Brahmo Samaj
From Freepedia
Brahmo Samaj is a social and religious movement founded in Kolkata, India in 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy. He was influenced by western thought and was one of the first Indians to visit Europe. He died in Bristol, England. The Brahmo Samaj movement thereafter resulted in the Brahmo religion in 1850 founded by Debendranath Tagore — better known as the father of Rabindranath Tagore.
The popularity of the Brahmo Samaj grew as a result of a sense of stagnation in the Hindu social system of castes and the raising of a new class of educated Indians that resulted from the occupation by the British Empire. Its prime belief is that there is only one God. It rejected the Vedas, the caste system, polytheism, idol worship, and the belief in avatars.
The principles of Brahmo Samaj are:
- There is only one God, who is the creator, and the saviour of this world. He is spirit, infinite in power, wisdom, love, justice and holiness, omnipresent, eternal and blissful;
- The human soul is immortal and capable of infinite progress, and is responsible to God for its doings.;
- Man's happiness in this and the next world consists in worshipping God in spirit and in truth;
- Loving God, holding communion with Him, and carrying out His will in all the concerns of life, constitute true worship;
- No created object is to be worshipped as God, and God alone is to be considered as infallible.
The Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth century had among its luminaries a large number emerging from the Brahmo Samaj, Rabindranath Tagore being the foremost of them. Keshab Chandra Sen (1838–1884) and Protap Mazumdar (1840–1905) are some other notable members of the Brahmo Samaj.
