Ram Mohan Roy

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Statue of Roy on College Green, Bristol.

Ram Mohan Roy, also written as Rammohun Roy, or Raja Ram Mohun Roy (Bangla: রাজা রামমোহন রায়, Raja Rammohon Rae), (May 22, 1772 – September 27, 1833) was the founder of the Brahmo Samaj, one of the first Indian socio-religious reform movements. He turned to religious reform after a career in the service of the British East India Company and as a private moneylender. His remarkable influence was apparent in the fields of politics, public administration and education as well as religion. He is most known for his efforts to abolish the practice of sati, a Hindu funeral custom in which the widow sacrifices herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. He is credited with first introducing the word "Hinduism" (or "Hindooism") into the English language in 1816. For many years, he enjoyed a close relationship with William Carey and the Baptist missionaries at Serampore. Under his influence, one of the missionaries converted to Unitarianism. Roy corresponded with eminent Unitarians and died while staying as the guest of the Unitarian minister in Bristol, England, who preached at his funeral.

In 1828, prior to his departure to England, Rammohan founded, with Dwarkanath Tagore, the Brahmo Samaj, which came to be an important spiritual and reformist religious movement that has given birth to a number of leaders of the Bengali social and intellectual reforms. From 1821 until 1828 he had been associated with the Calcutta Unitarian Association, which he co-founded. For several years, Roy funded Unitarian publications in Calcutta. However, he thought that Indians would feel more comfortable staying within their own culture, and eventually withdrew his from the Unitarian mission although he still maintained cordial relations with its members and leaders. He also disagreed with use of Bengali for worship (insisting on Sanksrit, Persian or English). He may have been the first Brahmin to travel to England and to be buried there. For his contributions to society, Raja Ram Mohan Roy is regarded as one of the most important figures in the Bengal Renaissance. In 1829, he was awarded the title Rajah by the Moghul Emperor. Roy has been dubbed the "father of modern India"

Early life and education

Roy was born in Radhanagore, Bengal, in 1772. His family background displayed an interesting religious diversity. His father Ramkant was a Vaishnavite, while his mother Tarini was from a Shakta background. Rammohan learnt successively Bangla, Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit by the age of fifteen.

As a teenager, Roy became dissatisfied with the practices of his family, and travelled widely, before returning to manage his family property. He then worked as a moneylender in Calcutta, and from 1803 to 1814 was employed by the British East India Company. At the age of 42, he had accumulated sufficent wealth to devote himself full-time to religious pursuits and to social reform. Exposure to the preaching of Christian missionaries and to their denunciation of Indian religion and culture as polytheistic, superstitious, idolatrous and irrational led him to re-examine that tradition. Roy's monotheistic ideas were formed as early as 1804, when he published his Persian tract Tuhfat' ul muhwahhiddin (A Gift to Monotheists). Roy's study of the Upanishads had convinced him that Hinduism taught the existence of a single God, or Absolute Reality and that the development of the many deities, and of venerating their images, was a corruption of originally monotheistic Hinduism.

Exposure to Christianity

In the early 1820s, Roy assisted the Baptists at Serampore in their work of Bible translation. He worked closely with several missionaries, including a missionary from Scotland, William Adam (1796-1881), who had arrived in India in 1818 and had studied Bengali and Sanksrit in order to join the translation team. He was already making common cause with them in their campaign against Sati (widow sucicie on their husband's funeral pyre), since his own sister-in-law committed Sati in 1812. From this period, Roy also championed gender-equality. In 1821, while working on the prologue to John's Gospel, Roy found himself arguing with the missionaries about the phrase "all things were made through him", which the senior missionaries wanted to translate as "by Him". Adam sided with Roy in preferring "through Him", and shortly resigned from the Mission to become a Unitarian. Adam thought that Unitarianism might have a wider appeal in India that orthodox Christianity. William Ward one of the leaders of the Serampore Baptiss saw Adam's defection as a victory for Satan; "he lived in a country which Satan had made his own to a degree that allowed as a final blow a missionary to be converted to heathenism". "A missionary! O Lord", he declaimed, "How have we fallen." . Adam, who still saw himself as "Christian" agreed with Roy that "through" made Jesus subordinate to God, an agent of God, which he thought more acceptable theologically than "by" which made Jesus into an independent entity and compromose monotheism.

Roy as a Unitarian

By the age of ten, Rammohun had married three times, according to his polygamous caste's custom. His first wife died in childhood. He had two sons, Radhaprasad, born 1800, and Ramaprasad, born 1812, with his second wife. She died in 1824. The third wife outlived him.

Reformer

Religious Reformer

• Roy advocated monotheism, or the worship of one God.
• He denounced rituals, which he deemed meaningless and giving rise to superstitions.
• He published Bengali translations of the Vedas to prove his points.
• In 1814, with the help of young Indians, he set up the Amitya Sabha to propagate rational religious ideas.

Social Reformer

• Crusaded against social evils like sati and polygamy.
• Demanded property inheritance rights for women.
• In 1828, he set up the Brahmo Sabha to campaign against social evils.
• Due to his efforts, Governor General William Bentinck made sati illegal through an act in 1829.

Educationist

• Roy believed education to be an implement for social reform.
• In 1817, in collaboration with David Hare and Alexander Duff, he set up the Hindu College at Calcutta.
• In 1830, he helped Alexander Duff in establishing the General Assembly's Institution, by organizing the venue 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.
• He was a polyglot and was well versed in many world languages.

Journalist

• Roy published journals in English, Hindi, Persian and Bengali.
• His most popular journal was the Samvad Kaumudi. It covered topics like freedom of press, induction of Indians into higher ranks of service, and separation of the executive and judiciary.

In the social, legal and religious reforms that he advocated, Roy was moved primarily by considerations of humanity. He took pains to show that his aim was not to destroy the best traditions of the country, but merely to brush away some of the impurities that had gathered on them in the days of decadence. He respected the Upanishads and studied the Sutras. He condemned idolatry in the strongest terms. He stated that the best means of achieving bliss was through pure spiritual contemplation and worship of the Supreme Being, and that sacrificial rites were intended only for persons of less subtle intellect.

Roy campaigned for the rights of women, including the right of widows to remarry and the right of women to hold property. As mentioned above, he actively opposed polygamy, a system in which he had grown up.

He also supported education, particularly of women. He believed that English-language education was superior to the traditional Indian education system, and he opposed the use of government funds to support schools teaching Sanskrit. In 1822, he founded a school based on English education.

To overcome the social and religious evils, as he perceived them, he started a religious group known as the Brahmo Samaj. The Samaj borrowed beliefs and practices from several religions, and was eclectic in its philosophy.

Late Life

Blue plaque in Bedford Square, London

In 1831 Ram Mohan Roy travelled to the United Kingdom as an ambassador of the Mughal Empire to ensure that that Lord Bentick's law banning the practise of Sati was not overturned . He also visited France.

He died at Stapleton then a village to the north east of Bristol (now a suburb) on the 27^th September 1833 of meningitis and is buried in Arnos Vale Cemetery in southern Bristol. A statue of him was erected in College Green, Bristol in 1997. There is also a blue plaque commemorating him on his house in Bedford Square, London.

Tomb

The tomb built in 1843, located in the Arnos Vale Cemetery on the outskirts of Bristol, is in need of considerable restoration and repair. It was built by Dwarkanath Tagore in 1843, 10 years after Rammohun Roy's death due to meningitis in Bristol on Sep 27, 1833.

In September 2006 representatives from the Indian High Commission came to Bristol to mark the anniversary of Ram Mohan Roy's death, during the ceremony Hindu, Muslim and Sikh women sang Sanskrit prayers of thanks .

Following on from this visit the Mayor of Kolkata, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya (who was amongst the representatives from the India High Commission) decided to raise funds to restore the tomb.

In June 2007 businessman Aditya Poddar donated £50,000 towards the restoration of his grave after being approached by the Mayor of Kolkata for funding. .

Epitaph

The epitaph on the late 19th century stone at the tomb reads: "Beneath this stone rest the remains of Raja Rammohun Roy Bahadur, a conscientious and steadfast believer in the unity of Godhead, he consecrated his life with entire devotion to the worship of the Divine Spirit alone.

"To great natural talents, he united through mastery of many languages and distinguished himself as one of the greatest scholars of his day. His unwearied labour to promote the social, moral and physical condition of the people of India, his earnest endeavours to suppress idolatry and the rite of suttie and his constant zealous advocacy of whatever tended to advance the glory of God and the welfare of man live in the grateful remembrance of his countrymen."

Legacy

Ram Monan Roy was a major shaper of modern India. Consciosuly influenced by Christianity and by the social agenda of many missionaries as much if not more than by their religious ideas, he was convinced that India's culture and religious tradition was rational and of profound spiritual value. Against the criticism that it contained very little of lasting worth, he set out to retrieve from India's heritage what could withstand the scrutiny of a rational mind. He went further than others in what he was prepared to abandon, which for him included the Vedas. For other reformers, such as Dayanada Saraswati, the Vedas contained all religious truth as well as ancient scientific knowledge, and were not to be thrown away. The organization he founded, the Brahmo Samaj, was a pioneer of social reform, an important promoter of education and of India's autonomy and eventual independence. Its basic ideals, including gender-equality and its rejection of class-based privilege, have become part of the social framework of Indian society, at least in theory.

See also

• Brahmo Samaj

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Crawford, S. Cromwell. Ram Mohan Roy: Social, Political, and Religious Reform in 19th Century India. New York: Paragon House, 1987 ISBN 9780913729151
• Nehru, Jawahaelal. The Discovery of India. Calcutta: Signett Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990 original 1946 ISBN 0195623592
• Potts, E. Daniel. British Baptist Missionaries in India, 1793-1837: The History of Serampore and Its Missions. London: Cambridge University Press, 1967 ISBN 052105978X
• Rammohun Roy, and Mulk Raj Anand. Sati, a Writeup of Raja Ram Mohan Roy About Burning of Widows Alive. Delhi: B.R. Pub. Corp, 1989 ISBN 9788170185352
• Sankhdher, Brijendra Mohan. Rammohan Roy, the Apostle of Indian Awakening: Some Contemporary Estimates. New Delhi: Navarang, 1989 ISBN 9788170130512

External links

• A Unitarian biography of Roy Retrieved September 17, 2007.
• A learned Indian in Search of Religion Retrieved September 17, 2007.

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