Keshab was the leader of the Brahmo Samaj, one of the two
great movements
that, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, played an
important part in shaping the course of the renascence of India. The
founder
of the Brahmo movement had been the great Raja Rammohan Roy
(1774-1833).
Though born in an orthodox brahmin family, Rammohan Roy had
shown great sympathy for Islam and Christianity. He had gone to Tibet
in
search of the Buddhist mysteries. He had extracted from Christianity
its
ethical system, but had rejected the divinity of Christ as he had
denied the
Hindu Incarnations. The religion of Islam influenced him, to a great
extent,
in the formulation of his monotheistic doctrines. But he always went
back
to the Vedas for his spiritual inspiration. The Brahmo Samaj, which he
founded in 1828, was dedicated to the "worship and adoration of the
Eternal,
the Unsearchable, the Immutable Being, who is the Author and Preserver
of
the Universe". The Samaj was open to all without distinction of colour,
creed, caste, nation, or religion.
The real organizer of the Samaj was Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905),
the father of the poet Rabindranath. His physical and spiritual beauty,
aristocratic aloofness, penetrating intellect, and poetic sensibility
made him
the foremost leader of the educated Bengalis. These addressed him by
the
respectful epithet of Maharshi, the "Great Seer". The Maharshi was a
Sanskrit scholar and, unlike Raja Rammohan Roy, drew his inspiration
entirely from the Upanishads. He was an implacable enemy of image
worship
ship and also fought to stop the infiltration of Christian ideas into
the
Samaj. He gave the movement its faith and ritual. Under his influence
the
Brahmo Samaj professed One Self-existent Supreme Being who had created
the universe out of nothing, the God of Truth, Infinite Wisdom,
Goodness,
and Power, the Eternal and Omnipotent, the One without a Second. Man
should love Him and do His will, believe in Him and worship Him, and
thus merit salvation in the world to come.
By far the ablest leader of the Brahmo movement was Keshab Chandra
Sen (1838-1884). Unlike Raja Rammohan Roy and Devendranath Tagore,
Keshab was born of a middle-class Bengali family and had been brought
up
in an English school. He did not know Sanskrit and very soon broke away
from the popular Hindu religion. Even at an early age he came under the
spell of Christ and professed to have experienced the special favour of
John
the Baptist, Christ, and St. Paul. When he strove to introduce Christ
to the
Brahmo Samaj, a rupture became inevitable with Devendranath. In 1868
Keshab broke with the older leader and founded the Brahmo Samaj of
India, Devendra retaining leadership of the first Brahmo Samaj, now
called
the Adi Samaj.
Keshab possessed a complex nature. When passing through a great moral
crisis, he spent much of his time in solitude and felt that he heard
the voice
of God, When a devotional form of worship was introduced into the
Brahmo
Samaj, he spent hours in singing kirtan with his followers. He visited
England
land in 1870 and impressed the English people with his musical voice,
his
simple English, and his spiritual fervour. He was entertained by Queen
Victoria. Returning to India, he founded centres of the Brahmo Samaj in
various parts of the country. Not unlike a professor of comparative
religion
in a European university, he began to discover, about the time of his
first
contact with Sri Ramakrishna, the harmony of religions. He became
sympathetic
toward the Hindu gods and goddesses, explaining them in a liberal
fashion. Further, he believed that he was called by God to dictate to
the
world God's newly revealed law, the New Dispensation, the Navavidhan.
In 1878 a schism divided Keshab's Samaj. Some of his influential
followers
accused him of infringing the Brahmo principles by marrying his
daughter to a wealthy man before she had attained the marriageable age
approved by the Samaj. This group seceded and established the Sadharan
Brahmo Samaj, Keshab remaining the leader of the Navavidhan. Keshab
now began to be drawn more and more toward the Christ ideal, though
under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna his devotion to the Divine
Mother
also deepened. His mental oscillation between Christ and the Divine
Mother
of Hinduism found no position of rest. In Bengal and some other parts
of
India the Brahmo movement took the form of unitarian Christianity,
scoffed
at Hindu rituals, and preached a crusade against image worship.
Influenced
by Western culture, it declared the supremacy of reason, advocated the
ideals of the French Revolution, abolished the caste-system among its
own
members, stood for the emancipation of women, agitated for the
abolition
of early marriage, sanctioned the remarriage of widows, and encouraged
various educational and social-reform movements. The immediate effect
of
the Brahmo movement in Bengal was the checking of the proselytizing
activities of the Christian missionaries. It also raised Indian culture
in the
estimation of its English masters. But it was an intellectual and
eclectic
religious ferment born of the necessity of the time. Unlike Hinduism,
it was
not founded on the deep inner experiences of sages and prophets. Its
influence
was confined to a comparatively few educated men and women of the
country, and the vast masses of the Hindus remained outside it. It
sounded
monotonously only one of the notes in the rich gamut of the Eternal
Religion
of the Hindus.