History of Brahmo Samaj(Source: Brahmo Samaj Website)

Below is given a chronolgy of the history of the Brahmo Samaj movement.

1772 Rammohun born in Radhanagore, Bengal on 22nd May.

1815 Rammohun settles down in Calcutta. Starts the Atmiya Sabha, translation
of Vedanta published.

1816 Translation and publication of the Kena and Isha Upanishads in Bengali
and English. Abridgement of Vedanta in English, Hindusthani and Bengali.
Translation of Katha and Mandukya Upanishads in Bengali.

1818 A Bengali tract on Suttee. A tract explaining the meaning of Gayatri.

English translation of the tract on Suttee.

1819 Celebrated verbal duel between Subrahmanya Sastri and Rammohun at the
house of Behari Lal Chaubey in Barrabazar.

1820 English translation of the second tract on Suttee. The Precepts of Jesus, the
Guide to Peace and Happiness published.

1823 Establishment of the Calcutta Unitarian Committee by Rammohun Roy,

Dwarkanath Tagore, and William Adam

1825 Establishment of the Vedanta College for the teaching of the monotheistic
doctrines of the Upansihads

1828 Establishment of the Brahmo Dharma on 20th August, 6th Bhadra 1234
B.E. at the house of Feranghi Kamal Bose which was rented for the
occasion

1829 Lord William Bentinck passes the abolition of Sutte act on 4th December
1829. The orthodox Hindus go up in arms against Rammohun and Raja
Radhakanta Deb formed a rival association called Dharma Sabha

1830 Rammohun Roy opens the door of the first theistic church on 23rd January
1830 (11th Magh 1236 B.E.). Leaves for Europe on 19th November.

1833 Rammohun Roy breathes his last on 27th September at Beech House in
Stapleton Grove in Bristol

1839 Tattwabodhini Sabha, or truth-teaching society, started by Debendranath

Tagore to arrest Trinitarian Christian conversions in Bengal.

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1843 Debendranath and 20 of his associates are formally initiated in the Brahmo
Samaj by Ramchandra Vidyabagish on December 21, (7th Paush 1765
B.E.). Birth of Brahmo Samaj when Debendranath institutionalizes
Rammohun's ideology of Hindu reform. Vedanta accepted as the authentic
scriptural source of Hinduism

1851 Akkhoy Kumar Datta convinces Debendranath to give up Vedanta as the

"book" of the Hindus.

1855 Renewal of Unitarian influence on Brahmoism when Charles Dall,

American Unitarian missionary arrives in Calcutta. The British India
Society established with Rev. James Long and Rev. Charles Dall. Dall was
the only non-Indian member of the Brahmo Samaj, to remain in Calcutta to
his death in 1885

1857 Keshub Chandra Sen, charismatic theistic reformer, joins the Brahmo
Samaj as disciple of Debendranath

1859 Tattwabodhini Sabha abolished after Pt. Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, its
famous secularist reformer and secretary, resigns in protest against Keshub.
Keshub sets up the Brahmo School where weekly lectures were delivered
and these lectures were widely attended.

1860 Keshub begins publishing tracts which were the trumpet call of the new
Brahmoism and the first chapter was called,"Young Bengal, this is for
you". Establishment of the Sangat Sabha.

1861 Keshub and the younger Brahmos try to convince older Brahmos of the
need for practical social reforms and a mission society. Debendranath's
eldest daughter Sukumari was married according to the reformed rites of
the Brahmo Samaj on 26th July. Keshub starts a fortnightly called The
Indian Mirror.

1862 Debendranath elevated Keshub Chandra Sen to the post of Minister or

Acharya of the Samaj on 13th April and confers upon him the tite of
Brahmanand.

1866 Formal schism between liberal younger Brahmos and conservative older
Brahmos leads to creation of the Brahmo Samaj of India under Keshub at a
meeting held in the house of the Calcutta College on 11th November.

1867 Brahmo missionaries first propagate the Hindu reformation across the
subcontinent, making use of the railway system. Bijoy Krishna Goswami
persuades Keshub to use Vaishnavism in the service of Brahmoism

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1868 Keshub laid the foundation stone of his new church - the Tabernacle of
New Dispensation on 24th January.

1869 Keshub consecrates the newly constructed chapel was on 22nd August

1870 Keshub visits England as a spokesman for the Hindu reformation. Keshub
establishes the Indian Reform Association on 29th October, primarily to
publish cheap literature for the poor, fight against alcoholism and to
educate women.

1872 Marital reform among the Brahmo community finally wins approval of the
government with the enactment of Act III, the Brahmo Marriage Act. The
new tradition of reformed Hinduism is forcefully articulated before
orthodox Hindu leaders of Calcutta by Adi Brahmo Samaj president,
Rajnarian Bose, in a lecture entitled "The Superiority of Hinduism."

1874 Liberal faction within Brahmo Samaj of India organizes the Samadarshi
party to counter Keshub's growing conservatism. Keshub abandons
Unitarian gospel of social reform, turning instead to the intellectual study
of all major Eurasian religions. He and his disciples begin a series of
elaborate seminars known as "Pilgrimages to the Saints."

1876 Political-minded members of the Samadarshi party found the Indian

Association in support of the moderate nationalist ideology of
Surendranath Banerjee. The movement leads a decade later to the
formation of the Indian National Congress.

1878 Marriage of Keshub's eldest daughter, Suniti, to the Maharaja of Cooch

Behar, Prince Nripendra Narayan, in violation of the Brahmo Marriage Act
of 1872, becomes exciting cause for a second major schism in Brahmo
history. Samadarshi party reconstitutes itself as the Sadharan Brahmo
Samaj.

1879 Keshub and his loyal followers inaugurate the Nava Vidhan, or New
Dispensation Church, with Keshub as prophet of a universal religion.

1884 Death of Keshub followed by renewed factionalism within the New

Dispensation between the Vaishnava-dominated Durbar and the Christian
Unitarian group headed by P C Moozomdar

1886 Resignation of Bijoy Krishna Goswami as Missionary, indicative of

factional struggle within the Sadharan Samaj between devout Vaishnava
theists and the rationalist Vedantists led by Sitanath Tattvabhusan.
Differences are reconciled, however, by Sivanath Shastri, Sadharan
Brahmo Samaj spiritual leader.

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1891 Brahmo philanthropy among Bengal's urban and rural poor considerably
extended with the creation of the Das Ashram under the direction of
Ramananda Chatterji

1893 P C Moozomdar invited by American Unitarians to help organize the first

world Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

1907 Bengali Brahmos start the Society for the Improvement of Backward
Classes, which is the earliest pioneering movement in India dedicated to
ameliorating the conditions of Hindu untouchables.

1911 Rabindranath Tagore assumes leadership of the Adi Brahmo Samaj, and
becomes charismatic hero of younger generation of Brahmos. His action
arrests growing tendency of Brahmos to defect to revolutionary
nationalism./td>

1912 According to Sivanath Shastri, the peak of Brahmo expansion is reached by

this year, when 232 Samajes were reportedly active throughout the
subcontinent.

1913 Rabindranath honoured with Nobel Prize in Literature for his work
Gitanjali (Song Offerings).

1921 Rabindranath Tagore formally inaugurates Visva Bharati University at

Shantineketan as an expression of Brahmo universalism.

1941 Death of Rabindranath on 7th August signifies end of an era and the
decline of the Brahmo Samaj per se. But his philosophic program of fusing
Hinduism with Brahmo ideas and ideals lives on among the progressive
middle-class Hindus of contemporary India.

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 Early life
Rammohun Roy was born in the village called Radhanagore of
Khanakul, Hooghly a district in West Bengal on May 22, 1772. His
father Ramakanta Roy was an orthodox Brahmin and his mother was
Tarini Devi. Rammohun was educated in Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit &
Bengali. He studied the works of great scholars and evolved into a free
thinker. This also led him to leave home on
more than once occasion and finally be driven
away from his home by his father. On one of
these occasions he landed up in Tibet to study
Buddhism but again incurred the wrath of the
teacher and his disciples owing to his radical free thinking and
protests against Lama worshipping and idolatry.

After the death of his father in 1803 he moved down to

Murshidabad where he published a Persian treatise with an
Arabic preface entitled, "Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin" or "A Gift to
Monotheism" in 1805. This book gave a great deal of offence to the orthodox Muslims.
During his tenure as the Dewan of Rangpur district under the East India Company he used
to hold discussion meetings in the evening with members of Hindus, Muslims and Jains.
In addition to a knowledge of the ancient Vedantic literature he also studied the Tantric
works with the aid of Hariharananda Tirthaswami. He also mastered the Kalpa Sutra and
other Jain texts. He also improved his knowledge of English with private study and took a
keen interest in European politics and followed the cause of the French Revolution.

Ancestral House at Radhanagore

Atmiya Sabha
In 1814 Rammohun came and settled in Calcutta and in 1815 founded the Atmiya Sabha -
an association for the dissemination of the religious truth and the promotion of free
discussions of theological subjects. Amongst the rich and influential who gathered around
him at that time were Prince Dwarkanath Tagore of Jorasanko, Prasanna Kumar Tagore of
Pathuriaghata, Kali Nath and Baikuntha Nath Munshi of Taki, Raja Kali Shankar Ghoshal
of Bhukailash etc. But the meetings of the Sabha were not the only means to propagate his
doctrines. Here recital and expounding of Hindu scriptures were done and Govinda Mala
would sing songs composed by Rammohun. In 1819 there took place a celebrated debate

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between Rammohun and Subrahmanya Sastri on the subject of idol worship in presence of
the leading citizens of Calcutta including Raja Radhakanta Deb and Rammohun
vanquished his adversary.

Publications & Literary Works

During the course of his researches into the domain of Sanskrit literature Rammohun was
struck by the purity of the monotheistic doctrines of the Upanishads which were in sharp
contrast with the prevailing corruptions of Hindu idolatry. He decided to publish the
Upansihads with his own preface and translations. These books produced an intense and
wide spread agitation in the Indian society. He published the Vedanta
(1815), Ishopanishad (1816), Kathopanishad (1817), Moonduk
Upanishad (1819), The Precepts of Jesus - Guide to Peace and
Happiness (1820), Sambad Kaumudi - a Bengali newspaper (1821),
Mirat-ul-Akbar - Persian journal (1822), Bengali Grammar (1826),
Brahmapasona (1828), Brahmasangeet (1829) and The Universal
Religion (1829). Ramohun was also instrumental in setting up the Hindoo College in 1817
in Calcutta, which was renamed as Presidency College in 1856 when it was taken over by
the government. He also tried his utmost to repeal the Press Censorship Act of 1823, and
even appealed to the King of England. Though his efforts proved fruitless at that time -
the Act was finally repealed in 1835. Rammohun was the first to compose Dhrupad songs
in Bengali in 1828. He felt the need of Dhrupad songs - noted for their depth, grandeur,
simplicity and absence of decorative tonal effusion - for his Brahmo Sabha meetings.
Tappa and Thungri, he felt, were much too frolicsome for such occasions. He composed
thirty-two songs in Dhrupad style and introduced them in Brahmo Sabha gatherings.

Work with Unitarians

Mr. William Adam, a young Baptist missionary who had come over from
England, mentioned openly in 1821 that he was converted into Unitarian
doctrines through the influence of Rammohun Roy. Rammohun wrote in
the Brahminical magazine where he assailed the Trinitariansim of
Christianity and tried to prove that it was no better than the Hindu
polytheism. This gave rise to great scandal amongst the orthodox
Christian community. Rammohun also helped William Adam to set up a
Unitarian mission in Calcutta in 1823. Till 1828 Rammohun regularly
attended the Unitarian Sunday service of Mr. Adam. In fact he called
himself to be a Hindu Unitarian, and he silenced his critics by saying,
"Because I feel already weary of the doctrine of Man God or God Man frequently
inculcated by the Brahmins in pursuance of their corrupt traditions and the same doctrine
of Man God though preached by another body of
priests cannot effectually tend to excite my anxiety
to listen to it. Because Unitarians believe, profess,
inculcate the doctrine of divine unity, a doctrine
which I find firmly maintained both by Christian
scriptures and by our most ancient writings
commonly called the Vedas."

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Foundation of Brahmo Samaj
On 6th Bhadra, 20th August 1828 the first Samaj was opened at the house of Feranghi
Kamal Bose which was rented for the occasion. Meetings of the Samaj were held every
Saturday. This new theistic service was called
Brahma Sabha or "One God Society." This
attracted the masses and had a large number of
sympathisers. Also during this time Lord William
Bentinck declared the abolition of Sutte act on 4th
December 1829, due to Rammohun's tireless
agitation against this evil practice. The orthodox
Hindus under Raja Radhakanta Deb formed a rival
association called Dharma Sabha to ridicule and
protest against Rammohun's actions. In the midst of this furious party contests Rammohun
opened his new church on 11th Magh, or 23rd January 1830. In 1825 he also opened the
Vedanta College for the teaching of the monotheistic doctrines of the
Upansihads.

Visit to Europe
Rammohun left the management of his Samaj to his
well wishers and left for the shores of England in
1830. His main object was to plead before the authorities of the East
India Company the case of the ex - emperor of Delhi who had made
Rammohun his ambassador and conferred upon him the title of Raja
or king. His other object was to baffle his adversaries who were trying
to get Bentinck's Suttee act repealed and also to be present in the
Britsh parliament for the deliberations of the renewal of the charter of
East India Company. In England he
met among others the historian
William Roscoe, and the philosopher
Jeremy
Bentha
m. In
London
he was
publicly
received at the Annual meeting of the Unitarians of England.
He also presented 3 papers on the Revenue System of India,
Judicial System of India and the Material Condition of India
before a committee of the House of
Commons. He was also present at the
coronation of George IV and was personally
presented to the king. He visited France
towards the end of 1832 where he had the
honour of dining with the French king more
than once. In 1833 he returned to England
where he saw that the parliament turn down

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the appeal of his adversaries against the abolition of Suttee and also the renewal of the
charter of the East India Company.
He visited Bristol in 1833 at the
invitatio
n of
Miss
Mary
Carpent
er and
other Unitarian friends. Rammohun breathed his last on 27th
September 1833 in Bristol at the Beech House in Stapleton
Grove. He was buried in the garden of Stapleton Grove and ten years later his mortal
remains were laid to rest at Arnos Vale cemetery by Prince Dwarkanath Tagore. The
design of the mausoleum was done by William Prinsep. The Bristol city council now
honours Rammohun with a statue, built in 1997 at the city centre.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in his The India Struggle called Rammohun Roy "the apostle
of a religious revival" in India. He writes "...He urged a return to the original principles of
Vedantism and for a total rejection of all the religions and social impurities that had crept
into Hinduism in later times. He also advocated an all-round
regeneration of the social and national life and the acceptance of
all that is useful and beneficial in the modern life of Europe. Raja
Rammohun Roy therefore stands out against the dawn of the new
awakening in India as the prophet of the new age."

In his inaugural address read at the Sri Ramkrishna Centenary

Parliament of Religion and published in the Modern Review in
April 1937, Dr Brajendranath Seal said:
"Rammohun Roy, the precursor and in a very real sense the father of Modern India,
sought the Universal Religion, the common basis of the Hindu, Moslem, Christian and
other faiths. He found that each of the national religions was based on this common faith
with a certain distinctive historical and cultural embodiment.
"It is fundamental to note that Rammohun Roy played two roles in his own person:
As an universalist he formulated the creed of what was called Neo-theophilanthropy (a
new love of God and man) on positive and constructive lines. He construed the Gayatri on
this basis. And, strange to say, this Hindu became one of the forefathers of the Unitarian
creed and worship in the West, the other three being Prince, Priestly and Canning.

As a Nationalist Reformer, Rammuhun Roy had a three-fold mission:

As a Hindu Reformer, he gave a Unitarian reaction of the Hindu Shastras from the
Vedanta and the Mahanirvana Tantra
As a Moslem defender of he faith, he wrote the Tuhfat-Ul-Muwahhiddin and the
Monozeautul Adiyan, which were polemical works, and
As a Christian, he gave a Unitarian version of the entire body of scriptures, old and new,
in his controversies with the Christian Missionaries

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 Early life
Debendranath was the eldest son of Prince Dwarkanath Tagore,
who was often referred to as the "Indian Croesus" and was born
in Jorasanko, in Calcutta, West Bengal.

Being the son of a Prince he was brought up in a lap of luxury

surrounded by pomp and power. Yet providence led
Debendranath to turn his back upon all pleasures and follies of
youth at an early age. The silent observation of the stars one
night on the bank of Ganges beside his
grandmother's death bed filled his mind
with wonder and the thought dawned on him that the grand
universe that he saw before him could not have proceeded from
any finite being. Thakurbari One day in a state of extreme misery,
while pacing up and down he noticed a stray leaf of a book flying
past him. It was written in Sanskrit and those that knew better told
him it was a page from the Upanishads. Ram Chandra Vidyabasgish who explained the
meaning of the sloka to him. It was the opening verse of the Ishaponishad which said
"God is immanent in all things, in whatsoever lives and moves in the universe; enjoy
therefore without being attached; covet not wealth belonging to the others." From that day
his course of life was changed forever.

Tattwabodhini Sabha
Along with the awakening of the soul and the influence of Raja
Rammohun Roy began asserting himself. In October 1839, he
along with his friends started the Tattwaranjini Sabha which was
later renamed to Tattwabodhini Sabha. Its object was the
dissemination of the knowledge of the Upanishads and promotion of religious enquiry. In
two years there were 500 members and also attracted rich and influential men of Bengal.
Pt. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was for sometime the secretary of this Sabha. It was the
largest and most influential cultural organisation of Bengal and it lasted till 1854. It also
had a printing press and Debendranath started publishing the Tattwabodhini Patrika. This
Patrika became the principal organ of the Samaj for propagating
its views. It taught men to think seriously and speak earnestly. It
inaugurated the era of earnest journalism in Bengal. It was
published in five different languages from five different centres -
in Bengali from Calcutta, in Tamil
and English from Madras and in
Hindi and Urdu from Bareilly.

Public Initiation into Brahmoism

Debendranath framed a covenant for the adoption of the

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Church and to introduce a regular form of Church service, including thanks giving, praise
and prayer. Having framed this covenant 20 of his young associates joined him on
December 21, 1843 (7th Paush, 1765 B.E.). This led the step for converting Brahmo
Samaj into a spiritual fraternity. This day is still commemorated by holding the annual
Poush Mela at Shantiniketan. The history of the place goes back to the 1860s, when
Debendranath was stuck by the beauty of the place. The
westernmost corner of Bengal, Birbhum is a red laterite soil
zone, watered by the several rain-fed rivulets. Passing
through the village commons of Bhuvandanga (an area once
avoided by travellers because of dacoits), Maharshi was
captivated by the kaleidoscopic beauty of two luxuriantly
canopied Chhatim trees, offering shade in that barren, red land. To the Maharshi, this was
an idyllic venue for meditating. So he bought a large tract of land along with the two
Chhatim trees and built a beautiful prayer hall made from coloured glass. Trees were
planted all around to bring the ancient forest-ashram look. In keeping with the spirit of the
place, Maharshi named it Shantiniketan or the abode of peace.

Brahmo Dharma and its propagation

In the year 1845 there was controversy with the Christians
regarding the conversion of Umesh
Chandra Sarkar and his wife.
Debendranath used the Patrika to
condemn such practices and the
Christians attacked the Brahmo
theology claiming it to be solely
dependant on the Vedas. This led to Debendranath
questioning the Vedic infallibility and he wanted
to keep the religion on the old lines of the Hindu
scriptures. Accordingly he made a compilation of
the selected passages from the Upanishads
inculcating the Truths of monotheism. This was published in the form
of a book called the Brahmo Dharma or the Religion of the Worshipper
so the One True God. He also laid down certain fundamental principles
of Natural Theism for acceptance of the members of the Samaj. The
anniversary festival was held in 1850 with new music, new covenant
and new prayers, and a marble pulpit was added to the Samaj - this was
the Adi Brahmo Samaj, though its present state is in ruins.

The Patrika wrote articles supporting female education, widow re-marriage, crying against
intemperance, denouncing polygamy, rationalise Brahmo doctrines and run the church on
constitutional principles. A noteworthy feature of this period was the establishment of
various Samajes in and around Calcutta. During this time Akshay Kumar Datta started a
Friends Society - the younger members ventilated their feelings on the need for reforms
and finally withdrew themselves from the Samaj only to forma separate samaj of their
own. This was soon followed by the great schism in 1866 when the Navavidhan Brahmo
Samaj or the Brahmo Samaj of India was born. Debendranath kept himself aloof and

10
retired to hills of Simla in 1856 and occupied himself with prayer and meditation and
studied closely the works Kant, Fichte, Victor Cousin etc. as well as writings of Hindu
theologians and the Persian poet Hafiz. As a result of his studies he concluded that the
broad universal basis of natural theism was that it was religion that explains the scriptures
and not the scriptures religion.

Debendranath was essentially a Hindu in all his spiritual aims and aspirations. For his
ideals of religion he never turned to the West. In matters of spiritual life he never made
any visible approach, even of sympathising friendship towards Christ and his church. The
Jewish and Christian concept of heaven and salvation seemed to him so anthropo-morphic
that he passed them off with silent contempt and turned to the Hindu conception of God as
immanent in matter and mind. In his work with the Brahmo Samaj he had two princples -
1) the Brahmo Samaj is a purely Hindu institution intended for Hindus and deals with the
highest form of Hinduism and 2) its mission is chiefly religious rather than social. He was
one of the first men in Bengal to open the doors of high education to women and indeed in
his own family.

Early Life
Keshub Chandra Sen was the son of Peary Mohan Sen and
the grandson of Dewan Ram Kamal Sen. He was born into a
deeply religious Vaishnava family and from his childhood
he was surrounded by religious influences.

From an early part of his life he showed an aptitude for

influencing other people's minds and at the age of 17, in
1855 he established "The
British India Society" where
Rev. James Long and Rev.
Dall - the Unitarian
missionary took part. The society opened an evening
school at the house of Sen. At this age there was an
incident during a college examination which left a deep
mark on him. He married in 1856 and in his lecture "Am I
an Inspired Prophet" he writes "I entered the world with
ascetic ideas; and my honeymoon was spent amid auterities in the house of the Lord".

Joining Brahmo Samaj

He joined the Brahmo Samaj in 1857 by privately signing the Brahmo covenant and took
to studying mental and moral philosophy. He developed prayer as means of spiritual
illumination and sustenance. He studied the writings of Theodor Parker and developed a
society called "Goodwill Fraternity" in his house and developed lectures on moral and
religious subjects. Debendranath Tagore gave Keshub a warm welcome and an attachment

11
sprang up between them the like of which has seldom been seen. Hundreds began to flock
into the services of the Samaj to hear them speak and the songs composed by
Satyendranath, the second son of Maharshi was the talk of the town. This can be regarded
as the second great revival of the Brahmo Samaj.

In 1859 he set up the Brahmo School where weekly lectures were delivered and was
greatly popular with the rising generation. In 1860 he began publishing tracts which was
the trumpet call of the new Brahmoism and the first chapter was called,"Young Bengal,
this is for you".

Sangat Sabha
During this time in 1860, the Sangat Sabha was established - which was a society of
fellow believers to promote mutual spiritual intercourse amongst its members. This sabha
sowed the seeds of new Brahmoism. Keshub broke away from the mere intellectual assent
and imbibed a new inspiration from the Western sources. A careful study of the Bible,
works of Theodor Parker and Prof. Newman brought about the Christian spirit of
repentance and prayer.

Brahmananda
On 13th April, 1862, Debendranath elevated Keshub Chandra Sen to the post of Minister
or Acharya of the Samaj. After the divine service he presented him with a Brahmo
Dharma and a formal appointment letter and conferred upon him the title of Brahmananda
- meaning one whose delight is God. However this was not looked upon well by the older
members of the Samaj and some of them ceased to attend the services. On 26th July 1861,
the eldest daughter of Debendranath, Sukumari was married according to the reformed
rites of the Brahmo Samaj. Debendranath followed the ritual of the orthodox Hindu
marriages but excluded the idolatrous bits. This was hailed as a great step towards social
reform.

The Schism
The flames of the conflict between the young and the old were
heightened further with the young protesting against the custom of
allowing sacred thread - bearing Brahmins to occupy its pulpits. This led
to Debendranath removing them from all office and power of the Samaj.
To counter the Tattwabodhini Patrika, the young started the
Dharmatattwa. He started the 'Indian Mirror' as a fortnightly in 1861 and
made it into a daily in 1871. In 1862 Keshub undertook the ministry of
one of its branches. In the same year he helped to found the Albert
College and started the Indian Mirror, a weekly journal in which social
and moral subjects were discussed. In 1863 he wrote The Brahma Samaj
Vindicated. He also travelled about the country lecturing and preaching.
In 1865 Keshub delivered a lecture on Struggle for Religious Independence where he
condemned the high - handed feelings of the Calcutta (Adi) Brahmo Samaj and a
representation was sent to Debendranath signed by Keshub, P C Mozoomdar and others.
On 11th November 1866 a meeting was held in the house of the Calcutta College and the
Brahmo Samaj of India was formally established. At this time there were 54 Samajes in

12
India, 50 in Bengal, 2 in North Western Province, one in Punjab and the other in Madras.
After the schism, the Adi Brahmo Samaj quietly retreated to its position of Hindu
monotheism - and Debendranath remained silent and never replied to any of the
accusations. He also retired from active work of the Samaj and spent most of his time
travelling and occasionally visiting Calcutta.

The tenets of the Brahmo Samaj of India at ths time were the following: (1) The wide
universe is the temple of God. (2) Wisdom is the pure land of pilgrimage. (3) Truth is the
everlasting scripture. (4) Faith is the root of all religions. (5) Love is the true spiritual
culture. (6) The destruction of selfishness is the true asceticism. In 1866 he delivered an
address on - Jesus Christ, Europe and Asia, which led to the false impression that he was
about to embrace Christianity.

New Dispensation
On 24th January 1868, Keshub laid the foundation stone of his new
church, the Tabernacle of New Dispensation and the newly
constructed chapel was consecrated on 22nd August
1869. He declared, "we believe in the Church
Universal, which is the respiratory of all ancient
wisdom and the receptacle of all modern science,
which recognise in all prophets and saints a harmony,
in all scriptures a unity and though all dispensations a
continuity, which abjures all that separates and
divides and always magnifies unity and peace, which
harmonises reason, faith and Bhakti, asceticism and
social duty in their highest forms and which shall make of all nations and sects one
kingdom and one family in the fullness of time." In the anniversary festival of 1879,
Keshub announced the birth of the New Dispensation. He introduced into the church the
Pilgrimage to saints, the Homa ceremony, the Baptismal ceremony, the Lord's supper, the
Flag ceremony, the Arati, the vow of Poverty, the Savitri Vrata, the Nightingale Vrata,
and other innovations. He mentions that this New Dispensation is "...a Divine message
sent to India... It comes not to destroy but to fulfil the law and the prophets." His most
important contribution is the habit of daily devotion. He felt the necessity of daily
domestic devotion and laid down the essential condition of domestic life in his Nava
Samhita In 1869, universalism was further strengthened by publishing of four books -
Gour Govinda Roys' work on the Gita, P C Mozoomdar's book The Oriental Christ, Aghor
Nath Gupta's study on Buddha and Girish Chandra Sen's Tapasmala - life of Muslim
saints and his Bengali translation of Koran and Hadis. There was also a Pilgrimage to the
Saints - special service held in the memory of great men like Moses, Socrates, Sakya, The
Rishis, Christ, Muhammad, Chaitanya, Scientific men.

Visit to England
1870 he paid a visit to England. The Hindu preacher was warmly welcomed by almost all
denominations, particularly by the Unitarians, with whose creed the new Brahma Samaj
had most in common, and it was the committee of the British and Foreign Unitarian
Association that organised the welcome soire at Hanover Square Rooms on the 12th of

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April. Ministers of ten different denominations were on the platform, and among those
who officially bade him welcome were Lord Lawrence and Dean Stanley. He remained
for six months in England, visiting most of the chief towns. His eloquence, delivery and
command of the language won universal admiration. His own impression of England was
somewhat disappointing. Christianity in England appeared to him too sectarian and
narrow, too muscular and hard, and Christian life in England more materialistic and
outward than spiritual and inward. He said, "I came here an Indian, I go back a confirmed
Indian; I came here a Theist, I go back a confirmed Theist. I have learnt to love my own
country more and more". These words spoken at the farewell soire may furnish the key to
the change in him which so greatly puzzled many of his English friends.

Cooch Behar Marriage and the schism

In 1877 there was a strong rumour that Keshub was giving his
eldest daughter, Suniti, in marriage to the young Maharaja of
Cooch Behar. The main reason for the controversy was Suniti
was not yet 14, the minimum age according to Marriage Act,
1872 and the Raja a lad of fifteen. By 1878 the information
received by the Brahmos was 1) The marriage was to take
place immediately prior to departure of the prince to England,
2)It will be celebrated according to the Cooch Behar rituals
with idolatrous portions expunged 3)Keshub's brother Krishna Behari Sen was to give
away the bride as Keshub having lost caste would be excluded from the function and 4)
Cooch Behar priests will be officiating the service and no Brahmo service or Brahmo
ministers will have anything to do with the ceremony. 23 Brahmos signed a letter of
protest but Keshub did not even read the letter far less reply to it. As per the official
records of Cooch Behar, "The rites observed were Hindu in all esential features though in
deference to the religious principles of the bride's father, idolatrous mantras were
ommitted and the presence of an idol was dispensed with. Care was, however taken to
retain whatever the Brahmins considered essential to the validity of the marriage". The
constitutionalists had organised themselves in to a party called Samadarshi or Liberal in
1874 and started a paper called Samadarshi to voice their opinion. A lot of Brahmos and
provincial Samajes voiced their concerns and as a result of the meeting held in the Town
Hall on 15th May 1878, the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj was born.

David Kopf mentions in his book, "The indictment of Keshub for having married off his
eldest daughter in violation of every Brahmo precept has generally been accepted in
historical surveys, which treat the marriage as a disaster from every point of view and
ignore the aftermath of the event." A fact that is often overlooked is that the marriage was
not consummated until 1880 when Prince Nripendra Narayan and
Suniti Devi were 18 and 16 respectively. It was an experiment
under the guidance of the British officials (who arranged the
marriage in the first place) opening the remote kingdom to the
enlightening influences from Calcutta. Kopf writes "...Thus
whether the marriage was not performed strictly according to
Brahmo rites seems insignificant from a historical perspective than
the question about the subsequent career of the Maharaja, whom

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Keshub sought to inspire as a Brahmo. The answer in large part can be found in the
qualitative difference between the town of Cooch Behar before the accession of Nripendra
Narayan to the throne in 1882, and the town Brajendranath Seal came to live in 1896
when he was hired at Victoria College. In those fourteen years alone, through increasing
the annual revenue of state by 300,000 rupees, the king regularised the administration,
established the first railway link to Bengal, improved communication throughout the
kingdom with the construction of innumerable roads and bridges, created for the first time
a city with a planned sanitation and drainage system, constructed the earliest buildings in
the country dedicated to the principles of modern justice and administration, started a
1arge fully equipped hospital in the capital and public dispensaries in the countryside, and
founded Cooch Behar's first public library, public parks and gardens, a girls' school,
college, and a public marketplace. He also abolished polygamy in the royal family and
capital punishment throughout the kingdom".

"Moreover, some years before Brajendranath's arrival in Cooch Behar, the king and his
wife constructed the largest Brahmo Mandir in South Asia, primarily with government
funds, and they provided an annual grant of 5,000 rupees to help maintain it. In 1888, the
king declared Brahmoism of the New Dispensation as the state religion, and though it had
no practical effect in spreading the faith beyond the small community of Bengali elite, it
did suggest that the promise of the young man to Keshub was fulfilled. Not well known,
either, is that Maharaja Nripendra Narayan, whom the critics of Keshub had looked upon
as a jungly Hindu raja, left three wishes behind him shortly before his death at forty-nine
years of age. The king asked first that he be cremated according to the New Dispensation
Brahmo rites; second, that his ashes be put in the same garden in Cooch Behar where he
had first learned to read and write; and third, he provided that "his casket be placed in a
monument of stone similar to the one which had been placed over the ashes of the late
Keshub Chandra Sen."

Relation with Ramakrishna Paramhansa

After the Cooch Behar marriage Keshub took an important line of departure
by entering upon a system of spiritual interpretation o fthe idol deity and her
attendants. He also started visting the mystic saint Ramakrishna and it was
Keshub and his party who were instrumental in bringing him to public notice.
Ramakrishna was present in many Brahmo gatherings. David Kopf gives three
reasons for this attraction which deserve attention. First, Ramakrishna was not
susceptible to formal education, English or indigenous; this separated him
from other Brahmos of whatever ideological bent. Secondly, Ramakrishna's Tantric way
of sublimating the sensual drive for women into a spiritual drive for the Divine Mother
appealed to Keshub Chandra. Third, Ramakrishna claimed to have experienced direct,
intuitive contact with all major religious leaders in history. "In this sense, the Hindu
Ramakrishna was perhaps more universalist and Brahmo than most of the Brahmo
ascetics, who were narrowly Vaishnava." These three aspects of Ramakrishna's career as a
mystic were probably strong influences on Keshub from March 1875 onwards, when the
two men presumably first met at the Kali temple at Dakshineshwar. Keshub was intrigued
by the religious experiments performed by Ramakrishna, and wished to adapt them to his
own use, especially those elements of the Sakto tradition in Bengal that emphasised the

15
motherhood of God. The idea of differentiating the good and bad features within Saktism,
and incorporating the good into Brahmoism, probably came to Keshub after his
acquaintance with Ramakrishna. For, in the early 1860s, Ramakrishna had already
performed experiments to purify Saktism and Tantrism.

Contribution to Brahmoism
There were many important contribution to the Brahmo movement by Keshub Chandra
Sen. These can be briefly stated as follows. The first noteworthy contribution is the
enunciation and accentuation of the doctrine of God in conscience. The second great
contribution was bringing of man's social life within the domain
of his religious duty. The third was imbibing into the spiritual life
of the Brahmo Samaj - the spirit of repentance and prayer. Next
was his infusion of the bhakti or devitional fervour into the
movement. Another was his sense of universalism of theism - he
found that all the religious teachers were bound together by a
common bond. Next was his faith in the Divine mission of the
Brahmo Samaj. Another important contribution was the emphasis of the principle laid
down by Rammohun Roy - service of man was the service of God.

In 1883 soon after his arrival from Simla, with failing health, Keshub caused the
foundation of his Nava Devalaya (his domestic chapel). The work was completed on 1st
January 1884 and he was carried on the shoulders from his death bed to take part in the
consecration ceremony.

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