeois Hinduism", Brian Allison Hatcher. pg 57–58.
21. "History of the Brahmo Samaj", S. Sastri. 2nd ed. p.81
22. "The Brahmo Samaj and making of Modern India", David Kopf, publ. Princeton Univ.
23. "Brahmoism, or a history of reformed Hinduism" (1884), R. C. Dutt
24. page.4 "Pakistan journal of history and culture, Volume 11", by National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research (Pakistan)
25. Pt.Shivnath Shastri: Brahmo History- 1911.Page 106-107, 2nd edn.
26. Chattopadhyaya, Rajagopal (31 December 1999). "Book: "Swami Vivekananda in India: A Corrective Biography"". Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited. Retrieved 23 March 2017.
27. "Brāhmo Samāj". Religion Past and Present. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
28. "Brahmo Samaj FAQ Frequently asked Questions". Brahmo.org. 25 July 2011. Archived from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
29. Statewise census computation Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine by the Brahmo Conference Organisation
30. "Brahma Sabha". Banglapedia. Retrieved 23 July 2015.

External links

• The Brahmo Samaj
• Brahmo Samaj.net
• Brahmo Samaj in the Encyclopædia Britannica
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Adi Dharm
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Accessed: 2/11/20

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Adi Dharm refers to the religion of Adi Brahmo Samaj (Bengali: আদি ব্রাহ্ম সমাজ, Adi Brahmô Shômaj) the first development of Brahmoism and includes those Sadharan Brahmo Samajists who were reintegrated into Brahmoism after the 2nd schism of 1878 at the instance of Hemendranath Tagore.[1] This was the first organised casteless movement in British India and reverberated from its heart of Bengal to Assam, Bombay State (modern Sindh, Maharashtra and Gujarat), Punjab and Madras, Hyderabad, and Bangalore.

Tenets

It was never conceived as an "anti-caste" movement, but stood for repudiation of all "distinctions between people" and foundation of a modern educated secular Indian nation under the timeless and formless One God, and its adherents as Adi-Dharmis (or worshipers of the ancient formless indivisible One god Brahma or the Parambrahma "The One without a Second" or EkAdavaitam). Although the doctrine of Adi Dharma is superficially similar to other reformatory "sects" of Hinduism which speak of "different paths to One God", the core beliefs of Adi Dharm irrevocably place Adi Dharm and Brahmoism as the youngest of India's nine religions beyond the pale of "Hinduism's catholicism and elasticity".[2]

The core Adi-Dharma doctrinal beliefs differing from Brahmanical Hinduism include:

1. There is only One "Supreme Spirit", Author and Preserver of Existence. (... Beyond description, immanent, transcendent, eternal, formless, infinite, powerful, radiant, loving, light in the darkness, ruling principle of existence .... Polytheism is denounced. Idolatry i.e. worship of images is opposed.)
2. There is no salvation and no way to achieve it. ("Works will win". Worshipful work is the way of existence. Work is for both body and soul. All life exists to be consumed. The soul is immortal and does not return to this World. There is neither Heaven nor Hell nor rebirth)
3. There is no scripture, revelation, creation, prophet, priest or teacher to be revered. (Only the Supreme Spirit of Existence can be revered – not the Vedas, Granths, Bibles or Quran etc. Worship consist of revering the "inner light within" i.e. enlightened conscience)

4. There is no distinction. (All men are equal. Distinctions like caste, race, creed, colour, gender, nationality etc. are artificial. There is no need for priests, places of worship, long sermons[3] etc. "Man-worship" or "God-men" are abhorrent to the faith and denounced since there is no mediator between man and God).

Founders of Adi Dharma

The Adi Dharma religion was started by Ram Mohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore and Prasanna Coomar Tagore.

This Adi Brahma religion Adi Dharma was originally propounded by these Brahmins of Bengal who were excommunicated from Hindu faith for opposing social and priestly evils of the time (18th and 19th centuries). Previously the original ancestors (5 legendary Brahmin scholars of Kannauj Kanyakubja school deputed to the King of Bengal) of all these Bengali Brahmins had been excommunicated from Kannauj (Uttar Pradesh) in the 10th/11th century AD after their return from Bengal.

Mobility

"Mobility" i.e. leaving the home and being exposed to external influence meant loss of caste for Brahmins (a social device to conserve meagre land holdings and priestly incomes).

Mobile scholars of priestly Brahmin clans such as these in contact with (or in the service of) foreign rulers – like the Mughals or European companies or Indian princelings – were deliberately ostracised by their "fixed" priestly Hindu clan peers (relatives) ensconced within the numerous temples of Bengal and denied their shares of ancestral undivided properties and incomes. As a consequence ghastly social evils like Sati (or the burning alive of Hindu widows) were encouraged, primarily by the fixed priestly class. The mobile clan members banded into associations (Sabhas) to oppose these un-Brahmic practices colliding head on with orthodox ("fixed") Hindu society in Bengal.


The Mughal 'Raja' Rammohun was the first Indian to cross the seas to Britain in 1833, followed by 'Prince' Dwarkanath in 1842. Rajah was so exhausted by work that he became seriously ill and died at Bristol.

Genesis of Adi Dharma

Image
Rabindranath Tagore with wife Mrinalini Devi from a Pirali Brahmin clan which some Tagores regularly married into

The Adi Dharma founders were regularly tainted and scandalised by orthodoxy as Pirali Brahmin and defamed as being officially banned from entering temples like Jaganath Temple (Puri) by Govt regulations of 1807.[4]

The term "Pirali" historically carried a stigmatized and pejorative connotation amongst Brahmins; its eponym is the vizier Mohammad Tahir Pir Ali, who served under a governor of Jessore. Pir Ali was a Brahmin Hindu convert to Islam; his example resulted in the additional conversion of two Brahmins brothers. As a result, Brahmin Hindu society shunned the brothers' relatives (who had not converted),[19] and the descendants of these Hindu relatives became known as the Pirali Brahmins — among whom numbered the Tagores.[20]

-- Bengali Brahmins, by Wikipedia


Subsequently, their families also faced great difficulty in arranging marriages for some of their children such as India's poet-laureate Rabindranath Tagore who could only manage a Pirali Brahmin bride unlike his brothers who married high caste Brahmin brides. This ultimate exclusionary weapon of Hindu orthodoxy resulted in endogamous (i.e. casteist) tendencies in Adi-Dharm marriage practice between these 2 branches of Adi Dharma in the Tagore family, placing Satyendranath Tagore and Rabindranath Tagore and their families against their exogamous brothers. The noted Adi Brahmo historian Kshitindranath Tagore (son of Hemendranath Tagore) who succeeded Rabindranath Tagore as Editor of the Adi Dharma organ, has written that it was Rabindranath who destroyed many family documents.[5]

"In those days the practice of having Gharjamai was in vogue in our family, mainly because we were Piralis and then became Brahmos; therefore, there was no possibility of somebody from a good Hindu family marrying into our (ie. the endogamous branch) family .. the system of marriages amongst relatives was started. .. it became almost impossible to get our children married. Our being ostracised by the Hindu society provided us with a certain freedom in absorbing western influences, and at the same time the Adi Brahmo Samaj was a branch of Hindu society in all respects except the practice of idolatry. Maharshi always expressed a hearty desire to establish this, and as such all the rituals and customs of Hindu society were followed in his family, and that environment prevailed at least till he was alive," wrote Indira Devi Choudhurani (Smritisamput Vol I (1997/2000), in Bengali, Rabindra Bhaban, Viswa Bharati, p. 18-19). Indira Devi Choudhurani was daughter of Satyendranath Tagore and very close to Rabindranath. "The Autobiography of Debendranath Tagore" is also "attributed" to Satyendranath Tagore and this daughter.


Adi Brahma Dharm timeline

Adi Brahma Sabha


Consequently, the Adi Brahmos then set up their own faith called Adi Brahma Sabha in 1828/1830 by Trust deed of Brahmo Sabha and codified their religion as Adi Brahma Dharma published from 1848. The founders of this Brahmo religion were foremost reformers for nationalism, equality, secularism and education which now stand enshrined in the Constitution of India as Fundamental Rights. These founding fathers of Adi Dharma believed then that Hinduism was thoroughly corrupted and debased and that strong Law (i.e. Dharma) of first Moslems and then English Rulers could cleanse India from these evils. For their associations with the Rulers of the times, they were ostracised and barred from orthodox Hindu society but were amply compensated by "being so weighed down in honours by the British that they forgot all the radicalism of their youth." It was Dwarkanath Tagore alone who could publicly lambast an English Magistrate Abercrombie Dick on the emergence of servile mai-baap (great lord) ruling culture of 19th-century Bengal as follows:

... If Mr.Dick wishes me to specify what I deem the present characteristic failings of the natives I answer that they are – a want of truth, a want of integrity, a want of independence. .. arising from being subjected to misrule of an igorant, intolerant and licentious soldiery .. falling into abject submission, deceit and fraud.[6]


Previously in 1829 Dwarkanath and Prasanna Coomar had founded the Landholders (Zamindars) Association which in its variants went on to play such role in modern India's development. The first major success of this Zamindari Sabha was arraigning the East India Company forces against Titumir a Muslim extortionist of Zamindar's (landlords who perpetuated a system of feudalism with the support of the British), at Nadia in November 1831.

Trust deed Principles (1830)

By the 1830 Trust deed of Brahmo Sabha principles it was held that all men are equal and without distinction and there is no need for priests or formal places for worship etc.

Adi Dharma doctrine (1848/1850)

By the 1848 Adi Brahma Dharma published doctrine of Debendranath Tagore, it was held that present Hinduism doctrine is corrupted, but that the original Vedas of pre-Aryan times (being relatively pure, though still fallible and not Scripture to be relied on) as reflected by 11 judiciously chosen Upanishads also speak of a single formless God who requires no temple or priest or idol for worship, only a rational and pure conscience of an intelligent mind. That there is no caste – high or low – all people are equal, in this World and before God. The doctrine of reincarnation is rejected. The doctrine of God being incarnate is also rejected.

Caste Disability Removal Act (1850)

This publication resulted in the famous "Removal of Caste Disabilities Act" of August 1850, and Brahmos were free to establish their own religion and marry amongst themselves without fear of disinheritance from ancestral property. At the 23 December 1850 annual meeting of Calcutta Brahmo Samaj, Debendranath formally announced the Brahma Dharma as doctrine of the new religion. This announcement resolving certain aspects of Hinduism in Rammohun's doctrine also served to effectively separate Brahmoism from Hinduism.[7]

Lala Hazarilal's Shudra controversy (1851)

Krishnanagar in Nadia district of West Bengal has always had special place in Brahmoism. Many old Brahmo families came from here including that of Ramtanu Lahiri who was the first Adi Dharmi to renounce his Brahmanical caste thread in 1851 (even before Debendra Nath who removed his in 1862). The gesture by Debendranath of sending Lala Hazarilal of Indore (an untouchable from the lowest Shudra caste by birth) as Adi Dharma's first preacher to Krishnagar instead of a Brahmin preacher well versed in Sankskrit literature was, however, not too well appreciated and gave great offence to the Nadia royal family.[8]

Christian missionaries banned (1856)

In 1856, Christian preachers attempting to convert Adi Dharma adherents were banned entry into Brahmo premises by Debendranath Tagore.

Adi Dharma mission to Punjab (1861)

In 1861 the famous Adi Brahmo preacher Pundit Navin Chandra Rai ("Roy") went to Punjab and spread this new faith and opened many Adi Brahmo houses of worship all over Punjab (West and East) at Jullundur, Lyallpur, Lahore, Amritsar etc. People of all faiths and castes without distinction flocked to the new creed, and over 580 Pandit families were enrolled till 1870. Subsequently, the Oriental College was established at Lahore by Pundit N.C. Rai.

Adi Dharma mission to Andhra & Telangana

In 1861 another Adi Brahmo preacher Atmuri Lakshminarasimham returned to Madras Presidency and devoted much time in the Telugu speaking areas. Many publications of Adi Samaj in Bengali were translated into Telugu language and published by him from the printing presses of Madras. In 1862, he came in contact with and converted Kandukuri Viresalingam who was to become father of Telugu language and notable Brahmo nationalist of the era. Later the two fell out over religious differences

First schism in Brahmo Samaj (1866)

In 1865/1866 there was a dispute in the Brahmo Samaj over caste distinctions, and many younger members of the Samaj who were influenced by Christian missionaries were expelled from the Adi Samaj by Hemendranath Tagore – which religion was henceforth known as the Adi Brahmo Samaj.

Character of Adi Dharma changes (1867–)

From 1867 after the First Schism, the Adi Dharam movement became stridently nationalistic. A Hindu Mela was regularly organised which became the precursor to the Swadeshi movement and then the Indian National Congress. In the meanwhile the expelled Christian factions from Adi Samaj launched a sustained and bitter campaign to wean away the Adi Dharma missions outside Bengal. A great deal of propaganda was hurled from both sides.

Brahmo marriage (bill) controversy (1871)

In 1871 the expelled group petitioned the Government to recognise them and their inter-faith marriages claiming that Brahmos are not Hindu, not Christian, Moslem, Jew or Parsi etc. The Adi Brahmo group opposed this stating, We are Brahmos first, and Hindus second and finally a compromise Law was passed as Act III of 1872 to enable marriages between Brahmos and thereby recognising the Brahmo religion by State.

Adi Dharma's Maharshi and Gurudev visit Punjab (1872)

In 1872/1873 Debendranath Tagore (the Maharshi) and his son Rabindranath Tagore (Gurudev) visited Punjab and spent much time in worship at the Golden Temple at Amritsar. A famous Sikh gentleman Sirdar Dayal Singh Majithia from the priestly family of this temple joined the Adi Dharma and subsequently contributed much money to the faith and also became a founder Trustee of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj in 1880.

Emergence of Arya Samaj in Punjab (1875)

In the meantime (1872–1875) in Punjab due to Schisms in Adi Brahmo Samaj at Calcutta, a new variant of Adi Brahmoism called Arya Samaj began to take root. While travelling its founder Swami Dayanand came into close and extended contact with Raj Narayan Bose, Debendranath Tagore etc. Swami Dayanand closely studied Tagore's book Brahmo Dharma, a comprehensive manual of religion and ethics for Adi Dharma, while in Calcutta. The bone of contention between these two Samaj's was over the authority of the Vedas – whose authority the Adi Dharma reject and hold to be inferior works, whereas Arya Samaj hold Vedas to be divine revelation. Despite this difference of opinion, however, it seems that the members of the Brahmo Samaj and Swami Dayanand parted on good terms, the former having publicly praised the latter's visit to Calcutta in several journals and the latter having taken inspiration from the former's activity in the social sphere.

Lala Hardayal pracharok in Northern India (1876)

Another close associate of Debendranath Tagore, Lala Hardayal volunteered to promote the Adi Dharma cause in the Central Provinces and Punjab. He linked up with Sirdar Dayal Singh Majithia and the pure Adi Dharma message of One God without Caste or Priests took great root in this Province. Many low caste Sikhs, low caste Hindu converts to Christianity etc. joined the Adi Brahma Dharma to be eventually absorbed back after education into their respective faiths. It is pertinent that Debendranath was greatly influenced by works of Kabir and Baba Guru Nanak and always kept their books at his side.

Developments of Adi Dharma in Telangana (1870–1880)

By 1871 Kandukuri Veeresalingam (father of Telugu nation) was heavily influenced by Brahmoism. A movement was covertly established by him to seek independence of the Telugu speaking provinces of Madras Presidency and the Nizamate of Hyderabad. A secret society for this was organised in 1878 in Rajahmundry under the cover of Prarthana Samaj of Andhra Pradesh. He bitterly opposed immoral (i.e. polygamy and child marriage) practices of the upper classes of Telangana starting a new phase of reform for Adi Dharma in Telugu speaking regions.

"He contributed to the political sphere by his activist journalism of writing about issues such as corruption in the local administration. The presidency government kept a close tab on the Indian language press and sometimes responded to investigate such allegations. Viresalingam also intervened more directly by conducting widow remarriages and popularising new forms of voluntary association."[9]


Kandukuri vacillated between Adi Dharm nationalism and Keshab Sen's dictum of "Loyalty to Sovereign" being rewarded with Rao Bahadur title in 1893 by British. But by clinging to Keshab Sen philosophy of "Loyalty to Sovereign" till 1907, Viresalingam found himself increasingly isolated from the militant ideology of Adi Dharma's new stridently nationalistic adherents in the region.[10]

2nd phase of formation of Provincial Samajes (1878–)

In 1862 and again in 1864 the Adi Dharma stalwarts from Calcutta visited Bombay, Madras Presidencies. They also visited Hyderabad (Deccan). As a result, many anti-caste, One Formless God Adi-Dharma affiliates were started including the Prarthana Samaj in Mumbai. The Veda Samaj in Madras, and the Brahma Samajam in what is now Andhra Pradesh.

Many Christian members reabsorbed in Adi Dharma (1878–1880)

In 1878 these expelled neo-Christian members split again, but almost all of them recanted (by getting executed a Trust deed of Sadharan Brahmo Samaj in 1880 virtually identical in Principles to the 1830 Adi Trust deed) and were reabsorbed into Brahmoism by Maharshi Debendranath and Raj Narayan Bose the founders of Hindutva (i.e. Brahmoism's nationalistic religion of Adi Dharma of pre-Aryan uncorrupt times means All Indians are One without distinction, regionalism and caste) as Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. The small remainder of Adi heretics formed a Christian / Baha'i new world religion called Navabidhan or New Dispensation and are not considered part of Adi Dharma and in 1891 formed another Samaj in Bangladesh and are called Sammilani's (or Universal Brahmo Religionists) organising annual Conference of Theists.

Tragedies in Tagore family of 1884

In 1884 there were two demises in Debendranath's family. The deaths of his third son Hemendranath at the young age of 40 and the unexplained suicide of his daughter-in-law Kadambari Devi (wife of his fifth son Jyotirindranath the then Secretary of the Adi Brahmo Samaj) in April were to have significant implications for Adi Dharm.

Legal victories for Adi Dharma (1897–1903)

In 1897 a landmark decision of the High Court of the Punjab in Sirdar Dayal Singh's case after his demise, upholds that Brahmoism is a separate religion from Hinduism (except for the Adi Brahmos – Adi Dharma'ites who remain within Hinduism), whereas simultaneously affirming such gems as " .. Sikhs are Hindoos and nothing but Hindoos .." and " A Sikh (Sardar Dyal Singh) who follows Brahmoism without actually converting to it continues to remain a Hindoo". This decision is confirmed by the Privy Council in 1903 (Rani Bhagwan Koer & Anr. vs. Acharya J.C.Bose and Ors) and is the leading Judgement even today on the vexed question of "who is a Hindu?".

Adi Dharma in N.India, Pandit Nabin Chandra Ray

The heart of Adi Dharma in Punjab Province was Bengal's Adi Brahmo Samaj legend Pundit Nabin Chandra Ray. The Punjab Brahmo Samaj under his influence favoured Hindi language as against Punjabi actuated by nationalistic considerations. He looked upon Hindi as the national language of India and wanted it to be the foundation for the edifice of Indian nationality. He was the founder of Oriental College Lahore and also its principal. He was the first Asst. Registrar of Punjab University, and one of its Fellows. He was Secretary of the Stri Siksha Sabha fighting against heavy odds to establish girls schools. He was one of the most active members of the Anjumani Punjab, afterwards becoming its Secretary and renamed it as Jnan Vistarini Sabha engaging 8 Pundits to translate various works. To spread reform among the backward people of Punjab he published various newspapers in Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi and the highly controversial "Widow Remarriage Advertiser" in English. For the depressed classes he started a night school and the Chamar Sabha. His doors were open to all helpless and the poor.[11] After N.C.Rai left the Punjab in course of his service, initiation into Adi Dharm was given to castes other than Brahmin or Pandit by his successors – a few of whom were Sikh. As a result, many Sikhs also joined Adi Dharm in large numbers relying on the Mulmantra of Sikhism i.e. Japuji Sahib which begins as Ik Onkar Sat Naam Karta Purakh .. translated as "There is only one God His name is Truth He is the creator.."

Provocation in the Punjab (1900 -)

In 1900 the Government passed the Land Alienation Act. In 1907 other taxing laws were promulgated and finally in 1919 the Government of India Act was amended. As a result, the lower castes of North India were effectively deprived from land ownership. At the same time the Government divided the electorate on communal lines, resulting in sharp polarisation between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. To counter this the leadership of Adi Dharma (at its 1916 conference at Kanpur) resolved to propagate Adi Brahmoism as a distinct religion for the Punjab. In 1917 this resolution was also seconded by the Indian National Congress which was then closely associated with Adi Dharm.

Adi Dharma expands to Bodo people (1906)

In 1906 another preacher from Assam by name Kalicharan Brahma was initiated into Brahmoism. His reform work among the Bodo people established the Bodo Brahma Dharma among the Bathow religionists of Assam and reformed that religion of Adivasi Tribal people considerably. The followers of Adi Dharam in that region are known as Brahmas.

Schisms in Punjab branches (1922–)

From 1922 onwards, dissension in Arya Samaj factions of Punjab between the Vasant Rai and Mangoo Ram groups again split the regional Adi Dharma movement. Both groups approached the Lahore Headquarters of Adi Brahmo Samaj for recognition which was denied to both. This led to rivalry and inducements from all sides including Arya Samaj, Christian missionaries, Sikhism etc. causing considerable confusion in the Northern Provinces as to who represents Adi Dharma here. The major controversy at this time concerned many depressed caste Sikhs of Chamar grade in a supposedly casteless Sikhism rediscovered Ravidass's teachings of the 14th century (claimed by them to be incorporated in Guru Granth Sahib) and got themselves registered as Adi-Dharmi's in the 1921 and 1931 Census of Punjab after the legal decision in Bhagwan Koer's case and the Pirali precedent. This action by a section in the Punjab once again revived the Pirali controversy which echoed in Calcutta. Concerted action and representation by Adi Dharma and all sections of Brahmo Samaj ensured that after 1931 no further caste based Census took place in India. Thereafter the Congress Party revived casteism again with M.K. Gandhi asserting on 7 September 1936 ".. Sikhism is part of Hinduism and if becoming a Sikh is conversion then this kind of conversion on the part of Harijans is dangerous"

Adi Dharma leaders from the Punjab

• Lala Kashi Ramji – a widely respected person who travelled all over Northern India spreading message of the Samaj.
• Prof. Ruchi Ram Sahni – Secretary of Lahore Samaj and Secretary of Dayal Singh Educational Trust.
• Baboo Abinash Chandra Mazommdar – Set up many T.B. Sanitoria in Punjab and Simla.
• Bhai Prakash Devji – joined Adi Dharma after leaving Dev Samaj. Instrumental in drawing many adherents to Adi Dharm. Also Editor of Brahma Pracharak from 1903 till 1908.
• Bhai Sitaramji – Pillar of Punjab Samajes from Sialkot. After Partition settled in Delhi at Delhi Brahmo Samaj.
• Lala Basant Lalji – From orthodox Punjabi Kayastha family converted to Adi Dharm (Brahmo Samaj) on returning from England. Become Commissioner of Income Tax Delhi and pillar of Delhi Brahmo Samaj. His elder son was Air Chief Marshal Pratap Chandra Lal (Chief of Air Staff – India).

Marriage validity controversies (1938–)

Image
Indira Gandhi's controversial ".. neither conventional nor legal.. " Vedic wedding image. Guardian.co.uk

A considerable controversy also erupted at this time over validity of Arya Samaj marriages. With low caste converts to Christianity being reinducted into Hindu ranks after shuddhikaran or purification, orthodox Hindu society was not prepared to accept these reconverts or marry with them. With a few deaths of such converts often from very rich families or landed gentry, property disputes began reaching the Courts and the existing laws proved inadequate. With neither side willing to budge, a Marriage Law for Arya Samajis was deferred for almost 25 years. Luckily a fortituous occurrence took place. Krishna Hutheesing (a sister of Jawaharlal Nehru) wanted to marry a Prince – a Jain by religion. Such a marriage between parties of different castes although then allowed in law (by further amendment in the Brahmo law in 1923) was frowned upon and meant separation from the family and community. They arranged to be married under the Adi Brahmo Law of 1872 and gave false declarations (as was done in B.K.Nehru's case also). When these facts came out, the Adi Brahmo's fiercely objected to misuse of their Act and began to watch the banns.

In 1938 Jawaharal Nehru's daughter Indira insisted on getting married to her sweetheart Feroze. Once again being of different faiths they could not be legally married under any law of the time except the Adi Dharma Law. The elders (incl. Rabindranath Tagore) of Brahmo Samaj at Shantiniketan, Delhi and Allahabad were consulted (incl. by M.K.Gandhi) and who after considerable disagreement advised instead that the long pending Marriage Validity law for converted low caste Arya Samajis be enacted, which was speedily done in 1939 by an obliging British Government, enabling the loving couple to be wed in early 1942 by secret pre-Vedic Adi Dharm reformed Brahmic rites taught to Nehru's priest by Adi Dharma elders at Allahabad in the presence of Brahmos like Sarojini Naidu with the groom wearing a sacred Brahmic thread in secret.[12][13] Ever since, these Adi Dharma rites have been used by the Gandhi-Nehru family for their marriages – such as for Rajiv Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi to Maneka Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi to Robert Vadra etc. and the Vedic law of Adi Dharma has never been repealed despite passage of the Hindu Code in 1955 which repealed all such similar marriage validity laws for other faiths.

Post Independence developments (1947–)

After Partition of India in 1947, the Adi Brahmo Dharma Headquarters for the region shifted from Lahore to New Delhi to Adi Brahmo Brahmin descendants of Babu Raj Chandra Chaudhuri's (who married daughter of Babu N.C. Rai) family settled here.

Ambedkar and Adi Dharma (1949–)

In 1949–1950 B.R. Ambedkar approached the Adi Dharm leaders at Delhi to get absorbed his followers into Adi Dharma. Due to bitter debates in the Constituent Assembly with Brahmo members and over the Hindu Validity Marriages Validity Act 1949, he could not be accommodated within the Adi Dharma principles. This was chiefly due to his insistence on denouncing Manu – paradoxically respected by Adi Dharma's founding father's as a great Law Giver. Thereafter in about 1955 Ambedkar and his followers instead chose to join Buddhism.

Legal Status of the Brahmo (Adi Dharma) Religion

In 1901 (Bhagwan Koer & Ors v J.C.Bose & Ors, 31 Cal 11, 30 ELR IA 249) the Privy Council (Britain's highest judicial authority) upholds the finding of the High Court of the Punjab that the vast majority of Brahmo religionists are not Hindus and have their own religion unlike Sikhs ("who are Hindu and nothing but Hindus"). Debendranath Tagore was held to be the founder of the Brahmo religion. The Court distinguished Brahmo "religionists" from "followers" of the Brahmo Samaj who continue to retain their Hinduism.

In 1916 the Indian Civil Services Ethnography Administration Surveyor R.V. Russell examines in detail and publishes that Brahmo Samaj is indeed a Religion (and differentiates it from "sects").[14]

In 1949 the Government of India passes the "Hindu Marriages Validity Act". Despite discussion in Parliament Brahmos are not brought within the scope of this Law.

In 1955 the Government of India passes the "Hindu Code" (a comprehensive set of laws for Hindus). Again despite discussion in Parliament, Brahmo religionists are not brought within the scope of these laws which, however, now become applicable to Hindus who are also followers of the Brahmo Samaj .

In 2002, Bangladesh enacted a law recognising Brahmo religionists and Brahmo marriages to Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists.

On 05.May.2004 the Supreme Court of India by order of the Chief Justice dismissed the Government of West Bengal's 30-year litigation to get Brahmos classified as Hindus. The matter had previously been heard by an 11 Judge Constitution Bench of the Court (the second largest bench in the Court's history).[15]

Future of Adi Dharma

The Adi Dharma movement of the Brahmo religion is today the largest of the Brahmo developments with over 8 million adherents. Adi Dharma has spawned not only the Indian National Congress party but also the Hindutva agenda of their opposition. Its radical contribution to India's polity was summed up by a President of India,

"It is ironic that a small dedicated group of outcaste twice born Brahmins of the highest caste of Bengal setting out to rid India of caste and prejudice have instead engendered a national Constitution which perpetuates a divisively violent Casteism in Hindu religion which tears the social fabric of India apart especially in the field of education."[16]


Brahmo Samaj of South India:

The faith and Principles of Brahmo Samaj had spread to South Indian states like Andrapradesh, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, and Kerala with a large number of followers.

In Kerala the faith and principles of Brahmosamaj and Raja Ram Mohun Roy had been propagated by Rao Sahib Dr. Ayyathan Gopalan in the year 1898 January 17th at Calicut (Now Kozhikode) region. He was a doctor by profession but dedicated his entire life towards Brahmosamaj and was an active executive member of Calcutta Sadharan Brahmosamaj till his death.

The Calicut (Kerala) branch of Brahmomandir was opened to public in the year 1900 (Now Ayathan School which runs under the patronage of Brahmosamaj at Jail road, Calicut). Second Branch of Brahmosamaj at Kerala was established at Alappuzha (South Kerala) in the year 1924 with a Brahmomandir established at Poonthoppu ,Kommady (now Grihalakshmi Gandhi Smaraka seva sangam).

DR. Ayyathan Gopalan was a great social reformer of Kerala and was also the founder of Sugunavardhini movement which was established in order to foster human values in children and to protect the rights of women, children, and the downtrodden sections such as the Harijan communities (Dalit's) of the society and educate them. He established the Lady Chandawarkar Elementary School with the aim to educate girls and the underprivileged section of society.

Dr. Ayyathan Gopalan was the one who translated the "Bible of Brahmosamaj"- "Brahmodarma" written by Maharshi Debendranath Tagore to Malayalam in the year 1910.

See also

• Adi Brahmo Samaj
• Arya Samaj
• Bodo Brahma Dharma
• Brahmo
• Brahmo Samaj
• Gayatri Mantra
• Hindutva
• History of Bengal
• Tattwabodhini Patrika
• Rao Sahib Dr.Ayyathan Gopalan

References

1. Particularly those Sadharan Brahmos who accept the core 1830 Adi Dharma Trust Principles
2. "31 Cal 11" Indian legal citation Rani Bhagwan Koer and Ors v. J.C.Bose and Ors.
3. Dwarkanath Tagore was most astounded in his First Voyage to England by the long lectures delivered as sermons at the Episcopal Kirk in Scotland. Little did he know that back home his son Debendranath was plotting a similar tradition of long sermons for Brahmos. Source: Dwarkanath tagore:A Life – Krisha Kriplani. p191.
4. Note By Dr. B. R. Ambedkar To The Indian Franchise Committee, (Lothian Committee) on the Depressed Classes, Submitted on 1 May 1932. "IV. Depressed Classes in Bengal", ".. (10) Rajbansi, (II) Pirali, (12) Chamar, (13) Dom, .."
5. Dwarkanath Thakurer Jibani publ. Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta
6. The Englishman – 6 December 1838.
7. J. N. Farquhar, Modern Indian Religions, 1915.
8. Sivanath Sastri "History of Brahmo Samaj" 1911//1912 2nd edn.pg. 377 publ. "Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Calcutta 1993"
9. "Fashioning Modernity in Telugu: Viresalingam and His Interventionist Strategy" Vakulabharanam Rajagopal University of Hyderabad, Sage Publications (2005) page 66
10. Rajagopal (2005) page 69
11. The Bombay Chronicle of Sunday 13 May 1929
12. Meena Agarwal (2005). Indira Gandhi. New Delhi: Diamond Pocket Books. p. 31. ISBN 978-81-288-0901-9. The pheras took place at night. The marriage ceremony was performed according to the Vedic tradition.
13. Katherine Frank (2002). Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi. pp. 177–178. ISBN 978-0-395-73097-3. The ceremony uniting Indira and Feroze was neither conventional nor legal ... They were both reluctant to sign a declaration that they did not belong to any religion. .. Hence the illegality of ... Indira's marriage.
14. "Tribes and Castes of C.Provinces of India, R.V.Russel and Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Vol 1 of 4 Volumes, Macmillan, London, 1916 "
15. Official Brahmo Samaj website http://www.brahmosamaj.org/
16. From the commemorative speech by N Sanjeeva Reddy, 27 Jan. 1981 at Kanpur for centenary celebrations of the Brahmo Conference Organisation.

External links

http://brahmosamaj.org
http://www.thebrahmosamaj.net
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Wed Feb 12, 2020 4:42 am

James Long (Anglican priest)
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Accessed: 2/11/20

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Image
Bust of James Long on James Long Sarani, Kolkata

James Long (1814–1887) was an Anglo-Irish priest of the Anglican Church. A humanist, educator, evangelist, translator, essayist, philanthropist and a missionary to India, he resided in the city of Calcutta, India, from 1840 to 1872 as a member of the Church Missionary Society, leading the mission at Thakurpukur.

Long was closely associated with the Calcutta School-Book Society, the Bethune Society, the Bengal Social Science Association and The Asiatic Society. He also published the English translation of the play Nil Darpan by Dinabandhu Mitra, an act for which he was subsequently prosecuted for libel, fined, and briefly jailed.

Early life

James Long was born in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland in 1814, when Ireland was still a part of the United Kingdom, to John Long and his wife Anne. At the age of twelve he was enrolled at the newly opened Bandon Endowed School, where he learnt "Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French and English languages; Euclid, Algebra, Logic; Arithmetic, Book-keeping, Reading, Writing, History and Geography".[1] He proved an excellent student, distinguishing himself especially in theology and the classics.

Long's application to join the Church Missionary Society was accepted in 1838 and he was sent to the Church Missionary Society College, Islington.[2] Following two years's training at Islington the Reverend Long was sent to Calcutta to join the CMS mission there. He arrived in Calcutta in 1840, briefly returning to England in 1848 to marry Emily Orme, daughter of William Orme.[3]

See also: Church Missionary Society in India

Calcutta and Thakurpukur

From 1840 to 1848, Long taught at the school for non-Christian students run by the CMS at its premises located on Amherst Street.[4] Returning to India a married man in 1848, he was placed in charge of the CMS mission in Thakurpukur, at the time a hamlet a day’s journey out of Calcutta in the Bengal Presidency. By 1851, Long had set up a vernacular school for boys in Thakurpukur, while his wife Emily ran a corresponding school for girls. In an 1854 letter to F. J. Halliday of the Council of Education, he boasts a roll-call of "about 100 boys, Hindu, Mussulman, and Christians."[5] His work Bengali Proverbs (1851) has been called a significant addition to Bengali literature.[6] He studied Bengali proverbs and folk literature for another two decades, publishing A Catalogue of Bengali Newspapers and Periodicals from 1818 to 1855 (1855), and the Descriptive Catalogue of Vernacular Books and Pamphlets which was forwarded by the Government of India to the Paris Exposition of 1867 .

The Nil Darpan affair

Image
Title page of Long's edition of the English Nil Darpan

In 1861, at the height of the Indigo revolt by the ryots in Bengal, Long received a copy of the Bengali play Nil Darpan (also transcribed as Neel Darpan or Nil Durpan) from its author Dinabandhu Mitra, who had been one of Long's students at the CMS school on Amherst Street. The play, published anonymously the previous year in Dacca, was sympathetic to the abject condition of the ryots or labourers on indigo plantations and critical of the British land-holding class who kept the ryots in slave-like conditions.[7] Long brought it to the notice of Walter Scott Seton-Karr, Secretary to the Governor of Bengal and ex-President of the Indigo Commission. Seton-Karr, sensing its importance, mentioned Nil Durpan in conversation with the Lieutenant Governor, John Peter Grant. Grant then expressed a wish to see a translation of it and print a few copies to be circulated privately amongst friends. Long had it anonymously translated into English "By A Native" (Long refused to divulge the name of the translator to the trial court; Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay later attributed the translation to Michael Madhusudan Dutt, although this attribution remains contentious[8]) and printed in either April or May 1861.[9] In his introduction to the play, he wrote that "[i]t is the earnest wish of the writer of these lines that harmony may be speedily established between the Planter and the Ryot..."[10] Long sent the translated manuscript to Clement Henry Manuel, the proprietor of the Calcutta Printing and Publishing Press, to print five hundred copies at the cost of some three hundred rupees. Unknown to the Lieutenant Governor, Long began sending out copies in official Government envelopes to prominent Europeans both in India and abroad that had the heading: "on her Majesty’s Service."[11]

The circulation of the play "generated hostility from indigo planters, who brought a lawsuit against Long on the charges that the preface of the play slandered the editors of the two pro-plantation newspapers, the Englishman and the Bengal Hurkaru, and that the text of the drama brought the planters a bad name."[12] As soon as the planters noticed the circulation of the play, W. F. Fergusson, the Secretary of the Landholders' and Commercial Association, wrote to the Governor of Bengal. He inquired as to which parties had sanctioned the play and whether the authority of the Bengal Government had given permission to publish it. He also threatened those who had circulated "foul and malicious libel on indigo planting, evoking sedition and breaches of the peace".[13] He wrote that they must be prosecuted "with an utmost rigour of the law".[14] The Lieutenant Governor replied that some officials had caused the offence; the planters, unsatisfied with the answer, decided to institute legal proceedings with a view to ascertain the authors and publishers of the Nil Durpan. The words mentioned in Long’s Introduction to the play stated that what was presented in it was "plain but true"; this was subsequently used by the planters in their prosecution of Long for publishing defamatory statements. C. H. Manuel, whose name was mentioned as printer of Nil Durpan, was indicted in the Calcutta Supreme Court on 11 June 1861. He pleaded guilty, and his counsel (acting on Long’s advice) named Long as his employer in the matter of publishing.

Long's trial lasted from 19 to 24 July 1861, at the Calcutta Supreme Court. Mr. Peterson and Mr. Cowie prosecuted, Mr. Eglinton and Mr. Newmarch appeared on behalf of the defendant, and Sir M.L. Wells presided as judge. Wells found Long guilty of libel,[15] fined him one thousand rupees and sentenced him to one month’s imprisonment, which he served in the period of July–August 1861.[16] Kaliprasanna Singha paid the fine of Long's behalf.


Later life and legacy

Following three years of home leave following the indigo controversy, Rev. and Mrs Long returned to Calcutta. Mrs Long died of amoebic dysentery while on a voyage back to England in February 1867.[17] After her death, Long shared a house in Calcutta with the Rev. Krishna Mohan Banerjee, a longtime friend and associate who had lost his wife the same year. Together the two men hosted joint Indo-British soirees—rare events in those segregated times—and generally sought to foster a rapprochement between the British colonizers and the natives. Guests included Bishop Cotton and Keshub Chunder Sen among others.

As Long continued his educational work, he developed a keen interest in Russia, which he visited for the first time in 1863, and twice after his retirement in 1872. In his paper entitled Russia, Central Asia, and British India published in London in 1865, he wrote of his optimism about the prospects of serf emancipation, and against the current attitude of paranoia towards Russia about the valuable role of the Russian government and of the Orthodox Church in propagating Christianity in central Asia to serve as a bulwark against Islam.


In 1872, Reverend James Long retired from the Church Missionary Society and left India for good. He lived for the rest of his life in London, where he continued to write and publish until his death on 23 March 1887. Long set up a posthumous endowment called the Long Lectureship in Oriental Religions in 1885, for the appointment of one or more lecturers annually to deliver lectures at certain centres of education in Britain.[18]

Rev. Long lends his name to James Long Sarani, a major thoroughfare running through Thakurpukur.

References

Notes


1. Oddie, p.5
2. Oddie, p.14
3. Oddie, p.35
4. Oddie, p. 25
5. "To the Hon'ble F. J. Halliday", Issue no.22 of Selections from the records of the Bengal Government, (Calcutta Gazette Office, 1855) p.74 [1]
6. Choudhury, Nurul Hossain (2012). "Long, Rev. James". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
7. Bhatia, p.24
8. Preface to Nil Durpan by Sudhi Pradhan, p.xxv
9. Editorial note to Nil Darpan by Sudhi Pradhan, p.i
10. Introduction to Nil Durpan by James Long ed. Pradhan, p.xiv
11. Oddie,p.119
12. Bhatia pp.21-22
13. Oddie, p.119
14. Oddie, p.120
15. Nil Durpan ed. Pradhan, p.115-116
16. Bhatia p.22
17. Oddie, p.143
18. Oddie, p.178

Bibliography

• Nandi Bhatia, Acts of Authority, Acts of Resistance: Theater and Politics in Colonial and Postcolonial India (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 2007), ISBN 0-472-11263-5
• Dinabandhu Mitra, Nil Durpan, or The Indigo Planter’s Mirror, translated by Michael Madhusudhan Dutt, edited by Sudhi Pradhan and Sailesh Sen Gupta (Calcutta: Paschimbanga Natya Academi, 1997)
• Geoffrey A. Oddie, Missionaries, Rebellion and Protonationalism: James Long of Bengal 1814-87 (London: Routledge, 1999), ISBN 0-7007-1028-0
Further reading[edit]
• Kling, Blair B. The Blue Mutiny: the indigo disturbances in Bengal, 1859-1862. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977. ISBN 978-0-8364-0386-2
• Lal, Ananda ed. The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0-19-564446-3
• Oddie, Geoffrey A. Social Protest in India: British Protestant missionaries and social reforms, 1850-1900. New Delhi:Manohar, 1979. ISBN 978-0-8364-0195-0
• Roy, Samaren. Calcutta: Society and Change 1690-1990. Kolkata: iUniverse, 2005. ISBN 978-0-595-34230-3

External links

• Indigenous plants of Bengal (1859)
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Wed Feb 12, 2020 5:01 am

Church Missionary Society in India
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/11/20

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


By the time the Bedi family moved to Kashmir late in 1947, they had already made a name for themselves there. Freda Bedi had braved attempts by the maharaja's government to expel her from the princely state and had been dressed in Kashmiri bridal clothes in an unlikely attempt to pass incognito when meeting underground political leaders. Her son unwittingly served as a messenger between Kashmiri leaders forced into exile in Lahore and activists seeking an end to princely autocracy. B.P.L. Bedi's most abiding political achievement was as principal architect of the defining document of progressive Kashmiri nationalism -- at the time the dominant political force in the Kashmir Valley. Freda and B.P.L. became firm friends and allies of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, the commanding figure in Kashmiri politics. When they moved to Srinagar it was to work alongside him to achieve his goal of a secular, democratic and socially progressive Kashmir -- and to strengthen India's contested claim to the state.

The Bedis' involvement in Kashmiri politics was partly an accident of geography. From the late 1930s, the Kashmiri capital, Srinagar, became a summer refuge for Punjabi intellectuals. It was more than five thousand feet up in the foothills of the Himalayas, a place of legendary beauty which offered respite from the bleaching summer sun. An attractive alternative to Andretta, Kashmir offered lakes, houseboats and opportunities to camp and trek particularly in the upper Lidder valley beyond the resort town of Pahalgam. It became 'like a second home for us,' Freda remarked; 'somebody ought to make a film round Kashmir with the Kashmir Valley as Hero no. 1.'1 Among the roll call of Punjabis and north Indians who spent part of the summer in the Kashmir Valley was Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the pre-eminent progressive Urdu poet, whose nikah or marriage ceremony with an English communist, Alys George, was conducted by Sheikh Abdullah in Srinagar in 1941. Alys's sister Christabel had already married M.D. Taseer, a leftist writer and intellectual at one time a college principal in Srinagar.2 The novelist Mulk Raj Anand, the actor (and veteran of the Monday Morning venture in Lahore) Balraj Sahni and the cultural figure K.A. Abbas were also among the more renowned of the left-leaning literati who assembled in the Kashmir Valley.

Kashmiri political leaders similarly spent time in the Punjabi capital, Lahore. Sheikh Abdullah and many other young Kashmiris had been students there. Hundreds of Kashmiris settled in the city, which offered a bigger canvas and more opportunities for educated Muslims. The poet Hafeez Jullundhri in particular forged friendships with the coming generation of Kashmiri leaders, and the Bedis too got to know -- and on occasion host -- the key figures in Kashmir's national movement.

At this time, Kashmir was emerging from a long period of isolation and popular politics was taking root. The maharaja, Hari Singh, was a Hindu and, in the eyes of most Kashmiris, an outsider, while his princely state was largely Muslim and the Kashmir Valley emphatically so. He was also part of a generation of Indian princes who were much more comfortable hunting, shooting and fishing than in engaging with social and political reform. The princely states were not formally part of the British Raj, but in Srinagar -- as in many other princely capitals -- a British Resident kept a careful watching eye and on occasions intervened to seek to ensure political stability and protect British interests. Princely autocracy and the accompanying restraints on political activity and public expression were increasingly an anachronism as the temper of Indian politics began to rise. Sheikh Abdullah and a like-minded group of young, educated Kashmiris -- most of them from the state's Muslim majority -- sought to challenge the oppressive feudalism still prevalent in the villages and to mobilise public opinion.

The Bedis came to see the Kashmir Valley not simply as a picturesque location offering respite from the summer heat but as the site of a political struggle to which they could, and should, contribute. This was probably a mix of personal initiative and prompting by the Communist Party, which viewed Kashmir as a promising place to seek recruits and influence. Sheikh Abdullah had a firm personal friendship and political alliance with the Congress's Jawaharlal Nehru, himself of distant Kashmiri descent. But the communists were keen to help support Abdullah's party, the National Conference, and shape its policy and strategy. When in the summer of 1942 Bedi was released from Deoli and Freda was able to disengage from her lecturing job in Lahore, their involvement in Kashmiri politics stepped up. In August 1942, Bedi was in Srinagar as the Indian National Congress launched the Quit India movement, its biggest civil disobedience movement to date. At this time, the communists were opposed to protests which would hamper the war effort. By his own account -- and Bedi was prone to exaggerate his role in the events he recounted -- he persuaded the National Conference leadership to keep a distance from the Congress's initiative:

Sheikh Abdullah, [C.M.] Sadiq and Bakshi [Chulam Mohammad], all three were lunching with me that day. So instead of arriving at 12 o'clock for lunch, they arrived at about 10.30. 'Ah,' they came laughing and joking and said, 'now good-bye Bedi Saheb, instead of lunching we will be behind bars by the time lunch comes, because this is the situation which has come about.' So, we immediately went into consultations and realised that the ruthless administration of the Maharaja was looking for an opportunity to smash the national movement in Kashmir ... We said, 'Leave alone anti-fascism and anti-imperialism, who is there if the National Conference is removed at the moment to stand between the Maharaja's ways and the people and stem the tide of destruction and suffering.' With this argument we completely assessed the situation and came to the conclusion that no 1942 movement could be launched in Kashmir.3


Bedi said he was given the job of making the opening speech at a rally that evening to argue the case for standing aloof from the Congress-launched campaign. In the tussle between the Congress and communists for influence within Kashmir's main political movement, the left had won a victory. Bedi's argument that Kashmiri nationalists could achieve more if they were out-and-about rather than behind bars was well made. The Quit India campaign placed the Congress leadership behind bars and out-of-action at a crucial stage in the advance towards independence. 'Whereas in other parts of India the national movement was smashed,' Bedi argued somewhat self-servingly, 'in Kashmir, the national movement emerged with ten times more strength by following this policy.'4

The following spring, both Freda and Bedi attended the annual session of the National Conference at Mirpur. Freda chaired a meeting of women activists; Bedi presided over a gathering of student supporters. Freda wrote in her weekly column in the Tribune about the difficult journey she made to Mirpur, the final stage of which was a 'shabby' ferry boat across the Jhelum. We got across the river being alternately pulled and pushed and rowed and towed in about two hours. For us it was easy enough since we never left the boat. But the other passengers had to get down on the islands and walk across the burning sand, the round hot stones and the spiked grasses.' Unsurprisingly, the main demand of local women at the meeting Freda convened was for a bridge.

It is no joke for old women and mothers with children to face such a primitive journey every time they want to come to the Punjab or the Frontier. They were indignant about it 'and we even have to ride on donkeys' they said with a smile half mischievous and half ashamed. They formed their own committee. So many have tried and failed. Now it is for the women of Mirpur to show that they will not be refused. Alone a woman is helpless and knows it. Together with her sisters bound by common trouble and suffering she can show greater strength than she or the world dreams of, for none can refuse the weak when they band together.5


From a small incident, she drew a parable which reflected her own commitment to social justice and the agency of women in achieving that.

Freda also wrote lyrically about a journey in Kashmir, by donkey and on foot, retracing the old Mughal route into the valley. Sheikh Abdullah accompanied the group for at least part of the journey, and was welcomed as if a saviour.

The Kashmiri women had found out that their leader had come. They huddled together in a shy group on the roof of one of the huts, as though undecided what to do. Then they started a song of welcome: 'To-day our Rajah has honoured the house with his presence,' they sang. I looked again at their faces lined with poverty, the dirty and ragged clothes on their backs. Had they been as dirty and as poor when the great ones of history ruled the earth? Probably so, for the poor have always been poor .... The lively, happy faces of the women were sharp before the dark arches: beggars at the door of history, they were singing for the only ray of light they knew. For one who fought for the poor, and would see them ruling in the land of their poverty.6


In another 'From a Woman's Window' column, Freda wrote about attending a martyrs' day ceremony with Sheikh Abdullah in Srinagar, a tribute to those killed by the maharaja's forces in 1931 at the inception of what became a mass movement demanding civil and political rights. Again, her attention focused on the women, about 150 of them, who gathered outside the walls of the cemetery while the men laid flowers on the graves.

To outward seeming they were like any other crowd of Kashmiri women. Most were in the burqua, with its crown-like head-piece, making it particularly ungainly and ugly. The others were working women, in their loose-fitting tunics, the white thick veil on the back of their heads, heavy earrings, carved circles of silver, hanging in bunches on their distended ears ....

They were the silent background of the animated meeting. And it occurred to me looking at them that they had been the silent background of all the history of Kashmir and the struggles of its people. ...

It was women such as these who ran out into the streets and became the heroines of those early fiery days. It was such women who rattled stones and frightened the horses of their soldiery. Some village woman, like that plump aging woman over there, took a club on her shoulder and strode at the head of one of the village 'armies' of the people that marched into Srinagar.7


She foresaw Kashmiri women coming on to the streets again, 'throwing that power-house of energy which they hoard as a bee hoards its honey into another great movement of the people.' On this, she was right.

Freda Bedi's empathy with Kashmiri women, and her emphasis on their role in political and social change, is striking. Women were also conspicuous in the iconography of Kashmiri nationalism. When the 'New Kashmir' manifesto was published, it featured a drawing of a woman on its front cover, wearing a Kashmiri pheran or smock and with her head covered-not quiescent but politically assertive, wielding the National Conference flag of a hand-plough in white on a red background. It bears more than a faint echo of Delacroix's famous depiction of Marianne, emblem of the French republic, mounting a barricade flag in hand. The Kashmiri woman depicted appears to have been Zooni Gujjari, a local activist from a disadvantaged background who featured in other National Conference publications.

The content of the manifesto was also notably progressive on gender issues, extending to equal wages, paid leave during pregnancy, the right to enter trades and professions, to own and inherit property and to consent to marriage. But this was simply one aspect of a remarkably far-reaching political programme, which has been described as 'the most important political document in modern Kashmir's history'.8 It was written in response to an initiative by the maharaja to consult about political and constitutional reform. This was the National Conference's submission -- a hugely ambitious, forty-four page document which was a draft constitution, an economic programme and party manifesto combined. It proposed a constitutional monarchy with universal suffrage for those aged eighteen and over; equal rights irrespective of race, religion or nationality; freedom of speech, press and assembly; free and compulsory primary education in the mother tongue; state ownership and management of all key industries; and the abolition of feudalism through an agrarian programme of which the key points were 'abolition of landlordism' and 'land to the tiller'. Sheikh Abdullah noted with justification that his party had come up with a much more detailed prescription for the future than the Indian National Congress, or indeed any other movement in the region.

The authorship of the 'New Kashmir' manifesto was, at the time, opaque. Sheikh Abdullah recounted many years later that to 'compile the manifesto we requisitioned the services of a famous progressive friend from Panjab [sic], B.P.L. Bedi. ... Bedi's sharp-minded, elegant wife Freda typed the manuscript.'9 Bedi worked with a small group of leftists, mainly from outside Kashmir. Although he took credit for the manifesto, which he described as a '100% Communist document', he never claimed authorship.10 'There was not much drafting to be done except to write the introduction,' a veteran Kashmiri communist P.N. Jalali recalled, as it was 'almost a carbon copy' of a Soviet document.11 For the key opening section, the draft constitution, Bedi turned to an item he had published in Contemporary India a few years earlier -- Stalin's 1936 constitution for the Soviet Union. It was a resourceful rummage through his personal archive. Although this was adapted to meet Kashmir's circumstances, many of the points were simply copied out. The longer economic programme, including charters for workers, peasants and women, was more loosely based on kisan sabha (peasants' movement) documents, which Bedi would also have known well. The only considerable piece of writing to be done was Sheikh Abdullah's foreword. This was even more explicitly communist in tone. 'The inspiring picture of the regeneration of all the different nationalities and peoples of the U.S.S.R., and their welding together into the united mighty Soviet State that is throwing back its barbarous invaders with deathless heroism,' Sheikh Abdullah was made to declare, 'is an unanswerable argument for the building of democracy on the cornerstone of economic equality.'

As far as the communists were concerned, Bedi had carried out a brilliant political manoeuvre. An important regional party with close links to the Congress had adopted a manifesto drafted by communists, staunchly pro-Soviet in content and reflecting the CPI's political line. 'New Kashmir' was for decades the watchword by which Sheikh Abdullah's ambition for a social transformation of Kashmir was known. Sheikh Abdullah himself described it as 'a revolutionary document'.12 While much of the manifesto remained simply an aspiration, the far-reaching pledges on land reform were acted upon once the National Conference came to power and remain one of the most radical and egalitarian measures introduced in independent India.

P.N. Jalali's recollection is that Bedi had been 'deputed' by the Communist Party in Punjab to 'look after' the communists in Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmiri communists operated not as a separate party but inside Sheikh Abdullah's National Conference, and were particularly influential among students and the trade unions. 'They did not raise their hand [and say] that: here we are, communists. Except that everybody knew they were communists. Even Sheikh sahib knew.... But we were conscious not to rub Sheikh sahib on the wrong side because he was very sensitive about any parallel political activity.' While B.P.L. Bedi had the greater political influence in Kashmir, Jalali also had keen memories of Freda and her 'very striking' appearance:

She was a wonderful lady, very modest, and she was very well known throughout the valley in Kashmir. Every summer they would come, early visitors if you call them visitors. And Mrs Bedi used to deliver lectures on the USSR, they used to be very well attended ... weekly lectures. These were very popular lectures ... Strangely enough, they were held in a hall which belonged to the Church Mission Society.


-- The Lives of Freda: The Political, Spiritual and Personal Journeys of Freda Bedi, by Andrew Whitehead


Very Rev Dr Alexander Duff (26 April 1806 – 12 February 1878 in Sidmouth), was a Christian missionary in India; where he played a large part in the development of higher education. He was a Moderator and Convenor of the Church of Scotland and an unashamed scientific liberal reformer of anglicized evangelism across the Empire. He was the first overseas missionary of the Church of Scotland to India. On 13 July 1830 he founded the General Assembly's Institution in Calcutta, now known as the Scottish Church College. He also played a part in establishing the University of Calcutta. He was twice Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland in 1851 and 1873, the only person to serve the role twice.

Alexander Duff was born in the heart of Scotland, at Auchnahyle, in the parish of Moulin, Perthshire. His parents were James Duff, gardener and farmer at Auchnahagh, and Jean Rattray. After receiving his initial schooling at a local country school, he studied arts and theology at the University of St. Andrews.

He then accepted an offer made by the foreign mission committee of the Church of Scotland's general assembly to become their first missionary to India, and was ordained in August 1829.

After an adventurous voyage during which he was twice shipwrecked, Duff arrived in Calcutta on 27 May 1830. After inspecting the Bengali schools, he concluded that students were not receiving an adequate education in a broad range of subjects and secondly, that he would instruct his students using English instead of the local dialects. He at once identified himself with a policy which had far-reaching effects. Christian missions in India had been successful only in converting a few low-caste groups from a poor socio-economic background by giving them monetary benefits. The upper caste Hindu and Muslim communities had been practically untouched. Duff shrewdly assessed that these affluent communities could not be accessed by traditional evangelical methods. He recognised that holding out the prospect of upward mobility, by offering a western education, would bring the children of the affluent classes into his range of influence, which could then be extended to encompass religion. Duff devised the policy of an using western system of education to slowly convert Hindus and Muslims to Christianity...

By teaching Biblical courses as well as courses in the physical sciences, Duff hoped that students would logically come to realize the contradictions and impracticality of Hinduism and embrace wholeheartedly the truth of Christianity. While a few students converted, Duff seems to have widely miscalculated the resilience of Hinduism as well as its ability to adapt itself to western knowledge. Whereas Duff and many of his fellow evangelists saw Christianity and Hinduism as diametrically opposed, Hindus did not generally consider the knowledge either tradition provided as mutually exclusive with the other.

Duff opened a school in which all kinds of secular subjects were taught, from the rudiments upwards to a university standard, alongside the Bible. The English language was used as the medium of instruction on the grounds that it was the key to Western knowledge. Alexander Duff proposed a theory which he called the "downward filter theory" in which he believed that by catering to the middle and upper social classes, the knowledge of Christianity would eventually filter down the social ladder. Although he promoted the teaching of English in schools, he still viewed the vernacular as an important language for spreading Christianity among "the masses" but deemed it inferior to the English language because it was not progressive. Duff wrote a pamphlet on the question, entitled A New Era of the English Language and Literature in India. A government minute was adopted on 7 March 1835, to the effect that in higher education, the object of the British government in India should be the promotion of European science and literature among the natives of India, and that all funds appropriated for purposes of education would be best employed on English education alone. His views influenced Peter Percival, a pioneering educator, linguist and missionary who worked in Sri Lankan Tamil dominant Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka...

In 1844, governor-general Viscount Hardinge opened government appointments to all who had studied in institutions similar to Duff's institution. In the same year, Duff co-founded the Calcutta Review, of which he served as editor from 1845 to 1849...

In 1870 he was the principal force in founding the Anglo-Indian Christian Union (an alliance of Protestant churches to minister to scattered British communities in India), of which he became the first President, and sent Rev. John Fordyce to India as the Union's Commissioner there...

By the age of thirty he was already a remarkable preacher. Joining the Church Missionary Society in 1836 he was and his friend Rev Dr James Lewis were shapers of the new Church of Scotland Mission...

[H]e could influence serious political figures in the Indian civil Service through the media of Calcutta Review. In one article he made an advancement in liberal theology exposing the cruelty of Female Infanticide in Central and Western India (1844). And in the same year his power in the Free Church was rehearsed in a lecture to The Free Churchmen of Calcutta in the Masonic Hall. Its title "The Sole and Supreme Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ over His Own Church, or a voice from the Ganges relative to the courses which led to the recent disruption..." symbolised his conviction in the supremacy of Christianity to bring enlightened education to Indians. Two Bengali intellectuals travelled to Edinburgh to be baptised at Duff's request. Mahendra Lal Bazak and Khailai Chandra Mukherjya were closely watched by Dr Thomas Chalmers, a renowned writer and church leader...

Duff's methods were widely imitated and his cumulative twenty-five years in the subcontinent were largely characterized by the establishment of western-style educational institutions warmly received by Ram Mohan Roy. Duff can be credited with creating a framework that influenced educational policy and practice during the nineteenth century and beyond. Since his schools catered mostly to the Hindu middle class, he was able to receive attention from the government which helped to spread his methods and ideas. Several other English schools were established because the General Assemblies Institution was so successful. The success and influence of Duff's college led to the founding of the Calcutta Medical College.

-- Alexander Duff (missionary), by Wikipedia


James Long (1814–1887) was an Anglo-Irish priest of the Anglican Church. A humanist, educator, evangelist, translator, essayist, philanthropist and a missionary to India, he resided in the city of Calcutta, India, from 1840 to 1872 as a member of the Church Missionary Society, leading the mission at Thakurpukur.

Long was closely associated with the Calcutta School-Book Society, the Bethune Society, the Bengal Social Science Association and The Asiatic Society. He also published the English translation of the play Nil Darpan by Dinabandhu Mitra, an act for which he was subsequently prosecuted for libel, fined, and briefly jailed...

In 1861, at the height of the Indigo revolt by the ryots in Bengal, Long received a copy of the Bengali play Nil Darpan (also transcribed as Neel Darpan or Nil Durpan) from its author Dinabandhu Mitra, who had been one of Long's students at the CMS school on Amherst Street. The play, published anonymously the previous year in Dacca, was sympathetic to the abject condition of the ryots or labourers on indigo plantations and critical of the British land-holding class who kept the ryots in slave-like conditions.[7] Long brought it to the notice of Walter Scott Seton-Karr, Secretary to the Governor of Bengal and ex-President of the Indigo Commission. Seton-Karr, sensing its importance, mentioned Nil Durpan in conversation with the Lieutenant Governor, John Peter Grant. Grant then expressed a wish to see a translation of it and print a few copies to be circulated privately amongst friends. Long had it anonymously translated into English "By A Native" (Long refused to divulge the name of the translator to the trial court; Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay later attributed the translation to Michael Madhusudan Dutt, although this attribution remains contentious[8]) and printed in either April or May 1861.[9] In his introduction to the play, he wrote that "[ i]t is the earnest wish of the writer of these lines that harmony may be speedily established between the Planter and the Ryot..."[10] Long sent the translated manuscript to Clement Henry Manuel, the proprietor of the Calcutta Printing and Publishing Press, to print five hundred copies at the cost of some three hundred rupees. Unknown to the Lieutenant Governor, Long began sending out copies in official Government envelopes to prominent Europeans both in India and abroad that had the heading: "on her Majesty’s Service."[11]

The circulation of the play "generated hostility from indigo planters, who brought a lawsuit against Long on the charges that the preface of the play slandered the editors of the two pro-plantation newspapers, the Englishman and the Bengal Hurkaru, and that the text of the drama brought the planters a bad name."[12] As soon as the planters noticed the circulation of the play, W. F. Fergusson, the Secretary of the Landholders' and Commercial Association, wrote to the Governor of Bengal. He inquired as to which parties had sanctioned the play and whether the authority of the Bengal Government had given permission to publish it. He also threatened those who had circulated "foul and malicious libel on indigo planting, evoking sedition and breaches of the peace".[13] He wrote that they must be prosecuted "with an utmost rigour of the law".[14] The Lieutenant Governor replied that some officials had caused the offence; the planters, unsatisfied with the answer, decided to institute legal proceedings with a view to ascertain the authors and publishers of the Nil Durpan. The words mentioned in Long’s Introduction to the play stated that what was presented in it was "plain but true"; this was subsequently used by the planters in their prosecution of Long for publishing defamatory statements. C. H. Manuel, whose name was mentioned as printer of Nil Durpan, was indicted in the Calcutta Supreme Court on 11 June 1861. He pleaded guilty, and his counsel (acting on Long’s advice) named Long as his employer in the matter of publishing.

Long's trial lasted from 19 to 24 July 1861, at the Calcutta Supreme Court. Mr. Peterson and Mr. Cowie prosecuted, Mr. Eglinton and Mr. Newmarch appeared on behalf of the defendant, and Sir M.L. Wells presided as judge. Wells found Long guilty of libel,[15] fined him one thousand rupees and sentenced him to one month’s imprisonment, which he served in the period of July–August 1861.[16] Kaliprasanna Singha paid the fine of Long's behalf...

As Long continued his educational work, he developed a keen interest in Russia, which he visited for the first time in 1863, and twice after his retirement in 1872. In his paper entitled Russia, Central Asia, and British India published in London in 1865, he wrote of his optimism about the prospects of serf emancipation, and against the current attitude of paranoia towards Russia about the valuable role of the Russian government and of the Orthodox Church in propagating Christianity in central Asia to serve as a bulwark against Islam.

-- James Long (Anglican priest), by Wikipedia


1855: Keshub Chunder Sen founds "The British India Society" later associated with Christian missionaries James Long and Charles Dall.

-- Brahmoism, by Wikipedia


Keshub Chandra Sen was born on 19 November 1838 into an affluent Kayastha family of Calcutta (now Kolkata). His family originally belonged to Gariffa village on the banks of the river Hooghly. His grandfather was Ramkamal Sen (1783–1844), a well known pro-sati Hindu activist and lifelong opponent of Ram Mohan Roy...

In 1855 he founded an evening school for the children of working men, which continued through 1858. In 1855, he became Secretary to the Goodwill Fraternity, a Masonic lodge associated with the Unitarian Rev. Charles Dall and a Christian missionary Rev. James Long who also helped Sen establish a "British Indian Association" in the same year. Around this time he began to be attracted to the ideas of the Brahmo Samaj.

Keshub Sen was also briefly appointed as Secretary of the Asiatic Society in 1854.

-- Keshub Chandra Sen, by Wikipedia


Church Missionary Society
Abbreviation CMS
Formation 12 April 1799
Founder Clapham Sect
Type Evangelical Anglicanism
Ecumenism
Protestant missionary
British Commonwealth

The Church Missionary Society in India was a branch organisation established by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which was founded in Britain in 1799 under the name the Society for Missions to Africa and the East,[1] as a mission society working with the Anglican Communion, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians around the world. In 1812, the British organization was renamed the Church Missionary Society.[2]

In 1814 the CMS began sending missionaries to India and established mission stations at Chennai (Madras) and Bengal, then in 1816 at Travancore.[3] The mission stations were extended across India in the following years. The work among women was mainly left to the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society and the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission.[4]

The missions were financed by the CMS with the local organisation of a mission usually being under the oversight of the Bishop of the Anglican diocese in which the CMS mission operated. The successors of the Protestant church missions are the Church of South India and the Church of North India.[2]

The CMS in India

Image
Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia

Image
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli - Built by Rev. Charles Rhenius

The East India Company controlled access to India and only allowed its chaplains to work among the European communities. The Reverend Henry Martyn wanted to offer his services to the Church Missionary Society, however a financial disaster in Cornwall deprived him and his unmarried sister of the income their father had left for them. It was necessary for Martyn to earn an income that would support his sister as well as himself.[5] He accordingly obtained a chaplaincy under the East India Company and left for India on 5 July 1805.[6] William Wilberforce campaigned for the revision of the charter of the East India Company to permit missionaries to work in India. When the Charter Bill was passed in 1813 the CMS had missionaries ready for the India mission.[2] The Revd Charles Rhenius and the Revd John Christian Schnarre were the first CMS missionaries to arrive at India and were sent to work at Chennai (Madras).[7] Charles Rhenius later worked in Tirunelveli (Tinnevelly).

The CMS sent 7 missionaries to India in 1814-1816: two were placed at Chennai (Madras), two at Bengal and three at Travancore (1816).[3] The Indian missions were extended in the following years to a number of locations including Agra, Meerut district, Varanasi (Benares), Mumbai (Bombay) (1820), Tirunelveli (Tinnevelly) (1820) and Kolkata (Calcutta) (1822).

New mission stations were later established in the Telugu Country (1841) and at Lahore in the Punjab region (1852).[3][8]

While the Revolt of 1857 resulted in damage to the missions in the North West Provinces, after the revolt the CMS expanded its missions to Oudh, Allahbad, the Santhal people (1858), and to Kashmir (1865).[2][3][8]

Kolkata (Calcutta)

The CMS mission in Calcutta was started in 1822. The first CMS school was opened at Kidderpore, a suburb of Calcutta, in 1816; and the first girls’ school in 1822, by Miss M. A. Cooke, at Calcutta.[7] Reginald Heber, the Bishop of Calcutta (1823–1826) supported the work of the CMS mission.

The Revd James Long joined the mission in 1840. Edward Stuart served in India from 1850 to 1874. He was the Secretary of the Church Missionary Society at Calcutta. He also served at Agra and at Jalalpur.[9]

Agra

Valpy French arrived in India in 1851. He was sent to Agra, where he founded the St. John's College, Agra in 1853.[10]

Lahore

The CMS mission in Lahore started in 1852. The Revd H. U. Weitbrecht was sent to India in 1875 to be the Vice Principal of St. John's Divinity College, Lahore. Valpy French became the first Bishop of Lahore in 1877.[10]

Mission in Kerala

The contribution made by the society in creating and maintaining educational institutions in Kerala, the most literate state in India, is significant. Many colleges and schools in Kerala and Tamil Nadu still have CMS in their names. Among the oldest in modern India, the CMS College Kottayam is regarded a pioneer in popularising secondary education in southern India, whose famous alumni include former Indian President K. R. Narayanan, career diplomats K.P.S. Menon and K. M. Panikkar as well as scientist E. C. George Sudarshan.

The Revd Benjamin Bailey was appointed to the Kottayam mission in the Indian state of Kerala in 1816 and in 1821 he established a printing press.[3] Benjamin Bailey translated the complete Bible to Malayalam language. He also authored the first printed Malayalam-English Dictionary. He is considered as the father of Malayalam printing.[11]

CMS activities in the 20th Century

The CMS continued to send missionaries to India, including Frank Lake in 1937.

See also

• Christianity portal
• Christianity in India
• List of Protestant missionaries in India
• History of Christian missions

Notes

1. Mounstephen, Philip (2015). "Teapots and DNA: The Foundations of CMS". Intermission. 22.
2. Keen, Rosemary. "Church Missionary Society Archive". Adam Matthew Publications. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
3. "The Church Missionary Atlas (India)". Adam Matthew Digital. 1896. pp. 95–156. Retrieved 19 October 2015.
4. The Centenaru Volume of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East 1799-1899 (PDF). London : Church Missionary Society, digital publication: Cornell University. 1902. p. 19.
5. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). "Martyn, Henry" . Dictionary of National Biography. 36. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
6. F. L. Cross, E. A. Livingstone, eds. (13 March 1997). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edition. USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 1046. ISBN 019211655X.
7. The Centenaru Volume of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East 1799-1899 (PDF). London : Church Missionary Society, digital publication: Cornell University. 1902. p. 16.
8. "The Church Missionary Atlas (Church Missionary Society)". Adam Matthew Digital. 1896. pp. xi. Retrieved 19 October 2015.
9. Stock, Eugene (1913). "The Story of the New Zealand Mission". Retrieved 4 March 2019.
10. Thomas Valpy French Britannica.com.
11. Benjamin Bailiyum Malayala Saahityavum. By Dr. Babu Cherian. Published by the Department of Printing and Publishing, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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David Hare (philanthropist)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/11/20

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Image
A statue of David Hare kept at Hare School

David Hare (1775–1842) was a Scottish watchmaker and philanthropist in Bengal, India (see East India Company and their rule in India). He founded many important and prestigious educational institutions in Calcutta (now Kolkata), such as the Hindu School, and Hare School and helped in founding Presidency College.

Early life

David Hare was born in Scotland in 1775. He came to India in 1800 to make a fortune as a watch maker. However, while he prospered in his business his mind was distracted by the deplorable conditions of the native population and unlike most of the other people who returned to their native land after gathering a fortune to live a life in peace and prosperity, he decided to stay back in the country and devote himself entirely to the cause of its uplift. However, he was no missionary, seeking to convert others to his religion. He lived his own life and allowed others to live their own, only helping to improve their condition.

Contribution

Hare felt that the need of the country was English education. He used to discuss the topic with many of his customers, who came to buy watches in his shop. Raja Rammohun Roy went to Kolkata in 1814 and within a short time, they became friends. In 1816, he went on his own and attended a session of the Raja’s Atmiya Sabha. Both of them discussed at length the proposal to establish an English school at Kolkata. Babu Buddi Nath Mukherjee - another member of Atmiya Sabha - later discussed the matter with Sir Hyde East, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. That led to the foundation of Hindu College, later renamed Presidency College, Kolkata, on 20 January 1817.[1]

Thereafter, David Hare was instrumental in establishing the School Book Society on 6 May 1817. It took the initiative to print and publish text books in both English and Bengali. This society contributed substantially to the flowering of the Bengal Renaissance.

On 1 September 1818, he established the Calcutta School Society. He and Radhakanta Deb were secretaries of the society. He worked tirelessly to establish some schools to teach in English and Bengali, according to new methods of teaching, at such places as Thanthania, Kalitala and Arpuly. Every day, he visited the schools and Hindu College and met almost every student. So great was his attachment and commitment to these students that it acted as a great inspiration of many of them. Some of the greatest names in subsequent years were all his students. It was much later that Alexander Duff or Henry Louis Vivian Derozio came on the scene and influenced the course of events.

Additionally, David Hare was a subscriber to the Ladies' Society for Native Female Education (formed in 1824), and would be present in the periodical examinations held by the society.[2]

Later life

In later life, he did not find time to devote to his watch business and so he sold it to a friend named Grey and spent some of the money to buy a small house for himself and the rest for the development of the schools. After a long life of activity he fell ill. He was attacked by cholera. One of his students, Dr. Prasanna Kumar Mitra, tried his best but all efforts failed and David Hare died on 1 June 1842. As news spread around the city, a pall of gloom spread over the city. The Christian missionaries refused to allot him land in their cemeteries, as they thought that he was a non-believer. He was buried in what was then the compound of Hare School-Presidency College that he had donated. The tomb, marked with a bust statue, currently falls within the College Square (recently renamed Vidyasagar Udyan) swimming pool, opposite to Hare School.

Image
The grave of David Hare, college square, Kolkata

According to Sivanath Sastri, “As his body was brought out of Mr. Gray’s house, thousands of people, some in vehicles, others on foot, followed it. The scene that was witnessed by Kolkata on that day will not be witnessed again. Right from Bowbazar crossing to Madhab Dutta’s bazaar, the entire road was flooded with people.”

The road where he lived, is called Hare Street, just off Binoy-Badal-Dinesh Bagh (earlier Dalhousie Square). A life-size statue (pictured) was built with public donations and placed in the compound of Hare School.

Further reading

• Reverend Krishnamohan Bandyopadhyaya (in Bengali) by Mayukh Das, Kolkata:Paschimbanga Anchalik Itihas O Loksanskriti Charcha Kendra (2014) ISBN 978-81-926316-0-8
• "A biographical sketch of David Hare" by Peary Chand Mittra.
• Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Banga Samaj in Bengali by Sivanath Sastri (English Translation)

References

1. Sivanath Sastri (1903). Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Bangasamaj. Calcutta.
2. Mittra, Peary Chand (1877). A Biographical Sketch of David Hare. Kolkata: W. Newman & Co. p. 63.

External links

• Islam, Sirajul (2012). "Hare, David". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Ram Mohan Roy
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/11/20

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Image
Raja Ram Mohan Roy
Portrait of Raja Ram Mohan Roy as painted by H. P. Briggs - preserved in Bristol Museum
Born: c. 22 May 1772, Radhanagar, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died: 27 September 1833 (aged 60–61), Stapleton, Bristol, England
Nationality: Indian
Other names: Herald of New Age
Occupation: Social and religious reformer; Brahmin prince
Known for: Bengal Renaissance, Brahmo Sabha
(social, political reforms)

Raja Ram Mohan Roy (22 May 1772 – 27 September 1833) was one of the founders of the Brahmo Sabha, the precursor of the Brahmo Samaj, a social-religious reform movement in the Indian subcontinent. He was given the title of Raja by Akbar II, the Mughal emperor. His influence was apparent in the fields of politics, public administration, education and religion. He was known for his efforts to abolish the practices of sati and child marriage.[1] Raja Ram Mohan Roy is considered to be the "Father of the Indian Renaissance" by many historians.[2]

In 2004, Roy was ranked number 10 in BBC's poll of the Greatest Bengali of all time.[3][4][5]

Early life and education (till 1796)

Ram Mohan Roy was born in Radhanagar, Hooghly District, Bengal Presidency. His great grandfather, Krishanland Bandopadhyay, a Rahiri Kulin (noble) brahmin, claimed descent from Narottama Thakur, a follower of the 15th century Bengali Vaishnava reformer Chaitnya. Among Kulin Brahmins-descendants of the six families of brahmins imported from Kanauj by Ballal Sen in the 12th century-those from the Rarhi district of West Bengal were notorious in the 19th century for living off dowries by marrying several women. Kulinism was a synonym for polygamy and the dowry system, both of which Rammohan campaigned against.[6] His father, Ramkanta, was a Vaishnavite, while his mother, Tarini Devi, was from a Shaivite family. He was a great scholar of Sanskrit, Persian and English languages and also knew Arabic, Latin and Greek. Thus one parent prepared him for the occupation of a scholar, the Shastri, while the other secured for him all the worldly advantages needed to launch a career in the laukik or worldly sphere of public administration. Torn between these two parental ideals from early childhood, Ram Mohan vacillated between the two for the rest of his life.[7]

Ram Mohan Roy was married three times. His first wife died early. He had two sons, Radhaprasad in 1800, and Ramaprasad in 1812 with his second wife, who died in 1824. Roy's third wife outlived him.[8]

The nature and content of Ram Mohan Roy's early education is disputed. One view is that "Ram Mohan started his formal education in the village pathshala where he learned Bengali and some Sanskrit and Persian. Later he is said to have studied Persian and Arabic in a madrasa in Patna and after that he was sent to Benares to learn the intricacies of Sanskrit and Hindu scripture, including the Vedas and Upanishads. The dates of his time in both these places are uncertain. However, it is believed that he was sent to Patna when he was nine years old and two years later he went to Benares."[7]

The Persian and Arabic studies influenced his thinking about One God more than studies of European deism, which he didn't know at least while writing his first scriptures because at that stage he couldn't speak or understand English.

Ram Mohan Roy's impact on modern Indian history was his revival of the pure and ethical principles of the Vedanta school of philosophy as found in the Upanishads. He preached the unity of God, made early translations of Vedic scriptures into English, co-founded the Calcutta Unitarian Society and founded the Brahma Samaj. The Brahma Samaj played a major role in reforming and modernizing the Indian society. He successfully campaigned against sati, the practice of burning widows. He sought to integrate Western culture with the best features of his own country's traditions. He established a number of schools to popularize a modern system (effectively replacing Sanskrit based education with English based education) of education in India. He promoted a rational, ethical, non-authoritarian, this-worldly, and social-reform Hinduism. His writings also sparked interest among British and American Unitarians.[9]

Christianity and the early rule of the East India Company (1795–1828)

During early rule of the east India company, Ram Mohan Roy acted as a political agitator whilst employed by the East India Company.[10]

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.[11]

In 1793, William Carey landed in India to settle. His objective was to translate, publish and distribute the Bible in Indian languages and propagate Christianity to the Indian peoples.[12] He realised the "mobile" (i.e. service classes) Brahmins and Pandits were most able to help him in this endeavour, and he began gathering them. He learnt the Buddhist and Jain religious works to better argue the case for Christianity in a cultural context.[13]

In 1795, Carey made contact with a Sanskrit scholar, the Tantric Saihardana Vidyavagish,[14] who later introduced him to Ram Mohan Roy, who wished to learn English.

Between 1796 and 1797, the trio of Carey, Vidyavagish, and Roy created a religious work known as the "Maha Nirvana Tantra" (or "Book of the Great Liberation")[15] and positioned it as a religious text to "the One True God". Carey's involvement is not recorded in his very detailed records and he reports only learning to read Sanskrit in 1796 and only completed a grammar in 1797, the same year he translated part of The Bible (from Joshua to Job), a massive task.[16] For the next two decades this document was regularly augmented.[17] Its judicial sections were 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 began to suspect and its usage (as well as the reliance on pandits as sources of Hindu Law) was quickly deprecated. Vidyavagish had a brief falling out with Carey and separated from the group, but maintained ties to Ram Mohan Roy.[18]

In 1797, Raja Ram Mohan reached Calcutta and became a "bania" (moneylender), mainly to lend to the Englishmen of the Company living beyond their means. Ram Mohan also continued his vocation as pandit in the English courts and started to make a living for himself. He began learning Greek and Latin.[19]


In 1799, Carey was joined by missionary Joshua Marshman and the printer William Ward at the Danish settlement of Serampore.[20]

From 1803 until 1815, Ram Mohan served the East India Company's "Writing Service", commencing as private clerk "Munshi" to Thomas Woodroffe, Registrar of the Appellate Court at Murshidabad (whose distant nephew, [b][size=110]John Woodroffe — also a Magistrate — and later lived off the Maha Nirvana Tantra under the pseudonym Arthur Avalon).[21] Roy resigned from Woodroffe's service and later secured employment with John Digby, a Company collector, and Ram Mohan 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 renewed their profitable association. William Carey was also aligned now with the English Company, then head-quartered at Fort William, and his religious and political ambitions were increasingly intertwined.[22][/size][/b]

While in Murshidabad, in 1804 Raja Ram Mohan Roy wrote Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin (A Gift to Monotheists) in Persian with an introduction in Arabic. Bengali had not yet become the language of intellectual discourse. The importance of Tuhfatul Muwahhidin lies only in its being the first known theological statement of one who achieved later fame and notoriety as a vendantin. On its own, it is unremarkable, perhaps of interest only to a social historian because of its amateurish eclecticism. Tuhfat was, after all, available as early as 1884 in the English translation of Maulavi Obaidullah EI Obaid, published by the Adi Brahmo Samaj. Raja Ram Mohan Roy did not know the Upanishad at this stage in his intellectual development.[23][24]

In 1815, he started Atmiya Sabha, a philosophical discussion circle in Kolkata (then Calcutta).

The East India Company was draining money from India at a rate of three million pounds a year by 1838. Ram Mohan Roy was one of the first to try to estimate how much money was being taken out of India and to where it was disappearing. He estimated that around one-half of all total revenue collected in India was sent out to England, leaving India, with a considerably larger population, to use the remaining money to maintain social well-being.[25] Ram Mohan Roy saw this and believed that the unrestricted settlement of Europeans in India governing under free trade would help ease the economic drain crisis.[26]

During the next two decades, Ram Mohan launched his attack at the behest of the church 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.[17] The Kulin excesses targeted include sati (the co-cremation of widows), polygamy, child marriage, and dowry.

From 1819, Ram Mohan's battery increasingly turned against William Carey, a Baptist Missionary settled in Serampore, and the Serampore missionaries. With Dwarkanath's munificence, he launched a series of attacks against Baptist "Trinitarian" Christianity and was now considerably assisted in his theological debates by the Unitarian faction of Christianity.[27]

In 1828, he launched Brahmo Sabha with Devendranath Tagore. By 1828, he had become a well known figure in India. In 1830, he had gone to England as an envoy of the Mughal Emperor, Akbar Shah II, who invested him with the title of Raja to the court of King William IV.

Middle "Brahmo" period (1820 to 1830)

This was Ram Mohan's most controversial period. Commenting on his published works Sivanath Sastri writes:[28]

"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:

• Second Appeal to the Christian Public, Brahmanical Magazine – Parts I, II and III, with Bengali translation and a new Bengali newspaper called Samvad Kaumudi in 1821;
• A Persian paper called Mirat-ul-Akbar contained a tract entitled Brief Remarks on Ancient Female Rights and a book in Bengali called Answers to Four Questions in 1822;
• Third and final appeal to the Christian public, a memorial to the King of England on the subject of the liberty of the press, Ramdoss papers relating to Christian controversy, Brahmanical Magazine, No. IV, letter to Lord Arnherst on the subject of English education, a tract called "Humble Suggestions" and a book in Bengali called "Pathyapradan or Medicine for the Sick," all in 1823;
• A letter to Rev. H. Ware on the "Prospects of Christianity in India" and an "Appeal for famine-smitten natives in Southern India" in 1824;
• A tract on the different modes of worship, in 1825;
• A Bengali tract on the qualifications of a God-loving householder, a tract in Bengali on a controversy with a Kayastha, and a Grammar of the Bengali language in English, in 1826;
• A Sanskrit tract on "Divine worship by Gayatri" with an English translation of the same, the edition of a Sanskrit treatise against caste, and the previously noticed tract called "Answer of a Hindu to the question &c.," in 1827;
• A form of Divine worship and a collection of hymns composed by him and his friends, in 1828;
• "Religious Instructions founded on Sacred Authorities" in English and Sanskrit, a Bengali tract called "Anusthan," and a petition against sati, in 1829;

He publicly declared that he would emigrate from the British Empire if Parliament failed to pass the Reform Bill.

In 1830, Ram Mohan Roy travelled to the United Kingdom as an ambassador of the Mughal Empire to ensure that Lord William Bentinck's Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829 banning the practice of Sati was not overturned. In addition, Roy petitioned the King to increase the Mughal Emperor's allowance and perquisites. He was successful in persuading the British government to increase the stipend of the Mughal Emperor by £30,000. He also visited France. While in England, he embarked on cultural exchanges, meeting with members of Parliament and publishing books on Indian economics and law. Sophia Dobson Collet was his biographer at the time.

He died at Stapleton, then a village to the northeast of Bristol (now a suburb), on 27 September 1833 of meningitis and was buried in the Arnos Vale Cemetery in southern Bristol.

Religious reforms

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Ram Mohan Roy on a 1964 stamp of India

The religious reforms of Roy contained in some beliefs of the Brahmo Samaj expounded by Rajnarayan Basu[29] are:

Brahmo Samaj believe that the most fundamental doctrines of Brahmoism are at the basis of every religion followed by a man.
Brahmo Samaj believes in the existence of One Supreme God — "a God, endowed with a distinct personality & moral attributes equal to His nature, and intelligence befitting the Author and Preserver of the Universe," and worship Him alone.
• Brahmo Samaj believe that worship of Him needs no fixed place or time. "We can adore Him at any time and at any place, provided that time and that place are calculated to compose and direct the mind towards Him."

Having studied the Qur’an, the Vedas and the Upanishads, Roy's beliefs were derived from a combination of monastic elements of Hinduism, Islam, eighteenth-century Deism, Unitarianism, and the ideas of the Freemasons.[30]

Social reforms

Roy founded the Atmiya Sabha and the Unitarian Community to fight the social evils, and to propagate social and educational reforms in India. He was the man who fought against superstitions, a pioneer in Indian education, and a trend setter in Bengali Prose and Indian press.

• Crusaded against Hindu customs such as sati, polygamy, child marriage and the caste system.
• Demanded property inheritance rights for women.
• In 1828, he set up the Brahmo Sabha a movement of reformist Bengali Brahmins to fight against social evils.

Roy’s political background and devandra Christian influence influenced his social and religious views regarding reforms of Hinduism. He writes,

"The present system of Hindus is not well calculated to promote their political interests…. It is necessary that some change should take place in their religion, at least for the sake of their political advantage and social comfort."[31]


Ram Mohan Roy’s experience working with the British government taught him that Hindu traditions were often not credible or respected by western standards and this no doubt affected his religious reforms. He wanted to legitimise Hindu traditions to his European acquaintances by proving that "superstitious practices which deform the Hindu religion have nothing to do with the pure spirit of its dictates!"[32] The "superstitious practices", to which Ram Mohan Roy objected, included sati, caste rigidity, polygamy and child marriages.[33] These practices were often the reasons British officials claimed moral superiority over the Indian nation. Ram Mohan Roy’s ideas of religion actively sought to create a fair and just society by implementing humanitarian practices similar to the Christian ideals professed by the British and thus seeking to legitimise Hinduism in the eyes of the Christian world.

Educationist

• Roy believed education to be an implement for social reform.
• In 1817, in collaboration with David Hare, he set up the Hindu College at Calcutta.
In 1822, Roy found the Anglo-Hindu school, followed four years later (1826) by the Vedanta College; where he insisted that his teachings of monotheistic doctrines be incorporated with "modern, western curriculum."[34]
• In 1830, he helped Rev. Alexander Duff in establishing the General Assembly's Institution (now known as Scottish Church College), by providing him with the venue vacated by Brahma Sabha and getting the first batch of students.
• He supported induction of western learning into Indian education.
• He also set up the Vedanta College, offering courses as a synthesis of Western and Indian learning.

• His most popular journal was the Sambad Kaumudi. It covered topics like freedom of the press, induction of Indians into high ranks of service, and separation of the executive and judiciary.
• When the English Company muzzled the press, Ram Mohan composed two memorials and against this in 1829 and 1830 respectively.

Mausoleum at Arnos Vale

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Epitaph for Ram Mohan Roy on his Mausoleum

Image
Mausoleum of Ram Mohan Roy in Arno's Vale Cemetery, Bristol, England

Ram Mohan Roy was originally buried on 18 October 1833, in the grounds of Stapleton Grove where he had died of meningitis on 27 September 1833. Nine and a half years later he was reburied on 29 May 1843 in a grave at the new Arnos Vale Cemetery, in Brislington, East Bristol. A large plot on The Ceremonial Way there had been bought by William Carr and William Prinsep, and the body in its lac and a lead coffin was placed later in a deep brick-built vault, over seven feet underground. Two years after this, Dwarkanath Tagore helped pay for the chattri raised above this vault, although there is no record of his ever visiting Bristol. The chattri was designed by the artist William Prinsep, who had known Ram Mohan in Calcutta.[citation needed]

Bristol Arnos Vale cemetery have been holding remembrance services for Raja Ram Mohan Roy every year on a Sunday close to his death anniversary date of 27 September.[35] The Indian High Commission at London often come to Raja's annual commemoration. Bristol's Lord Mayor shall also be in attendance. The commemoration is a joint Brahmo-Unitarian service, in which, prayers and hymns are sung, flowers laid at the tomb, and the life of the Raja is celebrated via talks and visual presentations.[36] In 2013, a recently discovered ivory bust of Ram Mohan was displayed.[35][37] In 2014, his original death mask at Edinburgh was filmed and its history was discussed.[38] In 2017, Raja's commemoration was held on 24 September.[39]

Legacy

In 1983, a full-scale Exhibition on Ram Mohan Roy was held in Bristol's Museum and Art Gallery. His enormous 1831 portrait by Henry Perronet Briggs still hangs there and was the subject of a talk by Sir Max Muller in 1873. At Bristol's centre, on College Green, is a full-size bronze statue of the Raja by the modern Kolkata sculptor Niranjan Pradhan. Another bust by Pradhan, gifted to Bristol by Jyoti Basu, sits inside the main foyer of Bristol's City Hall.[citation needed]

A pedestrian path at Stapleton has been named "Rajah Rammohun Walk". There is a 1933 Brahmo plaque on the outside west wall of Stapleton Grove, and his first burial place in the garden is marked by railings and a granite memorial stone. His tomb and chattri at Arnos Vale are listed as a Grade II* historic site by English Heritage and attract many visitors today.[citation needed]

See also

• Adi Dharm
• Brahmo
• Brahmoism
• Hindu School, Kolkata
• Presidency College, Kolkata
• Scottish Church College, Calcutta

References

1. Soman, Priya. "Raja Ram Mohan and the Abolition of Sati System in Indai"(PDF). International Journal of Humanities, Art and Social Studies (IJHAS). 1 (2): 75–82.
2. "Raja Ram Mohan Roy: Google doodle remembers the father of 'Indian Renaissance'". Indian Express. 22 May 2018. Retrieved 24 June 2018.
3. "Listeners name 'greatest Bengali'". 14 April 2004. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
4. Habib, Haroon (17 April 2004). "International : Mujib, Tagore, Bose among 'greatest Bengalis of all time'". The Hindu.
5. "BBC Listeners' Poll Bangabandhu judged greatest Bengali of all time'". The Daily Star. 16 April 2014.
6. Mehrotra, Arvind (2008). A Concise History of Indian Literature in English. Ranikhet: permanent black. p. 1. ISBN 8178243024.
7. Sharma, H.D. (2002). Raja Ram Mohan Roy — The Renaissance Man. Rupa & Co. p. 8. ISBN 978-8171679997
8. "Raja Ram Mohan Roy". Cultural India. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
9. Hodder, Alan D. (1988). "Emerson, Rammohan Roy, and the Unitarians". Studies in the American Renaissance: 133–148. JSTOR 30227561.
10. Singh, Kulbir (17 July 2017). "Ram Mohan Roy: The Father of the Indian Renaissance". Young Bites.
11. "An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens". http://www.wmcarey.edu. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
12. "Home – William Carey University". http://www.wmcarey.edu. Retrieved 2 October2017.
13. Reed, Ian Brooks (2015). "Rammohan Roy and the Unitarians". Master Thesis, Florida State University.
14. Kaumudi Patrika 12 December 1912
15. Derrett, John Duncan Martin (1977). Essays in Classical and Modern Hindu Law: consequences of the intellectual exchange with the foreign powers. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-04808-9.
16. Smith, George (1885). "Ch. 4". The Life of William Carey (1761–1834). p. 71. Retrieved 8 December 2008.
17. Syed, M. H. "Raja Rammohan Roy" (PDF). Himalaya Publishing House. Retrieved 29 November 2015.
18. Preface to "Fallacy of the New Dispensation" by Sivanath Sastri, 1895
19. Patel, Tanvi (22 May 2018). "Google Honours 'Maker Of Modern India': Remembering Raja Ram Mohan Roy". The Better India. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
20. "Joshua Marshman, D.D." William Carey University. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
21. Avalon, Arthur (2004). Mahanirvana Tantra Of The Great Liberation. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4191-3207-0.
22. Smith, George. "Life of William Carey". Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Retrieved 29 November 2015.
23. Robertson Bruce C. (1995). Raja Rammohan Ray: the father of modern India. Oxford University Press, Incorporated. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-19-563417-4.
24. Crawford, S. Cromwell (1984). Ram Mohan Roy, his era and ethics. Arnold-Heinemann. p. 11.
25. Roy, Rama Dev (1987). "Some Aspects of the Economic Drain from India during the British Rule". Social Scientist. 15 (3): 39–47. doi:10.2307/3517499. JSTOR 3517499.
26. Bhattacharya, Subbhas (1975). "Indigo Planters, Ram Mohan Roy and the 1833 Charter Act". Social Scientist. 4 (3): 56–65. doi:10.2307/3516354. JSTOR 3516354.
27. Das, Pijush Kanti. "Ch. I" (PDF). Rammohun Roy and Brahmoism. Religious movement in mediaeval and modern India a critical study in Sikhism Brahmoism and the cult of Ramakrishna. University of Calcutta. pp. 200–208.
28. Sastri, Sivanath (1911) History of the Brahmo Samaj. pp. 44–46
29. "Brahmo Samaj". WORLD BRAHMO COUNCIL. Archived from the original on 29 December 2010. Retrieved 21 January 2010.
30. Doniger, Wendy. On Hinduism. Oxford. ISBN 9780199360079. OCLC 858660095.
31. Bhatt, Gauri Shankar (1968). "Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, and the Church-Sect Typology". Review of Religious Research. 10 (1): 23–32. doi:10.2307/3510669. JSTOR 3510669.
32. Ram Mohan Roy, Translation of Several Principal Book, Passages, and Text of the Vedas and of Some Controversial works on Brahmunical Theology. London: Parbury, Allen & Company, 1823, p. 4.
33. Bandyopadyay, Brahendra N. (1933) Rommohan Roy. London: University Press, p. 351.
34. "Ram Mohan Roy.". Encycpaedia Britannica.
35. "The Brahmo Samaj". http://www.thebrahmosamaj.net. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
36. "Celebration at Arnos Vale". Archived from the original on 6 February 2015. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
37. "The Brahmo Samaj". http://www.thebrahmosamaj.net. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
38. Suman Ghosh (27 September 2013). "Bristol Remembers Rammohun Roy". Retrieved 2 October 2017 – via YouTube.
39. "Tributes paid to the great Indian social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy in Bristol". Retrieved 27 September 2017.

External

• Works by or about Ram Mohan Roy at Internet Archive
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William Carey (missionary)
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William Carey
Missionary to India
Born: 17 August 1761, Paulerspury, England, United Kingdom
Died: 9 June 1834 (aged 72), Serampore, Bengal Presidency, British India

William Carey (17 August 1761 – 9 June 1834) was a British Christian missionary, Particular Baptist minister, translator, social reformer and cultural anthropologist who founded the Serampore College and the Serampore University, the first degree-awarding university in India.[1]

He went to Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1793, but was forced to leave the British Indian territory by non-Baptist Christian missionaries.[2] He joined the Baptist missionaries in the Danish colony of Frederiksnagar in Serampore. One of his first contributions was to start schools for impoverished children where they were taught reading, writing, accounting and Christianity.[3] He opened the first theological university in Serampore offering divinity degrees,[4][5] and campaigned to end the practice of sati.[6]

Carey is known as the "father of modern missions."[7] His essay, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, led to the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society.[2][8] The Asiatic Society commended Carey for “his eminent services in opening the stores of Indian literature to the knowledge of Europe and for his extensive acquaintance with the science, the natural history and botany of this country and his useful contributions, in every branch.”[9]

He translated the Hindu classic, the Ramayana, into English,[10] and the Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Marathi, Hindi and Sanskrit.[2] William Carey has been called a reformer and illustrious Christian missionary.[11][12][13]

Early life

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William Carey's motto on a hanging in St James' Church, Paulerspury, Northamptonshire, which he attended as a boy

William Carey, the oldest of 5 children, was born to Edmund and Elizabeth Carey, who were weavers by trade, in the hamlet of Pury End in the village of Paulerspury, Northamptonshire.[14][15] William was raised in the Church of England; when he was six, his father was appointed the parish clerk and village schoolmaster. As a child he was naturally inquisitive and keenly interested in the natural sciences, particularly botany. He possessed a natural gift for language, teaching himself Latin.

At the age of 14, Carey's father apprenticed him to a cordwainer in the nearby village of Piddington, Northamptonshire.[16] His master, Clarke Nichols, was a churchman like himself, but another apprentice, John Warr, was a Dissenter. Through his influence Carey would eventually leave the Church of England and join with other Dissenters to form a small Congregational church in nearby Hackleton. While apprenticed to Nichols, he also taught himself Greek with the help of a local villager who had a college education.[citation needed]

When Nichols died in 1779, Carey went to work for the local shoemaker, Thomas Old; he married Old's sister-in-law Dorothy Plackett in 1781 in the Church of St John the Baptist, Piddington. Unlike William, Dorothy was illiterate; her signature in the marriage register is a crude cross. William and Dorothy Carey had seven children, five sons and two daughters; both girls died in infancy, as well as son Peter, who died at the age of 5. Thomas Old himself died soon afterward, and Carey took over his business, during which time he taught himself Hebrew, Italian, Dutch, and French, often reading while working on the shoes.[citation needed]

Carey acknowledged his humble origins and referred to himself as a cobbler. John Brown Myers entitled his biography of Carey William Carey the Shoemaker Who Became the Father and Founder of Modern Missions.

Founding of the Baptist Missionary Society

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Detail from wall hanging depicting Carey's life, in Carey Baptist Church, Moulton, Northamptonshire

Carey became involved with a local association of Particular Baptists that had recently formed, where he became acquainted with men such as John Ryland, John Sutcliff, and Andrew Fuller, who would become his close friends in later years. They invited him to preach in their church in the nearby village of Earls Barton every other Sunday. On 5 October 1783, William Carey was baptised by Ryland and committed himself to the Baptist denomination.

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Portrait sketch by Colesworthey Grant

In 1785, Carey was appointed the schoolmaster for the village of Moulton. He was also invited to serve as pastor to the local Baptist church. During this time he read Jonathan Edwards' Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd and the journals of the explorer James Cook, and became deeply concerned with propagating the Christian Gospel throughout the world. John Eliot (c. 1604 – 21 May 1690), Puritan missionary in New England, and David Brainerd (1718–47) became the "canonized heroes" and "enkindlers" of Carey.[17]

In 1789 Carey, became the full-time pastor of Harvey Lane Baptist Church in Leicester. Three years later, in 1792, he published his groundbreaking missionary manifesto, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. This short book consists of five parts. The first part is a theological justification for missionary activity, arguing that the command of Jesus to make disciples of all the world (Matthew 28:18–20) remains binding on Christians.[18]

The second part outlines a history of missionary activity, beginning with the early Church and ending with David Brainerd and John Wesley.[19]

Part 3 comprises 26 pages of tables, listing area, population, and religion statistics for every country in the world. Carey had compiled these figures during his years as a schoolteacher. The fourth part answers objections to sending missionaries, such as difficulty learning the language or danger to life. Finally, the fifth part calls for the formation by the Baptist denomination of a missionary society and describes the practical means by which it could be supported. Carey's seminal pamphlet outlines his basis for missions: Christian obligation, wise use of available resources, and accurate information.[citation needed]

Carey later preached a pro-missionary sermon (the so-called Deathless Sermon), using Isaiah 54:2–3 as his text, in which he repeatedly used the epigram which has become his most famous quotation:

“ Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God. ”


Carey finally overcame the resistance to missionary effort, and the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen (subsequently known as the Baptist Missionary Society and since 2000 as BMS World Mission) was founded in October 1792, including Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Ryland, and John Sutcliff as charter members. They then concerned themselves with practical matters such as raising funds, as well as deciding where they would direct their efforts. A medical missionary, Dr John Thomas, had been in Calcutta and was currently in England raising funds; they agreed to support him and that Carey would accompany him to India.

Missionary life in India

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Black-and-white lantern slide ca 1920, showing the grave at Serampore of William Carey and his second wife Charlotte Emilia Carey (1761-1821) and third wife Grace Carey (d. 1835)

Carey, his eldest son Felix, Thomas and his wife and daughter sailed from London aboard an English ship in April 1793. Dorothy Carey had refused to leave England, being pregnant with their fourth son and having never been more than a few miles from home; but before they left they asked her again to come with them and she gave consent, with the knowledge that her sister Kitty would help her give birth. En route they were delayed at the Isle of Wight, at which time the captain of the ship received word that he endangered his command if he conveyed the missionaries to Calcutta, as their unauthorised journey violated the trade monopoly of the British East India Company. He decided to sail without them, and they were delayed until June when Thomas found a Danish captain willing to offer them passage. In the meantime, Carey's wife, who had by now given birth, agreed to accompany him provided her sister came as well. They landed at Calcutta in November.[20]

During the first year in Calcutta, the missionaries sought means to support themselves and a place to establish their mission. They also began to learn the Bengali language to communicate with others. A friend of Thomas owned two indigo factories and needed managers, so Carey moved with his family north to Midnapore. During the six years that Carey managed the indigo plant, he completed the first revision of his Bengali New Testament and began formulating the principles upon which his missionary community would be formed, including communal living, financial self-reliance, and the training of indigenous ministers. His son Peter died of dysentery, which, along with other causes of stress, resulted in Dorothy suffering a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered.[20]

Meanwhile, the missionary society had begun sending more missionaries to India. The first to arrive was John Fountain, who arrived in Midnapore and began teaching school. He was followed by William Ward, a printer; Joshua Marshman, a schoolteacher; David Brunsdon, one of Marshman's students; and William Grant, who died three weeks after his arrival. Because the East India Company was still hostile to missionaries, they settled in the Danish colony in Serampore and were joined there by Carey on 10 January 1800.[20]

Late Indian period

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Carey lived here at the Serampore College

Once settled in Serampore, the mission bought a house large enough to accommodate all of their families and a school, which was to be their principal means of support. Ward set up a print shop with a secondhand press Carey had acquired and began the task of printing the Bible in Bengali. In August 1800 Fountain died of dysentery. By the end of that year, the mission had their first convert, a Hindu named Krishna Pal. They had also earned the goodwill of the local Danish government and Richard Wellesley, then Governor-General of India.

The conversion of Hindus to Christianity posed a new question for the missionaries concerning whether it was appropriate for converts to retain their caste. In 1802, the daughter of Krishna Pal, a Sudra, married a Brahmin. This wedding was a public demonstration that the church repudiated the caste distinctions.

Brunsdon and Thomas died in 1801. The same year, the Governor-General founded Fort William, a college intended to educate civil servants. He offered Carey the position of professor of Bengali. Carey's colleagues at the college included pundits, whom he could consult to correct his Bengali testament. One of his colleagues was Madan Mohan Tarkalankar who taught him the Sanskrit language. He also wrote grammars of Bengali and Sanskrit, and began a translation of the Bible into Sanskrit. He also used his influence with the Governor-General to help put a stop to the practices of infant sacrifice and suttee, after consulting with the pundits and determining that they had no basis in the Hindu sacred writings (although the latter would not be abolished until 1829).

Dorothy Carey gave birth to Jim Carey. Then later she died in 1807.[21] Due to her debilitating mental breakdown, she had long since ceased to be an able member of the mission, and her condition was an additional burden to it. John Marshman wrote how Carey worked away on his studies and translations, "…while an insane wife, frequently wrought up to a state of most distressing excitement, was in the next room…".

Several friends and colleagues had urged William to commit Dorothy to an asylum. But he recoiled at the thought of the treatment she might receive in such a place and took the responsibility to keep her within the family home, even though the children were exposed to her rages.[22]

In 1808 Carey remarried. His new wife Charlotte Rhumohr, a Danish member of his church was, unlike Dorothy, Carey's intellectual equal. They were married for 13 years until her death.

From the printing press at the mission came translations of the Bible in Bengali, Sanskrit, and other major languages and dialects. Many of these languages had never been printed before; William Ward had to create punches for the type by hand. Carey had begun translating literature and sacred writings from the original Sanskrit into English to make them accessible to his own countryman. On 11 March 1812, a fire in the print shop caused £10,000 in damages and lost work. Among the losses were many irreplaceable manuscripts, including much of Carey's translation of Sanskrit literature and a polyglot dictionary of Sanskrit and related languages, which would have been a seminal philological work had it been completed. However, the press itself and the punches were saved, and the mission was able to continue printing in six months. In Carey's lifetime, the mission printed and distributed the Bible in whole or part in 44 languages and dialects.

Also, in 1812, Adoniram Judson, an American Congregational missionary en route to India, studied the scriptures on baptism in preparation for a meeting with Carey. His studies led him to become a Baptist. Carey's urging of American Baptists to take over support for Judson's mission, led to the foundation in 1814 of the first American Baptist Mission board, the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions, later commonly known as the Triennial Convention. Most American Baptist denominations of today are directly or indirectly descended from this convention.

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Serampore College

In 1818, the mission founded Serampore College to train indigenous ministers for the growing church and to provide education in the arts and sciences to anyone regardless of caste or country. Frederick VI, King of Denmark, granted a royal charter in 1827 that made the college a degree-granting institution, the first in Asia.[23]

In 1820 Carey founded the Agri Horticultural Society of India at Alipore, Calcutta, supporting his enthusiasm for botany. When William Roxburgh went on leave, Carey was entrusted to maintain the Botanical Garden at Calcutta. The genus Careya was named after him.[24]

The standard author abbreviation Carey is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[25]

Carey's second wife, Charlotte, died in 1821, followed by his eldest son Felix. In 1823 he married a third time, to a widow named Grace Hughes.

Internal dissent and resentment was growing within the Missionary Society as its numbers grew, the older missionaries died, and they were replaced by less experienced men. Some new missionaries arrived who were not willing to live in the communal fashion that had developed, one going so far as to demand "a separate house, stable and servants." Unused to the rigorous work ethic of Carey, Ward, and Marshman, the new missionaries thought their seniors – particularly Marshman – to be somewhat dictatorial, assigning them work not to their liking.

Andrew Fuller, who had been secretary of the Society in England, had died in 1815, and his successor, John Dyer, was a bureaucrat who attempted to reorganise the Society along business lines and manage every detail of the Serampore mission from England. Their differences proved to be irreconcilable, and Carey formally severed ties with the missionary society he had founded, leaving the mission property and moving onto the college grounds. He lived a quiet life until his death in 1834, revising his Bengali Bible, preaching, and teaching students. The couch on which he died, on 9 June 1834, is now housed at Regent's Park College, the Baptist hall of the University of Oxford.

Criticism

Much of what is known about William Carey's missionary life in India is from missionary reports sent to Britain. Historians such as Comaroffs, Thorne, Van der Veer and Brian Pennington note that the representation of India in these reports must be examined in their context and with care for its evangelical and colonial ideology.[12] The reports by Carey were conditioned by his background, personal factors and his own religious beliefs. The polemic notes and observations of Carey, and his colleague William Ward, were in a community suffering from extreme poverty and epidemics, and they constructed a view of Indian culture and Hinduism in light of their missionary goals.[12][26] These reports were by those who had declared their conviction in foreign missionary work, and the letters describe experiences of foreigners who were resented by both the natives as well as the British colonial officials and competing Christian groups. Their accounts of culture and Hinduism were forged in impoverished Bengal (modern West Bengal and Bangladesh) that was physically, politically and spiritually difficult.[12] Pennington summarises the accounts reported by Carey and his colleagues as follows,

“ Plagued with anxieties and fears about their own health, regularly reminded of colleagues who had lost their lives or reason, uncertain of their own social location, and preaching to crowds whose reactions ranged from indifference to amusement to hostility, missionaries found expression for their darker misgivings in their production of what is surely part of their speckled legacy: a fabricated Hinduism crazed by blood-lust and devoted to the service of devils.[12] ”


William Carey recommended that British people in India must learn and interpret Sanskrit in a manner "compatible with colonial aims".[27] Carey wrote, "To gain the ear of those who are thus deceived, it is necessary for them to believe that the speaker has a superior knowledge of the subject. In these circumstances, knowledge of Sanskrit is valuable."[27] Carey lacked understanding and respect for Indian culture, writes Rao,[13] describing Indian music as "disgusting" and bringing to mind practices dishonorable to God. Such prejudices affected the literature authored by Carey and colleagues.[13]

Family history

Biographies of Carey, such as those by F. D. Walker[28] and J. B. Myers, only allude to Carey's distress caused by the mental illness and subsequent breakdown suffered by his wife, Dorothy, in the early years of their ministry in India. More recently, Beck's biography of Dorothy Carey paints a more detailed picture: William Carey uprooted his family from all that was familiar and sought to settle them in one of the most unlikely and difficult cultures in the world for an uneducated eighteenth century English peasant woman. Faced with enormous difficulties in adjusting to all of this change, she failed to make the adjustment emotionally and ultimately, mentally, and her husband seemed to be unable to help her through all of this because he just did not know what to do about it.[29] Carey even wrote to his sisters in England on 5 October 1795, that "I have been for some time past in danger of losing my life. Jealousy is the great evil that haunts her mind."[30]

Dorothy's mental breakdown ("at the same time William Carey was baptizing his first Indian convert and his son Felix, his wife was forcefully confined to her room, raving with madness"[31]) led inevitably to other family problems. Joshua Marshman was appalled by the neglect with which Carey treated his four boys when he first met them in 1800. Aged 4, 7, 12 and 15, they were unmannered, undisciplined, and even uneducated.[citation needed]

Eschatology

Besides Iain Murray's study, The Puritan Hope,[32] less attention has been paid in Carey's numerous biographies to his postmillennial eschatology as expressed in his major missionary manifesto, notably not even in Bruce J. Nichols' article "The Theology of William Carey."[33] Carey was a Calvinist.”[34] and a postmillennialist. Even the two dissertations which discuss his achievements (by Oussoren[35] and Potts[36]) ignore large areas of his theology. Neither mention his eschatological views, which played a major role in his missionary zeal.[37] One exception, found in James Beck's biography of his first wife,[29] mentions his personal optimism in the chapter on "Attitudes Towards the Future," but not his optimistic perspective on world missions, which he derived from postmillennial theology.[38]

Translation, education and schools

Image
Carey's desk at the Serampore College

Carey devoted great efforts and time to the study not only of the common language of Bengali, but to many other Indian vernaculars including the ancient root language of Sanskrit. In collaboration with the College of Fort William, Carey undertook the translation of the Hindu classics into English, beginning with the three-volume epic poem the Ramayana. He then translated the Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese, Sanskrit and parts of it into other dialects and languages.[39] For 30 years Carey served in the college as the professor of Bengali, Sanskrit and Marathi,[39][40] publishing, in 1805, the first book on Marathi grammar.[41][42]

The Serampore Mission Press that Carey founded is credited as the only press which “consistently thought it important enough that costly fonts of type be cast for the irregular and neglected languages of the Indian people."[43] Carey and his team produced textbooks, dictionaries, classical literature and other publications which served primary school children, college-level students and the general public, including the first systematic Sanskrit grammar which served a model for later publications.[44]

In the latter 1700s and early 1800s in India, only children of certain social strata received education, and even that was limited to basic accounting and Hindu religion. Only the Brahmins and writer castes could read, and then only men, women being completely unschooled. Carey started Sunday Schools in which children learned to read using the Bible as their textbook.[45] In 1794 Carey opened, at his own cost, what is considered the first primary school in all of India.[46] The public school system that Carey initiated expanded to include girls in an era when the education of the female was considered unthinkable. Carey’s work is considered to have provided the starting point of what blossomed into the Christian Vernacular Education Society providing English medium education across India.[47]

Legacy and influence

William Carey has been referred to as the "father of modern missions",[7] and as "India's first cultural anthropologist."[48]

His teaching, translations, writings and publications, his educational establishments and influence in social reform are said to have “marked the turning point of Indian culture from a downward to an upward trend.”

[Carey] saw India not as a foreign country to be exploited, but as his heavenly Father’s land to be loved and saved... he believed in understanding and controlling nature instead of fearing, appeasing or worshipping it; in developing one’s intellect instead of killing it as mysticism taught. He emphasized enjoying literature and culture instead of shunning it as maya.

— Vishal Mangalwadi[49]


Thus Carey significantly contributed to the birth of Indian nationalism.[49]

Carey’s was instrumental in launching Serampore College in Serampore.[50]

Carey’s passionate insistence on change resulted in the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society.[51]

Carey has at least eleven schools named after him: William Carey Christian School (WCCS) in Sydney, NSW, William Carey International University, founded in 1876 in Pasadena, California, Carey Theological College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Carey Baptist College in Auckland, New Zealand, Carey Baptist Grammar School in Melbourne, Victoria, Carey College in Colombo, Sri Lanka, William Carey University, founded in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1892,[52] and Carey Baptist College in Perth, Australia. The William Carey Academy of Chittagong, Bangladesh teaches both Bangladeshi and expatriate children, from kindergarten to grade 12, and the William Carey Memorial School, (A Co-ed English Medium), operates in Serampore, Hooghly. An English Medium School named William Carey International School was established on 17 August 2008 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

By the time Carey died, he had spent 41 years in India without a furlough. His mission could count only some 700 converts in a nation of millions, but he had laid an impressive foundation of Bible translations, education, and social reform.[53]

Artefacts

St James Church in Paulerspury, Northamptonshire, where Carey was christened and attended as a boy, has a William Carey display. Carey Baptist Church in Moulton, Northamptonshire, also has a display of artefacts related to William Carey, as well as the nearby cottage where he lived.[54] Harvey Lane Baptist Church in Leicester, the last church in England where Carey served before he left for India, was destroyed by a fire in 1921. Carey's nearby cottage had served as a 'Memories of Carey' museum from 1915 until it was destroyed to make way for a new road system in 1968.[55] The artefacts from the museum were given to Central Baptist Church in Charles Street, Leicester. Angus Library and Archive in Oxford holds the largest single collection of Carey letters as well as numerous artefacts such as his Bible and the sign from his cordwainer shop. There is a large collection of historical artefacts including letters, books, and other artefacts that belonged to William Carey at the Center for Study of the Life and Work of William Carey at Donnell Hall on the William Carey University Hattiesburg campus.[56]

See also

• Carey Baptist Church
• Carey Baptist College
• William Carey University
• Carey Saheber Munshi
• Saints portal

Notes

1. Vishal Mangalwadi (1999), The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture, pp. 61–67, ISBN 978-1-58134-112-6
2. William Carey British missionary Encyclopædia Britannica.
3. Riddick, John F. (2006). The History of British India: A Chronology. Praeger Publications. p. 158. ISBN 0-313-32280-5.
4. "Northants celebrates 250th anniversary of William Carey". BBC News. 18 August 2011. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
5. Smith, George (1922). The Life of William Carey: Shoemaker & Missionary. J. M. Dent & Co. p. 292.
6. Sharma, Arvind (1988). Sati: Historical and Phenomenological Essays. Motilal Benarasidass. pp. 57–63. ISBN 81-208-0464-3.
7. Gonzalez, Justo L. (2010) The Story of Christianity Vol. 2: The Reformation to the Present Day, Zondervan, ISBN 978-0-06185589-4, p. 419
8. William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792; repr., London: Carey Kingsgate Press, 1961)
9. Thomas, T. Jacob (1994). "Interaction of the Gospel and Culture in Bengal" (PDF). Indian Journal of Theology. Serampore College Theology Department and Bishop's College, Kolkata. 36 (2): 46, 47.
10. Kopf, David (1969). British Orientalism and the Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization 1778–1835. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay. pp. 70, 78.
11. Vishal Mangalwadi (1999), The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture, pp. 61-67, ISBN 978-1-58134112-6
12. Brian K. Pennington (2005), Was Hinduism Invented?: Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction, pp. 76–77, Oxford University Press
13. V Rao (2007), Contemporary Education, pp. 17-18, ISBN 978-81-3130273-6
14. "Paulerspury: Pury End". The Carey Experience. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
15. "William Carey's Historical Wall – Carey Road, Pury End, Northamptonshire, UK". UK Historical Markers. Waymarking.com. Retrieved 9 July2016. Includes image of memorial stone
16. "Glimpses #45: William Carey's Amazing Mission". Christian History Institute. Archived from the original on 4 April 2005. Retrieved 11 February 2008.
17. Carpenter, John, (2002) "New England Puritans: The Grandparents of Modern Protestant Missions," Fides et Historia 30.4, 529.
18. AN ENQUIRY INTO THE OBLIGATIONS OF CHRISTIANS, TO USE MEANS FOR THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHENS reprinted London: Carey Kingsgate Press, 1961
19. William Carey (1792), AN ENQUIRY INTO THE OBLIGATIONS OF CHRISTIANS, TO USE MEANS FOR THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHENS reprinted London: Carey Kingsgate Press, 1961
20. "Note from the preparer of this etext_ I have had to insert a view comments mainly in regards to adjustments to fonts to allow".
21. William Carey's Less-than-Perfect Family Life, Christian History, Issue 36, 10 January 1992
22. Timothy George, The Life and Mission of William Carey, IVP, p. 158
23. The Senate of Serampore College
24. Culross, James (1882). William Carey. New York: A.C. Armstrong & Son. p. 190.
25. IPNI. Carey.
26. Robert Eric Frykenberg and Alaine M. Low (2003), Christians and Missionaries in India, pp. 156–157, ISBN 978-0-8028-3956-5
27. Silvia Nagy (2010), Colonization Or Globalization?: Postcolonial Explorations of Imperial Expansion, p. 62, ISBN 978-073-91-31763
28. Frank Deauville Walker, William Carey (1925, repr. Chicago: Moody Press, 1980). ISBN 0-8024-9562-1.
29. Beck, James R. Dorothy Carey: The Tragic and Untold Story of Mrs. William Carey. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992. ISBN 0-8010-1030-6.
30. "Dorothy's Devastating Delusions," Christian History & Biography, 1 October 1992.
31. Book Review — Dorothy Carey: The Tragic And Untold Story Of Mrs. William Carey Archived15 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
32. Iain H. Murray, The Puritan Hope. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1975. ISBN 0-85151-037-X.
33. "The Theology of William Carey," Evangelical Review of Theology17 (1993): 369–80.
34. Yeh, Allan; Chun, Chris (2013). Expect Great Things, Attempt Great Things: William Carey and Adoniram Judson, Missionary Pioneers. Wipf and Stock. p. 13.
35. Aalbertinus Hermen Oussoren, William Carey, Especially his Missionary Principles (Diss.: Freie Universität Amsterdam), (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1945).
36. E. Daniels Potts. British Baptist Missionaries in India 1793–1837: The History of Serampore and its Missions, (Cambridge: University Press, 1967).
37. D. James Kennedy, "William Carey: Texts That Have Changed Lives": "It was the belief of these men that there was going to be ushered in by the proclamation of the Gospel a glorious golden age of Gospel submission on the part of the heathen. It is very interesting to note that theologically that is what is known as 'postmillennialism,' a view which is not very popular today, but was the view that animated all the men who were involved in the early missionary enterprise."
38. Thomas Schirrmacher, William Carey, Postmillennialism and the Theology of World Missions
39. "William Carey".
40. Smith, George (1885). The Life of William Carey, D.D.: Shoemaker and Missionary, Professor ..., Part 4. R & R Clark, Edinburgh. pp. 69–70.
41. Rao, Goparaju Sambasiva (1994). Language Change: Lexical Diffusion and Literacy. Academic Foundation. pp. 48 and 49. ISBN 978-81-7188-057-7. Archived from the original on 7 December 2014.
42. Carey, William (1805). A Grammar of the Marathi Language. Serampur: Serampore Mission Press. ISBN 978-1-108-05631-1.
43. Kopf, David (1969). British Orientalism and the Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization 1778-1835. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay. pp. 71, 78.
44. Brockington, John (1991–1992). "William Carey's Significance as an Indologist" (PDF). Indologica Taurinensia – the online journal of…Sanskrit studies. 17-18: 87–88. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
45. Smith 1885, p. 150>
46. Smith 1885, p. 148>
47. Smith 1885, p. 102>
48. Kopf, David (1969). British Orientalism and the Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization 1778–1835. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay. pp. 70, 78.
49. Mangalwadi, Vishal (1999). The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture. pp. 24–25. ISBN 978-1-58134-112-6.
50. Yeh page=39
51. Yeh, Allan; Chun, Chris (2013). Expect Great Things, Attempt Great Things: William Carey and Adoniram Judson, Missionary Pioneers. Wipf and Stock. p. 117.
52. "About William Carey". William Carey University. Retrieved 26 January 2017.
53. "William Carey". Christianity Today. Retrieved 7 November2016.
54. Cooper, Matthew. "The Carey Experience". Retrieved 7 November 2016.
55. "William Carey", Blue plaques, Leicester.
56. Center for Study of the Life and Work of William Carey, William Carey university.

References

• Chatterjee, Sunil Kumar. William Carey and Serampore, Calcutta, Ghosh publishing concern, 1984.
• Daniel, J.T.K.and Hedlund, R.E. (ed.). Carey's Obligation and Indian Renaissance, Serampore, Council of Serampore College, 1993.
• M.M. Thomas. Significance of William Carey for India today, Makkada, Marthoma Diocesan Centre, 1993.
• Beck, James R. Dorothy Carey: The Tragic and Untold Story of Mrs. William Carey. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992.
• Carey, William. An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. Leicester: A. Ireland, 1791.
• An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens at Project Gutenberg
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Carey, William" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Lane-Poole, Stanley (1887). "Carey, William (1761-1834)" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 9. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Marshman, John Clark. Life and Times of Carey, Marshman and Ward Embracing the History of the Serampore Mission. 2 vols. London: Longman, 1859.
• Murray, Iain. The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1971.
• Nicholls, Bruce J. "The Theology of William Carey." In Evangelical Review of Theology 17 (1993): 372.
• Oussoren, Aalbertinus Hermen. William Carey, Especially his Missionary Principles. Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1945.
• Potts, E. Daniels. British Baptist Missionaries in India 1793–1837: The History of Serampore and its Missions. Cambridge: University Press, 1967.
• Smith, George. The Life of William Carey: Shoemaker and Missionary. London: Murray, 1887.
• The Life of William Carey: Shoemaker and Missionary at Project Gutenberg
• Walker, F. Deauville. William Carey: Missionary Pioneer and Statesman. Chicago: Moody, 1951.
• Dutta, Sutapa. British Women Missionaries in Bengal, 1793-1861. U.K.: Anthem Press, 2017.

Further reading

• Carey, Eustace – Memoir of William Carey, D. D. Late missionary to Bengal, Professor of Oriental Languages in the College of Fort William, Calcutta. 1837, 2nd Edition, Jackson & Walford: London.
• Carey, S. Pearce – William Carey "The Father of Modern Missions", edited by Peter Masters, Wakeman Trust, London, 1993 ISBN 1-870855-14-0
• Cule, W.E. – The Bells of Moulton, The Carey Press, 1942 (Children's biography)
• A Grammar of the Bengalee Language (1801)
• Kathopakathan [কথোপকথন] (i.e. "Conversations") (1801)
• Itihasmala [ইতিহাসমালা] (i.e. "Chronicles") (1812)

External links

• The Church of St John the Baptist, Piddington
• William Carey biographies
• Center for the study of the life and work of William Carey, USA includes Works by and about Carey
• Works by William Carey at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about William Carey at Internet Archive
• The William Carey Experience
• The Carey Exhibition, Central Baptist Church, Leicester
• Missionary Marriage Issues: What About Dorothy?
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