Auld lang syne. Second series : $b My Indian friendsMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
History
Auld lang syne. Second series : $b My Indian friends
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
India; Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max), 1823-1900 -- Friends and associates
When Keshub Chunder Sen was staying with me at Oxford, I had a good
opportunity of watching him. I always found him perfectly tranquil, even
when most in earnest, and all his opinions were clear and settled. He
never claimed any merit for the sacrifices he had made, he rather smiled
at what was past, and seldom complained of his opponents, except when
they accused him of having been a traitor to his own cause by allowing
his daughter to be betrothed and married to the Mahârâjah of Kuch Behar,
before she had reached, by a few months, the marriageable age which he
and his friends had themselves fixed for all members of the
Brâhma-Samâj. This is too long and too complicated a story to be told
here; but, whether the father had shown any paternal weakness or not,
there was surely no cause for his former friends to separate from him on
so paltry a ground, to insult him and to break his heart, and in the end
to produce a fatal schism in the Brâhma-Samâj. When Keshub Chunder Sen
introduced new reforms, surrendering the Vedas, abandoning the Brâhmanic
thread, sanctioning widow marriages, and forbidding child-marriages, his
society, hitherto called the Brâhma-Samâj, assumed the new name of the
Brâhma-Samâj of India (1861), while the more conservative Brâhmas[6]
under Debendranâth Tagore, were distinguished by the name of Âdi
Brâhma-Samâj, or the first Brâhma-Samâj. Those who later on separated
again from Keshub Chunder Sen, because they disapproved of the marriage
of his daughter, and objected to his claiming, or seeming to claim for
himself the gift of inspiration and a higher authority than was right
for any human being, assumed the new name of Sadhâra_n_a Brâhma-Samâj or
the Catholic Society of Brâhmas. These different sections carry on the
same work, each in its own way. Some see in these divisions signs of
healthy vitality, others regret them, as impeding the more rapid advance
of a powerful army. The points of difference are so few and so
insignificant that it only requires a strong arm to weld them together
once more. Protâp Chunder Mozoomdar seemed pointed out for this, and it
is to be hoped that he may still succeed in the great work of
conciliation.
Many of those who bore the burden of the day, and without whose ready
help Keshub Chunder Sen would hardly have been able to achieve what he
did achieve in his short life, are by this time dead and forgotten. Even
Debendranâth Tagore’s constant help and patronage are seldom recognised
as they deserve to be in the history of the Brâhma-Samâj. The memory of
Hurrish Chunder Mookerjee has lately been revived by the republication
of his Three Lectures on Religious Subjects (Calcutta, 1887); and it was
his recent death (August, 1898) that reminded the friends of India of
the sacrifices made by Râmtonoo Lahari and others in support of the
reforms initiated by Rammohun Roy.
Râmtonoo Lahari.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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