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Art. I.—Indian Theistic Reformers.1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
It is a mistake to suppose that the first introduction of Theism into India was due to the founders of the Brāhma Samāj, or modern Theistic Churches of Bengal. Some of the oldest hymns of the Ṛig-veda are decidedly monotheistic, and all the most pronounced forms of Indian pantheism rest on the fundamental doctrine of God's unity. “There is one Being and no second,” or in other words, “Nothing really exists but the one eternal omnipresent Spirit,” was the dogma enunciated by ancient Hindū thinkers. It was a dogma accepted by the philosophical Brāhman with all its consequences and corollaries. He firmly believed himself and the Universe to be parts of the one eternal Essence, and wrapped himself up accordingly in a kind of serene indifference to all external phenomena and circumstances. Again even the ordinary Hindū who practises the most corrupt forms of polytheism is never found to deny the doctrine of God's unity. On the contrary, he will always maintain that God is essentially one, though he holds that the one God exhibits Himself variously, and that He is to be worshipped through an endless diversity of manifestations, incarnations, and material forms.
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References
page 3 note 1 The Rev. K. S. Macdonald has given a short and interesting summary of his life in a paper read at Darjeeling (June, 1879), and Miss Mary Carpenter published an interesting account of his ‘Last Days’ in 1866.Google Scholar
page 5 note 1 His mother, who was at first very bitter against him, lived to acknowledge that he was right, though she could not give up her old faith, “which was a comfort to her.”
page 9 note 1 He published three “Appeals to the Christian public” against the unfair construction which Dr. Marshman and others had put on his “Precepts of Jesus.”
page 11 note 1 So the Press at which Rāmmohun Roy's publications were printed was called the Unitarian Press.
page 12 note 1 It is said that in accordance with this principle, Eurasian boys used to sing the Psalms of David in English, and Hindū musicians religious songs in Bengālī.
page 12 note 2 Thus, in the introduction to his translation of the Wopanishad, he says, “The chief part of the theory and practice of Hindooism, I am sorry to say, is made to consist in the adoption of a peculiar mode of diet, the least aberration from which is punished by exclusion from his family and friends. Murder, theft, or perjury, though brought home to the party by a judicial sentence, so far from inducing loss of caste, is visited with no peculiar mark of infamy.”
page 20 note 1 Rāj Narain Bose has rendered good service to the Ādi-Brahma-Samāj by his able writings, just as Mr. P. C. Mozoomdar has to the later development of Theism about to be described—the Brahma-Samāj of India.
page 21 note 1 He was held in great esteem by Prof. H. H. Wilson, and was the author of a useful English and Bengali Dictionary, to which my own lexicography is under some obligations.
page 25 note 1 This new Churoh has been sometimes called the progressive Brāhma-Samāj.
page 33 note 1 Besides the ‘Indian Mirror’ the Sulabh Sumāchār (‘Cheap News’) and Dharma-tattva, ‘Religious truth,’ have long been exponents of Mr. Sen's teaching. MrMozoomdar, 's Theistic Annual and his Theistic Quarterly ReviewGoogle Scholar, which has lately taken its place, are more recent advocates on the same side.
page 35 note 1 The Indian Mirror of March 17, 1878, informed its readers that “though the Rāja's Purohits, who were orthodox Brahmins, were allowed to officiate at the ceremony, the Horn was not performed during the marriage; but after the bride and her party left the place. The principles of Brāhma marriage were barely preserved.”
page 36 note 1 The Reverend Luke Rivington is my authority. He was present with the Bishop of Calcutta and a few other Europeans. Indeed the lecture was due to a previous conversation with Mr Rivington at a dinner-party given by Mr. Sen to him and to a large number of thoughtful natives.
page 38 note 1 He has been succeeded by Babu Shib Chandar Deb.
page 41 note 1 That is “branches.” Of these there are one thousand for the Sāma-veda, one hundred for the Yajur-Veda, twenty-one for the Ṛig-Veda, and nine for the Atharva-Veda. See Patanjali's Mahābhāshya.