OF CHRISTIANITY UPON OTHER RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 35 



The founder of the Brahmo-Samaj,* Raja Earn Mohan Rai, 

 was educated under direct Christian influence, but for some 

 reason did not openly and fully accept Christianity. He 

 endeavoured to reform Hinduism from within by correcting its 

 abuses and borrowing from Christianity what seemed to him 

 most necessary for the moral and spiritual regeneration of his 

 country. He was influential in helping to abolish the practice 

 of widow-burning, even before he founded the new sect in 1830. 

 He taught belief in a Personal and Holy God, and even in out- 

 ward matters adopted Christian methods of worship and conduct. 

 In the Brahmo-Samaj he ordained the celebration of weekly 

 united services, at which, in imitation of Christian worship, 

 hymns were sung, a sermon delivered, and passages read from 

 the Vedas. As he o-rew older, he felt that he had not succeeded 

 in establishing a religion which w^ould satisfy the heart of 

 India. Yielding to no one in his admiration for Christ, he yet 

 denied His Deity ; but near the end of his life he admitted that 

 India must finally accept the Christian faith. 



His successor, Debendra-Xath Tao'ore, was less inclined 

 towards Christianity. But in endeavouring to arrest its progress 

 he imitated Christian practice by training and sending out 

 missionaries to preach the doctrines of the Brahmo-Samaj and 

 also by literature and educational w^ork. To the ancient Hindu 

 doctrines of Yoga, BhaJcti, and J nana, Keshab Candra Sen added 

 the Christian conception of Sevct (service of God). In 1881, 

 when there took place a division in the Samaj, the Sadharan 

 Brahmo-Samaj separating from the main body, Keshab Candra 

 Sen's adherents called their sect " the Church of the New 

 Dispensation " {Nava Vidhdna). He introduced Baptism and 

 the Communion and then the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, 

 identifying the Father, the Son, and the Blessed Spirit respec- 

 tively with the Hindu Triad of attributes, Sat-Cit-Ananda 

 (Existence, Thought, Joy), which in the Upanishads constitutes 

 one of the names of Brahma (Sacciddnanda). 



Brahmaism, as the Brahmo-Samaj movement has been called, 

 has had a great influence upon India through its social reform 

 work. It has accustomed many people to look upon that move- 

 ment with more favour than if such reforms had come directly 

 instead of indirectly from a Christian source. But its tenets, 

 though preached by quite a number of highly educated and 

 most able men, have appealed only to the upper classes of 

 Hindus, and among them only to those who have received a 



* Lillingston, Moore, Encyc. of Rel. and Ethics^ vol. ii. 



D 2 



