India, Its Life and ThoughtJones, John P. (John Peter)
Religion
India, Its Life and Thought
Jones, John P. (John Peter)
India -- Civilization; India -- Religion; Missions -- India
It was in 1843 that the Brahmo Somaj of Ram Mohan Roy was united with
another _Sabha_ organized by another great soul, Debendra Nath
Tagore. Under the guidance of this sturdy reformer, the Brahmo Somaj
movement put on new life and energy. Debendra Nath was very devout and
courageous. He was opposed to the religion of his fathers, as
practised by the people. Nevertheless, he was somewhat anchored to the
past. He still clung to the Hindu scriptures and regarded the Vedas as
infallible. Later, however, as these Hindu writings were studied with
more care, his faith in them was considerably shattered, and he began
to deny their supreme authority.
He and the other members of the society here entered upon a great
struggle which ushered them into an "Age of Reason." The Vedas were
abandoned as an ultimate authority, and the Brahmo Somaj, for a time,
became "a Church without a Bible," and without any anchorage but the
higher reason of its members.
In 1852, the society was reorganized. Reason was soon found to be
inadequate as the foundation of faith; and they passed on to an
intuitional basis. That again seemed to be even more unsatisfactory
than reason itself. After a few years, the movement gradually
developed a doctrine of inspiration, when the utterances of the
leaders themselves were regarded as inspired and became the voice of
God to the members. Thus, within a few years, Brahmo Somaj moved
almost in a circle, in its search for a stable anchorage to its faith;
and it returned to a point dangerously near to the Hindu position
which it had left a few years before.
The rapid movement above indicated was chiefly owing to an ardent
youth, who rallied to the support of Debendra Nath, and who gradually
took the reins into his own hands. This young man was Keshub Chunder
Sen; and he soon became the leading figure, certainly the most
striking, in the whole theistic movement of India. He acquired growing
influence over Debendra Nath, became the controlling spirit, and
continued until his death to be the central figure of Theism in India.
Chunder Sen was a great enthusiast, full of intellectual resource,
and, withal, a man of deep spirituality. He was an Oriental of the
Orientals; his mind was of a thoroughly mystic type, and, like the
devout Hindu, he loved the rigours of asceticism, and, in not a few
instances, yielded to the fascinations of the methods of the Yogi.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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