DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9550#0014
vm
INTRODUCTION.
elementary rules of inheritance and disposal of property
unsettled, the state of the law and the administration of
justice were in utter confusion. The permanent settle-
ment also was made about this time, and the germs laid
of those vast social and economical changes in the
condition of the people which have followed in the train
of that great measure.
It was during these the most stirring times of modern
Indian history from 1774 to 1833 that Ram Mohun
Roy lived and moved, and worked with all his might to
bring light and dispel the darkness that was upon the
land, to succour the oppressed and the downtrodden,
and to help the beneficient rulers of the country in
producing order out of chaos.
Ram Mohun Roy came to Calcutta not to rest. He
came prepared for the fight with the old superstitions
and the manifold evils that had darkened the face of his
country. His treatise in Persian with an Arabic preface,
named Tuhfat-ul Muwahhidin, or a gift to the worship-
pers of one God, and his controversies at Rungpore had
established his fame ; and upon his coming to Calcutta,
he was able very soon to gather round him a few learned
and earnest-minded men. The Atmiya Sobha was
established in 1814 for the worship of the One invisible
God as inculcated in the Upanishads. Ram Mohun
Roy fought with the voice as well as with the pen. But
his power lay in his writings. He wrote without ceasing,
and spent the whole of his fortune in publishing and
distributing his works among his countrymen.
As we have mentioned before, from early youth Ram
Mohun Roy was convinced of the error and the baneful
effects of the popular idolatry, and he was also con-
INTRODUCTION.
elementary rules of inheritance and disposal of property
unsettled, the state of the law and the administration of
justice were in utter confusion. The permanent settle-
ment also was made about this time, and the germs laid
of those vast social and economical changes in the
condition of the people which have followed in the train
of that great measure.
It was during these the most stirring times of modern
Indian history from 1774 to 1833 that Ram Mohun
Roy lived and moved, and worked with all his might to
bring light and dispel the darkness that was upon the
land, to succour the oppressed and the downtrodden,
and to help the beneficient rulers of the country in
producing order out of chaos.
Ram Mohun Roy came to Calcutta not to rest. He
came prepared for the fight with the old superstitions
and the manifold evils that had darkened the face of his
country. His treatise in Persian with an Arabic preface,
named Tuhfat-ul Muwahhidin, or a gift to the worship-
pers of one God, and his controversies at Rungpore had
established his fame ; and upon his coming to Calcutta,
he was able very soon to gather round him a few learned
and earnest-minded men. The Atmiya Sobha was
established in 1814 for the worship of the One invisible
God as inculcated in the Upanishads. Ram Mohun
Roy fought with the voice as well as with the pen. But
his power lay in his writings. He wrote without ceasing,
and spent the whole of his fortune in publishing and
distributing his works among his countrymen.
As we have mentioned before, from early youth Ram
Mohun Roy was convinced of the error and the baneful
effects of the popular idolatry, and he was also con-