Brahmo Samaj
The Brahmo Samaj ( sanskr .: Brahma Association ) is a Hindu reform organization that was founded in Calcutta in 1828 by Ram Mohan Roy .
Although the Brahmo Samaj never had many members, its influence on the spiritual life of Bengal was considerable. One of his concerns, the ban on widow burning , was passed into law by the then Governor General Bentinck in 1829 .
Even Ram Mohan Roy had to defend himself against his opponents, who accused him that he misunderstood the Vedic tradition. Only when Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905), a very respected Brahmin and thinker (the father Rabindranath Tagore ), took over the leadership, the community flourished and gained many members among the educated Bengali upper class. Although Tagore was of the opinion that Christianity had nothing to offer India, the confrontation with Christianity, especially with Unitarianism , near which Ram Mohan Roy had moved, played an important role for the Brahmo Samaj. Tagore's belief developed in a deistic direction. Hence, he rejected all teachings of the Veda that were incompatible with pure deism .
Tagore gave the community an organization and a creed (1843). This said that God does not incarnate; he hear and answer human prayers and may only be worshiped in the spirit. The Brahmo Samaj was particularly directed against the worship of images , asceticism and polytheism , which were increasingly represented in the lower castes. The church believes that all castes can reach God through worship. In the understanding of Brahmo Samaj, God reveals himself directly in nature, which is why no holy scripture is binding. This creed was included in a manual (Brahmo Dharma) together with excerpts from the Upanishads and other Hindu scriptures.
The principles of Brahmo Samaj are:
- There is only one God who is the Creator and Redeemer of the world. He is spirit, infinite in power, wisdom, love, justice and holiness, as well as omnipresent, eternal and blissful.
- The human soul is immortal and capable of unlimited progress. She is responsible before God for her actions.
- Man's happiness in this and the next world consists in worshiping God in spirit and in truth.
- To love God, to keep communion with him, and to carry out His will in all matters of life is true worship.
- No created object is to be worshiped as God, and God alone is to be considered infallible.
Keshab Chandra Sen (1838–1884), who developed from a rationalistic theist to a bhakti- believing mystic, strove not only for a Hindu reform, but also for a universal religion that encompasses all of India. In 1865 there was a break with the more conservative members of the community, who were more orientated towards religious philosophy. These then formed the Adi-Brahmo-Samaj , while the group around Sen came together under the name Brahmo Samaj of India . When Sen married his underage daughter in 1878, contrary to his own statutes, there was a new schism in the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj and the Naba-Bidhan Brahmo Samaj . After his death in 1884, the latter branch, which was inclined to meet the needs of wider circles through enthusiastic devotion and religious festivities, lost much of its importance.
The Brahmo Samaj played a considerable role in the social discussion in India due to the social position of its members, especially against the background of the ever low number of actual members. Even Vivekananda had temporarily the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj consulted before he remembered to picking up on Hindu traditions and the 1897 Ramakrishna Mission founded.
Sivnath Shastri, in his book on the history of Brahmo Samaj, points out that within this association there was a greater appreciation of Western ideas than Hindu ideas. This resulted in the general attitude of the Hindu public that Brahmo Samaj is actually Christianity, but in a different guise. The movement peaked in 1912 when 232 churches were active across India. The death of Rabindranath Tagore , who had supported the Adi Brahmo Samaj out of piety towards his father Debendranath, also marked the end of the era of Brahmo Samaj, especially Adi Brahmo Samaj . The Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, on the other hand, is still active today and promotes his ideas through church services and social missionary activities (orphanages, widows asylums, etc.).
literature
- Jan Gonda: The Religions of India II. The younger Hinduism . Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1963
- David Kopf: The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind. Princeton University Press, Princeton. 1979
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brahmo Samaj. In: Encyclopædia Britannica (online version), accessed on February 25, 2017.