Brahmo Samaj

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Brahmo Samaj (Bengali ব্রাহ্ম সমাজ Bramho Shômaj) is a social and religious movement founded during the 19th century movement known as the Bengal Renaissance.

Rabindranath Tagore succinctly explains the backdrop for the movements:

“Unfortunately, when Englishmen alighted at our doorsteps with their material power, science and philosophy, our hearts were immobile. The religious asceticism, which had assisted the positioning of India as a preceptor in the world, had withered away. At that time, we were occasionally drying our ancient manuscripts in the sun, collecting them back and storing them in our houses. We were really doing nothing. The days of our glory were visible as a shadow on the horizon far behind. Even the banks of the nearby pond appeared to be more realistic and higher than those distant hill ranges.” ^[1]

1 Background
2 Doctrine
3 See also
4 References and notes
5 External links

[edit] Background

[edit] Origin of name

Brahmo Samaj (Bengali ব্রাহ্ম সমাজ Bramho Shômaj) literally means the society of worshippers of One True God. Brahmo means one who worships Brahman, or the supreme spirit of the universe, and Samaj means a community of men. ^[2]

[edit] History and timeline

Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Ram Mohan is regarded the founder of the Brahmo Samaj

The movement was started on 20th August 1828 by Raja Rammohun Roy and his friends when they opened a place for public worship, Brahma Sabha (One God Society) on Chitpore Road (now Rabindra Sarani), Kolkata, India. It was publicly inaugurated on 11th Magh or 23rd January 1830. The former date is celebrated as Bhadrotsab (ভাদ্রোৎসব Bhadrotshôb "Bhadra celebration") and the latter as Maghotsab (মাঘোৎসব Maghotshôb "Magh celebration"). These are the two main festivals of Brahmo Samaj.

Of Roy's movement the noted physicist, Jayant Narlikar, writes:

"Roy understood that the emerging knowledge from the West could not be ignored…He was deeply appreciative of the liberal philosophical traditions of India, and he founded the Brahmo Samaj, a religious movement to popularise those enlightened ideas… Since religion played a dominant role in the public life of his times, he went on to reform religion itself… His criticism of the existing religion and its rigid practices and caste barriers was inspired by his desire to make religion consistent with the changing world of his times…"^[3]

Following the death of Raja Rammohun Roy in 1833, internal management was left entirely in the hands of Ram Chandra Vidyabagish. In 1839, Debendranath Tagore, son of Prince Dwarkanath Tagore, a friend and active supporter of Raja Rammohun Roy, joined the Sabha. On 7th Pous 1765 Shaka (1843) Debendranath Tagore and twenty others were formally initiated into what was then named Calcutta Brahmo Samaj for the first time with a signed covenant. The Pous Mela at Santiniketan starts on this day ^[4]

Keshub Chunder Sen

Keshub Chunder Sen joined the Calcutta Brahmo Samaj in 1857. This name it retained till the year of the first schism in 1866, after which it was changed to Adi (original) Brahmo Samaj. The new one was called Brahmo Samaj of India.

Although, the Brahmo Samaj movement was born in Kolkata, the idea soon spread to the rest of India. That happened to be the period when the railways were expanding and communication was becoming easier. Outside Bengal presidency some of the prominent centres of Brahmo activity were: Punjab, Sind, and Bombay and Madras presidencies. Even to this day, there are several active branches outside West Bengal. Bangladesh Brahmo Samaj at Dhaka keeps the lamp burning.^[5]

[edit] Social 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. The Brahmo Samaj Marriage Bill of 1871 enacted as the Special Marriages Act of 1872 set the age at which girls could be married to 14 ^[6].

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 re-marriage.

[edit] Aims of movement

The Brahmo Samaj aimed at developing a universal religion and that has evolved over a period. Bepin Chandra Pal has succinctly summarised the evolution,

"Raja Rammohun Roy had given us a philosophy of universal religion. But philosophy was not religion. It is only when philosophy becomes organised in ethical exercises and disciplines and spiritual sacraments that it becomes a religion. Devendranath gave us a national religion, on the foundations of the Raja’s philosophy of universal religion. To Keshub, however, was left the work of organising the Raja’s philosophy into a real universal religion through new rituals, liturgies, sacraments and disciplines, wherein were sought to be brought together not only the theories and doctrines of the different world religions but also their outer vehicles and formularies to the extent that these were real vehicles of their religious or spiritual life, divested, however, through a process of spiritual sifting, of their imperfections and errors and superstitions." ^[7]

Protap Chunder Mozoomdar

One of the major contributions was the study of other religions and going to their roots. In 1869, Keshub Chunder Sen chose from amongst his missionaries, four persons and ordained them as adhyapaks (অধ্যাপক oddhapôk) or professors of four old religions of the world – Gour Govinda Ray for Hinduism, Protap Chunder Mozoomdar for Christianity, Aghore Nath Gupta for Buddhism and Giris Chandra Sen for Islam. All of them did adequate justice to the task allotted to them. The efforts of these four persons were subsequently followed up by others in the Brahmo Samaj.

The attempt to create a universal religion has been analytically explained by Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das. Speaking in 1917 he said,

"The earlier religion of his (Keshub Chunder Sen’s) life was perhaps somewhat abstract. But his religion in developed form, as we find it, in his Navavidhan, is full of concrete symbols of all religions…This brings me to another predominant note of Bengali culture. This is the note of universality… The different sects into which our country is apparently divided, all point to this universalism. The differences are deceptive. They deceive those that are strangers to our thought and culture. Every Hindu is conscious of the underlying unity of this universalism. Read the devotional poems of the Vaishnavas, read the devotional poems of the Shaktas and the other sects, you will find they were identical in this character. The life and work of Keshub Chunder Sen also point to attempt after attempt at this very universalism. The earlier attempt was abstract in its character, brought about by what is called the universal of subtractions. It was based on this, ‘There is truth in every religion! Thus in discarding what it conceived to be false in every religion, and accepting what it conceived to be true build up a sort of an abstract universal religion.’ From Hinduism it took the Upanishads discarding the subsequent scriptures and systems. From Christianity it took the ideal of the son ship of man and the Fatherhood of God divorced from it scriptures and its traditions. From Mohammedanism it took the idea of equality of man without the characteristic traditions in which that idea lived and moved and had its being. Similarly, from all known systems of religion. But as the spiritual experience of Keshub Chunder Sen deepened, he could not remain satisfied with abstract ideas thus taken and formulated. He wanted flesh and blood for the life of his religion. It was then that he formulated what I regard, as one of the grandest attempts at universal religion… The result may or may not be considered satisfactory. But I refuse to judge it by the results. I rejoice in the glory of the attempt."^[8]

[edit] Doctrine

The fundamental principles of the Brahmo Samaj are that:

There is only one God, the creator and sustainer of the world who is infinite in power, wisdom, love and holiness (see monotheism).
The human soul is immortal, capable of eternal progress, and responsible to God for its doings.
God manifests himself directly to the human soul, and no prophets or scriptures are mediators between God and the soul.
All religious teachers and books are to be honored to the extent that they are in harmony with divine revelation to the soul.
God is to be worshipped daily by loving him and doing his will.^[9]

Additionally, Brahmos do not believe in heaven and hell as eternal, unchanging conditions of reward or punishment. Instead, they see heaven as the state of being filled with divine revelation and hell as the state of being filled with sinful thoughts.^[9]

The basic religious ideology is derived to a large extent from the Isha Upanishad, a monotheistic Hindu scripture and one of the principal Upanishads, whose tentative date is assigned the 7th century BCE.

[edit] See also

[edit] References and notes

^ Translated version from the Bengali-language Atmashakti (আত্মশক্তি Attoshokti) by Rabindranath Tagore
^ History of the Brahmo Samaj by Sivanath Sastri
^ The Scientific Edge by Jayant Narlikar.
^ "The Tagores & Society
^ There are references to some of the activities outside Bengal in History of the Brahmo Samaj by Sivanath Sastri. David Kopf has mentioned about his meeting with Brahmos outside Bengal at the All India Brahmo Conference held at Hazaribagh in 1970, in his The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind.
^ Brahma Sabha
^ The Story of Bengal’s New Era: Brahmo Samaj and Brahmananda Keshub Chunder by Bepin Chandra Pal, published in Bangabani, 1922. Reprinted in Brahmananda Keshub Chunder Sen “Testimonies in Memoriam”, compiled by G.C.Banerjee, Allahabad , 1934, Bengali section p 33.
^ From a speech delivered at a meting held at the Overtoun Hall, Kolkata on January, 1917 in memory of late Keshub Chunder Sen printed in Deshbandhu Rachanasamagra.
^ ^a ^b Liturgy of the Brahmo Samaj. The Brahmo Samaj. Retrieved on 2006-05-17.