The Brahmo Samaj and British Unitarians

Bust of Tagore in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London

The Brahmo Samaj have an honoured place in the history of British Unitarians. I was therefore intrigued to read about them in "The Guardian" in an article by Shreya Sen-Handley "On Republic day, consider that India's real split is between two Hinduisms". Her mother was a Brahmo and she highlighted the long line of educated women in her family, explaining:

"The Brahmos were 19th-century reforming crusaders, Hindus who sought inspiration from global liberal philosophies as well as the best traditions of Christianity and Islam to weed out the corruption that had crept into Hinduism. They were monotheistic and women were at the core of their crusade. Brahmo women were ordained as priests and became literary lights in Bengal. Together with their men, they agitated successfully for an end to the funeral practice of "sati" (the burning of the widow on her husband's funeral pyre). Like all reforming movements, there was a zeal about the movement that could, if resurrected in India now, combat the rise of the uglier face of Hinduism".

The Unitarian movement had a very close association with the founder of the Brahmo Samaj, Raja Rammohun Roy. He left for England in 1830 and was received at the annual meeting of the English Unitarians. It was on a visit to Bristol to meet with Miss Mary Carpenter, the social reformer and friend of India, that he died in 1833. His grave is in Arnos Vale cemetery and he has been honoured by a statute in the centre of the City. Each year the Brahmos and Bristol Unitarians gather for a memorial service at his mausoleum.

It was a great pleasure to attend a service at Golders Green Unitarian Church with participation of the Brahmos which again is an annual event. Rabindranath Tagore is, of course, the great modern Brahmo figure,  honoured with the Nobel Prize for literature. His bust stands immediately outside Dr Williams's Library in Gordon Square (above).

Exploring the significance of Tagore's first name - "lord of the sun"

Writing in The Guardian (8 July 2011) Amit Chaudhuri's "Rereading Rabindranth Tagore" explains the significance of "Rabindranath"

"Tagore's first name sounded like gobbledegook to Larkin's ears, and Dickens, who met Tagore's grandfather Dwarkanath in London in 1842, had this to say of that name: "I have spelt it backwards, but it makes no less tremendous nonsense that way." But there's a narrative behind the names. "Dwarkanath" means "lord of Dwarka" – Dwarka is Krishna's home; it's another name for Krishna, and is a properly Hindu name. Tagore's father's name, Debendranath, means "lord of the gods", and has a clear religious connotation. "Rabindranath" means "lord of the sun"; it announces a shift from the invocation of the gods in Bengali naming toward names that suggest or contain light or radiance. Debendranath, a prime mover of the unitarian Brahmo Samaj, is, in naming his son (indeed all his sons), moving away from the old, populous Hindu universe to a sphere of immanent illumination: the world of the so-called Bengali "enlightenment".

Celebrate Rabindranath Tagore Anniversary

2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rabindranath Tagore. He was born on 7 May 1861, the youngest son of Maharshi Debendra Nath Tagore and grandson of Prince Dwarkanaith Tagore. A noted poet, novelist, musician and painter he was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). He wrote what are the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.


For Unitarians Tagore should be a significant figure. The Tagore family were closely connected with the Brahmo Samaj; the monotheistic movement for social and religious reform which had links with Unitarianism going back to the Ram Mohan Roy, who founded the movement in Calcutta in 1828.


Tagore delivered the Hibbert Lectures on "The Religion of Man" at Manchester College, Oxford in 1930. William Radice explored this visit in an article in the most recent "Faith and Freedom" (vol 63, part 2, Autumn and Winter 2010).


In 1961 the London Brahmo Samaj celebrated the Tagore Centenary with a service at Gandhi Memorial Hall in Fitzroy Square. We have the impressive programme at Essex Hall. Rev Dudley Richards, then General Assembly Assistant Secretary, led an opening prayer. Indeed, the GA even advertised in the programme.


A Tagore poem is included in "Hymns for Living" (no 299) - "Now I Recall my Childhood". "The Real Presence" by Tagore is part of a service by Will Hayes, the well-known Unitarian Minister, in "Every Nation Kneeling" (1954).


UNESCO are playing a major role in the celebrations. A statement says that by observing his 150th birth anniversary globally, it hopes to "build up a conception of the universal reconciled with the particular, now that peace is being jeopardized nationally, regionally and internationally by identity-related and spiritual tension".