Bengal Renaissance

• Bengal Renaissance refers largely to the social,

cultural, psychological, and intellectual changes
in Bengal during the nineteenth century, as a
result of contact between certain sympathetic
British officials and missionaries on the one
hand, and the Hindu intelligentsia on the other.

• The setting for the Bengal Renaissance was the

colonial metropolis of Calcutta.
 What is Renaissance?
• Renaissance literally “rebirth,” the period in European
civilization immediately following the Middle Ages and
conventionally held to have been characterized by a surge
of interest in Classical scholarship and values.

• The Renaissance also witnessed the discovery and

exploration of new continents, the decline of the feudal
system and the growth of commerce, and the invention or
application of such potentially powerful innovations as
paper, printing, the mariner’s compass, and gunpowder.
• To the scholars and thinkers of the day, however, it was
primarily a time of the revival of Classical learning and
wisdom after a long period of cultural decline and
stagnation.
 The Renaissance
• A rebirth of Greek and Roman ideals and a rebirth of Europe.
• Artists and sculptors of the Renaissance studied the more
realistic art of Rome.
• They used live models to help portray the human body.
• Artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michel Angelo flourished
during this time
• Intellectual ideas such as the study of history, literature, and
philosophy spread
• Started in northern Italy (Florence and Milan) and spread north
into northern Europe (esp. France, England, and Germany)
 The scientific revolution

• 1550-1700
• Mathematicians, astronomers, biologists,
physicists, and botanists made observations and
discoveries.
• Galileo proved that the Milky Way contained
many distant stars
• Francis Bacon helped to create the Scientific
Method.
• Isaac Newton explains the laws of gravity
 BACKGROUND OF BENGAL RENAISSANCE

• Before 1830, earlier than any other Asian city,

Calcutta already had a school system using
European methods of instruction and textbooks.

• On their own initiative, the urban elite had

founded Hindu College, the only European-style
institution of higher learning in Asia.
• Newspapers, periodicals, and books were being
published regularly in English and Bangla. The
city had a public library in European style.

• Calcutta also boasted a native intelligentsia

conversant with events in Europe, aware of its
own historical heritage, and progressively alert
about its own future in the modern world.
• The representatives of the British in India who were
mainly responsible for these positive aspects of
modernization were a group of "acculturated" civil,
military, and judicial officials (and some missionaries)
historiographically identified as Orientalists. They
were products of the eighteenth-century world of
rationalism, classicism, and Enlightenment.

• Many Orientalists-notably William Jones, HT

Colebrooke, William Carey. HH Wilson, and James
Prinsep- made significant contributions to the fields
of Indian philology, archeology, and history.
• It was the Orientalist training centre for British civil
servants in India known as the College of Fort William,
established in Calcutta by Governor General Wellesley
in 1800, which seemed to offer the most perfect
institutional setting for studying the results of British
Indian contact and accommodation.

• The College was the first European-created institution

of higher learning in India to welcome Indians as faculty
members and to encourage cultural exchange between
Europeans and South Asians. By enlisting the support of
qualified Orientalist scholars to improve its education
program, this College also transformed the famed
Asiatic Society, Calcutta.
• Between 1800 and 1830, in Calcutta, as a consequence of the
Orientalist impact, the Bangali intellectual was a confused but
optimistic individual striving to reconcile partially digested
alien traits and unsatisfactory indigenous traditions.

• He established relationships with British civil servants,

businessmen, and missionaries both for profit and to use
them as windows to the West. It was his good fortune that
the distance between Britain and India was great and that the
Orientalists with whom he associated had become
"Indianized. The Bangali view of the West during the
sympathetic Orientalist period helped to establish good
rapport between Europeans and Indians offering hope for the
future.
 There were four aspects of the Renaissance
movement, which the Bangali intelligentsia
developed systematically throughout the nineteenth
century.

• First, there was the modernization of the Bengali

language and the simultaneous birth of a new
Bangali literature.
• Secondly, there was the rediscovery of, and
identification with an Indian classical era hailed as a
golden age which placed South Asian civilisation on a
par with the grandeur of Greece and Rome.
• Thirdly, there was the Serampore missionary
interpretation of the Protestation Reformation,
which Indians applied creatively to their own
historic situation.

• And finally, there was the secular view of

universal progress on which India's hope lay not
in resurrecting the past but in projecting the
golden age into the future.
• The College of Fort William
hired the Baptist missionary,
William Carey, in 1801.
• the Bengali Grammar,
completed in 1801.
• Greatly influenced by Carey's
work was Ram Comul Sen,
the earliest known
Renaissance scholar among
the Bangali intelligentsia.
• Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-
1833)
• Henry Derozio (1809-
1831)
 Brahma Sabha (later Brahma Samaj)

• Brahmo Samaj  is a Hindu reform movement.  It was one of

the most influential religious movements in India and made a
significant contribution to the making of modern India. 

• 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. 
• Rammohun's quest for religious truth had led him to study
with an open mind the scriptures of all major religions. Thus
he had not only studied the Hindu scriptures such as the
Vedas in Sanskrit; he also read the Quran in Arabic and the
Bible in Hebrew and Greek. His study of different religions
convinced him that since every religion had the same end,
namely, the moral regeneration of mankind, each stood in
need of reinterpretation and reassessment in changing
circumstances of the time.
• Therefore, he thought there was no reason for him to give up
Hinduism and accept any other religion. He would accept the
universal moral teachings of every religion but without its
dogma, ritual and superstition.

• After a period of much groping his religious views took some

definite shape by 1828 when in August of that year he
established the Brahma Sabha (later Brahma Samaj) or
Society of God. Although this newborn society had the claim
to be regarded as a universal religion, it became and
remained a sect of Hinduism. The religious tenets of the new
creed were embodied in the Trust Deed of the Brahma Samaj.
• The movement for religious reform received a setback after
the death of Rammohun Roy in 1833 in England.
Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the son of Rammohun's
close friend and associate DWARKANATH TAGORE (1794-
1846), however, soon took the unfinished work upon himself.
Under his leadership the Brahma Samaj movement assumed a
new height and character.
• Debendranath established a society called Tattvabodhini
Sabha in 1839 that aimed at propagation of the new creed. He
also began to publish a newspaper called TATTVABODHINI
PATRIKA, which while propagating the new faith also
advocated the cause of social reform. During this period there
was mounting Christian missionary propaganda offensive
against Hinduism.

• The infallibility of the Vedas began to be questioned by the

radical section of the Brahma Samaj amongst whom the most
prominent was AKSHAY KUMAR DATTA (1820-1886).
• Hitherto Vedic infallibility had been regarded as the essential
part of the Brahma religious creed. Around 1847 the Brahma
leaders after a thorough scrutiny were convinced that the
doctrine of Vedic infallibility was no longer tenable. Hence
attempt was made to reconstruct the Brahma religious creed
based on selected passages of the Upanisads which contained
monotheistic ideas.

• The revised doctrine of the Brahma Samaj was published in 1850

in the form of a book called Brahma Dharma or Religion of the
Worshippers of One True God. It is to be noted that though the
Vedas were repudiated, the essential Hindu character of the
Brahma movement was retained. 
• Debendranath infused a new life into the Brahma Samaj,
which had become somewhat moribund after the death of
Rammohun Roy.

• The movement became much more broad-based under the

dynamic leadership of KESHAB CHANDRA SEN (1838-1884),
who had joined the Samaj in 1857 and within a year became
the right hand man of Debendranath.
• In 1868 Keshab Chandra Sen formed a new organisation called
'The Brahma Samaj of India'. The other organisation led by
Debendranath Tagore came to be known as Adi Brahma Samaj
(original or Early Brahma Samaj).

• Keshab Sen through his lecture tours of Bombay, Madras and

other places spread the message of the Brahma Samaj
throughout the greater part of India. It was chiefly at his
initiative that the Civil Marriage Act was passed in 1872. It
provided for performance of secular marriage without
religious rites. The Act also made monogamy obligatory and
fixed the minimum age of bride and bridegroom at 14 and 18
respectively.
• Keshab Sen redefined the Brahma religious creed introducing
certain new elements. He sought to imbibe the essence of
Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam and produce a
grand synthesis. He sincerely believed that 'all religions are
true'. He, however, inculcated the popular Hindu conception
of Bhakti or devotional fervour in his religious practice and
stressed the doctrine of 'God in conscience'.
• But certain ideas and actions of Keshab Sen caused misgivings
among his followers, particularly the young and radical
elements. They disliked his zealous profession of loyalty to
British Government and also resented his conduct relating to
the marriage of his daughter to Raja of Cooch Behar. Both the
bride and the bridegroom were minor and Brahmin priests
performed the marriage ceremony according to orthodox
Hindu rites.
• Eventually led by Sivnath Sastri (1847-1918) and ANANDA
MOHAN BOSE (1847-1906) the radical elements broke away
from Keshab Sen's Samaj and founded the Sadharan Brahma
Samaj in 1878. It framed a constitution based on adult
franchise and proclaimed its desire to promote the creation of
a universal religion. Despite its lofty pretensions, however, the
Brahma movement did not make much headway and began to
lose its force. Renascent Hinduism of the late nineteenth
century had begun to absorb most of the religious and social
ideas of the Brahma Samaj movement.
Thanks!