Unit 1

Indian Renaissance: Introduction, Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Brahmo

Samaj
 Introduction
• What is the meaning of term Renaissance?
• New beginning
• 15th -16th century European concept.
• Marks the end of middle ages in Europe and starting of modernity
• What is the meaning of Indian Renaissance?
• New beginning in thoughts
• Started in 19th century
• European rationality to replace the superstitious indigenous belief.
• Indian Renaissance divide into two movements:
• Reformist
• Revivalist
• Reformist movements:
• Reforms within the Indian society
• Attacking the orthodox and superstitious believes and practices
• Rationality and education at the core
• Help of British Government in bringing laws to remove evil practices
• Revivalist movements
• Reviving the use and messages of Indian scriptures
• Looking for the source of knowledge in Vedas and Upanishad
• Hinduism as a universal and rationale
• Spreading of messages of the Indian scriptures
 Impact of Indian Renaissance

• Social Reforms
• Led to beginning of several social reform movements
• In Hindu as well as Muslim society
• Spread of western education
• Beginning of Indians for self introspection
• Paved way for Independence movement and national identity
formation.
 Social Awakening

• Ram Mohan Roy represented a synthesis of the thought of East and West.
• He was a learned scholar who knew over a dozen languages including Sanskrit,
Persian, Arabic, English, French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
• He was also well acquainted with Jainism and other religious movements and
sects of India. Later he made an intensive study of Western thought and culture.
• He settled in Calcutta in 1814 and soon attracted a band of young men with
whose cooperation he started the Atmiya Sabha.
• He vigorously opposed worship of idols, rigidity of caste, and prevalence of
meaningless religious rituals.
• He condemned the priestly class for encouraging and inculcating these practices.
• He preached monotheism.
• He stood for the reform of Hinduism and opposed its suppression by Christianity.
• He started a movement in 1818 against sati pratha.
• He organised groups of like-minded people to keep a strict check on such
performances and to prevent any attempt to force the widows to become Sati.
• In 1829 Lord Bentinck passed a law for abolition of sati.
 Brahmo Samaj
• In 1829 he founded a new religious society, the Brahma Sabha, later known as the
Brahmo Samaj.
• purify Hinduism and to preach theism or the worship of one God
• The new society was to be based on the twin pillars of reason and the Vedas and
Upanishads.
• The Brahmo Samaj laid emphasis on human dignity, opposed idolatry, and
criticised such social evils as the practice of Sati.
• Raja Ram Mohun Roy attacked polygamy and the degraded state to which widows
were often reduced.
• To raise the status of women he demanded that they be given the right of
inheritance and property
• Raja Ram Mohun Roy was the earliest propagators of modern education which he
looked upon as a major instrument for the spread of modern ideas in the country.
• In 1817, David Hare and Raja Ram Mohun Roy established the famous Hindu
College in Bengal.
• He maintained at his own cost an English school in Calcutta from 1817.
• In 1825 he established a Vedanta College in which courses both in Indian learning
and in Western social and physical sciences were offered.
 Brahmo Samaj after Raja Ram Mohun Roy

• The Brahmo tradition of Raja Ram Mohun Roy was carried forward after 1843 by
Devendranath Tagore.
• In 1839 he founded the Tatvabodhini Sabha to propagate Rammohun Roy’s ideas.
• The Tatvabodhini Sabha and its organ the Tatvabodhini Patrika promoted a
systematic study of India’s past in the Bengali language.
• In 1843 Debendranath Tagore reorganised the Brahmo Samaj and put new life
into it.
• The Samaj actively supported the movement for widow remarriage, abolition of
polygamy, women’s education, improvement of the ryot’s condition, and
temperance.
• From 1866, Brahmo samaj was led Bijoy Krishna Goswami by Keshub Chandra
Sen.
• Goswami bridged the gap between Brahmoism and the popular religious tradition
of Vaishnavism.
• Sen's specific focus was to reach larger numbers of non-Westernised Bengalis in
the eastern Gangetic plains and to take the movement outside Bengal to other
provinces of India.
• Keshub Sen brought in some amount of radicalism into the movement.
• He attacked caste system, by focusing on the question of women's rights, by
promoting widow remarriage and inter-caste marriages, and by raising the issue
of caste status of the Brahmo preachers, a position hitherto reserved for the
Brahmans alone.
• Split in Brahmo Samaj
• Brahmo Samaj of India led by Keshub Sen while Debendranath Tagore Adi ( original)
Brahmo Samaj
• Keshub's followers profess social progress and reform were more important than anything
else while the followers of Debendranath, who preferred to maintain their identification
with Hindu society
• Marriage Act was passed in 1872
• It legalised Brahmo marriages, which allowed inter-caste and widow marriage,
but only if the contracting parties declared themselves to be non-Hindus.
• When Sen arranged the marriage of his minor daughter with the Maharaja of
Cooch Bihar, his followers parted company and formed the Sadharan Brahmo
Samaj.
• In 1881 Sen formed his Naba Bidhan (New Dispensation) and started moving
towards a new universalist religion.