Sadharan Brahmo Samaj

The Sadharan Brahmo Samaj is a religious division of Brahmoism formed as a result of 2 schisms in the Brahmo Samaj in 1866 and 1878 respectively.
The Brahmo Samaj movement was started on 20 August 1828, by Raja Ram Mohun Roy and his friends by opening a place of public worship on the Chitpore Road in Calcutta, and was duly and publicly inaugurated in January 1830 by the consecration of the first house of prayer, now known as the Adi Brahmo Samaj with a manifesto, which forms a part of the trust-deed of the new faith.

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The Adi Brahmo Samaj Trust Deed Principles
"The said messuage or building, land, tenements, hereditaments and premises with their appurtenances to be used, occupied, enjoyed, applied and appropriated as and for a place of public meeting of all sorts and descriptions of people without distinction, as shall behave and conduct themselves in an orderly, sober, religious and devout manner, for
the worship and adoration of the One Eternal Unsearchable and Immutable Being, who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe, but not under or by any other name, designation or title peculiarly used for and applied to any particular being or beings by any man or set of men whatsoever, and
that no graven image, statue, or sculpture, carving, painting, picture, portrait or the likeness of anything shall be admitted within the said messuage, building, land, tenements and hereditaments and premises ; and
that no sacrifice, offering or oblation of any kind or thing, shall ever be permitted therein; and
that no animal or living creature shall, withinor on the said messuage, premises, be deprived of life either for religious purposes or for food, and
that no eating or drinking (except such as shall be necessary by any accident for the preservation of life) feasting or rioting be permitted therein or thereon, and
that in conducting the said worship and adoration, no objects, animate or inanimate, that has been or is, or shall hereafter become or be recognized as an object of worship by any man or set of men, shall be reviled or slightingly and contemptuously spoken of, or alluded to, either in preaching, praying or in the hymns or other modes of worship, that may be delivered or used in the said messuage or building ; and
that no sermon, preaching, discourse, prayer or hymn delivered, made or used in such worship but such as have a tendency to the promotion , of charity, morality, piety, benevolence, virtue and the strengthening of the bonds of union between men of all religious persuasions and creeds."
These intrinsic Primary ('Adi') Principles for Brahmo Assembly and Worship are reiterated by the next Deed of Trust of 1880 executed by Babu Sib Chunder Deb for the present Sadharan Brahmo Samaj premises situated at 211 Cornwallis Street, Calcutta.
(The Official Statement of circumstances whereby the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj was established by Trust Deed, out from Babu Keshab Chunder's apostate "Brahmo Samaj of India" Church in 1878 is reproduced below )
The Statement of 5 reasons
(Translated from Bengali)
We owe to the general Brahmo Public a statement of the reasons that have led us to form a separate and independent organization. We beg to inform them by this declaration that up to this time there is no regularly constituted body in the Brahmo Samaj to represent the views of the general Brahmo Community, and as a result of this sad want, the Church   is a prey to manifold and serious evils. It seems never to have formed a part of the aim and object of the Adi-Brahmo Samaj to organize and represent the general Brahmo Church  ; whilst the constitution of the Somaj founded more than 12 years ago under the name of Brahmo Samaj of India is not at all favourable to the attainment of that object. It does not appear that during this pretty long period the Secretary has ever acted under the instructions of, or in consultation with, an executive committee; nor does it seem that any code of rules has ever been framed for the regulation and management of the society, even so much so, that the very question who are its members and who are not, has often been quite a puzzle on occasions of reference.
During this long period, every important work connected with the society, such as the collection and disbursement of funds the appointment or removal of missionaries, etc., has been done exclusively at the option and by the authority of the Secretary. What could be a stronger illustration of this arbitrary way of proceeding than the fact that no trust-deed has yet been drawn up of the public building erected so long as nine years ago, by public subscription, as the house of worship of the Brahmo Samaj of India, and this in spite of repeated efforts made by members of the Samaj in private, as well as in public meetings, to have a trust-deed drawn up and trustees appointed ? But all these efforts to have the Brahmo Samaj property removed from uncontrolled individual authority and placed under the legal possession of the general Brahmo community have hitherto failed, owing to the aversion or indifference of the office-bearers. Whilst there was this unconstitutional and arbitrary way of proceeding on the one hand, many erroneous and superstitious doctrines ^[9] were also being silently introduced into the Church on the other.
For fear of causing a division, we had so long ^[10] passed over those breaches of constitutional conduct and the preaching of those corrupt doctrines. We have often seen the views and opinions of a few individuals given out and accepted as the opinions of the whole Church we have often heard many un-Brahmic doctrines preached in the name of the Brahmo Samaj of India, and as a consequence of the acceptance of these erroneous doctrines, we have also seen several members prostrating themselves at the feet of an individual, and many others leaving the Samaj in disgust and horror at such proceedings. We have often felt the whole Church, and ourselves with it, lowered in the estimation of the public on account of the foolish conduct of some individual members. But yet we have long, and in patience, suffered all this, in our anxiety to avoid an open rupture. But now, unfortunately, there have risen special causes to make independent action necessary on our part to preserve the purity and conserve the best interests of our Church
First : The present Secretary of the Brahmo Samaj of India, by marrying his daughter who is aged only thirteen and [a] half, to a boy who is fifteen and [a] half, by allowing certain idolatrous rites to be observed in connection with that marriage, and also by allowing the essential elements of a real Brahmo marriage to be subordinated to, and made secondary to those idolatrous rites, has made himself open to the serious charge of having countenanced early-marriage and idolatry, and has thereby violated two principal doctrines of the Somaj.
Secondly : Before proceeding to Kuch Behar, many members of the Brahmo Samaj of India entreated him to give up the intended alliance, but he turned a deaf ear to all their representations. Many waited on him as friends, but he denied them any access to the real facts. Many wrote humble and earnest letters, but he did not even condescend to reply to them. For instance, to all the queries personally put to him by Babu Bijay Krishna Goswami, the well-known missionary of the Brahmo Samaj of India, and member of the Missionary Conference, he replied by maintaining strict silence ; and in answer to the letter which Babu Bijay Krishna wrote after the marriage was announced as settled he was rudely given to understand that, after that, he forfeited his claims to the discipleship of bhakti. On the first announcement of the intended match, four letters were sent to Babu K. C. Sen from Calcutta, earnestly entreating him not to proceed with the match. The first was signed by 23 anusthanic Brahmos ^[11] of Calcutta (Brahmos by practice) ; the second by about 30 Brahmo students of the city ; the third (was) signed by about 20 Brahmica ladies, and the fourth by Babu Haragopal Sircar and three other known members of the Brahmo community. There was a separate letter signed by almost all the anusthanic Brahmos of Dacca. Besides these, letters from not less than 50 Mofussil Somajes were sent in and published, condemning the proposed marriage, in due time. But all these letters, remonstrances and expressions of opinion were ignored, and proved of no avail. Babu Keshub Chunder Sen declared it sinful even to look into the contents of the letter sent by Babu Shib Chunder Deb and others, contemptuously returned the letter of the Brahmo students, pleading want of leisure to go through it ; and the ladies' letter was deemed beneath notice ; and as for the other communications, they were also mostly doomed to the same fate. Thus fully conscious of our strong dislike our deep dissatisfaction and heartfelt sorrow, he went away to celebrate the match.
Thirdly : After his return, two letters of requisition, signed by many members of the Brahmo Samaj of India, were sent in, the one urging the necessity of calling a special meeting of the congregation of the Brahmo Mandir, and the other that of the Brahmo Samaj of India. Both these prayers were rejected, and the letters themselves were returned. But just after this, Babus Keshub Chunder Sen and Protap Chunder Mozoomdar called these two meetings in their own names. In the meeting of the Brahmo Mandir, Babu Keshub Chunder Sen was formally deposed from the office of the minister by a large majority, and yet he did not scruple to assert his claims on the pulpit with the aid of the Police; and as for the meeting of the Brahmo Somaj of India, it was on a sudden postponed sine die, without any particular reasons being assigned.
Fourthly: Upon this, the before-mentioned members of the Brahmo Samaj of India sent in another requisition, requesting that a meeting should be called within a week. It is indeed curious that when the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary called the meeting in their own names, three days' notice was deemed quite sufficient, but when the requisitionists were concerned, they thought six months' time, at the least, necessary for convening a meeting, and refused on that ground to accede to their prayers. Not despairing, however, the requisitionists sent in a third letter, insisting upon calling a meeting upon three weeks' notice. This request also was not complied with by the Assistant Secretary, Upon the strange excusej as we subsequently learnt, that a larger number of members had sent a letter asking the Secretary not to accede to our wishes. The third letter of the requisitionist was sent on the 26th April, and in that letter it was distinctly stated that upon the reception of that letter, should the officebearers decide to call a meeting, then the notice of the same should appear not later than a week, and should they on the other hand choose to treat it like the preceding two letters they would be so good as to inform the requisitionists of their purpose in three days. For a fortnight did the requisitionists wait daily expecting a notice or a reply. But nothing like either was forthcoming, till the notice of the Town Hall meeting to found a separate organization had appeared in the papers.
Fifthly : Nothing perhaps can better illustrate the utterly unconstitutional character and the degradation of the Brahmo Samaj of India, than the fact that notwithstanding that hundreds of Brahmos and Brahmicas and a very large number of Mofussil Samajes had protested against the marriage from the beginning notwithstanding that a large number of the members in a public meeting had declared their deep sorrow and condemnation, and withdrawn their confidence from the present Secretary notwithstanding that a vast majority of the worshippers of the Mandir in their congregational meeting publicly deposed him from their pulpit ; yet did not the Assistant Secretary scruple to describe a letter of defence, written by him as an apology for the Secretary, as a document proceeding from the Brahmo Samaj of India, and its decisions as the decisions of that Samaj. This is what he says in the letter written by him in reply to the third letter of the requisitionists.

"You have brought two principal charges against the Secretary. The answers to them have appeared in full from the Brahmo Samaj of India in my name. In that letter I have expressed my regret on his behalf for everything that occurred without his knowledge or sanction ; consequently when the matter has been formally decided in the name of the Brahmo Samaj of India, I have nothing more to add."

We are then to accept the apology put forth by a single individual as a formal decision arrived at by the Brahmo Samaj of India. Could there have been a proceeding more unconstitutional, more unreasonable and more illogical than this ? We feel reluctant to notice in detail the unfair and unworthy treatment that the office-bearers and their organs have accorded to those who felt themselves unable to approve of this marriage, and felt if to be their duty to stand up in vindication of what they conceived to be the true principles and the recognized teachings of their Church. They have not hesitated to invent stories against them with a view to lower them in public estimation ; they have not scrupled to impeach their personal characters in their papers, and yet have denied them the right of self-defence by shutting their columns against them ; nor have they shrunk from ascribing the foulest motives to them for their conduct. These are not matters for utterance before this assembly. Our wonder and regret is that those who have devoted many years of their life to preaching the words of truth, men who have often taught lessons of charity, forbearance, and meekness,and who have been looked upon as patterns of Brahmic life, could yet be guilty of conduct like this.
For the reasons mentioned above, we are strongly convinced that as long as the present office-bearers are in office there is no hope of the welfare of the Brahmo Samaj of India, no cessation of the apprehension of her future peril. We could have called a meeting of the Brahmo Samaj of India in the name of some of us, and could have deposed the present Secretary and the Assistant Secretary, but the quarrel would not cease there. They are not the persons to give up power easily. Worsted by constitutional means, they do not scruple, as experience has shown, to ignore such decisions, and still retain their office. Under such circumstances, we deem it the better course to work separately and independently for our spiritual advancement and the good of our Church, rather than involve ourselves into ceaseless quarrel about the name of an institution, or allow the Brahmo Samaj to continue to be a scene of agitation and perpetual discord. Any course that promises better results and greater good to our Church is the one we should adopt.
The foregoing reasons have thus influenced us in forming a separate and independent organization. We need not enter in this place into a detailed description of our doctrines and principles, but we may shortly state that we believe
ORIGINAL DOCTRINE & PRINCIPLES OF SADHARAN BRAHMO SAMAJ

• that faith in a Supreme Being and in Existence after Death is natural to man ;
• that we regard the relation between God and men to be direct and immediate ;
• that we do not believe in the infallibility of any man or any scripture ;
• whatever book contains truths calculated to ennoble the soul or elevate the character is a Brahmo's scripture, and whoever teaches such truths is his teacher and guide.
• We regard the fourfold culture of man's intellect, conscience, affections, and devotion as equally important and equally necessary for his salvation.
• We consider love of God and doing the will of God as equally imperative in the routine of a Brahmo's life.
• We regard the culture of faith at the sacrifice of reason, or the culture of reason at the sacrifice of faith as equally defective, and as fruitful sources of evil in the religious world.
• We regard the worship of the one True God   as the highest of a Brahmo's duties and as the best of means to improve the soul and the neglect of it as a way to spiritual death.
• We look upon the enjoyment of uncontrolled authority by a single individual in any religious community as a calamity, and far from looking upon freedom of thought as reprehensible, we consider it to be desirable, and regard it as a safe-guard against corruption and degeneracy.
• We regard the belief in an individual being a way to salvation, or a link between God and Man, as a belief unworthy of a Theist  , and those who hold such belief as unworthy of the Brahmo name.
• We consider it to be blasphemy and an insult to the Majesty of Heaven to claim Divine inspiration for any act opposed to the dictates of reason, truth, and morality.

From this day we intend devoting ourselves to the propagation of Brahmoism and to the furtherance of the interests of our Church, apart from some of those with whom we have so long acted, but relying for aid and support on Him in whose hands are the destinies of man who supports every noble purpose, and has all along invisibly regulated the course of our Church who, in His inscrutable ways, has given strength when our Church languished from very feebleness, has vouchsafed life when her very vitality seemed ebbing away, and who has led her out from the darkness and superstition that eclipsed her face. May He enable us to discharge this sacred mission may He once more fill all the members of our Church with new life and resuscitated energy may He cause the day of hope to dawn upon the darkness of despair may He lead us out of the regions of discord and disunion into those of peace and tranquillity may He bless our cause and lead the millions of our countrymen into truth and salvation.

Upendranath Brahmachari

Rai Bahadur Sir Upendranath Brahmachari   (19 December 1873 – 6 February 1946) was an Indian scientist and a leading medical practitioner of his time. He synthesized Urea Stibamine (carbostibamide) in 1922 and determined that it was an effective substitute for the other antimony-containing compounds in the treatment of Kala-azar (Visceral leishmaniasis) which is caused by a protozoon, Leishmania donovani.

His discovery led to the saving of millions of lives in India, particularly in the erstwhile province of Assam, where several villages were completely depopulated by the devastating disease. The achievement of Brahmachari was a milestone in successful application of science in medical treatment in the years before arrival of antibiotics, when there were few specific drugs, except quinine for malaria, iron for anaemia, digitalis for heart diseases and arsenic for syphilis. All other ailments were treated symptomatically by palliative methods. Urea Stibamine was thus a significant addition to the arsenal of specific medicines.

Upendranath Brahmachari was born on 19 December 1873 in Sardanga village near Purbasthali, District Burdwan of West Bengal, India. His father Nilmony Brahmachari was a physician in East Indian Railways. His mother's name was Saurabh Sundari Devi. He completed his early education from Eastern Railways Boys' High School, Jamalpur. In 1893, he passed B.A. degree from Hooghly Mohsin College with honours in Mathematics and Chemistry. Thereafter he went to study Medicine with Higher Chemistry. He passed his Masters degree in 1894 from the Presidency College, Kolkata. In M.B. Examination of 1900 of the University of Calcutta, he stood first in Medicine and in Surgery for which he received Goodeve and Macleod awards. He obtained his M.D. degree in 1902, and was awarded a PhD degree in 1904, for his research paper on “Studies in Haemolysis” both from the University of Calcutta. In 1898, he married Nani Bala Devi.

Brahmachari joined the Provincial Medical Service in September, 1899 and appointed as a teacher of Pathology and Materia Medica, and physician in the Dacca Medical School in 1901. In 1905, he was appointed as a teacher in Medicine and Physician at the Campbell Medical School, Calcutta, where he carried out most of his work on Kala-azar and made his monumental discovery of Urea Stibamine. In 1923, he joined as Additional Physician in the Medical College Hospital. He retired from the government service as a physician in 1927. After retirement from the government service Brahmachari joined the Carmichael Medical College in Kolkata as Professor of Tropical Diseases. He also served the National Medical Institute, in charge of its Tropical Disease Ward. He was also the Head of the Department of Biochemistry and Honorary Professor of Biochemistry at the University College of Science, Calcutta. 

Around 1924, Brahmachari established the Brahmachari Research Institute in his own residence in Cornwallis Street (Vidhan Sarani), Kolkata. This institute was later converted into a Partnership concern with his sons Phanindra Nath and Nirmal Kumar. Under his guidance this Institute did quite well both in the fields of research and manufacture of medicine. The institute stopped functioning in 1963. 

Brahmachari played an important part in the formation of the world's second Blood Bank in Kolkata in 1939. He was the Chairman of the Blood Transfusion Service of Bengal. He was the Vice President of the St. John Ambulance Association of the Bengal branch and also its President. He was the first Indian to become the Chairman of the Managing Body of the Indian Red Cross Society of the Bengal Branch. He generously contributed to the High School in Purbasthali (in Bardhaman district) near his ancestral house. The school was later renamed as the Purbasthali Nilmony Brahmachari Institution.

Bengal Renaissance

The Bengal Renaissance refers to a socio-cultural and religious reform movement during the nineteenth and early twentieth century in undivided India's Bengal province, though the impact of it spread in the whole of India. The Bengal Renaissance is said to have begun with Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1775–1833) and continued until the death of Rabindranath Tagore in 1941.The Renaissance was a revival of the positives of India's past and appreciation of the impact of the Modern West, as it had emerged since the Fifteenth century European Renaissance. Thus, the Bengal Renaissance blended together the teachings of the Upanishad in order to create public opinion against Hindu superstitions including Sati, infanticide, polygamy, child marriage, caste-division, inter-caste hatred, untouchability etc. and the efforts of the Christian Missionaries and the British Colonial Government who introduced Western education, politics and law to administer all those who indulged in superstitions and caste-based Hindu medievalism.

During this period, Bengal witnessed an intellectual awakening questioning the prevalent orthodoxies concerning the social status of women, marriage, the caste system and religion. One of the earliest social movements that emerged during this time was the Young Bengal movement, that espoused rationalism and atheism as the common denominators of civil conduct among upper caste educated Hindus.

The parallel socio-religious movement, the Brahmo Samaj, developed during this time and counted many of the leaders of the Bengal Renaissance among its followers.  In the earlier years the Brahmo Samaj, like the rest of society, could not however, conceptualize, in that feudal-colonial era, a free India as it was influenced by the European Enlightenment (and its bearers in India, the British Raj) although it traced its intellectual roots to the Upanishads. Their version of Hinduism, or rather Universal Religion, although devoid of practices like sati and polygamy that had crept into the social aspects of Hindu life, was ultimately a rigid impersonal monotheisticfaith, which actually was quite distinct from the pluralistic and multifaceted nature of the way the Hindu religion was practiced. Future leaders like Keshub Chunder Sen were as much devotees of Christ, as they were of Brahma, Krishna or the Buddha. It has been argued by some scholars like Sailen Debnath that the Brahmo Samaj movement, in spite of its universality, never gained the support of the masses and remained restricted to the elite, although Hindu society has accepted most of the social reform programmes of the Brahmo Samaj. It must also be acknowledged that many of the later Brahmos were also leaders of the freedom movement.

The renaissance period after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 saw a magnificent outburst of Bengali literature. While Ram Mohan Roy and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar were the pioneers, others like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee widened it and built upon it. The first significant nationalist detour to the Bengal Renaissance was given by the brilliant writings of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Later writers of the period who introduced broad discussion of social problems and more colloquial forms of Bengali into mainstream literature included the great Saratchandra Chatterjee.

The Tagore family, including Rabindranath Tagore, were leaders of this period and had a particular interest in educational reform.  Their contribution to the Bengal Renaissance was multi-faceted. Indeed, Tagore's 1901 Bengali novella, Nastanirh was written as a critique of men who professed to follow the ideals of the Renaissance, but failed to do so within their own families. In many ways Rabindranath Tagore's writings (especially poems and songs) can be seen as imbued with the spirit of the Upanishads. His works repeatedly allude to Upanishadic ideas regarding soul, liberation, transmigration and—perhaps most essentially—about a spirit that imbues all creation not unlike the Upanishadic Brahman. Tagore's English translation of a set of poems titled the Gitanjali won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He was the first Asian to win this award. That was the only example at the time but the contribution of the Tagore family is enormous. 

The Italian Renaissance was a "rebirth" of the Graeco-Roman learning, sculpture and painting in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though it was preceded by the Ninth Century and the Twelfth Century Renaissance. The Italian Renaissance also marked the beginning of the new in the field of political thought and science; and thus it blended together the Pagan old and the new of emerging Europe. In the same way the Bengal Renaissance as well retained the positives of the past and welcomed the new in the domain of science and politics. The role played by Bengal in the modern awakening of India is comparable to the position occupied by Italy in the European renaissance. Very much like the Italian Renaissance, it was not a mass movement; but instead restricted to the upper classes.

The Bengal Renaissance saw the emergence of pioneering Bengali scientists such as Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyendra Nath Bose, Upendranath Brahmachari and Meghnad Saha.

Jagadish Chandra Bose was a polymath: a physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, and writer of science fiction.  He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made very significant contributions to plant science, and laid the foundations ofexperimental science in the Indian subcontinent. He is considered one of the fathers of radio science, and is also considered the father of Bengali science fiction. He was the first from the Indian subcontinent to get a US patent, in 1904.

Satyendra Nath Bose was a physicist, specializing in mathematical physics. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanicsin the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose-Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose-Einstein condensate. He is honoured as the namesake of the boson. Although more than one Nobel Prize was awarded for research related to the concepts of the boson, Bose-Einstein statistics and Bose-Einstein condensate—the latest being the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics, which was given for advancing the theory of Bose-Einstein condensates—Bose himself was never awarded the Nobel Prize.

Upendranath Brahmachari was a noted Indian scientist and a leading medical practitioner of his time. He synthesized Urea Stibamine (carbostibamide) in 1922 and determined that it was an effective substitute for the other antimony-containing compounds in the treatment of Kala-azar (Visceral leishmaniasis) which is caused by a protozoon, Leishmania donovani. Brahmachari was a nominee for the Nobel Prize in 1929 in the category of physiology and medicine. He was president of the 23rd session of the Indian Science Congress in Indore (1936) as well as the president of the Indian Chemical Society, Calcutta (1936).

Meghnad Saha was an astrophysicist best known for his development of the Saha equation, used to describe chemical and physical conditions in stars. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics four times: 1930, 1937, 1939 and 1940.

Prarthana Samaj

Prarthana Samaj, or "Prayer Society" in Sanskrit, was a movement for religious and social reform in Bombay based on earlier reform movements. Prarthana Samaj is founded by Dr. Atmaram Pandurang in 1867 with an aim to make people believe in one God and worship only one God. The main reformers were the intellectuals who advocate reforms of the social system of the Hindus. Prarthana Samaj was playing a negative roll for both britishers and indians,.it would torture young ones and kidnap their wives and thus indians had to suffer tremendously.

The movement was started as a movement for religious and social reform in Maharashtra and can be seen much more alike Brahmo Samaj. The precursor of the Prarthana Samaj in Mumbai was the Paramahamsa Sabha, a secret society for the furtherance of liberal ideas by Ram Balkrishna Jaykar and others in Mumbai. . It was secret in order to avoid the wrath of the powerful and orthodox elements of society. Meetings were for discussion, the singing of hymns, and the sharing of a communal meal prepared by a low-caste cook. Members ate bread baked by Christians and drank water brought by Muslims.

By comparison with the parallel Brahmo Samaj of Bengal and the ideals of rational or theistic belief and social reform, the Prarthana Samaj(ists) were followers of the great religious tradition of the Maratha Sant Mat like Namdev, Tukaram. The Brahmo Samaj founders examined many world religions, including ancient Vedic texts, which subsequently were not accepted to be infallible or divine. Although the adherents of Prarthana Samaj were devotedtheists, they also did not regard the Vedas as divine or infallible. They drew their nourishment from the Hindu scriptures and used the hymns of the old Marathi "poet-saints" in their prayers. Their ideas trace back to the devotional poems of the Vitthalas  as part of the Vaishnava bhakti devotional movements of the thirteenth century in southern Maharashtra. The Marathi poets had inspired a movement of resistance to the Mughals. But, beyond religious concerns, the primary focus of the Prarthana Samaj was on social and cultural reform.

Prarthana Samaj critically examined the relations between contemporary social and cultural systems and religious beliefs and gave priority to social reform as compared with the political changes already initiated by the British government. Their comprehensive reform movement has led many impressive projects of cultural change and social reform in Western India, such as the improvement of the lot of women and depressed classes, an end to the caste system, abolition of child marriages and infanticide, educational opportunites for women, and remarriage of widows. Its success was guided bySir Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, a noted Sanskrit scholar, Dr. Atmaram Pandurang, Narayan Chandavarkar, and Justice Mahadev Govinda Ranade. Ranade emphasized that "the reformer must attempt to deal with the whole man and not to carry out reform on one side only".

Arya Samaj

                                             

Arya Samaj   is a Hindu reform movement founded by Swami Dayananda on 7 April 1875.  He was a sannyasi who believed in the infallible authority of the Vedas. Dayananda emphasized the ideals of brahmacharya (chastity).

Between 1869 and 1873, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, a native of Gujarat, made his first attempt at reform in his native India. This attempt took the form of the establishment of "Vedic Schools" or "gurukuls" which put an emphasis on Vedic values, culture and religion to its students. The first was established at Farrukhabad in 1869, with 50 students enrolled in its first year. This initial success led to the founding of four additional schools in rapid succession at Mirzapur (1870), Kasganj (1870), Chhalesar (1870) and Varanasi (1873).

The Vedic Schools represented the first practical application of Swami Dayanand’s vision of religious and social reform. They enjoyed a mixed reception. On the one hand, students were not allowed to perform traditional idol worship (murtipuja in Hindi) at the school, and were instead expected to perform sandhya (a form of meditative prayer using mantras from the Vedas) and participate in agnihotra twice daily. Disciplinary action was swift and not infrequently severe. On the other hand, all meals, lodging, clothing and books were given to the students free of charge, and the study of Sanskrit was opened to non-Brahmins. The most noteworthy feature of the Schools was that only those texts which accepted the authority of the Vedas were to be taught. This was critical for the spiritual and social regeneration of Vedic culture in India.

The Vedic Schools soon ran into difficulties. Swami Dayanand had trouble finding qualified teachers who agreed with his views on religious reform, and there existed a paucity of textbooks which he considered suitable for instruction in Vedic culture. Funding was sporadic, attendance fluctuated considerably, and tangible results in the way of noteworthy student achievement were not forthcoming.

Consequentially, some of the schools were forced to close shortly after opening. As early as 1874, it had become clear to Swami Dayanand that, without a wide and solid base of support among the public, setting up schools with the goal of imparting a Vedic education would prove to be an impossible task. He therefore decided to invest the greater part of his resources in the formulation and propagation of his ideology of reform. Deprived of the full attention of Swami Dayanand, the gurukul/Vedic School system collapsed and the last of the schools (Farrukhabad) was closed down in 1876 due to Muslim occupation and takeover.

While traveling (1872–1873), Swami Dayanand came to know of several of the pro-Western Indian intellectuals of the age, including Navin Chandra Roy, Rajnarayan Basu, Debendranath Tagore and Hemendranath Tagore all of whom were actively involved in the Brahmo Samaj. This reform organization, founded in 1828, held many views similar to those of Swami Dayanand in matters both religious (e.g. a belief in monotheism and the eternality of the soul) and social (e.g. the need to abolish the hereditary caste or varna system and uplift the masses through education). Debendranath Tagore had written a book entitled Brahmo Dharma, which serves as a manual of religion and ethics to the members of that society, and Swami Dayanand had read it while inCalcutta.

Although Swami Dayanand was persuaded on more than one occasion to join the Brahmo Samaj, there existed points of contention which the Swami could not overlook, the most important being the position of the Vedas. Swami Dayanand held the Vedas to be divine revelation, and refused to accept any suggestions to the contrary. Despite this difference of opinion, however, it seems that the members of the Brahmo Samaj parted with Swami Dayanand on good terms, the former having publicly praised the latter’s visit to Calcutta in several journals.

Swami Dayanand made several changes in his approach to the work of reforming Hindu society after having visited Calcutta. The most significant of these changes was that he began lecturing inHindi. Prior to his tour of Bengal, the Swami had always held his discourses and debates in Sanskrit. While this gained him a certain degree of respect among both the learned and the common people, it prevented him from spreading his message to the broader masses. The change to Hindi allowed him to attract increasingly larger following, and as a result his ideas of reform began to circulate among the lower classes of society as well.

After hearing some of Swami Dayanand's speeches delivered in Hindi at Varanasi, Raj Jaikishen Das, a native government official there, suggested that the swami publish his ideas in a book so that they might be distributed among the public. Witnessing the slow collapse of the gurukuls/Vedic Schools due to a lack of a clear statement of purpose and the resultant flagging public support, Swami Dayanand recognized the potential contained in Das's suggestion and took immediate action.

From June to September 1874, Swami Dayanand dictated a comprehensive series of lectures to his scribe, Pundit Bhimsen Sharma, which dealt with his views and beliefs regarding a wide range of subjects including God, the Vedas, Dharma, the soul, science, philosophy, childrearing, education, government and the possible future of both India and the world. The resulting manuscript was published under the title Satyarth Prakash or The Light of Meaning of Truth in 1875 at Varanasi. This voluminous work would prove to play a central role in the establishment and later growth of the organization which would come to be known as the Arya Samaj.

While the manuscript of the "Satyarth Prakash"{the holybook of arya samaj} was being edited at Varanasi, Swami Dayanand received an invitation to travel to Bombay in order to conduct a debate with some representatives of the Vallabhacharya sect. Dayanand arrived in Bombay on the 20th of October, 1874. The debate, though greatly publicized, never materialized. Nonetheless, two members of the Prarthana Samaj approached Swami Dayanand and invited him to deliver a few lectures at one of their gatherings, which were received with appreciation by all those present. The members of the Prarthana Samaj of Bombay recognized in Swami Dayanand an individual in possession of the knowledge and skills necessary for promoting their aims, the greatest and most comprehensive of which being the general uplift of Hindu society at large and its protection from what they perceived to be the advancing threat of Christian and Muslim efforts to convert Hindus.

After his having spent over a month at Bombay, 60 new-found students of Swami Dayanand – among them, prominent members of the Prarthana Samaj – proposed the notion of founding a "New Samaj" with the Swami’s ideas serving as its spiritual and intellectual basis.

After having received a personal invitation from Gopalrao Hari Deshmukh, Swami Dayanand left Bombay and traveled to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, arriving on the 11th of December, 1874. Once there, he conducted a debate with local pundits on the issue of Vedic authority, and emerged victorious. It is reported that the formation of a Samaj and the founding of a Vedic School at Ahmedabad were proposed following the success of the debate, yet not enough support for such a venture could be mustered.

On an invitation from Hargovind Das Dvarkadas, the secretary of the local Prarthana Samaj, Swami Dayanand travelled to Rajkot, Gujarat, arriving on the 31st of December, 1874. Instead of delivering his standard program of lectures, he allowed members of the audience to choose the topics they would like to have him discourse upon. A total of eight topics were chosen, and Swami Dayanand delivered impromptu lectures on all of them to the satisfaction of all present. Gifts were bestowed upon the swami as tokens of gratitude for his masterly orations, and it was announced that the Rajkot Prarthana Samaj was henceforth dissolved and was ready to be reorganized as a new Samaj under the auspices of Swami Dayanand. The swami, after much deliberation, chose the name ‘Arya Samaj’ or ‘Society of Nobles’. Swami Dayanand drafted a list of 28 rules and regulations for the Rajkot Arya Samaj, which he later had printed for distribution.

On his way back to Bombay, Swami Dayanand stopped off in Ahmedabad and related the news of Rajkot, Gujarat, distributing copies of the rules and regulations to those present. A meeting was held on 27 January 1875 to discuss the proposal of forming an Arya Samaj there, yet no conclusive decision was reached. Unwilling to wait for the deliberations to come to an end, Swami Dayanand continued on his way to Bombay.

While traveling, the swami received word that the still fragile Rajkot Arya Samaj had involved itself in some political dispute that resulted in a government warning issued against it and its members. Thus, the collapse of the just established society was already looming large.

Swami Dayanand reached Bombay on 29 January 1875, and immediately the appeal to establish an Arya Samaj there was renewed. However, the swami did not want a protracted debate to ensue as had occurred at Ahmedabad, bringing with it the possibility of endless deliberations. Thus, a membership drive was initiated which would circumvent the need for discussions. Within a short time, 100 individuals enrolled themselves as prospective members.

While the membership drive was underway, Swami Dayanand held a now famous discourse with the congregation at Bombay. Someone in the audience asked the Swami, "Should we set up a new Samaj?" Dayanand responded:

“

If you are able to achieve something for the good of mankind by a Samaj, then establish a Samaj; I will not stand in your way. But if you do not organize it properly, there will be a lot of trouble in the future. As for me, I will only instruct you in the same way as I teach others, and this much you should keep clearly in mind: my beliefs are not unique, and I am not omniscient. Therefore, if in the future any error of mine should be discovered after rational examination, then set it right. If you do not act in this way, then this Samaj too will later on become just a sect. That is the way by which so many sectarian divisions have become prevalent in India: by making the guru’s word the touchstone of truth and thus fostering deep-seated prejudices which make the people religion-blind, cause quarrels and destroy all right knowledge. That is the way India arrived at her sorry contemporary state, and that is the way this Samaj too would grow to be just another sect. This is my firm opinion: even if there be many different sectarian beliefs prevalent in India, if only they all acknowledge the Vedas, then all those small rivers will reunite in the ocean of Vedic wisdom, and the unity of dharma will come about. From that unity of dharma there will result social and economic reform, arts and crafts and other human endeavors will improve as desired, and man’s life will find fulfillment: because, by the power of that dharma all values will become accessible to him, economic values as well as psychological ones, and also the supreme value of moksha.

”

On the 7th of April, 1875, the Bombay Arya Samaj was officially established. The membership amounted to 100 persons, including Swami Dayanand. The members appealed to the swami that he should serve as either the President or the Guru of the Samaj, but he kindly refused, and instead requested that he be listed as a regular member.

On the 24th of June, 1877, the second major Arya Samaj was established at Lahore. However, the original list of 28 rules and regulations drafted by Dayanand for the Rajkot Arya Samaj and used for the Bombay Arya Samaj were deemed to be too unwieldy. Therefore, it was proposed that the principles should be reduced and simplified, while the bylaws should be removed to a separate document. Everyone present, including Swami Dayanand, agreed, and the 10 Principles of the Arya Samaj, as they are known around the world today, came into existence. 

All subsequently established branches of the Arya Samaj have been founded upon the ten principles. However, each new branch of the Society has a degree of freedom in determining the exact by laws under which it shall operate. Everyone who wishes to become a member of the Society must agree to uphold these principles in their entirety. However, nothing beyond these 10 Principles has any binding force on any member of the Arya Samaj. For this reason, the early Samaj proved to be attractive to individuals belonging to various religious communities, and enjoyed a notable degree of converts from segments of the Hindu, Sikh,Christian and Muslim populations of Indian society. 

Of the ten, the first three principles are seen as comprising the doctrinal core of the Arya Samaj, as they summarize the member’s beliefs in regard to God/ishwer, the nature of Divinity and the authority of the Vedas. The remaining seven principles reflect the reformative ambitions of the Samaj in regard to both the individual and society at large. 

1. The first (efficient) cause of all true knowledge and all that is known through knowledge is God, the Highest Lord (Parameshwar).
2. God (Ishwara) is Blissful, Existent, Formless, Infinite, Almighty, Omnipotent, Just, Merciful, Omnipresent,All pervading, Omnisicient, Eternal, Unborn, Endless, Unchangeable, Beginningless, Immortal, Imperishable, Fearless, Incomparable,Holy, Support of all and Creater of Universe. He alone is worthy of being worshipped. Creator of the Universe
3. Vedas are the scripture of true knowledge. It is the first duty of the Arya's to read them, teach them, hearing them being read and recite them.
4. One should always be ready to accept Truth and give up Untruth.
5. One should do everything according to the dictates of Dharma, i.e. after due reflection over right and wrong.
6. Doing good to the whole world is the primary objective of this society, i.e. to look to its physical, spiritual and social welfare.
7. Let thy dealing with all be regulated by love and justice, in accordance with the dictates of Dharma.
8. One should promote knowledge (vidya) and dispel ignorance (avidya).
9. One should not be content with one's own welfare alone, but should look for one's welfare in the welfare of all.
10. One should regard oneself under restriction to follow altruistic rulings of society, while all should be free in following the rules of individual welfare. 

Drawing what are seen to be the logical conclusions from these principles, the Arya Samaj also unequivocally condemns practices such as polytheism, iconolatry, animal sacrifice, ancestor worship, pilgrimage, priestcraft, the belief in Avatars or incarnations of God, the hereditary caste system, untouchability and child marriage on the grounds that all these lack Vedic sanction.