The greatest Hindu Shastri in Modern Era, Creator/promoter of Hindu Dharma (Hinduism) as an umbrella of various Hindu Sampradayas

 

Celebrating 250^th Birth Anniversary of Rajarshi Rammohan Roy

 Who was Rajarshi Rammohan Roy? Part 2 of 6

The greatest Hindu Shastri in Modern Era, Creator/promoter of Hindu Dharma (Hinduism) as an umbrella of various Hindu Sampradayas

2^nd Edition - January 2, 2023, by Sri Bandyo

 

Highlights:

 

·         The greatest Hindu Shastri in Modern Era

·         First to envision Sanskrit as the national language

·         First to bring forth and promote Sanskrit treasure - Vedas and Upanishads, for masses

·         First to promote Vedanta globally

·         Ram Mohan the Proponent of Varnashram Dharma: A Modern Day Parasooram

·         Creator/promoter of Hindu Dharma (Hinduism) as an umbrella of various Hindu Sampradayas

 

 

The greatest Hindu Shastri in Modern Era in the line of Shankaracharya, Ramanuja, Chaitanya etc. who Revived Vedanta in its original form

 

Rammohan Ray was a neo-sastri from the fringes of the declining brahmanical matha system of late-eighteenth, early nineteenth-century Bengal. Rammohan tells us his education began in the family home under the tutelage of a learned sastri, Nandakumar Vidyalankara, better known as Hariharanandanath Tirthaswami Kulabadhuta, a Sakta vamacara tantrika sannyasi. Moving to Calcutta he read the Brahmasutrabhasya and the Talavakara, Isa, Katha, Mandukya and Mundaka Upanisad bhasyas of Sankaracarya in the tol of the eminent Vedanta scholar, Fort William College-Supreme Court pandit Mrtyunjaya Vidyalankara, a pupil of the Sabha Pandit of Nator, Sir William Jones’ ‘third university’, the pre-eminent eighteenth-century ‘matha in Bengal’.

 

Among these other pandits was Sivaprasad Sharma who read Upanisads with Rammohan Ray and became the pandit of the Atmiya Sabha.

 

Ramacandra Vidyabagis, Hariharananda’s brother, a student of Rammohan Vidyavacaspati Goswami Bhattacaryya of Santipur, one of the few thriving mathas in nineteenth–century Bengal, took over as Rammohan’s guru. Ramacandra became a trusted sastric authority later serving as acarya of the Brahmo Samaj. Rammohan could legitimately claim to be a pedigreed product of the nineteenth-century matha system in Bengal.

 

Rammohan Ray understood Vedanta to mean the core doctrines of the Vedic Upanisads doctrines as set forth in the Vedantasutrabhasya of Sankaracarya, and in the Vedic Upanisads, the Talavakara, Isa, Katha, Mandukya, and Mundaka, as expounded by Sankaracarya, and encapsulated in the mahavakya, sacred dicta.

He laid out those core doctrines, as he understood them, in his first publication in 1815, Vedantasara. It came out simultaneously with his own English version, The Abridgement of the Vedant. Abridgement was not a word-forward translation of Vedantasara.

Vedantasara and Abridgement consisted of his own selection of 35 sutras out of 555 sutras presented as containing the core doctrines of the Vedantasutras.

Raja Rammohan Roy’s main intention was to oppose the perversion of Brahmanism. He wrote in 1815, Vedanta Grantha and in 1816, Vedanta Sar. Vedanta Grantha was a Bengali commentary on the Vedanta and Vedanta Sar was in Bengali which he rendered into English as An Abridgement of the Vedant. His original elaborate works on the Vedanta Shastras, entitled Vedanta Grantha was translated into Hindusthani and distributed free of costs among his countrymen. (Collet, 1988, pp 72).

"Between 1816 and 1818, he made Bengali, hindi, and English translations of the Kena, Isha, Katha, Mundaka and Mandukya Upanishads. Of those the Kena and Isha Upanishads appeared in 1816 and the Katha, Mundaka and Mandukya Upanishads in 1817. All of those except the last, he translated in English also. He published those works with introductions and comments and distributed them free of costs among his countrymen to make them aware of the spirit of their religion, so that they could proceed towards social transformation.

In the preface to the Katha Upanishad of the Ujoor Veda, he expressed his extreme optimism regarding the good understandings of his countrymen. He believed that with such understanding, they would be able to understand the truth of their doctrines, as contained in that work of Rajarshi Rammohan Roy and in his other works which he had already presented before his countrymen. He was sure of the fact that his countrymen would be free from all prejudices one day.

Raja Rammohan Roy however was sure about the fact of quick realisation of the true notion of God by his countrymen which, he knew would show a right path of religion to the natives. That true notion would help them to incline friendly towards their fellow creatures‘ true love and respect towards God would help his countrymen to enrich their mind with humility and charity. At the same time Raja Rammohan Roy knew that such pure system of religion would make the mind of his countrymen independent, pure and sincere.

In the introduction to Kena Upanishad, Raja Rammohan Roy expressed the thought that "this work will, I trust, by explaining to my countrymen the real spirit of the Hindu scriptures, which is but the declaration of the unity of God, tend in a great degree to correct the erroneous conception which have prevailed with regard to the doctrines they inculcate." (Nag and Burman, 1946, PP 11).

The religious ideas of Raja Rammohan Roy which were the root cause of social upliftment had the basis of the Vedas and the Upanishads, rightly termed Vedanta. (or the Resolution of all the Vedas, the most celebrated and revered work of Brahmanical Theology), which held the view that the Supreme Being is incomprehensible and his worship alone is the source of unity and of all happiness. Those could lead to Eternal Beatitude. In 1817, there also appeared

in English "A Defense of Hindu Theism" and "A Second Defense of the Monotheistical system of the Vedas.”

Like Sankaracarya, Rammohan advocated abandoning the self-centered everyday common sense, empirical (vyavahara) standpoint and to seek the higher transcendental (paramarthika), spiritual self-denying perspective necessary for contemplation of the Supreme Being. Rammohan meant specifically the Vedic Upanishads as interpreted by Badarayana and expounded by Sankaracarya.

In his Mandukya tika he quoted Brahmasutra 3.4.39 which declared that the Vedic ideal is the varnasramacar upasak, one who worships the Lord from within society, the world affirmer seeking liberation, moksa, from the entanglements of society.

Writes Girijashankar Raychaudhuri, “Rammohan for the first time in this age brought forth the immense wealth of the Vedas and the Upanishads once again, which have been forgotten for long since (Raychaudhuri 2012: 37).

The Vedntic “god” presented in Roy’s Bengali works, “can neither be morally admired, nor loved, nor served,” putting it at a stark contrast with the Judeo-Christian concept of God. (Robertson,179)

"Robertson also is very clear that any kernel of similarity between Judeo Christian and Advaita theology is not an example of a shared common core, but  something that was originally, and more perfectly, prefigured in the Vedas and Upanishads. According to Robinson, Roy’s view was that it was this Upanishadic Advaita theology, predating Islam and Christianity by a millennia, was the highest form of religion. (Robertson, 180)

 

 

 

First to envision Sanskrit as the national language

"For by a reference to history it may be proved that the World was indebted to our ancestors for the first dawn of knowledge which sprang up in the East, and thanks to the Goddess of Wisdom we have still a philosophical and copious language of our own, which distinguishes us from other nations."-Ram Mohan Roy

Though he requested British not to start Sanskrit 'college', he asked, in the same letter, to British to help the indigenous Sanskrit institutions - Tols and Chatuspthis.

Eventually British did accept his advice as during Charles Eliot, they provided funds to chatuspathis.

He wanted Sanskrit to gain the status of the Hindu national language and Sanskrit sources as the national ideology of Hinduism. - Houben, J. E. M. (Ed.). 1996.p. 354 Ideology and Status of Sanskrit:Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language. Netherland.

 

First to bring forth to promote Sanskrit treasure - Vedas and Upanishads, for masses

 

“There is not a single book in entire Europe equal to the Scholastic Philosophy of the Hindus. “ -  Ram Mohan Roy

He was the first to bring forth the treasure of Sanskrit Language by translating Vedas, Upanishads etc into English, Bengali and Hindi for all.

Between 1816 and 1818, he made Bengali, Hindi, and English translations of the Kena, Isha, Katha, Mundaka and Mandukya Upanishads.

Halbfass (1988, 215) says that "no matter how slight the actual knowledge of his countrymen may have been, Rammohan was able to appeal to fundamental and widely familiar associations of authority and sanctity which were linked to the Veda, the Vedanta, and the name of Shankara".

Writes author Ananya Behera, "One of the most discussed impacts of Ram Mohan Roy on modern Indian history was the revival of the pure and ethical principles of the Vedanta school of philosophy found in the Upanishads. The ‘Bengali Renaissance’ acted as a stream for him to conduct this revival alongside writer Rabindranath Tagore and spiritual figures like Debendranath Tagore, Bijoy Krishna Goswami, Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Paramahansa Yogananda and Ananadaayi Ma.

 

 

First to promote Vedanta globally

Rammohan Ray’s expositions of five Upanishads commentaries of Sankaracarya had catapulted him into the pantheon of nineteenth century world savants and statesmen, and he became a guiding light for New England and British Unitarians who were in the vanguard of a new global constitutional politics.

The Government Gazette, published in February of 1816 called Roy’s Translation of an Abridgment of the Vedanta “a phenomenon in the literary world,” quoting that it “displays the deductions of a liberal and intrepid mind.” (Crawford, 43)

"Emerson was able to gain much from “Hindu missionaries” like Ram Mohan Roy, who traveled to Europe in the early 1800s, inspired to elucidate Hinduism for the West. Emerson admired Ram Mohan Roy and played a stellar role in popularizing Indian wisdom. Singh (1991: 588).

Friedrich Max Müller commended Rammohun Roy’s contribution both as a scholar and as a benefactor of his people: ‘It (.Katha Upanishad) was first introduced to the knowledge of European scholars by Ram Mohun Roy, one of the most enlightened benefactors of his own country and, it may still turn out, one of the most enlightened benefactors of mankind’.  He also mentions Roy’s translation of the Katha Upanishad in his introduction to his own English rendering of the same. Roy’s translation, he says, like those of Windischmann,  Poley, and others, is ‘more or less perfect’.

 Maurice Winternitz, the famous Sanskritist and historian of Indian literature, speaks of Rammohun’s achievements more elaborately:

[T]here lived in India one of the wisest and noblest men that this country produced – Ram Mohan Roy – the founder of the ‘Brahmo Samaj’,   – an Indian who  found the purest divine faith in the same Upanishads and from the same Upanishads tried to prove to his countrymen that there was no reason for Indians to accept Christianity; and that they could, if only they understood them, find a pure religion in them. With the intention of proclaiming this new teaching which was however found already in the ancient holy scripture, and to spread it through the Brahma Samaj  founded by him, and at the same time with the intention of convincing the Christian theologians and missionaries who he esteemed, that the best of what  they taught was already found in the Upanishads, he translated into English a large number of the Upanishads and edited some of them in original texts.

 

 

Ram Mohan the Proponent of Varnashram Dharma: A Modern Day Parasooram

“There may be an interesting possible subtext to this debate in ‘Brief Remarks Regarding Modern Encroachments on the Ancient Rights of Females’ (1822), composed a year before the Appeal to the King in Council. Rammohan briefly relates an akhyayika, narrative, from the

Bhagavad Purana, about a Brahman revolt against Ksatriya tyranny in the ancient world. ‘…the second class (Ksatriyas) who were appointed to defend and rule the country, having adopted arbitrary and despotic practices, the others revolted against them; and under the personal command of the celebrated Purusooram, defeated the royalists in several battles, and put cruelly to death almost all the males of that tribe. It was at last resolved that the legislative authority should be confined to the first class (Brahmans) who could have no share in the actual government of the state, or in managing the revenue of then country under any pretence; while the second class (Ksatriyas) should exercise the executive authority. The consequence was, that India enjoyed peace and harmony for a great many centuries.’

This footnote is worthy of remark for two reasons. First, he cites an akhyayika, a myth, as though it were itihasa, historical. In the introduction to his Kena Upanisad subcommentary (tika) he dismisses the first half of the Upanisad as merely a narrative and goes straight

to the doctrinal section. Second, he tells this story as though it is a time-honored Vedic model for the way to deal with oppression in India and restore peace and harmony. Brahmans led the revolt, assume full legislative authority then hand over actual governance to the ruling class

and go back to their legitimate business of being spiritual leaders. Did he had this model in mind when he wrote the Appeal to the King in Council a year later? As a Brahman, was he playing a modern day Purusarama role as an activist for political change?

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Creator/promoter of Hindu Dharma (Hinduism) as an umbrella of various Hindu Sampradayas

"Roy was perhaps among the first to confer upon a loose collective of religious ideas and practices the label of ‘Hinduism’/Hindu Dharma.

 In colonial India, this eventually made possible – at least in theory – a unified Hindu identity. [1]

 

 

Reference:

1. From the article, “Raja Rammohan Roy was very much a Hindu” by Dr. Amiya P. Sen