Ram Mohan Roy and Contemporary Hindu Religion: A Philosophical Study

Abstract

Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a rational and progressive social reformer of modern India. The contemporary societal condition of Ram Mohan was that the common people were misled in several ways by the priest in the name of religion. The conventionally accepted rituals and customs were used as instrumentally to make the Brahmans benefited. They used their fabricated words in society in the name of scriptures and it is consequently resulting to the common people used to follow those instructions blindly. That time, Upanishads was not available in Bengali Language. Since Ram, Mohan Roy translated the Upanishads and core Sanskrit texts into Bengali language and made the common people conscious about their scriptural essence. In addition, the common person able to capture the essence of religion. He was clamor against the hitherto existing ritualism has been practicing in Hinduism. He exposed that the Upanishads do not preach any kind of idol worship. Actually, Ram Mohan wished to develop a rationalistic attitude among the common people of the society and presents a new direction of Hinduism that is called Neo-Hinduism. The present paper intends to depict the image of Hindu religion contemporary to Ram Mohan and how he brought a renaissance through firmly criticizing the dogmatically accepted rituals of Hinduism.