DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0500
490 Modern Hindu Theism. Rammohun Roy.
usual rites required by his master's caste, and his Brahmanical
thread was found coiled round his person when his spirit
passed away. In all his Anti-Brahmanism he continued a
Brahman to the end.
Even after his death it was thought advisable to keep up
the fiction of a due maintenance of caste. His body was not
interred in a Christian burial-ground, but in the shrubbery at
Stapleton Grove, and without a religious service of any kind.
It was not till about ten years afterwards that Dwarkanath
Tagore, on the occasion of his visiting England in 1843, had
the coffin removed to Arno's Vale Cemetery, and a suitable
monument erected over the remains of one of the greatest
men that India has ever produced. Yet his grave is rarely
now visited, even by Indians, and few care to make them-
selves acquainted with the particulars of his last days. For
India is not alive to the magnitude of the debt she owes to
her greatest modern Reformer. Nor have his merits yet
received adequate recognition at the hands of European
writers. Nor indeed has it been possible within the compass
of the present summary to give even a brief description of
all the services rendered by Rammohun Roy to his country
as a social as well as religious Reformer, of his labours for
the elevation of women and for the education of the people
generally, of his invaluable suggestions made from time to
time for the carrying out of Lord William Bentinck's
political reforms, and of his efforts for the improvement of
the Bengali language, and the formation of a native litera-
ture. Assuredly the memory of such a man is a precious
possession to be cherished not by India alone, but by the
whole human race.
usual rites required by his master's caste, and his Brahmanical
thread was found coiled round his person when his spirit
passed away. In all his Anti-Brahmanism he continued a
Brahman to the end.
Even after his death it was thought advisable to keep up
the fiction of a due maintenance of caste. His body was not
interred in a Christian burial-ground, but in the shrubbery at
Stapleton Grove, and without a religious service of any kind.
It was not till about ten years afterwards that Dwarkanath
Tagore, on the occasion of his visiting England in 1843, had
the coffin removed to Arno's Vale Cemetery, and a suitable
monument erected over the remains of one of the greatest
men that India has ever produced. Yet his grave is rarely
now visited, even by Indians, and few care to make them-
selves acquainted with the particulars of his last days. For
India is not alive to the magnitude of the debt she owes to
her greatest modern Reformer. Nor have his merits yet
received adequate recognition at the hands of European
writers. Nor indeed has it been possible within the compass
of the present summary to give even a brief description of
all the services rendered by Rammohun Roy to his country
as a social as well as religious Reformer, of his labours for
the elevation of women and for the education of the people
generally, of his invaluable suggestions made from time to
time for the carrying out of Lord William Bentinck's
political reforms, and of his efforts for the improvement of
the Bengali language, and the formation of a native litera-
ture. Assuredly the memory of such a man is a precious
possession to be cherished not by India alone, but by the
whole human race.