Ram Mohan Roy , also Rammohon Roy , Paradise Rammohan , Raja Ram Mohan Roy (Bengal: রাজা রামমোহন রায়), ( May 22 , 1772 , Radhnagor , Bengal - September 27 , 1833 , Stapleton , United Kingdom ) was the founder of Brahmo Samaj , one of the first socio-religious reformist movements in India . Ram Mohan Roy was widely known for his social activities aimed at abolishing the practice of sati , the Hindu tradition of the self-immolation of a widow with her husband’s body, and polygamy . He also left a noticeable mark in the fields of politics , administrative law , education and religion .
| Ram Mohan Roy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Date of Birth | May 22, 1772 |
| Place of Birth | Radhnagor |
| Date of death | September 27, 1833 (61 years old) |
| Place of death | Stapleton Grove, UK |
| Occupation | , , , |
Content
Biography
Ram Mohan Roy was born in 1772 in Bengal . His family lived in the village of Radhanagar, located in the current Indian state of West Bengal . Roy's father came from a Hare Krishna family, and his mother's family belonged to the Brahmin caste of the Shakti tradition. Aristocratic origin gave him the right to the title of Raj . Roy graduated from the Muslim Higher School in Patna . Already at the age of 15, he was fluent in Arabic , Persian and Sanskrit , and was well versed in Indian Hindu philosophy and Islam. Thanks to British influence in India, Roy gradually became interested in Western civilization, its history, culture, philosophy and science. For their in-depth study, he learned several more languages: English , Latin , Ancient Greek , Hebrew .
As a young man, Roy traveled a lot before returning home to manage family affairs. Subsequently, he worked as a lender in Calcutta, and from 1803 to 1814 worked for the British East India Company .
In 1828, Ram Mohan Roy founded Brahmo Samaj , a movement advocating for religious reforms in Hinduism, and related social and intellectual reforms in Bengal.
In 1831, Roy arrived in Great Britain as ambassador of the Mughal Empire . He also visited France .
Ram Mohan Roy died in 1833 , from meningitis , in Stapleton , near Bristol , and was buried in Bristol, in the Arnos Vale Cemetery. In 1997 , a monument was erected in the center of Bristol in his honor.
Social and Religious Reforms
The struggle for the abolition of religious rites
Ram Mohan Roy actively opposed the sati rite, insisting that this rite was not part of Hinduism . He argued in favor of this claim with religiously based arguments.
On the same grounds, Roy opposed polygamy, widely accepted at that time. He explained that sacred texts allow polygamy only in special cases (infertility or severe illness of the first wife, etc.). Such statements met at first with sharp criticism from the clergy.
Education
Ram Mohan Roy tried to implement a series of educational reforms by introducing science education into the school curriculum. In a correspondence with the Governor-General of India, Roy pointed out the importance of "mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy and other useful sciences."
In 1817, he founded Hindu College in Kolkata , West Bengal (renamed Presidential College in 1855 and became open to students from other confessions, and from 1897 became available to women).
Along with this, in 1826 Roy founded Vedanta College, where children belonging to the higher castes were taught sacred texts in Sanskrit.
Values
Roy adhered to the idea of one God , interpreting the ancient texts of the Upanishads in a monotheistic spirit. He used the teachings of Brahman and the highest Absolute for this. A similar interpretation of Hinduism brought it closer to the monotheistic ideas of Islam and Christianity .
In 1828, Roy founded the Brahmo Samaj society, which, being eclectic and syncretic in nature, combined the ideas of several religions. The core of the members of this society was rich Brahmins . They took an oath not to worship idols, performed hymns in honor of the one God, and studied precisely those texts of the Upanishads that contributed to the strengthening of monotheistic tendencies.
Attitude to the West
In 1830 he left for England to present before the Parliament the point of view of the indigenous population of India. At that time, Parliament was discussing the mandate of the East India Company. Roy wrote an article on the positive and negative effects of English colonization, putting forward technological and scientific progress as a positive factor.
Literature
- Skorokhodova T.G. Rammohan Rai, founder of the Bengal Renaissance (experience of an analytical biography). - St. Petersburg: Aletheya , 2008 .-- 372 p. ISBN 978-5-91419-063-4
- Rammohan / Falikov B.Z. // Motherwort - Rumcherod. - M .: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2015. - P. 210. - ( Great Russian Encyclopedia : [in 35 vols.] / Ch. Ed. Yu. S. Osipov ; 2004—2017, vol. 28). - ISBN 978-5-85270-365-1 .