Raja Ram Mohan Roy's Early Years

by Dr. Sumit Chanda (Opening talk at the London Bhadraotsav, 2001)

Today the theme for the London Bhadraotsav is to gain a better understanding of the "Relevance of the Brahmo Samaj Today". It is nearly two hundred years since the Brahmo Samaj was formed. So here we are living in the 21st century - is the Brahmo Samaj just history?

Before we examine the "Relevance of the Brahmo Samaj Today", it is interesting to examine how the concepts of the Brahmo movement took shape in the mind of young Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

He was born on 22nd May 1772, at Radhanagar, in the Hoogly zilla, near Krishnanagar (modern day West Bengal, India).

Devoted Hindu boy

Ram Mohan's parents, Ramakanta Roy and Tarini (nee Mukherjee), were devout Hindus. His father was a Brahmin, who worshipped Visnu. Ram Mohan showed a religious disposition from an early age. At the age of 14 he wanted to be a "sanyasi" (hermit), but his mother persuaded him otherwise! Another example of his devoutness was his habit of not even having water each morning until he had recited a chapter from the Bhagvata Purana.

Very educated

Young Ram Mohan was reputed to have a "tenacious memory", and showed signs of intelligence at an early age.

He learnt Bengali at school first.
He went to Tibet to learn about Buddhism.
He learnt Persian, which was the court language. (The Mughal power was waning in India, and the Nawab of Bengal ruled where Ram Mohan was brought up.) This gave him the ability to read the mystic poetry and philosophy of the Persian Sufis.
He went to Patna to Arabic. It is here that he came across the translations of Aristotle and Euclid, and of course the Koran.
On his mother's prompting, he went to Benaras (Varansi) to learn Sanskrit.
He started to learn English when he was 24 years old, and eventually worked for a East India Company official at the age of 29.

"Kintu" (But)

As a boy he engaged in many debates with his father. Often he would be unsatisfied with his father's answers. His favorite word was "Kintu" ("But" in Bengali).

Issues

As he grew up his views about Hinduism started to change. Here are some of the issues that triggered his disaffection with orthodox Hindu beliefs:

His wide education and exposure to different cultures led to many comparative religious questions. These were particularly related to the practice of praying to idols.
He was married to three wives by the age of nine (of whom the first died at a very early age), as was the custom of the day. This, along with "sati", which he encountered later in life, influenced much of his social thinking.

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