The present book is on Raja Rammohan Roy: The Father of Bengal Renaissance. It is an effort to explore the ideas of social thinker of modern India, who wrote and worked in the early years of the 19th century. Rammohan Roy's thoughts is centrally concerned with issues of freedom, social equality of all human beings. He opposed superstitious practices, customs such as Sati, polygamy, child marriage, idolatry and the rigidity of the caste system. This book is interesting and new discourse on Roy's struggle and ideas on social equality in the Indian context and it finally explores the relevance of his mission for social equality in the present times. As such the book gains importance in academic circles and hopefully shall benefit students and academicians alike.
Bijoy Prasad Das is presently Assistant Professor of Political Science at Durgapur Women's College, Durgapur. He has obtained his M.A. B. Ed and M. Phil. degree from Burdwan University, West Bengal, India. He has published a book and several articles in books and International journals. He has presented paper at several National and International Conferences and is actively engaged in research work.
The Bengal Renaissance, was a culture, social, intellectual and artistic movement that took place in the Bengal region of the British Raj, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. Historians have traced the beginnings of the movement to the victory of the British East India Company at the 1757 Battle of Plassey, as well as the work of reformer Raja Rammohan Roy, considered the ""Father of the Bengal Renaissance"". For almost two centuries, the Bengal renaissance saw the radical transformation of Indian society, and its ideas have been attributed to the rise of Indian anti colonialist and nationalist thought and activity during this period.
Rammohan Roy (17721833) was the pioneers of Bengal Renaissance. He was born in Radhanagar in the Hooghly district of British-ruled Bengal to a prosperous family of the Brahman class (varna). Little is known of his early life and education, but he seems to have developed unorthodox religious ideas at an early age. As a youth, he traveled widely outside Bengal and mastered several languages Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, and English, in addition to his native Bengali and Hindi.
During the last years of the 18th century, Rammohan began lending money to Englishman who worked in Calcutta for the British East India Company bonds. In 1805 he was employed by John Digby, a lower company official who introduced him to Western culture and literature. For the next 10 years Roy drifted in and out of British East India Company service as Digby's assistant. As a collector of East India Company he estimated that around half of the total revenue collected in India was sent to England.
Rammohan continued his religious studies throughout that period.
In 1803 he composed a tract denouncing what he regarded as India's superstition and its religious divisions, both within Hinduism and between Hinduism and other religions. As a remedy for those ills, he advocated a monotheistic Hinduism in which reason guides the adherent to ""the Absolute Originator who is the first principle of all religions."" He sought a philosophical basis for his religious beliefs in the Vedas (the sacred scriptures of Hinduism) and the Upanishads (speculative philosophical texts), translating those ancient Sanskrit treatises into Bengali, Hindi, and English and writing summaries and treatises on them. The central theme of those texts, for Roy, was the worship of the Supreme God who is beyond human knowledge and who supports the universe. In appreciation of his translations, the French Sociéte Asiatique in 1824 elected him to an honorary membership.
Thus, in 1815 Rammohan Roy founded the short-lived Atmiya-Sabha which is called Friendly Society to propagate his doctrines of monotheistic Hinduism. He became interested in Christianity and learned Hebrew and Greek in order to read the Old and New Testaments. In 1820 he published the ethical teachings of Christ, excerpted from the four Gospels, under the title Precepts of Jesus. the Guide to Peace and Happiness. This present study is confined to make a conceptual analysis on Rammohan's social reforms and movements for social justice towards it.
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