Throwing Down the Gauntlet

( 1803—1814 )

THROWING DOWN THE GAUNTLET

• Rammohun publishes his first work. Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin, or A Gift to Monotheists.
• He enters the Bengal Civil Service.
• 1805, May 9, Mr. John Digby becomes Registrar at Ramgarh.
• 1808, June 15. Mr. Digby becomes Registrar at Bhagalpur.
• 1809, Oct. 20. Mr. Digby becomes Collector at Rangpur.
• 1811. Death of Jagamohun Roy and suttee of his widow. Rammohun’s vow.
• 1812. Birth of Rammohun’s second son, Ramaprasad Roy.
• 1814. Rammohun takes up his residence in Calcutta.¹

Relieved from the fear of paining his father Rammohun soon began to make his heresies known to the world. He removed to Murshidabad, the old Moghul capital of Bengal,² and there he published his first work, a treatise in Persian (with an Arabic preface), entitled Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin, or A Gift to Monotheists. This was a bold protest against the idolatrous element in all established religions,³ the drift of the treatise being that while all religions are based on one common foundation, viz., the belief—justified by the facts,—in One Supreme Being who has created and sustains the whole universe,—they all differ in the details of the superstructure erected thereupon,—these superstructures being all equally unjustified by any basis of fact, and arising solely from the imagination of men working in vacuo. The treatise bears many traces of Rammohun’s Patna training, being written in an abstruse style, and abounding with Arabic logical and philosophical terms. Its arrangement is, however, quite unsystematic, and the whole is merely a series of descriptive sketches; but these show much acuteness of observation and reasoning, and are pervaded by a strong tinge of that bitter earnestness which results from the long suppression of intense feeling. The author writes as though he had been obliged to stand by and witness a number of priestly impositions which he could not hinder and was prevented from exposing; and no doubt this had really been the case. The treatise is important as the earliest available expression of his mind, and as showing his eagerness to bear witness against established error but it is too immature to be worth reproducing as a whole. A few passages only are worth quoting as indications of what he was at this early period.

It may be seen that the followers of certain religions believe that the Creator has made mankind for the performance of the duties bearing on our present and future life by observing the precepts of that particular religion; and that the followers of other religions who differ from them are liable to punishment and torment in the future life. And as the members of each particular sect defer the good results of their own acts and the bad results of their rivals’ acts to the life after death none of them can refute the dogmas of others in this life. Consequently they sow the seeds of prejudice and disunion in the hearts of each other and condemn each other to the deprivation of eternal blessings—whereas it is quite evident that all of them are living in the equal enjoyment of the external blessings of heaven, such as the light of the stars, the pleasure of the season of spring, the fall of rain, health of body, external and internal good, and other pleasures of life; and that all are equally liable to suffer from inconveniences and pains, such as gloomy darkness, severe cold, mental disease, narrow circumstances and other outward and inward evils, without any distinction, although following different religions.

The Brahmins have a tradition that they have strict orders from God to observe their ceremonies and hold their faith for ever. There are many injunctions to this effect in the Sanskrit language, and I, the humblest creature of God, having been born among them, have learnt the language and got those injunctions by heart; and this nation having confidence therein cannot give them up, although they have been subjected to many troubles and persecutions, and were threatened with death by the followers of Islam. The followers of Islam on the other hand, according to the purport of the holy verse of the Koran—‘Kill the idolators wherever you find them, and capture the unbelievers in holy war, and after doing so either set them free by way of obligation to them or by taking ransom,’—quote authority from God that killing idolators and presecuting them in every case are obligatory by divine command. Among those idolators the Brahmins, according to the Moslem belief, are the worst. Therefore the followers of Islam, excited by religious zeal, desirous to carry out the orders of God, have done their utmost to kill and persecute the polytheists and unbelievers in the prophetic mission of the Seal of Prophets [Mohammed], and the blessing to the present and future worlds (may the divine benediction rest on him and and his disciples). Now are these contradictory precepts or orders consistent with the wisdom and mercy of the great, generous, and disinterested Creator or are these the fabrications of the followers of religion? I think a sound mind will not hesitate to prefer the latter alternative.

There is a saying which is often heard from teachers of different religions as an authority for their several creeds. Each of them says that his religion, which gives information about future reward or punishment after death, is either true or false. In the second case, i.e., if it be false, and there be no future reward or punishment, there is no harm in believing it to be true; while in the first case, i.e., its being true, there is a great danger for unbelievers. The poor people who follow these expounders of religion, holding this saying to be a conclusive argument, always boast of it. The fact is that habit and training make men blind and deaf in spite of their own eyes and ears. The above saying is fallacious in two respects. Firstly, their saying that in the second case there is no harm in believing it to be true, is not to be admitted. For to believe in the real existence of anything after obtaining proofs of such existence is possible to every individual man; but to put faith in the existence of such things as are remote from experience and repugnant to reason, is not in the power of a sensible man.

Secondly, entertaining a belief in these things, may become the source of various mischiefs and immoral practices, owing to gross ignorance, want of experience, bigotry, deceit, &c. And if this argument were valid, the truth of all forms of religion might be proved therefrom; for the same arguments may equally be advanced by all. Hence there would be great perplexity for a man. He must either believe all religions to be true, or adopt one and reject the others. But as the first alternative is impossible, consequently the second must be adopted and in this case he has again to make inquiries into truth and falsehood of various religions, and this is the chief object of my discourse.

The followers of different religions, seeing the paucity of the number of Monotheists in the world, sometimes boast that they are on the side of the majority. But it may be seen that the truth of a saying does not depend upon the multitude of sayers, and the non-reliability of a narration cannot result from the small numbers of its narrators. For it is admitted by the seekers of truth, that truth is to be followed although it is against the majority of the people. Moreover, to accept the proposition that the small number of the sayers leads to the invalidity of a saying, seems to be a dangerous blow to all forms of religion. For in the beginning of every religion it had a very few supporters, viz, its founder and a few sincere followers of his, …while the belief in only one Almighty God is the fundamental principle of every religion.

In short, men may be divided into four classes in reference to this subject.

1st. Deceivers who in order to attract the people to themselves, consciously invent doctrines of religious faith and cause disunion and trouble among men.

2nd. Deceived persons who, without inquiring into the facts, follow others.

3rd. Persons who are at the same time deceivers and deceived; having themselves faith in the sayings of another, they induce others to follow his doctrines.

4th. Those who by the help of Almighty God are neither deceivers nor deceived.

These few short and useful sentences expressing the opinion of this humble creature of God, have been written without any regard to men of prejudice and bigotry, in the hope that persons of sound mind will look thereon with eyes of justice. I have left the details to another work of mine entitled Manazarutul Adyan,—Discussions on Various Religions.

P. S. . . In order to avoid any future change in this book by copyists, I have had these few pages printed just after composition. Let it be known that the benediction pronounced in this book after the mention of prophets is merely done in imitation of the usual custom of the authors of Arabia and Ajam.

The Discussions on Various Religions above alluded to, are, unhappily, no longer procurable.⁴ I conclude then it must have been in one of these that Rammohun made some rather sarcastic remarks on Mahomet, to which reference is made by several of his biographers as having excited an amount of anger against him among the Mahomedans which was a chief cause of his removing to Calcutta. In Mr. Leonard’s History of the Brahmo Samaj, these sarcastic remarks are said ( p. 27 ) to occur in the Tuhfat, but certainly no such passage is to be found there. On the other hand it is indubitable that Rammohun always retained a large amount of sympathy with Islam for the sake of its cardinal doctrine of the Unity of God, and that he warmly appreciated the good which had thence resulted in counteracting Hindu idolatry.⁵ Mr. Adam says that Rammohun “seemed always pleased to have an opportunity of defending the character and teaching of Mahomet,” of whom indeed he began to write a biography which was unhappily never finished.

It must have been at this period that Rammohun Roy entered the Civil Service under the East India Company. The exact date of his doing so I have not been able to ascertain; but ( for several reasons ) it can scarcely have been before his father’s death, and it must have occurred not long after that event.⁶ Our only contemporary information on the subject comes from Mr. John Digby, an English gentleman who was for several years Rammohun’s superior officer in the Bengal Civil Service, and who during a visit to England, edited a reprint of Rammohun’s translation of the Kena Upanishad and Abridgment of the Vedanta (London, 1817) to which he prefixed an interesting account of the translator. In this he said :—

Rammohun Roy…is by birth a Brahmin of very respectable origin, in the province of Bengal, about forty-three* years of age. His acquirements are considerable: to a thorough knowledge of the Sanskrit (the language of the Brahminical Scriptures) he has added Persian and Arabic; and possessing an acute understanding, he early conceived a contempt for the religious prejudices and absurd superstitions of his caste. At the age of twenty-two [really twenty four, i.e., in 1796] he commenced the study of the English language, which not pursuing with application, he, five years afterwards [1801], when I became acquainted with him, could merely speak it well enough to be understood upon the most common topics of discourse, but could not write it with any degree of correctness. He was afterwards employed as Dewan, or principal native officer, in the collection of revenues, in the district of which I was for five years Collector, in the East India Company’s Civil Service. By perusing all my public correspondence with diligence and attention, as well as by corresponding and conversing with European gentlemen, he acquired so correct a knowledge of the English language to be enabled to write and speak it with considerable accuracy. He was also in the constant habit of reading the English newspapers, of which the Continental politics chiefly interested him and from thence he formed a high admiration of the talents and prowess of the late ruler of France and was so dazzled with the splendour of his achievements as to become sceptical as to the commission, if not blind to the atrocity of his crimes, and could not help deeply lamenting his downfall, notwithstanding the profound respect he ever professed for the English nation; but when the first transports of his sorrow had subsided, he considered that part of his political conduct which led to his abdication to have been so weak, and so madly ambitious, that he declared his future detestation of Buonaparte would be proportionate to his former admiration.

From a paper furnished to me by the courtesy of the India Office, I learn that Mr. Digby was never so long as five years at any station except that of Rangpur, where he served from October 20, 1809, to December 1814, when he returned to England for a few years. Now it is at Rangpur that popular tradition chiefly connects the name of Rammohun Roy with Mr. Digby; but as Mr. Digby was previously at Ramgarh (1805 to 1808)⁷ and Bhagalpur (1808 to 1809), and as Rammohun mentions in his evidence on the Burdwan law-suit having resided at “Ramgarh, Bhagalpur, and Rangpur”, it is highly probable that he was working under Mr. Digby in the two former localities before he went to Rangpur; although we have no details as to the successive posts which he then occupied.⁸

It is usually stated by Rammohun’s biographers that “a written agreement was signed by Mr. Digby to the effect that Rammohun should never be kept standing (a custom enforced by European Civil Servants towards natives of the highest rank) in the presence of the Collector, and that no order should be issued to him as a mere Hindu functionary”. So far as I can trace, this statement first appeared in a letter by Mr. R. Montgomery Martin (in whose words I have quoted it) in the Court Journal of October 5, 1833, just after Rammohun’s death. So many statements in that letter are undoubtedly erroneous that I can feel no assurance as to the fact of this written agreement. There can, however, be no doubt that Mr. Digby held Rammohun in high regard, and that a sincere friendship existed between them, honourable alike to both.

Mr. G. S. Leonard in his History of the Brahmo Samaj, based on a MS. work by a highly respected member of the Adi Brahmo Samaj, makes the following statement :—

The permanent settlement of Zemindaries under Lord Cornwallis in 1793, and its ratification by the Court of Directors some three years after, required a general survey and assessment of all lands in Bengal under European collectors, some of whom were empowered with the settlement of several districts at once. Mr. Digby had the charge of settling the districts of Rangpur, Dinajpur and Purnea, a work which kept him employed for three years, and in the execution of which he gained a lasting renown in the memory of the people for justice and probity, a result which is mainly due to the exertions of his Dewān.

Pandit Sivanath Sastṛī mentions in his excellent, but unfortunately unpublished, History of the Brahmo Samaj⁹, that the state of things in the above mentioned districts of Northern Bengal,

“. . . was especially complicated. Here there were many powerful landlords who had a large number of unsettled disputes, and almost every individual case of settlement involved the examination of a variety of records and documents and the consideration of conflicting claims. In many cases there were no documents whatever to substantiate the claims of actual owners of land, and they required personal attendance and local inquiry from the settlement officer. In settlement work in those days, the trusted native Sheristadars were, as a rule, the chief agents employed by the Collectors, who were guided to a large extent by their decisions and counsels.”¹⁰

Mr. Leonard enumerates as Rammohun’s special qualifications of this work, his “proficiency in zemindary accounts and land surveying,” “his acquaintance with all the cunning and dishonest devices of the Amins and Amlahs in furnishing false accounts and statements,” and also “the practical reforms he suggested regarding the ascertaining of rightful ownerships and descriptions of land, &c.” I have not been able to procure any original documents of this period which could fix dates and events; but the above summaries come from reliable sources and may be accepted as genuine.

From all accounts, it was during his residence in Rangpur that Rammohun first began to assemble his friends together for evening discussions on religious subjects, especially on the untenableness and absurdities of idolatry. Rangpur was then a place of considerable resort, and among its inhabitants were a good many merchants from Marwar in Rajputana, Jainas by faith. Some of these Marwaris used to attend Rammohun’s meetings, and Mr. Leonard says that “he had to learn on their account the Kalpa-Sutra, and other books appertaining to the Jaina religion,” and adds :—

He met, however, with much opposition from a counter party headed by Gaurikanta Bhattacharya, a learned Persian and Sanskrit scholar, who challenged him in a Bengali book entitled the Gyan Chandrika¹¹. This man was Dewan to the Judge’s Court at Rangpur, and his influence enabled him to gather a large body of men about him whom he hounded on to Rammohun Roy, but without any success.

A far more serious hostility was that of his mother. As already mentioned, the family estate passed at Ramkanta Roy’s death in 1803, into the hands of his eldest son, Jagamohun. He died in 1811.¹² To whom it then passed, I have sought in vain to discover. Certainly it did not go to Rammohun Roy; yet a few years later we find him in possession of it, and his mother bringing suits against him to deprive him of the property on the ground of his dissent from the current religion.¹³ I have not succeeded hitherto in obtaining any published report of these, but the following passage from William Adam leaves no doubt as to their reality.

When the death of Rammohun Roy’s elder brother made him the head of the family, she [his mother] instituted suits against her son both in the King’s and Company’s Courts, with a view to disinherit him as an apostate and infidel, which according to strict Hindu law, excludes from the present and disqualifies for the future, possession of any ancestral property, or even according to many authorities, of any property that is self-acquired.

In this attempt she was defeated; but for many years he had much to suffer from her persecution. In his great grandson’s Anecdotes there is a story of his going to see her on returning from Rangpur, and being harshly repulsed from her embrace, when she is reported to have said,—“If you would touch me, you must first go and bow down before my Radha and Govinda”; whereupon, it is added, “Rammohun, who so loved his mother, submitted and went to the house of the gods and said—‘I bow down before my mother’s god and goddess.’ If this be true, it can scarcely have been done so as to impose seriously on his mother, for he never relaxed in his public attitude towards idolatry. But the anecdote may stand as a half-mythical illustration of the great reluctance with which he opposed his parents’ faith. Another of these anecdotes tells of his mother’s anger because, when in bad health, he had by his doctor’s advice, taken some broth made from goat’s flesh.¹⁴ On this occasion, it is said, she raised a great disturbance, and adjured the family thus:—“Be careful! Rammohun has turned Christian, and has begun to eat forbidden things. Let us all unite and drive him from my ground; wholesale ruin has begun!” This would seem to imply that he still held some footing in Burdwan, and did not reside entirely at Rangpur during the whole of Mr. Digby’s five years there (1809 to 1814). Probably his family still remained in the ancestral neighbourhood. At any rate, it is clear that owing to his mother’s hostility, he had to remove them. But the whole of Krishnagar belonged to her, and she would not let him have any land there for his own. He therefore took up his quarters on a large burning ground at the village of Raghunathpur not far off, and there he built a house for himself.¹⁵

It must have been during this period that one of his hostile neighbours, named Ramjay Batabyal, an inhabitant of the village of Ramnagar near Krishnagar, resorted to a curious mode of persecution. He collected a number of men who used to go to Rammohun’s house early in the morning and imitate the crowing of cocks, and again at nightfall to throw cow-bones into the house. These proceedings greatly annoyed and disturbed Rammohun’s womankind, but he himself took it with perfect coolness, and made no retort whatever, which enraged his persecutors all the more. At last, however, finding him hopelessly impervious, they wearied of their attacks and desisted therefrom.

With respect to the family estate, which probably passed at the death of Jagamohun Roy to his son, Govindaprasad Roy, it has been suggested to me by one of Rammohun’s descendants that Govinda Prasad may have failed to continue the payment of the land tax, in which case the estate would have been thrown into the market; and that Rammohun, who had by that time saved money in Government Service, may have bought it in. Certainly he came into possession of it while his mother still lived. It would appear, however, that after he had established his right to the property, he did not at once take possession of it, from reluctance to pain his relatives, and that “for sometime everything remained as before in the hands of his mother.” She taking up the superintendence of the land under her own care, managed the affairs most successfully. . . . It is said that Phulthakurani used to place before her all her numerous gods and godesses while superintending the management of her landed property.”¹⁶

It is always stated by Rammohun’s biographers that in his ten years’ Government Service he saved enough money to enable him to become a zemindar or landowner, with an annual income of Rs. 10,000 ( about £ 1, 000 ). Commenting on this fact, Babu Kishorychand Mitra, in a long and elaborate sketch of Rammohun which appeared in the Calcutta Review of December, 1845, insinuates that such gains raise the suspicion that he “sold justice.” ‘If’, he says, “Rammohun Roy did keep his hands clean, and abstained as in the absence of all positive evidence to the contrary we are bound to suppose, from defeating the ends of justice for a consideration, he must have been a splendid exception.” Mr. Leonard in his History of the Brahmo Samaj, refutes these unworthy suspicions by pointing out that “If Kishorychand had possessed any knowledge of the duties of a dewan in those early days and the legal perquisites appertaining to the office recognised by Government,” he would not have been entitled to wonder at Rammohun Roy’s gains. “It is no great achievement to amass by frugality and thrift a lakh of rupees after ten years’ service, the value of a dependent Taluk of Rs. 10,000, when others have been known by a service of half or a quarter that time, to have made a provision of ten times that amount.” Mr. Leonard also remarks that “had Mr. Digby’s dewan been so corrupt as he is suspected to have been, Mr. Digby himself would never have obtained renown for justice and probity.” But the insinuations of K. C. Mitra, though admittedly made “in the absence of all positive evidence,” have unhappily been repeated from the early memoir by later writers, and were reproduced so lately as 1888 in the Saturday Review. So difficult is it to rectify a false impression once given.¹⁷

Mr. Digby left Rangpur for England at the end of 1814; and in the course of that year Rammohun took up his residence in Calcutta.¹⁸ But previous to doing so, he seems to have been living for a short interval at his house on the burning-ground at Raghunathpur. In front of this house he erected a mancha or pulpit, for the purpose of worship and engraved upon each of its sides three mottos from the Upanishads: (1) “Om” (aum)—the most venerable and solemn designation of the Hindu Trinity; (2) “Tat Sat,” That (i. e., He) is Truth; and (3) “Ekamevādvityam,"—The One without a second. Here he offered his prayers thrice a day; and on going home, and on again returning to Calcutta, he would first walk round this mancha, said to be still standing.¹⁹ It was in reference to this mancha that his youngest wife, Uma, is said to have asked him which religion was the best and highest? Rammohun is said to have replied: “Cows are of different colours, but the colour of the milk they give, is the same. Different teachers have different opinions, but the essence of every religion is to adopt the true path,"—i. e., to live a faithful life.

One other family event in this preparatory period of Rammohun’s life must be chronicled here. At the death of his eldest brother Jagamohun in 1811²⁰ the widow became a Suttee. It is said that Rammohun had endeavoured to persuade her beforehand against this terrible step, but in vain. When, however, she felt the flames she tried to get up and escape from the pile; but her orthodox relations and the priests forced her down with bamboo poles, and kept her there to die, while drums and brazen instruments were loudly sounded to drown her shrieks. Rammohun, unable to save her, and filled with unspeakable indignation and pity, vowed within himself then and there, that he would never rest until the atrocious custom was rooted out.* And he kept his vow. Before 19 years had fully elapsed, that pledge was redeemed by the Government decree abolishing Suttee, Dec. 4. 1829.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES TO CHAPTER II

I

No copy of Rammohun’s earlier work ‘Monazaratul Adiyan’ (presumably written in Persian or like the Tuhfat partly in Arabic and partly in Persian) alluded to, in the Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin has as yet come to light. Mr. Brajendranath Banerji who had no access to the original Persian text of the Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin expressed the opinion that Rammohun never actually published the Monazaratul Adiyan though he might have contemplated the writing of such a work (Rammohun Roy pp. 81-82). Kazi Abdul Odood however has pointed out after a detailed study of the original text of the Tuhfat that from the nature of the reference to the Monazarat to be found in the former, it appears that the Monazarat was circulated among the public either in manuscript or in printed form. (See his illuminating article on the Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin in the Tattvakaumudi Vol. 77, No. 9 pp. 67-70). In this connection we should note that elsewhere Rammohun refers to a treatise in Arabic and Persian composed by him “at a very early period of his life”. In the preface to his An Appeal to the Christian Public (Calcutta 1820) he writes: “With respect to the latter mode of seeking evidence, however unjustified the Editor may be in coming to such a conclusion, he is safe in ascribing the collection of these Precepts to Rammohun Roy; who although he was born a Brahman, not only renounced idolatry at a very early period of his life, but published at the same time a treatise in Arabic and Persian against that system;…” (The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy edited by Kalidas Nag and Debajyoti Burman, Part V p. 58). The Tuhfat was published in 1803-04 when Rammohun was about thirty or thirty-two years of age. For this reason it cannot by any means be regarded as having been written at a very early period of Rammohun’s life. It would therefore appear to one, following this line of argument, that the above reference in the preface to the Appeal may be to any early Arabic-Persian work of Rammohun, other than the Tuhfat. The question however is still not free from difficulties. We cannot explain why as late as in 1820, Rammohun mentions only one book written by him in Arabic and Persian and not more. It certainly creates the impression that he was speaking of the Tuhfat which had been published probably in 1803 or 1804. Further Gaurikanta Bhattacharya, Rammohun’s learned adversary at Rangpur seems also to refer to one Arabic-Persian treatise of Rammohun without mentioning its title, in his own work Jñānānjana in Bengali (first published in 1821), though it may be conceded that the reference is a little obscure and may admit of different meanings (Jñānānjana 2nd. ed., Calcutta 1838. p. 3). It seems, we cannot hope to solve the problem finally in the present imperfect state of our knowledge. The British Museum Library possesses a booklet entitled Javab-i-Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin which is “an anonymous defence of Rammohun Roy’s Tuhfat…against the attacks of the Zoroastrians” and, was published from Calcutta (1820?) (A Catalogue of the Persian Printed Books in the British Museum compiled by E. Edwards, London 1922, p. 623). Considering Rammohun’s habit of publishing his writings anonymously, the authorship of this booklet may be tentatively ascribed to him.

It should be noted here that the two verses from the Koran quoted by Rammohun in the Tuhfat (see above p. 20), are interpreted differently by some modern scholars. Muhammad Ali, for example, points out that the first verse in question (Koran IX. 1. 5.) does not refer to a general massacre of all polytheists and idolators (i.e. all non-Muslims) but it speaks only of those non-Muslims who were waging war at the time with the Muslims treacherously by breaking a previous agreement (The Holy Qur-an 2nd ed., Lahore 1920, p. 397, note 1032). As to the second verse (Koran XLVII. 1. 4.) the same scholar says: “The passage mentions the only case in which prisoners of war can be taken and thus condemns the practice of slavery according to which men could be seized everywhere, and sold into salvery.” The teaching of the Koran according to this interpretation, is here directed against the indiscriminate making of slaves (The Holy Qur-an p. 975, note 2294).

It is also well to keep in mind that modern critics like Dr. Brajendranath Seal and Kazi Abdul Odood do not agree with Miss Collet’s view that the Tuhfat is an immature piece of writing. They assign a high place to it in the history of the development of Rammohun’s thought. See Brajendranath Seal Rammohun Roy: The Universal Man Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Calcutta, pp. 9-10; Kazi Abdul Odood Tuhfat-ul-Muwahiddin in the Tattavakaumudi vol. 77. No. 9, pp. 67-70.

II

In the year 1805 Rammohun entered the service of Mr. John Digby and accompanied him successively to Ramgarh (then the headquarters of the Hazaribagh district, Bihar), Jessore (at present in East Pakistan), Bhagalpur (in Bihar) and Rangpur (in North Bengal, at present in East Pakistan). In May 1805 Mr. Digby was appointed Registrar of the office of the Magistrate of Ramgarh and Rammohun served him there first in the capacity of private munshi. Here Rammohun had his first acting service under the East India Company. He served as the Sherishtadar of the Fauzdari Court for a period of three months when Mr. Digby officiated as the magistrate of that district. At Jessore and at Bhagalpur too Rammohun was apparently in the private service of Mr. Digby. During his stay at Bhagalpur an incident occurred which brought about a conflict between Rammohun and Sir Frederick Hamilton, the Collector of that district. In the early days of British rule some of the East India Company’s officers loved to enforce the practice of the earlier Muslim ruling class, of not permitting ordinary people to ride horses or palanquins or to use umbrellas before a state dignitary. On the day of his arrival at Bhagalpur, Rammohun happened to pass through a road in the town, in his palanquin while Sir Frederick was standing near by. The haughty British officer at once shouted at the occupant of the palanquin, asking him very rudely to get down and walk on foot. Rammohun was not the man to stand such insolence. He at once protested politely but firmly against the indecorous conduct of Sir Frederick. His arguments failing to pacify the officer, Rammohun defied the former’s anger and passed in his palanquin as before. Subsequently on the 12th April, 1809 Rammohun sent a petition to Lord Minto, the Governor-General, against the insulting behaviour of Sir Frederick Hamilton as a result of which the latter was censured. (For the incident and the text of Rammohun’s petition, see Brajendranath Banerji Rammohun Roy pp. 24—28). The entire incident is an instance of the dignified courage and keen sense of self-respect which marked Rammohun throughout his life.

Rammohun came to Rangpur with Mr. Digby when the latter was appointed Collector of that district on October 20, 1809. Mr. Digby continued to hold that post till he was relieved of it on the 20th July 1814. (Regarding Mr. Digby’s service under the E. I. Co. during this period, see Chanda and Majumdar Letters and Documents pp. xxxvii—xxxix, 40—46). After having taken charge of the collectorship of Rangpur Mr. Digby probably from November 1809, appointed Rammohun as dewan on temporary basis but the Board of Revenue at Calcutta refused to sanction the appointment on the ground of Rammohun’s inexperience and also of the fact that the sureties provided by him consisted of two Zamindars belonging to the locality (district of Rangpur). So inspire of the best efforts of Mr. Digby including an assurance that Rammohun was ready to procure securities from districts other than Rangpur to any amount that might be required, Rammohun had to quit the office of dewan for the time-being, probably in March 1810. (The correspondence between Mr. Digby and the Board on the question of the appointment of Rammohun, may be read in Mr. Jyotirmoy Dasgupta’s article ‘Raja Rammohun Roy at Rangpur’ in the Modern Review September 1928, pp. 274-78 and also in Chanda and Majumder Letters and Documents Nos. 70, 71, 72 and 73, pp. 41-44). Mr. Brajendranath Banerji seems to think that during the remaining years of his stay at Rangpur Rammohun was primarily holding a private job under Mr. Digby besides having been appointed by the latter, guardian of the minor proprietors of the estate of the late Rajkishore Chaudhuri of Udasi, in August, 1810. According to him Rammohun retained the last-mentioned post till February 1815. “It is quite clear”, he says in this connection, “that Rammohun’s residence in Calcutta dates from the early part of 1815 and not from 1814 as is generally supposed”. (See his article “Rammohun Roy in the Service of the East India Company” in the Modern Review May 1930, pp. 570-76) Mr. Banerji however clearly contradicts himself in his subsequent Bengali pamphlet on Rammohun Roy where he says that Rammohun became a permanent resident of Calcutta from the middle of the year 1814 (Rammohun Roy p. 35)! His conclusions regarding Rammohun’s official status at Rangpur after his temporary removal from dewanship and the date of Rammohun’s final departure from Rangpur, have now been definitely proved wrong by subsequent discovery of fresh materials throwing light upon the subject. Dr. Surendranath Sen has unearthed a number of old Bengali letters belonging to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, from the National Archives of India and has published a critical edition of these. The letters include the official correspondence (or at least a part of if) that passed between the contemporary governments of Bhutan and Cooch-Behar and the British authorities at Calcutta and Rangpur. Four letters of this series mention Rammohun Roy. (See Prachin Bangla Patra Sankalan edited by Dr. Surendranath Sen and published by the University of Calcutta, 1942, Nos. 117, 128, 139 (c) and 140; pp. 140-41; 152; 167-69; for the English synopses of the letters, see the English section of the book pp. 50; 56; 63-65). The letters bear the following dates (a) No. 117 is from the ‘Devarāja’ (prime-minister) of Bhutan to the Munshi Bahadur (Persian Secretary?) of Calcutta and was received on the 18th August 1812; (b) No. 128 is from the Raja of Cooch-Behar to the Commissioner of Cooch-Behar (Mr. Norman Macleod) and was received on the 9th May 1814; (c) No. 139 (c) is a representation of Chitta Tundu and Chitta Tashi, Zinkafs (carriers of letter) on behalf of the Devaraja and is dated the 8th Aswin 1222 B.S.; and (d) No. 140 is from the Raja of Bhutan to the Magistrate of Rangpur and was received on the 12th November 1815. It is clearly indicated in these letters that in 1815 Rammohun along with Krishnakanta Basu was sent as an envoy of the British Government to Bhutan in order to settle the boundary disputes between the kingdoms of Bhutan and Cooch-Behar. We also come to know from the same sources that Rammohun visited the Cooch-Behar-Bhutan border in the company of Mr. Digby in 1812 and possibly also in 1809. In these official letters Rammohun is referred to as the dewan of the Collector of Rangpur. It is also clear that even after the departure of Mr. Digby in 1814, from Rangpur Rammohun was employed in official capacity as an envoy by Mr. Scott, the next Collector of Rangpur as late as in November 1815. It therefore appears certain that not long after his temporary removal from dewanship Rammohun was reinstated as dewan at Rangpur by the Board of Revenue. The confidence of the authorities in his ability and integrity was so great that he was selected as one of the envoys to settle the frontier disputes of a neighbouring state and served the government in this capacity till at least the end of the year 1815. He visited Punakh, the Bhutanese capital via Goalpara, Bijni, Sidli, Cherang and the Pachumachu valley. That he enjoyed the confidence of the Bhutanese Government is indicated by the request conveyed by the Devaraja in latter No. 140, to Mr. Scott, that in case the latter could not come himself Rammohun Roy should be sent again to Bhutan. It is strange, as Dr. Sen has pointed out, that later on Sir Ashely Eden and Captain Pemberton have mentioned only Krishnakanta Basu (also a highly able man) in connection with the Bhutanese Mission of 1815. Did Rammohun then visit Bhutan as Dr. Sen seems to think, as the assistant of Krishnakanta Basu? It is significant however that in the letters of the Devaraja, Rammohun’s name is always mentioned before that of Krishnakanta. According to diplomatic etiquette priority of mention would imply superiority in rank. If the story of Rammohun’s earlier visit to Tibet is true, as it very probably is, the diplomatic mission to Punakh may be regarded as his second visit to Tibetan territories, as Bhutan during this period formed part of the kingdom of Tibet. A journey to Bhutan was extremely difficult in those days and only two Englishmen, George Bogle and Captain Turner visited this nearly inaccessible country before Rammohun Roy and Krishnakanta Basu. (For a thorough discussion see Surendranath Sen Prachin Bangla Patra-Sankalan Introduction pp. 48-51). It is permissible to imagine that the Bhutanese Mission of 1815 laid the foundation of Rammohun’s subsequent reputation as a diplomat. According to the evidence of the above documents Rammohun’s final return to Calcutta from Rangpur could not possibly have taken place before about the end of the year 1815.

III

Here as elsewhere, Pandit Śāstrī seems to have confused the functions of a sherishtadar with those of the dewan. See for example his Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Vanga Samaj (2nd Ed) p. 60, where he refers to Rammohun as the “sherishtadar or dewan” of Mr. Digby at Rangpur. A sherishtadar in the early days of the Company’s rule was mainly “a registrar or a record-keeper”. The designation was applied “especially to the head native officer of a court of justice or collector’s office” who had “the general superintendence of the establishment and charge of the public records and official documents and papers”. (Chanda and Majumdar Letters and Documents p. 559). The term dewan has a wide and changing connotation in Indian administrative history (Moreland The Agrarian System of Moslem India New Reprint, Allahabad, pp. xiv-xv, 271). In the present context it stands for the principal Indian officer of the revenue department, under the Collector of a district. The post of dewan was the highest that an Indian could hold under the East India Company’s Government. The Collectors were “guided to a large extent” by the “decisions and counsels” of the dewan and not of the sherishtadar. The salary of the dewan could be as high as one hundred and fifty sicca rupees a month, whereas that of a sherishtadar was ordinarily between forty to fifty sicca rupees per month. During the period he was in the service of the East India Company at Rangpur, Rammohun worked as dewan and not as sherishtadar. Previously he had served for a term about three months as sherishtadar at Ramgarh. See above p. 37. The new edition of V. A. Smith’s Oxford History of India (edited by T. G. Spears, Oxford 1958) also wrongly describes Rammohun as the sherishtadar of Mr. Digby at Rangpur (pp. 651-52).

IV

Most of these documents can now be read in the following publications: (a) Jyotirmoy Dasgupta, “Raja Rammohun Roy at Rangpur” The Modern Review, September 1928, pp. 274-78; (b) Brajendranath Banerji “Rammohun Roy in the Service of the East India Company” The Modern Review May 1930 pp. 570-76; (c) Ramaprasad Chanda and J. K. Majumdar Selections from Official Letters and Documents Relating to The Life of Raja Rammohun Roy (Calcutta 1938), Nos. 44, 45, 49, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74 and 75, pp. 27-44. These now help us to fix dates and events of this period with a fair amount of certainty though we must regretfully admit that our knowledge is still not altogether without gaps. See also Note II above pp. 37-41.

V

The original records connected with the law-suits brought against Rammohun Roy were not available to Miss Collet. Recently however these have been collected, edited and published in a volume entitled Selections from the Official Letters and Documents Relating to the Life of Raja Rammohun Roy (Calcutta 1938) by Sri Ramaprasad Chanda and Dr. J. K. Majumdar. These letters and documents belong to the Revenue and Judicial Departments of the Government of (undivided) Bengal. Many of these records have no doubt been consulted and utilised previously by individual writers and investigators but Messrs. Chanda and Majumdar deserve great credit for having provided the reading public for the first time with a collection of all relevant source materials throwing light on this phase of Rammohun’s life. It serves as an indispensable source-book and enables enquirers to understand the true nature of the law-suits in which Rammohun was involved.

From the account left by Dr. Carpenter and Rev. William Adam one gets the impression that after the death of his father Ramkanta in 1803, and elder brother Jagamohun in 1812, Rammohun became the head of the family but his mother Tarini Devi “instituted suits against her son both in the King’s and Company’s courts with a view to disinherit him as an apostate and infidel”,…Miss Collet has accepted these conclusions in toto. She thinks that a few years after the death of Jagamohun, the family estate passed from the possession of the latter’s son Govindaprasad to that of Rammohun who might have ‘bought it in’ as Govindaprasad possibly ‘failed to continue the payment of the land-tax’. She further suggests that after Rammohun had established his right to the property he did not at once take possession of it and for sometime at least his mother Tarini Devi continued to manage it. While the records of the law-suits lend general support to the contentions of Carpenter and Adam that the suits were instituted against Rammohun in order to disinherit him of his property on the ground of Rammohun’s “apostacy and infidelity”, Miss Collet’s assumptions regarding Rammohun’s connection with his family estate, are without any basis. The records of the law-suits brought against Rammohun by his nephew Govindaprasad and his brother Jagamohun’s widow Durga Devi, are now fortunately available to us and these throw a flood of light on the problem concerned. We shall therefore give a brief account of these cases here.

Govindaprasad Roy filed a suit in the Equity Division of the Supreme Court on the 23rd June, 1817, laying claim to the entire property, movable and immovable, belonging to Rammohun Roy, as the “only son, heir and legal personal representative of Jagamohun Roy.” In the Bill of Complaint, Govindaprasad referred to the deed of partition executed by Ramkanta Roy in 1796 and stated that when Jagamohun, Rammohun and Ramlochan took possession of the shares allotted to each of them by their father, Rammohun Roy separated himself from the family and went and lived apart. But Ramkanta, Jagamohun and Rammohun immediately or shortly after the partition reunited and lived together as a joint Hindu family till the deaths of Ramkanta in 1803 and Jagomohan in 1812. After his father’s death Govindprasad continued to live with Rammohun Roy jointly at Langulpara till the 27th January 1817 when Rammohun removed to his newly built house in the adjoining village of Raghunathpur. Govindaprasad’s prayer was that the Court might declare himself entitled to half-share of the joint estate of which Rammohun was seeking to deprive him (vide “Govindaprasad’s Bill of Complaint,” Chanda and Majumdar Letters and Documents No. 98, pp. 63-70; see also Introduction to the same pp. xliv-xlv). Rammohun’s answer as defendant is missing from the original file but a summary of it is incorporated in the judgment delivered by the Court on the 10th December 1819 (Letters and Documents No. 131; for the summary of Rammohun’s answer see particularly pp. 255-72). It is quite clear from Rammohun’s answer as well as from the cross interrogatories prepared on his behalf to be administered to the witnesses for the prosecution, that Rammohun’s defence was that he had been living in complete separation from his relatives due to his difference from them over religious and social questions and the property which he had been enjoying, had been earned solely by his individual endeavours. On this ground he refused to entertain any claims to the effect that the property enjoyed by him was joint property. From the testimonies of witnesses Guruprasad Roy and Ramtanu Roy, cousins of Rammohun, on behalf of the latter (Vide Letters and Documents Nos. 108 and 110) it becomes very clear that the custom of brothers living separately was current in the Roy family at least from a generation earlier. Guruprasad who was the son of Nimananda Roy, a brother of Ramkanta, said in course of his evidence: “…he, this deponent, was informed by his said father Nimananda Roy, that the said Radacaunt Roy (evidently a printing mistake for Ramcaunt or Ramkanta Roy—Editors) and his said brothers had become divided many years previous to the birth of him, this deponent, and that he, this deponent, hath after seen the papers which were drawn up and executed by the said Ramkanta Roy and his said brothers at the time when such division or partition took place and which papers are now in the possession of him, this deponent…” (Letters and Documents pp. 141-42). Ramtanu Roy stated in his evidence: “…the said Ramkanta Roy lived and resided in the village of Radhanagar in the Pargana of Jahanabad then in the Zillah of Burdwan but now in the Zillah of Hooghly where he, this deponent, first knew him…Saith that at that time his brothers Nimananda Roy, Ramkishore Roy, Gopimohun Roy and Bishnuram Roy and the descendants of his brother Radhamohun Roy and his brother Ramram Roy lived and resided in the same homestead but they did not constitute an undivided Hindoo family with him in any respect (italics ours—Editors). See Letters and Documents p. 157. It is also well-known (as admitted by Govindaprasad in his Bill of Complaint) that after Ramkanta had divided his property among his three sons, Ramlochan, the step-brother of Rammohun, separated himself from the family and lived apart. The witnesses on behalf of Rammohun in the case included his cousins Guruprasad Roy and Ramtanu Roy, nephew Gurudas Mukherjee, Rajibolochan Roy an influential Zamindar of the Burdwan district, Pandit Nandakumar Vidyalankar more widely known as the venerable Tāntrika Sannyāsi Hariharananda Tirthasvami and six other persons including employees of Rammohun (Letters and Documents Nos. 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115 and 116, pp. 130-93). Their evidences succeeded in establishing that Rammohun was not living jointly with Jagamohun and the property enjoyed by the former was absolutely self-earned. It was proved that the families of Rammohun and Jagamohun lived jointly as regards food at Langulpara till the beginning of the year 1817 but during this period they were separate in property and in everything else. But as early as November-December 1814, Rammohun had transferred his half-share of the paternal house at Langulpara to his nephew Gurudas Mukherjee and in January-February 1817 he removed with his family to a new house which he had built in the neighbouring village of Raghunathpur (Letters and Documents p. xliii). “Men who had excellent opportunities of being acquainted with the affairs and concerns of the family appeared as witnesses. Rammohun Roy’s first cousins and nephew…appeared as witnesses of the internal affairs of the family. Rajiblochan Roy…who held in farm most of the taluks of Rammohun Roy, bore witness to the fact that their net income was always paid over to Rammohun Roy. The cashier of Rammohun Roy’s Calcutta office stated that business was carried on there in the name of Rammohun Roy alone. Valuable documents were produced to show that Jagamohun Roy’s transactions were carried on separately by himself on his own behalf. The handwriting of Jagamohun Roy on these documents was duly identified by several witnesses. (Ibid p li). While Rammohun thus succeeded “in proving his case to the hilt”, Govindaprasad cut rather a sorry figure in the court. Becharam Sen, one of the main witnesses of his side practically gave away the case while answering the main question at issue whether Jagamohun and Rammohun reunited and were “joint in food, property and in all other respects.” His reply was, that from the date of partition (1st December 1796) to his death, Jagamohun Roy and after his death till 1223 B. S. (1816-17), his son, Govindaprasad Roy, lived with Rammohun Roy “undivided as to food but their property always continued distinct which he, this deponent, knows from being now in the service of Govindaprasad Roy and from having seen his books (Ibid pp. xlvii-xlviii, 95). The evidence of three other witnesses Radhakrishna Banerjee, Ramchandra Banerji and Abhaycharan Dutta examined on behalf of Govindaprasad were of little help to the latter. (Letters and Documents Nos. 121 to 125, pp. 206-27). The first named admitted that “he this deponent, doth not know on what terms he, the said Rammohun Roy and Jagamohun Roy lived after the said partition and division of which he hath been speaking or whether they possessed and enjoyed their respective portions under the said division or partition severally or jointly. Saith that he never heard of any reunion between any of the said parties.” (Ibid p. 208). Ramchandra Banerji also admitted that “he had not the means and opportunity of knowing and being acquainted with, nor was he acquainted with the affairs and concerns of the said family during the life-time of Ramkanta Roy or since his death”. Still somehow it “appeared” to him as a joint family (Ibid p. 217). The last witness claimed some acquaintance with the affairs of the family during the life-time of Ramkanta but his first hand knowledge ended with Ramkanta’s death. According to his own admission, “he had not the like opportunity of seeing and being acquainted with the affairs and transactions of the said family after his death” (Ibid p. 225). Govindaprasad made desperate efforts to procure more witnesses on his side including Rammohun’s mother Tarini Devi, and repeatedly prayed for time (vide Letter and Documents Nos. 117—118 and 127, pp. 93—97, 235—37); but inspite of subpoenas having been issued to them only five out of seventeen of these persons came to Calcutta to attend the Court. Tarini Devi was conspicuous by her absence. Govindaprasad Roy had also petitioned to the Court to be allowed to conduct the case as a pauper (in forma pauperis) on the 24th August 1819 (vide Letters and Documents No. 12), pp. 203—04). The prayer was initially granted by the Court (Ibid p. 205). But Rammohun succeeded in proving by producing seven witnesses that Govindaprasad was at that time enjoying landed property amounting in value to about twelve thousand sicca rupees and the Court finally cancelled its previous permission granted to Govindaprasad to conduct the case as a pauper (vide Letters and Documents Nos. 129 and 130 pp. 238—48). The final hearing of the case took place on the 10th December 1819. No person appeared for the complainant presumably anticipating the results. The counsel for the defendant argued the case and judgment was delivered. The case was dismissed with costs by the three judges, Sir Edward Hyde East, Chief Justice, Sir Francis Macnaghten and Sir Antony Buller (vide Letters and Documents no. 131, pp. 248—72). From the above account it would be clear that Mr. Brajendranath Banerjee is definitely wrong when he says that Govindaprasad came to a settlement regarding the case (“কিছুদিন পরে গোবিন্দপ্রসাদ মোকদ্দমা মিটাইয়া ফেলিলেন,” Rammohun Roy p. 38). Throughout the proceedings, Govindaprasad never showed any spirit of compromise and he lost the case inspite of his best efforts to win it. He no doubt wrote a letter to Rammohun expressing regret for having unjustly instituted the law-suit relying on the words of others and asking his uncle’s forgiveness. (For the text of the letter see Nagendranath Chatterjee Mahatma Raja Rammohun Rayer Jiban-charit 5th Ed. pp. 301-02). But his repentance does not seem to have been sincere. For we find him siding with his mother Durga Devi, the widow of Jagamohun in the case filed by her against Rammohun in the Equity division of the Supreme Court on the 13th April 1821 in which she claimed that the taluks Ramesvarpur and Govindapur were purchased by her money by Rammohun Roy and consequently these belonged to her. Govindaprasad who made no such claim in his own case did not hesitate to sign his name as an attesting witness to Durga Devi’s warrant of attorney of the 29th September, 1820 (Letters and Documents pp. liv 301).

The moving spirit behind the young and inexperienced youth Govindaprasad in the case Govindaprasad vs. Rammohun appears to have been Rammohun’s mother Tarini Devi. Rammohun’s crusade against idol-worship must have shocked his mother profoundly. It has been very pertinently observed: “When Rammohun began his crusade against idolatory, he must have stopped payment of his share of the cost of the idolatrous religious ceremonies performed by his mother” at Langulpara, as “one of the rules of his Atmiya Sabha founded in 1815 required it.” (Chanda and Majumdar Letters and Documents p xliii). A reference to the strict rules of the Atmiya Sabha prohibiting any participation in idol-worship and idolatrous practices on the part of its members, is to be found in a notice of Rammohun Roy and his reforming activities that appeared in the Missionary Register London 1816 (J. K. Majumdar Raja Rammohun Roy and Progressive Movements in India Calcutta 1941, pp 3-6). Rammohun’s religious views must have completely alienated his mother from him and provoked his nephew Govindaprasad supported of course by Tarini Devi to excommunicate him and his family. Becharam Sen who served Rammohun as a mohurrir from 1808-09 to 1816, testifying for Govindaprasad in the above case said: “Saith that he was discharged from the said (Rammohun Roy’s) service…owing to this deponent having sided with the complainant Govindaprasad Roy in matter regarding their caste in which they differed Saith that four or five days after he was discharged from service of the defendant (Rammohun Roy) he entered the service of the complainant” (Letters and Documents p. xliv, also No. 104, p 103; italics in the body of the quotation are ours—Editors). Further light on Tarini Devi’s activities in this respect is thrown by one (the eleventh) of the cross interrogatories intended to be put to his mother by Rammohun as she had been cited as a witness by Govindaprasad Roy (Letters and Documents No. 126, p. 234). The passages deserve to be quoted: “Have you not had serious disputes and differences with your son the Defendant Rammohun Roy on account of his religious opinions and have you not instigated and prevailed on your Grandson the Complainant to institute the present suit against the said Defendant, as a measure of revenge, because the said Defendant hath refused to practise the rites and ceremonies of the Hindu Religion in the manner in which you wish the same to be practised or performed? Have not you and the Complainant and other members of your family estranged yourself and themselves from all intercourse with the Defendant on account of his religious opinions and writings? Have you not repeatedly declared that you desire the ruin of the Defendant and there will not only be no sin but that it will be meritorious to effect the temporal ruin of the Defendant, provided he shall not resume or follow the religious usages and worship of his Fore Fathers. Have you not publicly declared that it will not be sinful to take away the life of a Hindoo who forsakes the idolatry and ceremonies of worship, usually practised by persons of that Religion? Has not the Defendant in fact refused to practise the rites and ceremonies of the Hindoo religion in respect to the worship of Idols? Have not you, and the Complainant and others of the Defendants’ relations had several meetings and conversations on this subject and declare solemnly on your Oath, whether you do not know and believe that the present suit would not have been instituted if the Defendant had not acted in religious matters contrary to your wishes and differently from the practices of his ancestors? . . . Did you not since the commencement of this suit make personal application to the Defendant at his house in Simlah in Calcutta for the grant of a piece of Land that the profits thereof might be applied towards the Worship of an Idol: and did not the Defendant offer you a large sum of money to be distributed in Charity to the poor, but refuse to contribute in any manner to the encouragement of the worship of Idols? Were you not on that occasion exceedingly displeased with the Defendant and did you not then express your displeasure and threaten the Defendant for having refused to comply with your request? . . .”, (italics ours—Editors). It is significant that Tarini Devi did not come forward to answer these questions in the court inspite of the court having issued subpoena on her as a witness (vide Letters and Documents No. 117 pp. 193-94). It therefore appears that the case owed its origin really to the violently hostile reaction of Rammohun’s relatives including his mother, to Rammohun’s religious views. After it had started, Tarini Devi seems to have made a last attempt at reconciliation by appealing to Rammohun for a plot of land to be utilised for the worship of an idol. The son refused, maintaining his attitude of uncompromising antagonism to idol-worship but offered his mother instead, a large sum of money to be distributed to the poor. This act seems to have further stiffened the attitude of the mother.

However much one may deplore the part played by Tarini Devi in the case, one cannot but feel a sort of admiration for the proud-spirited lady who seems to have valued her orthodox tenets more highly than even the life of her only surviving son. She spent the last two years of her life at Puri dying there on the 21st April 1822. (Banerji Rammohun Roy p. 39). In spite of her hostile attitude to him Rammohun as recorded by Dr. Lant Carpenter, manifested a warm and affectionate attachment towards his mother. The touching scene of her final farewell from her son is thus described by Dr. Carpenter “…it was with glistening eyes that he told us she had “repented” of her conduct towards him. Though convinced that his doctrines were true, she could not throw off the schackles of idolatrous customs. “Rammohun” she said to him, before she set out on her last pilgrimage to Juggernath where she died, “you are right, but I am a weak woman, and am grown too old to give up these observances, which are a comfort to me.” (Mary Carpenter Last Days in England of Rajah Rammohun Roy Calcutta 1915, pp. 9-10).

The case Durga Devi vs. Rammohun Roy may be briefly summarised. In her Bill of Complaint filed on the 13th April 1821 in the Supreme Court, Durga Devi, the widow of Jagamohun states that she lent Rammohun Rs. 4500 which enabled the latter to purchase the taluks Govindapur and Rameswarpur and Rammohun was merely holding them on lease. She claimed these properties on the ground that the period of lease was over. (Letters and Documents No. 132, pp. 278—86). Rammohun’s answer was filed on the 5th September 1821 wherein he denied his having borrowed the above sum from Durga Devi or having ever held the mentioned taluks under the above condition or having executed the documents attached to the Bill of Complaint (Ibid No. 135, pp. 287—96). Durga Devi failed to produce a single witness to prove her case which was dismissed with costs for want of prosecution on the 30th November 1821 (Ibid No. 140, pp. 299—300).

Notice may be conveniently taken here of two other legal proceedings with which Rammohun was directly or indirectly connected. On the 16th June 1823 Maharaja Tejchand of Burdwan had brought three suits against Rammohun Roy and Govindaprasad Roy “based on three Kistibandi bonds alleged to have been executed by Rammohun’s father, claiming Rs. 12,624, Rs. 56,807 and Rs. 15,200 respectively”, in the Provincial Court, Calcutta. Rammohun made an able defence in course of which he declared the claim of the plaintiff “a piece of fraud” and described the underlying motive of the plaintiff in instituting these suits as “nothing but this that my nephew (sister’s son) Baboo Gooroodas Mookherjee held the office of Dewan in the service of Maharaja Pratap Chund, the son of the plaintiff, and after the death of the Maharaja acted as vakeel on behalf of the ranees, the wives of the Maharaja against the plaintiff in a case in the court.” He also reemphasized the point that during the life-time of his father he had “separated from him and the rest of the family in consequence of his altered habits of life and change of opinions and been living independently on his own earning” (italics ours—Editors; see Letters and Documents p 306). The cases were dismissed with costs. Maharaja Tejchand preferred an appeal to the Sadar Dewany Adalat against the judgment of the Provincial Court, but there also his appeal was dismissed with costs (vide Letters and Documents No. 141, pp. 306-11). The other case was against Radhaprasad Roy, the elder son of Rammohun who was prosecuted for embezzlement of Government funds, while acting as the Naib Sherishtadar of the Burdwan Collectorate. It dragged on during the two years 1825 and 1826, and in the end Radhaprasad was honorably acquitted. From a study of the relevant papers and documents connected with the case, and collected by Messrs. Chanda and Majumdar, it appears that the institution of the law-suit was the result of a deep-laid conspiracy against the family of Rammohun Roy, hatched by the party of Maharaja Tejchand of Burdwan, which probably succeeded in influencing some high-placed British officers of the Company like Mr. Molony, the Superintendent and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs (appointed Commissioner to inquire into the case of embezzlement), Mr. Hutchinson, the Magistrate of Burdwan and Mr. Armstrong the Collector of the same district. It is not also difficult to guess the reason of the Raja of Burdwan’s hostility. Maharaja Tejchand was at the time engaged in litigation with his daughters-in-law, widows of his deceased son Pratapchand for the possession of the Ganga-Manoharpur taluk. Members of Rammohun Roy’s family including his nephew Gurudas Mukherji and son Radhaprasad Roy, are known to have actively assisted the Ranis against their father-in-law and thus incurred the bitter hostility of the latter (vide Letters and Documents Nos. 141 and 207, pp. 307, 447). Rammohun had no connection whatsoever with the case in which his son was involved, but the torture and persecution which Radhaprasad had to undergo for a long period resulted in the latter’s mother dying broken-hearted and also in a complete breakdown of Rammohun’s health. These facts are mentioned by Radhaprasad himself in his petition submitted to the Governor-General Lord William Bentinck on the 23rd July 1828, after his acquittal (Letters and Documents No. 249, p. 519). The circumstances leading to the prosecution and acquittal of Radhaprasad Roy have been ably described in Chanda and Majumdar’s Letters and Documents. Introduction, pp. lxi-lxxxix; for the relevant documents see Text pp. 315-522.

The records of the above law-suits lead invariably to the following conclusions :

(a) It is not a fact that the family estate passed from Govindaprasad to Rammohun after the death of Jagamohun Roy in 1812. Rammohun even transferred his half-share in the family residence at Langulpara to his nephew Gurudas Mukherji in 1814, and himself removed with his family in 1817 to the new house which he had built in the neighbouring village of Raghunathpur. The paternal estate remained in possession of Govindaprasad, son of Jagamohun, over which Rammohun never advanced any claim. The landed property enjoyed by Govindaprasad in 1819, amounted, as it was proved in the Court, to about sicca Rupees Twelve Thousand.

(b) It was proved in the Court that the property enjoyed by Rammohun was not joint, but had been acquired by him solely through his individual efforts, during the period when he had separated from the rest of the family due to his fundamentally different religious and social outlook.

(c) The real motive behind the institution of the first two law-suits, by Rammohun’s relatives, was to “ruin” Rammohun because of the latter’s refusal to believe in or to support in any manner, idolatrous aspects of Hindu worship and also because of his critical attitude towards orthodox caste rules. The guiding spirit behind the case filed by Govindaprasad Roy against Rammohun, appears to have been Tarini Devi, Rammohun’s mother.

(d) The three cases against Rammohun and one against his son not only proved ‘ruinously expensive’ to the former, but the anxiety for and exertions on behalf of his son during the progress of the last mentioned one, completely broke Rammohun’s health, “from the effects of which he could not recover even after a year and a half, as certified by his medical attendant Mr. Alexander Halliday” (Letters and Documents p. 519); further during this period, he also lost his wife who died broken-hearted from the great shock she received due to the persecutions and sufferings her son had to undergo.

Considering all these points, one feels inclined to endorse fully the following statement made by Messrs Chanda and Majumdar, regarding the records of these cases, collected in their priceless volume: “The records…are really annals of the Raja’s long persecution, and these bring into clear relief the greatness and patriotism of the man, who in the midst of these attacks to bring down ruin and disgrace on him, never lost sight of his self-imposed mission of uplifting his countrymen” (Letters and Documents Preface p. ii)

VI

The “insinuations” did not, it may at once be pointed out, come from Kishorychand Mitra himself, who had been throughout his life, well-known for his great respect and admiration for Rammohun Roy and the latter’s religious and social views. (See Manmathanath Ghosh’s excellent Bengali biography Karmabir Kishorichand Mitra Calcutta 1333 B. S., pp. 45, 58, 74-76, 206-10). That Kishorychand did not accept these “insinuations” himself, is quite clear from the language used by him e.g. “If Rammohun did keep his hands clean and abstained as in the absence of all positive evidence to the contrary we are bound to suppose…..he must have been a splendid exception” (italics ours—Editors ; or again, “The evidence on the subject is too inconclusive to arrive at a decision.” He was therefore not prepared to believe in these wild accusations “in the absence of all positive evidence.”

Mr. Leonard (in his History of the Brahmo Samaj p. 21) and Miss Collet have defended Rammohun in a dignified manner and have treated these “unworthy suspicions” with the contempt they deserve. Fortunately their arguments can now be supplemented by some additional facts that have come to light since they wrote.

The original charge, as recorded by Kishorychand Mitra (Calcutta Review, December 1845, pp. 364-65), is that during Rammohun’s ten years’ Government Service the latter is said to have realized as much money as enabled him to become a Zaminder with an annual income of Rs. 10,000, and this raises the suspicion that he must have “sold justice” while he was in the Service of the Company. It can now be shown definitely that this suspicion has absolutely no basis.

Rammohun Roy was most certainly not in Government Service for a period of ten years. In 1803 he acted for about three months as dewan of Mr. Thomas Woodforde, Collector of Dacca-Jalalpore. (See above p. 15). Afterwards from 1805 to 1809 he was in the service of Mr. Digby and accompanied him to Ramgarh Jessore and Bhagalpur. During these years he was for the most part in the private employment of Mr. Digby, only holding an official post at Ramgarh for a period of three months. At Rangpur the first phase of his Government Service as dewan was a period probably of four months (November 1809 to March 1810). (See above p. 38). There is of course reason to believe, as we have seen, that afterwards he was reappointed dewan at Rangpur and subsequently served as an envoy of the British Government to Bhutan. The duration of the period of his service under the East India Company however cannot possibly have been ten years. Mr. Brajendranath Banerji thinks that Rammohun was in Government Service for a total period of one year and nine months only (Rammohun Roy p. 32). We are inclined to think that it would be a little longer so as to include Rammohun’s second phase of dewanship at Rangpur. But it cannot certainly have been very much longer. So the story of Rammohun’s “ten years’ Government Service” is certainly a myth.

Secondly, it must be borne in mind that before he had entered the Service of the East India Company, Rammohun was already a Zamindar and had also earned enough money by the business of money-lending and by dealing in Company’s Paper, in Calcutta. He was engaged in business in Calcutta probably since 1797. Already in 1799 he had purchased the taluks Govindapur and Rameswarpur drawing an annual income of Rs. 5500/- from them. (See above p. 14). He further purchased the four following patni taluks in the following years: (1) Langulpara in 1803-04; (2) Birluk in 1808-09; (3) Krishnanagar in 1809-10; and (4) Srirampur in 1809-10, all in the Burdwan district (Letters and Documents p. xxxix; also No. 131, pp. 263-64). These four taluks gave Rammohun a further annual income of five or six thousand rupees (Letters and Documents No. 103, p. 98). So by 1810 Rammohun was already a land-owner with a total annual income of more than Rs. 10,000 derived from his previously purchased estates of Govindapur and Rameswarpur and the subsequently acquired patni taluks. But up to 1810 Rammohun had not yet completed even one year of Government Service (taking together the length of his service periods at Dacca-Jalalpore, Ramgarh and the first phase at Rangpur)! It will thus be seen that Rammohun’s purchase of landed property and becoming “a zamindar with an annual income of Rs. 10,000” can possibly have nothing much to do with his service under the East India Company. He had laid the foundation of his prosperity by business since 1797 and had acquired landed estates before he began to serve the Government. Throughout the period from 1805 to 1815 Rammohun though himself staying out of Calcutta, maintained his business in the capital city through his cash-keeper Gopimohun Chatterjee. Steady income derived from his estates Govindapur and Rameswarpur and business must have enabled him to purchase the four patni taluks and the acquisition was complete before Rammohun had served the East India Company even for one year in different places. Even if we leave aside for the moment the inherent nobility of his character which shrank always from everything mean and dishonest as the known facts of his life establish beyond doubt, and judge him as an ordinary individual, we are bound to admit that he had no need or opportunity to serve the Government for ten years and receive illegal gratification in service to become a zamindar. It is possible to account satisfactorily for all his landed and house property without taking into consideration his income from private and Government Service.

It may also be pointed out in this connection, that as a zamindar and a businessman, Rammohun’s conduct had always been honest straightforward and above board, and no charge of any underhand dealing was ever levelled against him by any contemporary critic. That he had great reputation for honesty and integrity in the world of business and the Stock Exchange, is indirectly proved by the fact that he had been elected a member of the Committee of Management and also the joint-treasurer of the “Commercial and Patriotic Association” formed mainly by the European business community of Calcutta on the 31st January 1828 (vide India Gazette February 4, 1828, quoted in J. K. Majumdar Raja Rammohun Roy and Progressive Movements in India No. 152, pp. 265-68)

In fact many of Rammohun’s biographers seem to have misunderstood the real motive behind Rammohun’s acceptance of service under Mr. Digby or the East India Company. It was very probably not the acquisition of money because he was already a man of wealth when he decided to leave Calcutta as the private munshi of Mr. Digby. It has been rightly guessed that one of his objects “was learning the English language and studying the English character” (Letters and Documents p. xl). The company of his admiring employer Mr. Digby, gave him great opportunities in both these respects. During the period of his close association with Mr. Digby he not only vastly improved his knowledge of English but also gained a fair knowledge of the contemporary Continental politics through “the constant habit of reading English newspapers”. (See above p. 24). He also formed the plan of an immediate visit to England and wrote to Mr. Digby in England, to that effect as early as in 1816 or 1817. (The relevant extract from this letter will be found in The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy edited by Kalidas Nag and Debajyoti Burman, Part IV, Calcutta 1947, pp. 94-95.) The chief motive of the intended visit was his desire to enter one of the English universities as student as testified to by Lt. Col. Fitzclarence (Lord Munster) in his account of Rammohun Roy based on a close personal acquaintance with the latter (vide Lt. Col. Fitzclarence Journal of a Route Across India through Egypt to England in the Latter End of the year 1817 and the Beginning of 1818 John Murray, London, 1819, p. 107). The religious discussions and controversies at Rangpur also indicate that Rammohun’s characteristic attitude in religion had already taken a definite shape and we may suppose with Sri Girijasankar Roychoudhury that the discussion-meetings held at Rammohun’s house at Rangpur actually laid the foundation of the future Brahmo movement (See his article in the Tattvakaumudi Vol. 77, No. 9, p. 66.) Besides there is reason to believe that already since 1812, Rammohun had begun his campaigns against the barbarous custom of Sati; (see Note VIII to chapter III). Further it is quite certain that Rammohun must have utilised the period from 1805 to 1815 (particularly his years at Rangpur) in writing some of his books like the elaborate exposition of the Vedānta Sūtras entitled Vedāntagrantha, their short summary known as the Vedāntasāra etc., which he started publishing immediately after his arrival in Calcutta. The Vedāntagrantha was published in 1815. There is therefore ample evidence that money-making was not the chief motive behind Rammohun’s acceptance of private or Government service.

VII

That Rammohun was an eye witness of the burning of widows, seems also to be indicated by the following passage in his A Second Conference between an Advocate for and an Opponent of the Practice of Burning Widows Alive: “So far have Pandits been infatuated in attempting to give the appearance of propriety to improper actions, that they have even attempted to make people believe, that a rope may remain unconsumed amidst a flaming fire, and prevent the members of a body from being dispersed from the pile. Men of sense may now judge of the truth of the reason to which you ascribe the practice of tying down widows. All people in the world are not blind, and those who will go and behold the mode in which you tie down women to the pile, will readily perceive the truth and falsehood of the motives you assign for the practice. (italics our—Editors); (The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy edited by Kalidas Nag and Debajyoti Burman, Part III, Calcutta 1947, pp. 122-23). For the corresponding Bengali passage in the original Bengali text, see Rammohun’s Sahamaran Vishaaye Prabartak O Nibartaker Dvitiya Samvad (Sahitya Parishad Edition of Rammohun’s Bengali Works, p. 43). The Bengali book was published from Calcutta in 1819 and the English translation, from the same place in the following year.

• Some Anecdotes from the Life of Raja Rammohun Roy, by. Nanda Mohun Chatterji, Calcutta, 1287 Sal (1881, A.D.). (The book is in Bengali, its Bengali title being Mahatma Raja Rammohun Rāya Sammandhiya Kshudra Kshudra Galpa.—Editors)