3 1822021997838 1822 02199 7838 Social Sciences & Humanities Library University of California, San Diego Please Note: This item is subject to recall. Date Due A ffl f*> f\ A HOO"7 MAR v)4 lyy/ FEB 091998 1 A tit 1 O +-rt-r*-r* JAN 1 8 1999 CI39(2#5) UCSDLt). 2^ BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS F. MAX MULLER, K.M. MEMBER OF THE FBENCH INSTITUTE RAMMOHUN ROY, KESHUB CHUNDER SEN DAYANANDA SARASVAT? BUNYIU NANJIO AND KENJIU KASAWARA COLEBROOKE, MOHL, BUNSEN AND KINGSLEY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1884 [ All rights reserved ] xforfc PRINTED BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE RAJAH RlMMOHUN BOY, 1774-1833 (written 1883) . . . I KESHUB CHUNDEB SEN, 1838-1884 (written 1884) ... 49 DAYANANDA SAEASVAT!, 1827-1883 (written 1884) . . .167 BCNYIU NANJIO, 1849, and KENJIU KASAWABA, 1851-1883, (written 1884) 183 COLEBBOOKE, 1765-1837 (Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1872; Chips from a German Workshop, iv. 377) ..... 228 MOHL, 1800-1876 (Contemporary Review, Aug. 1878) . . 272 BUNSEN, 1791-1860 (Chips from a German Workshop, iii. 358) . 311 KINGSLEY, 1820-1875 (Translated from Deutsche Rundschau, 1877) 363 RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. (1774-1833.) Address delivered in the Bristol Museum, September if, 1883, the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Bdjah's death. IT is only fifty years ago that Rajah Rammohun Roy, who had come to Bristol to pay a visit to Dr. Carpenter and other friends, died here on the 27th of September, 1833. He drew his last breath at twenty-five minutes past two o'clock in the morning. On the 1 8th of October his body was committed to the earth, under the shadow of some fine old elm-trees in the garden of Stapleton Grove, where the Rajah had been staying, since the beginning of September, as the guest of Miss Castle, a ward of Dr. Carpenter's. Lastly, in 1843, on the 29th of May, the remains of the Rajah were transferred from Stapleton Grove to the beautiful cemetery of Arno's Vale. There, as you enter, on the right hand side, many of those whom I have the honour to address here to-night, have no doubt gazed and wondered at a strange Oriental monument, which was erected over the tomb of the Rajah by my old friend, Dvarkanath * Tagore, 1 Dvarakanatha, like Dv;lrake*.i, in a name of Kr<&hna. B 2 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. who was himself a follower of the great religious reformer, and soon after shared his sad fate of dying an exile in a foreign country. Let me read you the lines inscribed on the monument : BENEATH THIS STONE REST THE REMAINS OF RAJA RAMMOHUN ROY BAHADOOR, A CONSCIENTIOUS AND STEADFAST BELIEVER IN THE UNITY OF THE GODHEAD ; HE CONSECRATED HIS LIFE WITH ENTIRE DEVOTION TO THE WORSHIP OF THE DIVINE SPIRIT ALONE. TO GREAT NATURAL TALENTS HE UNITED A THOROUGH MASTERY OF MANY LANGUAGES, AND EARLY DISTINGUISHED HIMSELF AS ONE OF THE GREATEST SCHOLARS OF HIS DAY. HIS UNWEARIED LABOURS TO PROMOTE THE SOCIAL, MORAL, AND PHYSICAL CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, HIS EARNEST ENDEAVOURS TO SUPPRESS IDOLATRY AND THE RITE OF SUTTEE, AND HIS CONSTANT ZEALOUS ADVOCACY OF WHATEVER TENDED TO ADVANCE THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE WELFARE OF MAN, LIVE IN THE GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF HIS COUNTRYMEN. THIS TABLET RECORDS THE SORROW AND PRIDE WITH WHICH HIS MEMORY IS CHERISHED BY HIS DESCENDANTS. HE WAS BORN IN RADHANAGORE, IN BENGAL, IN 1774, AND DIED AT BRISTOL, SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1833. These are the bare facts which connect this ancient city of Bristol with the memory of Rajah Rammohun Roy, the great religious reformer of India. You wished for an interpretation of these facts, and I only wish you could have found a more competent and more eloquent interpreter. But as an old admirer, and I feel proud to say, as a sincere follower of Rammohun Roy, so far as he went in his religious reforms, I felt it almost impossible to decline the kind invitation which was addressed to me by my friend, our Chairman, in the name of your Society, RAJAH RAMMOIIUN ROY. 3 to be present here on the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Rajah Rammohun Roy, and to say a few words on his life, and, what is more important, on the work of his life, on that which has outlived his life, and has secured to him that best of all im- mortalities, the gratitude of mankind. If I tell you that Rammohun's life-work was the restoration of the old religion of India, as contained in the Veda, and that a great part of my own life has been spent in making the Veda accessible to the students of Europe, by collecting the ancient MSS. of the Sacred Writings of the Brahmans, and publish- ing for the first time the text and commentary of the Rig- Veda, the oldest book of the whole Aryan race, you will easily understand the strong sympathy I feel for the Indian Reformer, whose ashes rest among the ashes of your own forefathers ; but I am afraid I shall hardly convey to you by these few words a very clear idea either of what the Rajah tried to achieve as a reformer, or what I myself hoped to accomplish as a scholar. It will be necessary therefore, before pro- ceeding further, to turn our eyes together to the past, in order to gain a kind of historical background from which the religious reformer of India, to whose memory we wish to do honour to-night, may step forward as you see his stately figure advancing towards you in that excellent picture which has to-night been placed in this hall, and which, I hope, may always retain a place of honour in your Museum l . 1 The life-size portrait by Biggs was bought by Miss Castle and presented to the Bristol Museum. The Rajah himself did not like it, possibly because he thought the complexion too dark. There is also a, miniature by Newton, and a bust by Clarke. B 2 4 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. Great men, depend upon it, do not come down from the sky like shooting stars. They come in the fulness of time; and if we want to understand their true character, we must try to understand that fulness of time, that is, the time that lay behind and the time that lay before them. We must know the work that others had done before them, in order to understand the work that they themselves were meant to do. Rammohun Roy, the originator of the Indian Re- formation, a reformation that is still going on slowly, silently, but, for all that, irresistibly, died fifty years ago. Now fifty years may not seem to some of us a very long time. It is quite possible that a few who are present here to-night may remember the Rajah's visit to Bristol. Yet fifty years are half a century, and remember that, according to the received chronology, not more than sixty such centuries are supposed to form the canvass for the whole history of the world, or, at least, for as much of it as we shall ever know. Remember that we have accustomed ourselves to believe that only one hundred and twenty such short periods as have passed since the death of Rammohun Roy, that is to say, no more than 6000 years a stretch of time that might almost be spanned by the memory of sixty men separate us from what will always remain the most miraculous of all miracles, and, at the same time, the most certain of all facts the appearance on this earth of a being, capable of language, that is, of reason; a being which, when it came to be conscious of its dignity, called itself Man, or, in Sanskrit, Manu, which means the measurer, the thinker, the discoverer and the giver of laws. I do not mean to imply that I myself believe that RAJAH RAMMOHUX KOY. 5 the age of man is six thousand years and no more. I only wish to measure the time that has elapsed since the death of Rammohun Roy with the time that is commonly believed to have elapsed since the birth of man. I doubt whether Astronomy will ever be able to measure the age of the solar system in which our planet moves as a very small star among larger stars, all held together by the same central force. I doubt whether Geology will ever be able to fix the time when, after the long interval that must have followed on the glacial period, the highest plateaus of the earth became fit for human occupation. But I feel perfectly certain that no one who has carefully studied the origin, growth, and decay of all that we call human, our thoughts, our words, our religions, our arts, our sciences, our laws and literature, can really believe, or can make it even intelligible to himself, that no more than sixty centuries, no more than one hundred and eighty generations, should have passed since the first fire was lighted, the first flint chipped, the first word uttered. Let us think of our language only. It is said that the New English Dictionary, which has been prepared during the last twenty-five years by the members of the Philological Society, and the first part of which, edited by Dr. Murray, will soon issue from the Uni- versity Press at Oxford, is to contain one quarter of a million of words. Every one of these words is a work of art; it is the workmanship of human genius. And every one of these words had not only to be fashioned, but it had to be accepted ; it had to be recognised as the current coin of the 6 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. realm by millions and millions of speakers. The history of that primeval coinage, its dispersion over the whole inhabited world, the losses which it suf- fered by wear and tear, the alloys which it had to admit, the ever-increasing rapidity with which the ever-increasing wants of the intellectual Exchange of the whole world were supplied, all this forms a study with which, to my mind, no other study can vie, call it astronomy, geology, or even philosophy. That study certainly leaves the impression on every unprejudiced scholar that, to account for it all, we want rather the fabulous periods of Hindu chronology than the narrow limits of the dates which have been deduced by mediaeval scholars from the Sacred Books of the Jews. Well, let us consider now what a lesson of history is conveyed by the fact that Rammohun Roy, when he came to England from the far East, spoke a lan- guage, the Bengali, which in one sense, and in a truly scientific sense, may be called the same language as English. Not only the material elements, but the original formal elements too, are the same in English and Bengali ; and turn it as you like, you cannot escape from the conclusion that Rammohun Roy, however strange his language may have sounded to his friends at Bristol, was not a mere stranger when he arrived in Europe, but was returning, in reality, to his own intellectual kith and kin. I say intel- lectual kith and kin, because that kinship is far more important than the mere kinship of blood. Blood may be thicker than water, but language is thicker than blood, at least to beings who, though for a time identifying themselves with flesh and blood, are them- RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 7 selves something very different from mere flesh and blood. We have now reached a point from which the journey of Rammohun Roy from India to Europe, and his stay in England, will appear to us in an entirely new light. The Science of Language, and, in fact, every true science, is like a hardy Alpine guide that leads us from the narrow, though it may be the more peaceful and charming valleys of our preconceived opinions, to higher points, apparently less attractive, nay often disappointing for a time, till, after hours of patient and silent climbing, we look round, and see a new world around us. A new horizon has opened, our eyes see far and wide, and as the world beneath us grows wider and larger, our own hearts seem to grow wider and larger, and we learn to em- brace the far and distant, and all that before seemed strange and indifferent, with a warmer recognition and a deeper human sympathy. We form wider con- cepts, we perceive higher truths. The Indian and the European grow into one, the Indo-European, speaking the same speech, thinking the same thoughts; and Rammohun Roy, the dark- skinned stranger, when landing on the shores of these distant isles, is recognised at once, and greeted as one of ourselves, estranged from us by no greater changes than what some thousand years may have wrought in that language which his ancestors and ours once spoke together under the same sky, it may be, under the same roof, and which still lives on, however dis- guised, in his speech and in our own, in Bengali and in English. And now let us ask another question, in order to 8 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. understand and properly to appreciate the hidden springs and the real purport of Rammohun Roy's visit to England. Why did he come to England ? We shall see that ostensibly he came on busi- ness. He was sent by the Emperor of Delhi, the Great Mogul, to plead his cause in one of the crowded streets of the city of London, in Leadenhall- street, in the gloomy East-India House, before the Court of Directors of the now extinct East-India Company. But his real business was very different. The supreme and all-absorbing interest of Rammohun Roy's life was religion. Remember the first lines on his tombstone, ' He was a conscientious and steadfast believer in the Unity of the Godhead, and consecrated his life with entire devotion to the worship of the Divine Spirit alone.' He was a Brahman by birth, and though his mind had been opened by contact with English society in India, and had been widened, purified, and liberalised by a conscientious study of the Sacred Books of the great religions of the world, yet he remained a Brahman to the end. No doubt he admired Christianity more than any other religion ; I think we may truly say he admired it more than his own; yet, for all that, he remained a Brahman, and was therefore in the eyes of most of the people who received him in England, a non-Christian, or a heathen. And yet we have only to ascend again to a higher elevation, as we did before under the guidance of the Science of Language, and we shall meet with a new guide, the Science of Religion, which will lead us to a higher historical standpoint, and will open before our eyes a wider panorama, where the past history KAJAH IIAMMOHUN ROY. 9 of the religions of the world seems almost present again, and where we can see the ancestors of that so-called heathen, worshipping the same gods and the same God whom some of our own ancestors still worshipped in their sacred groves not more than ten centuries ago. There was a time when the fathers of the Aryan race, that noble race to which we ourselves belong, which has since been divided into Greeks and Romans, Celts and Slaves on one side, and Indians and Persians on the other, invoked with the same names the gods of the sky, and the air, and the earth, the gods whose real presence was felt in the thunder and the storm and the rain, whose abode was looked for in the clouds or on the inaccessible crests of the mountains, but chiefly the God, who was seen and yet not seen in the sun, who was revealed every morning in the brightness of the dawn, and who himself revealed, far away in the golden East, that infinite Beyond, for which human language has no name, human thought no form, but which the eye of faith perceives, and after fashioning it into endless ideal shapes, and endowing it with all that is most beautiful in poetry, most choice in art, most sublime in philo- sophy, calls it God. The names of these ancient Aryan gods, such as the poor vocabulary of man could supply, were the same among the Saxons whom Charlemagne con- verted, and among the poets of India, whose sacred songs have been preserved to us, as by a miracle, in the hymns of the Veda. In this panorama, which a comparative study of the ancient religions of mankind has enabled us to construct, we can still see the Aryan worshippers, 10 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. breaking up from their common centre, and dividing into two branches, the North- Western and the South- Eastern. The former marched towards the home of the setting sun, till they had reached that small peninsula which we now call Europe, and which became the stage of what we are apt to call the history of the whole world. The latter, the South-Eastern branch, set out to discover the home of the rising sun, till they reached their earthly paradise in the valleys of the land of the Five Rivers, and, further still, along the shores of the Ganges and the Jumnah. Though these South-Eastern Aryans are seldom mentioned in our Histories of the world, we should bear in mind that India alone has more inhabitants at the present moment than the whole of Europe. When these two streams parted, each of them pre- served some of the names of their ancient common gods, but each arrived in time at the belief in a Father of all gods, in an All-father, in a God of gods. That faith, however, in the All-father, that mystery of the One God above all gods, was preserved by the few only. The North- Western Aryans at large, call them Greeks, or Romans, or Celts, or Slaves, or Germans, forgot the true meaning of the ancient names, debased the character of their ancient gods, and forgetful alike of the All-father and of the in- finite Beyond in the golden East, they became more and more absorbed in the cares and pleasures of what was called political and practical life. From this there was but one escape ; and we see accordingly that all the North- Western Aryas had sooner or later RAJAH RAMMOHUX ROY. 11 to surrender the ancient and corrupt religion of their .Aryan forefathers, and to embrace a new religion, not of Aryan, but of Semitic descent; a religion in which the unity of the Godhead had never been for- gotten ; a religion founded, not only on the wor- ship, but on the love of the All-father; a religion lastly which, in spite of the most fearful corruptions which it has suffered, has always preserved to those who have eyes to see, something of that original simplicity, purity, and true divinity which it pos- sessed in the minds of Christ and His disciples. Rammohun Roy, the Arya, the Indian, the Brahman, came to England for the sake of that new religion. He had studied Christianity before, he had seen its working among the English residents in India; but he wished to see a whole Christian country, and he was longing for free intercourse with some of the freest and most fearless thinkers in the Christian Church. And why was that ? I told you before that Rammohun Roy was an Arya, belonging to the South-Eastern branch of the Aryan race, and that he spoke an Aryan language, the Bengali. He had been brought up to worship the old Aryan gods, and he lived among a people most of whom had forgotten the original intention of their ancient gods, and had sunk into idolatry of the darkest hue. He himself, like many of his country- men, possessed the old mystery of the All-father, the father of gods and men, the Pra/yapati, the lord of creatures, as he would call him. Nay, he knew more. He was a true Brahman, so called because he knew the Brahman, the Supreme Spirit, or, more correctly, the Highest Self, the One without a second, the One 12 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. in all, the Self behind us and the Self within. He knew all this, at least dimly, and yet he wanted to know more ; and he came to England, the first Brahman who ever crossed the sea, to see whether Europe, whether Christian Europe, would teach him some- thing which he had looked for in vain in the Vedas and in the Upanishads, in the Bhagavadgita and in the Vedanta-sutras. He came to England, and after spending some time in London, seeing the best men he could find, and watching the outward manifest- ations of Christianity, wherever they showed them- selves, whether in drawing-rooms or prisons, in Church or Parliament, in schools or hospitals, he at last came to Bristol to finish his search after truth, a search which only ended with his last breath. I have thus tried to lay before you a map of the world, a mere sketch, it is true, yet sufficiently clear, I hope, to make you see that Rammohun Roy's visit to England was not merely a fortuitous ad- venture, but that it had historical antecedents, that it had an historical character, in the true sense of the word. If History is to teach us anything, it must teach us that there is a continuity which binds to- gether the present and the past, the East and the West. And no branch of history teaches that lesson more powerfully than the history of language and the history of religion. It is under their guidance that we recognise in Rammohun Roy's visit to Eng- land the meeting again of the two great branches of the Aryan race, after they had been separated so long that they had lost all recollection of their common origin, of their common language, of their common faith. In Rammohun Roy you may recognise the RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 13 best representative of the South-Eastern Aryas, turn- ing deliberately North, to shake hands once more with the most advanced outposts of the other branch of the Aryan family, established in these islands. It is true that, long before his visit to England, England had visited India, first for the sake of commerce, then for the sake of self-defence and conquest. But for the sake of intellectual intercourse, for the sake of comparing notes, so to say, with his Aryan brothers, Rammohun Roy was the first who came from East to West, the first to join hands and to complete that world-wide circle through which henceforth, like an electric current, Oriental thought could run to the West, and Western thought return to the East, making us feel once more that ancient brotherhood which unites the whole Aryan race, inspiring us with new hopes for a common faith, purer and simpler than any of the ecclesiastical religions of the world, and invigorating us for acts of nobler daring in the con- quest of truth than any that are inscribed in the chronicles of our divided past. If England is to be the great Indo-European Empire of the future, Ram- mohun Roy's name will hold a prominent place among the prophets and martyrs that saw her true mission, and her true greatness and glory in the distant future. This must suffice as the historical background. Let us now look at the man who steps forward from it to do his own work in life, and to fight his own battle, trying with all his might to leave the world, and more particularly his own country, a little better than he found it. There is little to be said about the mere life of Rammohun Roy, and even the little we know from 14 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. himself and from his friends is far from trustworthy. There is no taste for history in India, still less for biography. Home life and family life are shrouded by a veil which no one ventures to lift, while public life, in which a man's character shows itself in Eng- land, has no existence in the East. On the other hand, loose statements, gossip, rumour, legend, fable, myth call them what you like are marvellously busy in the East ; and though Rammohun Roy has been dead for fifty years only, several stories are told by his biographers which have clearly a mythological character. What interests us so much in the biographies of great men, their home-life, their early friendships, their married life, all this is wanting in Rammohun Roy's biography. We shall hear something about his feelings for his mother, but of his married life we know no more than that he had three wives. His first wife died when he was very young, and his father married him to a third wife while the second was living. His second wife was the mother of his two sons, Radhaprasad and Ramprasad, and all we know of her is that she died soon after his mother's death. His eldest son died without leaving male issue, while the younger attained eminence at the bar, and was elected the first native Judge of the High Court of Fort William, though he died before taking his seat. The real biography of Rammohun Roy must be read in the work which he did ; and in order to understand that work it will be sufficient for us to remember only a few prominent events of his life l . 1 Miss Collet, who is collecting materials for a complete life of the RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 15 Rammohun Roy was born in Bengal in 1774, so that at the time of his death he was not more than fifty-nine years of age. His ancestors on both sides belonged to the Brahman caste. His paternal an- cestors, however, had been engaged in secular pursuits, while his maternal ancestors adhered to a life of reli- gious observances and devotion. Rammohun Roy himself was educated for practical life, and, as a boy, devoted much time to the study of Persian and Arabic, though the influence of his mother's relations seems to have induced him not to neglect altogether the study of Sanskrit, in which the main body of Hindu literature, law, and religion is composed. His doubts and misgivings as to his ancestral religion seem to have been roused at a very early age, but the statement that, at the age of sixteen, he composed in Persian a treatise against the idolatry of all religions l a bold subject for a man of sixty, much more for a boy of sixteen rests on authority that may be doubted 2 . What seems certain is that, owing to some mis- understandings with his father on religious subjects, he left his paternal home when he was about sixteen, and travelled over a considerable part of India, pro- ceeding even beyond the frontiers of his country, if report speaks true, and spending some time in Tibet. That he studied the language and literature of Kajah, remarks that even the date of his birth is doubtful. The Elijah's younger brother placed it in 1772. 1 The book here referred to is probably the one mentioned on p. 34 as 'Present to Monotheists,' of which, as Miss Collet informs me, one printed copy exists in the Adi Samaj Library. It was written after his father's death. 3 See note on p. 44. 16 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. Tibet, and became really acquainted with the Sacred Canon of the Buddhists in Tibet, I doubt for various reasons; still the impressions he received on these wanderings may have told on his future career, by opening his eyes to the similarity of all religious belief, hidden under a great diversity of outward form and ceremonial. After his father's death in 1803 Rammohun Roy first returned to Murshadabad, the capital of the Soubah of Bengal, at whose Court his ancestors had found employment. He then served for a number of years as Diwan (Sheristadar) in the East-India Com- pany's service. This was the highest post to which at that time a native could aspire, and a special clause had to be inserted in his Agreement that he should not be kept standing in the presence of his employer. At that time Diwan meant often de facto magistrate, de facto collector, de facto judge. While holding that office at Rungpore under Mr. John Digby his know- ledge of English was much improved, and he succeeded at last in writing and speaking it with considerable accuracy. After having secured an independent fortune x ac- 1 Remarks have been made on the sudden wealth which Rammohun Roy was supposed to have accumulated during his Diw&nship. It is stated that he inherited next to nothing from his father, but that does not prove that other ancestral property did not come to him. Mr. Sandford Arnott states that ' the death of relatives enabled him to retire from active life.' Dr. Carpenter states that his father divided his property amongst his sons two years before his death, while Mr. Arnot declares that Rammohun Roy was disinherited by his father. Certain it is that in an action instituted against Rammohun Roy in the Calcutta Provincial Court in 1823, by the Rajah of Burdwan, Tej Chand, for a balance due from his father on a Kistbundy bond, Rammohun Roy stated that, so far from inheriting the property of his deceased father, RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 17 cordiDg to some amounting to 10,000 rupees a year he went in 1814 to settle in Calcutta. He bought a house, built in the European style, and a garden, and in 1818 we first hear of meetings held there by his friends. We catch a glimpse of his life at that time through Mr. Arnot, who visited him at his garden- house near Calcutta, and found him one evening, about seven o'clock, closing a dispute with one of the followers of Buddha who denied the existence of a Deity. The Rajah had spent the whole day in the controversy, without stopping for food, rest, or re- freshment, rejoicing more in confuting one atheist than in triumphing over a hundred idolaters. The credulity of the one he despised, the scepticism of the other he thought pernicious, being ' deeply impressed with the importance of religion to the virtue and happiness of mankind.' Rammohun Roy, however, was equally outspoken against his co-religionists as against Buddhists and unbelievers. At first it seems to have been his con- tact with Mohammedans which made him a believer in One God. Afterwards, however, when his early hatred of everything English had been changed into a feeling of sincere respect 1 , and when his know- ledge of the English language enabled him to become he had, during his life-time, separated himself from him and the rest of his family in consequence of his altered habits of life and change of opinions, and that, inheriting no part of his father's property, he was not legally responsible for his father's debts (Biogr. Ace. p. 197). His brother, Jugmohun Roy, died in 18 n. 1 ' He saw the selfish, cruel, and almost insane errors of the English in governing India, but he also saw that their system of government and policy had redeeming qualities, not to be found in the native government.' Adam, Lecture, p. a6. C 18 BIOGKAPHICAL ESSAYS. intimately acquainted, not only with some members of the Civil Service, but also with the master- works of English literature, his mind became more and more impregnated and invigorated by European thought and by Christian sentiment. The social intercourse between English and Indian gentlemen was at that time much more cordial than it is at present, and religious, social, and literary questions were freely discussed on both sides. Re- ligion has always been the principal subject of thought, and a favourite subject for discussion w T ith the people of India, and Rammohun Roy, in answer- ing the questions or repelling the taunts of his English friends, seems to have felt no hesitation in expressing openly his contempt for that idolatrous worship which by others was taken to be the true and only religion of the country. He appealed to the Sacred Books, written in San- skrit, as bearing witness against the idolatry of the priest-ridden masses. At that time, however, thanks to the labours of such men as Sir William Jones. Wilkins and Cole- brooke, Sanskrit MSS. were no longer sealed books, and it was easy to retort on Rammohun Roy that his own Pura^as, and even the Mahabharata and Rama- ya'?a, sanctioned idolatry, polytheism, caste, burning of widows, and many other abominations. It was then that Rammohun Roy took his stand on the Veda, as the true Bible of India. The Veda, he declared, sanctioned no idolatry, taught monotheism, ignored caste, prohibited the burning of widows ; con- tained in fact a religion as true, as pure, and as perfect as Christianity itself, nay, free from some of 11AJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 19 the blemishes which offended him and many of his countrymen in the teaching of the missionaries. This was a bold assertion, half true, half false, as we know now, but an assertion which at that time no one could venture to criticise or contradict. Although there existed MSS. of the Veda, these MSS. were religiously guarded. No Englishman was allowed to see or to touch them. Even at a much later time, when Professor Wilson by accident put his hand on some Vedic MSS. in a native library, he told me that people rushed at him with threatening and ominous gestures. Of course, the Veda had never been printed or published, and it existed in fact, as it had existed for three thousand years, chiefly in the memory of the priests. We can hardly form an idea of the power wielded by the priests, when they were the only depositaries of Vedas or Bibles, and when there was no possible appeal from what they laid down as the catholic faith. In India their position was stronger even than in Italy, because the priest did not read the Veda from MSS., but had to learn it entirely from oral tradition, and teach it again to his pupils in the same way. No one therefore could contradict him except those who did not wish to con- tradict him. Now it may sound strange, but I feel convinced that Rammohun Roy himself, when, in his contro- versies with his English friends, he fortified himself behind the rampart of the Veda, had no idea of what the Veda really was. Vedic learning was then at a low ebb in Bengal, and Rammohun Roy had never passed through a regular training in Sanskrit. In the West and South of India the comparatively 20 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. pure form of Hinduism which Rammohun Roy en- deavoured to introduce into Bengal had never become extinct, and one of his native opponents, Sankara Sastri, while fully admitting the facts contended for by Rammohun Roy, insisted strongly on this, that the latter had no claim to be considered the discoverer of a doctrine well known to all students of Sansksit, and particularly of the Veda 1 . Veda is the name for the oldest sacred literature of the Brahmans. There are really four Vedas, but the most ancient and most important is the Rig- Veda. A Veda consists of two portions, a poetical and a prose portion. The poetical portion comprises hymns addressed to numerous deities, deities of the sky, the air, the sun, the earth, fire and water, mountains and rivers. The prose portions, the so-called Brahmaas, contain treatises on the various sacrifices, mixed up with a great deal of relevant and irrelevant, interest- ing and uninteresting matter. The prose portions presuppose the hymns, and to judge from the utter inability of the authors of the Brahmawas to understand the antiquated language of the hymns, these Brahmanas must be ascribed to a much later period than that which gave birth to tbe hymns. At the end of some of the Brahmanas we find philosophical treatises, best known by the name of Upanishads 2 or Vedanta, literally, ' End of the Veda.' These contain the elements of that Vedanta philo- sophy which was reduced to a system in the Vedanta- 1 W. Adam, Lecture on Rammohun Roy ; p. 7. 2 Translations of the principal Upanishads are contained in vols. i. and xv. of the ' Sacred Books of the East.' RAJAH RAMMOHUN EOY. 21 Sutras, and may still be called the national philosophy of India. When Rammohun Roy speaks of the Vedas and of the monotheism taught by them, he almost invariably means the Upanishads, not the Brahmaas, not the Mantras or hymns of the Veda. Both the Brahmauas and the hymns teach a polytheistic, or, more accu- rately, a henotheistic, but not a monotheistic religion ; yet they form the great bulk of what is called Veda, while the Upanishads form only a kind of appendix. Rammohun Roy had been brought up in the belief that the Veda was the word of God, that it contained a primeval revelation, that it was free from all the defects of human authorship. When therefore his friends or the missionaries pressed on him the claims of the Bible, as likewise an infallible book, he found himself between two infallible authorities, and natu- rally preferred his own. And here he had a great advantage. While his English friends had simply to accept whatever he told them about the Veda, without being able to check his statements, he himself set to work to study the Bible in the original. It is extremely creditable to him that he did so ; that he actually learnt Greek and Hebrew in order to form his own independent opinion of the Old and New Testaments very dif- ferent from many who carry on heated controversies about the Bible, who shrink from no terms of con- demnation against all who differ from them, and yet shrink from the simple task of learning Greek and Hebrew. After having studied the Old Testament with a 22 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. Jewish Rabbi, the New Testament with an English clergyman, Rammohun Roy in 1820 published his celebrated work, ' The Precepts of Jesus, the guide to peace and happiness.' This book consists chiefly of extracts from the Gospels, and in the Preface the author says : ' This simple code of religion and morality is so admirably calculated to elevate man's ideas to high and liberal notions of One God, who has equally sub- jected all living creatures, without distinction of caste, rank, or wealth, to change, disappointment, pain and death, and has equally admitted all to be partakers of the bountiful mercies which He has lavished over nature ; and is also so well fitted to regulate the con- duct of the human race in the discharge of their various duties to God, to themselves, and society, that I cannot but hope the best effects from its promulgation in the present form.' This publication brought upon him a fierce attack and a long controversy, not with the champions of the national religion of India, who might have sus- pected him of undermining their faith, but with the Christian missionaries of Serampore. Instead of welcoming him, on the principle that ' he that is not against us is for us,' they blamed him for the exercise of his private judgment, in selecting from the New Testament whatever he thought most likely to be beneficial to his own countrymen. He left out, for instance, most of the so-called miracles, because he felt that his countrymen, who were able without any effort to believe that a mere saint could swallow the whole ocean, and many of whom were convinced that they had seen a man throwing a rope into the air and RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 23 ascending by it into the sky, were not likely to be much impressed by a change of water into wine, or by the miracle of the ascension. And as the whole battle of his life had been to convince the people of India that there was, and that there could be, one God only, not two, not three, not many, we can well understand his anxiety that those whom he wished to bring nearer unto Christ, should on no account be led to believe that Trinitarianism was part of Christ's own teaching. As then taught by many of the missionaries in India, the doctrine of the three Persons, that is the three aspects or manifesta- tions of the Godhead, had been hardened into mere Tritheisni, the very doctrine against which Rammohun Roy had been protesting from his earliest youth with all his might and main. It is well known that in India one of the most damaging charges brought against modern Christianity is that it admits three Gods, and it was against Mohammedan scoffers quite as much as against Christian missionaries that Ram- mohun Roy argued in maintaining that Christ Himself, as we know Him from the Gospels, believed in one God only, that He was in fact a Unitarian, in the highest sense of that word. What Rammohun Roy wanted for India was a Christianity, purified of all mere miracles, and relieved of all theological rust and dust, whether it dated from the first council or from the last. That Christianity he was willing to preach, but no other, and in preachiog that Christianity he might still, he thought, remain a Brahman, and a follower of the religion of the Veda. He was engaged with two missionaries, William Yates and William Adam, in a 24 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. Bengali translation of the four Gospels, hut this undertaking seems to have failed 1 . There is an interesting story told by Mr. William Adam in his lecture on Rammohun Roy which he gave many years ago in America, and which has lately been published at Calcutta 2 . Dr. Middleton, the first Bishop of Calcutta, thought it his duty to endeavour to convert Rammohun Roy to Christianity, and in doing so, he dwelt not only on the truth and excellence of his own religion, but spoke of the honour and repute, the influence and usefulness he would acquire by becoming the Apostle of India. Rammohun Roy expressed his bitter indignation that he should have been deemed capable of being influenced by any consideration but the love of truth and goodness, and he never afterwards visited the Bishop again. The same Mr. W. Adam, who had gone to India as a Protestant missionary, became a Unitarian, chiefly through the influence of Rammohun Roy. He lived to a considerable age. I had some letters from him, but was unfortunately prevented from seeing him at Beaconsfield, where he died last year (1883). Rammohun Roy's influence grew rapidly. Some of the best, the most cultivated, and most enlightened among his countrymen, now joined him openly. Meet- ings were held on Saturdays 3 at his house, and these, as they became more largely attended, and acquired greater regularity, formed the foundation of that movement which is known to you all as the Brahma- 1 Lecture on Rammohun Roy, by W. Adam, p. 9. a Calcutta, 1879, p. 24. .* They were held on Saturdays, as Miss Collet informs me, from Nov. 1828 to Jan. 1830. After the opening of the new Hall on Jan. 1830, the day was changed to Wednesday. RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 25 Samaj, at first called also Brahma Sabha 1 . I call it a movement, because it seems to me that, even at present, more that fifty years after its first beginning, the Brahma-Samaj is still a movement only, an emotion, an aspiration, if you like, a religion ; but not a settlement, a sect, or a church. At the weekly meetings of the Brahma-Samaj extracts were read from the Vedas, discourses were delivered, chiefly in Bengali, hymns were sung, mostly composed by Rammohun Roy himself. Great care, however, was taken not to wound national feeling more than could be helped. The Vedas, for instance, were chanted by Brahmans only, from an adjoining room, where people of the lower castes were not allowed to enter. Brahma-Samaj means ' Society of the believers in Brahman, the Supreme Spirit 2 .' In opposition to it, the orthodox and conservative party started the Dharma-sabha, the society or church of Dharma, the law. What was meant by law may be gathered from the fact that one of the first acts of the Dharma-sabha was to petition Govern- ment against the abolition of Suttee, that is, in favour of the continuance of the burning of widows. Ram- mohun Roy had published, as early as 1 8 1 8, a treatise entitled ' A Conference between an advocate for and an opponent of the practice of burning widows alive.' He lived to witness the triumph of his cause, but not till his arrival in England, when the last appeal of 1 See W. Adam, Lecture, p. 8. 9 I write throughout Brahma-Samaj. The various spellings, Brahmo Somaj, Brahmo Sumaj, &c., represent the various pronunciations of the word. Brahmo has almost become a new Anglo-Indian word, and, when used by others, it has sometimes been allowed to stand. Brahma is meant as an adjective, derived from Brahman. 26 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. the members of the Dharma-sabha against the aboli- tion of the burning of widows was heard in the Privy Council, and rejected. This was in 1831 not so very long ago, after all. It was the year of the Reform Bill ; and a shudder comes over one, if one realises the fact that up to that time, in a country governed by some of the greatest English statesmen, women were burnt whole- sale, even in the immediate neighbourhood of Cal- cutta. The official returns of the Bengal Government for the year 1823 show that the number of widows burnt during one year, in the Bengal Presidency only, amounted to 575; 310 widows perished w r ithin the limits of the Calcutta Court of Circuit. Their ages give a still more ghastly reality to that holocaust. We read that 109 were old women above sixty; 226 were from forty to sixty ; 208 were from twenty to forty ; and 32 were actually young girls under twenty years of age ! We always say, ' Such things would be impossible now!' Let us hope that the future may not say the same of us. I cannot help thinking, nay I cannot help hoping, that some pages in 'The Bitter Cry of London' will sound as ghastly to future generations as widow-burnings did to us. Rammohun Roy, however, by no means restricted his activity to controversial publications. He built schoolhouses, and established schools in which useful knowledge was gratuitously taught through the medium both of the English and native languages. He gave ardent and most zealous support to the missionaries of the Scotch Presbyterian Church in establishing in Calcutta a seminary in which Chris- tian as well as general knowledge was daily and RAJAH EAMMOHUN EOY. 27 gratuitously taught to five or six hundred native youths by missionary instructors ; and, following his example, one of his wealthiest friends and adherents gave still more liberal pecuniary encouragement to a similar school established by the same missionaries in the interior of the Jessore District in Bengal l . In 1830 a Prayer Hall was opened in Calcutta by Rammohun Roy, in which meetings were held every Wednesday. The foundation of the Brahma- Samaj is dated from that year 2 . 1 Adam, Lecture, p. 18. 2 The following extracts are taken from the Trust Deed of that Institu- tion : ' The Hall is to be used as 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 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, 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, within or on the said messuage, building, land, tene- ments, hereditaments and premises, be deprived of life either for religious purposes or 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 con- ducting the said worship and adoration, no object, animate or inanimate, that has been, or is or shall hereafter become, or be recognised as an object of worship by any man or set of men, shall be reviled or slight- ingly or contemptuously spoken of or alluded to either in preaching or in the hymns or other mode of worship that may be delivered or used in the said messuage or building ; and that no sermon, preaching, discourse, prayer, or hymns be delivered, made, or used in such worship, but such as have a tendency to the promotion of the contemplation of the Author and Preserver of the Universe, 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,' etc. 28 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. This was almost the last public act of Rammohun Roy before his departure for England. He sailed for England on the i5th of November, 1830, as envoy of the Emperor of Delhi, the Great Mogul, who had bestowed on him the title of Rajah. He arrived at Liverpool on the 8th of April, 1831, and, after a short stay, proceeded by Manchester to London. You may read, in most of the biographical accounts of the Rajah, how he was received, how he was the lion of the season, how he was presented to the King, called on by dukes and duchesses, feasted by aldermen and the directors of the East India Company; how he went to Paris, and dined twice with the king, Louis Philippe, and elsewhere, how in the end his health gave way, and he returned to England weary in body and mind. We have no time to dwell on these items of fashionable intelligence. We have hardly time to do more than to point out the few really important events during his stay in England, how, when at Liverpool, he was invited by William Roscoe to shake hands with him on his death-bed ; how Wil- liam Bentham, the utilitarian philosopher, who had secluded himself from all the world, was the first to call on the Rajah, of whom he used to say, ' He has cast off three hundred and thirty millions of gods, and has learnt from us to embrace reason in the all- important field of religion;' how he knew Henry Brougham, not yet banished to the House of Lords ; how he gave important evidence before several Parlia- mentary Committees at the time of the renewal of the Charter of the East India Company ; how, lastly, as soon as he could free himself, he carried out his long -cherished wish of going to Bristol, a city RAJAH EAMMOHUN ROY. 29 famous at that time as the home of Dr. Carpenter, John Foster, Dr. Jerrard, Dr. Symonds, Mr. Estlin, Dr. Priehard, and others men known, not only for their learning, but for their liberal spirit, their wide sympathies, and their true charity towards men of the most opposite convictions in religion and theology. Here, in the house of Miss Castle, at Stapleton Grove, he thought he would find rest and repose. Here he hoped for help in solving those honest doubts which never forsake the heart of an honest man. But it was too late. He was attacked by fever, and in a few days his weakened brain succumbed. Dreaming of distant lands, of distant hopes, and distant friends, the Eastern philosopher, the believer in the religion of the Veda, the sincere admirer of the religion of Christ, expired. Such was Rammohun Roy, to my mind a truly great man, a man who did a truly great work, and whose name, if it is right to prophesy, will be re- membered for ever, with some of his fellow-labourers and followers, as one of the great benefactors of man- kind. I know that this opinion is not shared by those who think that nothing great and nothing good can ever come out of India. What difference, they say, is there between Rammohun Roy and many of those highly-educated, polished, liberal-minded gentlemen from Bengal whom we often see now in England, who laugh at idols, are horrified at the idea of burning widows, and speak patronisingly of the religion of Christ? Surely the difference is very great. We know even in England how easy it noiv is to express opinions 30 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. and support reforms for which men were executed 300 years ago, excommunicated 200 years ago, exe- crated 100 years ago, and called ugly names within the recollection of some of the older members of this assembly. The German name for prince is Fiirst, in English first, he who is always to the fore, he who courts the place of danger, the first place in fight, the last in flight. Such a Flirst was Rammohun Roy, a true prince, a real Rajah, if Rajah also, like Rex, meant originally the steersman, the man at the helm J . If however I was wrong in calling Rammohun Roy a really great man, I wish that those who seem so jealous of greatness would at least explain on what grounds they would bestow that ancient title. An attempt was lately made in America to find out the Hundred Greatest Men of the world. The process was a very simple one. Greatness was settled by a majority of votes. Lists of names were printed and sent round to men of eminence in America and Europe, and whoever received the largest number of votes was admitted as one of the Hundred Greatest Men. The result was afterwards published in a splendid series of portraits, each portrait followed by a biography. It is astonishing to see what names were put forward, and what names were forgotten. Of course you see Napoleon the Great, and who could doubt that in one sense, as a clever soldier, as a bold diplomatist, he was great ; but read the memoirs of his Court, and you will call him the smallest, the meanest, the most wretched of men. Or take another case. Perhaps the greatest revolution in Europe was 1 See E. C. Clark, Practical Jurisprudence, p. 82. RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 31 produced by the invention of printing. Would you call the inventor of printing a great man 1 ? He did no more than what any carpenter might do cutting an engraved block into smaller blocks, each contain- ing one letter. You may call that clever, you may even take a patent for it ; but surely there is nothing great in it. In fact, that title of Great Man has been used so recklessly that to most people it conveys no longer any meaning at all. And yet I like to call Rammohun Roy a great man, using that word, not as a cheap, unmeaning title, but as conveying three essential elements of manly great- ness, namely, unselfishness, honesty, and boldness. Let us see whether Rammohun Roy possessed in a high degree these three essentials. You know he gave up idolatry. This may seem to us a very easy performance ; but in India, as well as in Europe, nothing is more sacred to a child than the objects which he sees his father worship, nothing dearer than the prayers which he has been taught by his mother to repeat with uplifted hands, long before he could repeat anything else. There is nothing so happy as the creed of childhood, nothing so difficult to part with. And do not suppose that idol-worship is more easily surrendered. Idol is an ugly name, but it meant originally no more than an image. At first the image of a deity, like the image of a distant or departed friend, is only gazed at with a mixture of sadness and joy ; afterwards something like a real presence is felt, and good resolutions are sometimes formed from merely looking at the familiar features of a beloved face. And if at any time those who value such an image as their dearest treasure, pour 32 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. out their sorrows before it, or implore it to fulfil some anxious prayer, and if such a prayer is fulfilled once, or twice, or, it may be, a hundred times out of two hundred, need we wonder that the very image is believed to be endowed with miraculous power, nay that such faith remains unshaken, even if it be de- creed that it is better for us that certain prayers should not be fulfilled ? We must remember what sacred images are to millions of human beings even in Christian countries, and we shall then be better able to appreciate the unselfishness, the honesty, and the boldness of a boy of sixteen who could bring himself to say, ' I will not worship what my father worships, I will not pray as my mother prays ; I will look out for a new God and for new prayers, if haply I may find them.' There was everything to induce Rammohun Roy to retain the religion of his fathers. It was an ancient religion, a national religion, and allowed an inde- pendent thinker greater freedom than almost any other religion. But openly to condemn and reject that religion, or at least its present form, involved more serious consequences in India than almost any- where else. It entailed not only censure and punish- ment, and the loss of the love of his parents ; it en- tailed loss of caste, expulsion from society, loss of property. All this Rammohun Roy was prepared to face ; and he had to face it. He was banished from his father's house once or twice ; he was insulted by his friends ; his life was threatened, and even in the streets of Calcutta he had to walk about armed. Later in life his relations (his own mother) tried to deprive him of his caste, and indirectly of his RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 33 property, and it was a mere accident that the law decided in his favour. And remember that during all these struggles, and when he was left almost alone, he did not join any other community where, as a convert, he might have been received with open arms and warm hearts. He never became a Mohammedan, he never became a Christian, but he remained to the end a Brahman, a believer in the Veda, and in the One God who, as he maintained, had been revealed in the Veda, and especially in the Vedanta, long before he revealed himself in the Bible or in the Koran. He wished to reform his religion, not to reject it. His mother, we are told, was for a time broken- hearted about her son. It was she who, after the death of her eldest son (Ramtanu Roy), brought an action against Rammohun Roy to disinherit him as an apostate and infidel l . But her son had the satis- faction, later in life, to hear from her own loving lips words which must have consoled him for many sor- rows. ' Son,' she said to him, a year before her death, ' you are right. But I am a weak woman, and am grown too old to give up those observances which are a comfort to me.' This was said by her, before she set out on her last pilgrimage to Juggernaut, where she died. With such self-denying devotion did she conform to the rites of the Hindu religion, that she would not allow a female servant to accompany her to Jugger- naut, or any other provision to be made for her comfort or support during the journey. When at Puri, she occupied herself in sweeping the temple of 1 Lecture on Ritmmohun Roy, by W. Adam, Calcutta, 1879, p. 6. D 34 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. the uncouth idol ! Her son knew all this, and he bore with her, as she had borne with him. Perhaps he knew that the hideous idol which she worshipped in the fetid air of his temple, Juggernaut, as we call it, was originally called Jagannatha, which means ' Lord of the World ; ' and that He, the Lord of the World, the true Jagannatha, would hear her prayers, even though addressed to Juggernaut, the uncouth image. In all these trials Rammohun Roy had nothing to support him but his belief in the Veda, and that very still, that very small voice within, which is better than the Veda, better than any written book. And I say again, a man who is ready to sacrifice everything for the voice of truth, who submits to be called a sceptic, a heretic, an atheist, even by his dearest friends, is an unselfish, an honest, a bold man, is a great man, in the best sense of the word. There is a quiet courage, a simple straightforward- ness in all Rammohun Roy's acts. Some of his friends have misunderstood him, and claimed him for a Mohammedan, or a Christian. He said himself, just before he set out for Europe, that on his death each sect, the Christian, the Hindu, and the Mohammedan, would claim him as their own, but that he belonged to none of them. His real religious sentiments are embodied in a pamphlet, written and printed in his life-time, but, according to his injunction, not pub- lished till after his death. This work discloses his belief in the unity of the Deity, his infinite power, his infinite goodness, and in the immortality of the soul l . 1 Calcutta Review, Dec. 1845, pp. 387-389. The title of the work as there given is, Tuhfatu'l-Muwahhidin, or ' Present to Monotheists.' RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 35 With such a faith nothing would have been easier for him than to do what so many of his countrymen, even the most enlightened, are still content to do, to remain silent on doctrines which do not concern them ; to shrug their shoulders at miracles and legends ; and to submit to observances which, though distasteful to themselves, may be looked upon as possibly useful to others. With such an attitude towards religion, he might have led a happy, quiet, respectable, useful life, and his conscience need not have smitten him more than it seems to have smitten many others. But he would not. He might part with his old mother in silent love and pity, but towards the rest of the world he wished to appear as what he was. He would not say that he believed in three gods, when he believed in One God only; he would not call idols symbols of the Godhead ; he would not have ritual, because it helped the weak ; he would not allow Suttee because it was a time-hallowed custom, spring- ing from the true love of a wife for a dead husband. He would have no compromising, no economising, no playing with words, no shifting of responsibility from his own shoulders to others. And therefore, what- ever narrow-minded critics may say, I say once more that Rammohun Roy was an unselfish, an honest, a bold man a great man in the highest sense of the word. And mind, 1 do not say that the world is poor in men as great as Rammohun Roy, and I know full well that many of them pass away unheeded, and leave behind them no name, no fame, no monument. But what is that 1 It only shows that the world is richer in good and great men than we thought it was. D 2 36 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS. But why should we grudge their greatness and their fame to those whom the world likes to honour ? Go into a great library if you wish to know the meaning of the immortality of a name. Go into Westminster Abbey if you wish to "know the value of a crumbling monument. True immortality is the immortality of the work done by man, which nothing can make undone, which lives, works on, grows on for ever. It does good to ourselves to remember and to honour the names of our ancestors and benefactors, but to them, depend upon it, the highest reward was not the hope of fame, but their faith in themselves, their faith in their work, their faith that nothing really good can ever perish, and that Right and Reason must in the end prevail. I have no doubt that when Rammohun Roy mut- tered his last prayer and drew his last breath at Stapleton Grove, he knew that, happen what may, his work would live, and idolatry would die. That was the chief object of his life, and small as the re- sults which he achieved might seem to others, he knew full well that all living seeds are small. I am more doubtful about his belief in the divine origin of the Veda. It seems to me as if he chiefly used his arguments in support of the revealed cha- racter of the Veda as an answer to his opponents, fighting them, so to say, with their own weapons. But however that may be, it is quite clear that this very dogma, this little want of honesty or thorough- ness of thought, retarded more than anything else the natural growth of his work. After the Rajah's death the Church which he had RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY. 37 founded, the so-called Brahma-Samaj, languished for want of new interests and for want of a real head. During the next seven or eight years, its chief repre- sentative was Pandit Ram Chandra Vidyabagish, one of Rammohun Roy's earliest disciples ; while its ma- terial wants were supplied by the generosity of Dvarkanath Tagore, the same who erected the monu- ment to the memory of Rammohun Roy in the Arno's Vale Cemetery at Bristol, and who himself lies buried in Kensal Green. I knew him well while he was staying at Paris, and living there in good royal style. He was an enlightened, liberal-minded man, but a man of this world rather than of the next. Dvarkanath Tagore, however, became a still greater benefactor of the Brahma-Samaj, though indirectly, through his son, Debendranatb Tagore, who is still alive, though he has for many years left the world, preferring to live by himself in perfect solitude, and devoted to meditation, and to the contemplation of the Divine Spirit, within and without. He, being a young man of considerable wealth, suddenly, at the age of twenty, saw the vanity of all earthly pleasures, and determined to devote the rest of his life to a search after truth, to a constant meditation on the things which are not seen, and chiefly to the dis- covery and recovery of his own true self in the Divine Self. He started a Society called the Truth-teaching Society, the Tattva-bodhini Sabha, which lasted from 1839 to 1859, while its journal, the Tattva-bodhini Patrika, still continues to appear. He was soon attracted towards the Brahma-Samaj ', 1 According to Sivanath SAstri, 'New Dispensation,' p. 4, Dcben-