A Calcutta prayer meeting in 1828 helped spark the Bengal Renaissance
On 20 August 1828, Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore gathered people of any caste, creed or gender in a Calcutta house to worship a single, nameless God. Their Brahmo Samaj rejected idols, caste and the final authority of scripture, and it campaigned against widow burning and child marriage, reshaping religion and society in modern India.
The name means a community of those who know Brahman, the ultimate reality. Worship at that first meeting, held at the North Calcutta home of Firingi Kamal Bose, combined Vedic readings by two Telugu Brahmins, explanation of the Upanishads in Bengali and devotional songs composed by Rammohun and his friends, with leading classical musicians performing. A trust deed was signed in January 1830, and the first house of prayer, now the Adi Brahmo Samaj, opened publicly that month before an audience of about 500 Brahmins and one Englishman.
Its core positions were radical for the time. No scripture could outrank human reason and conscience; there were no divine incarnations; polytheism and idol worship were condemned; caste was opposed. On karma and rebirth the movement took no fixed line, leaving members to decide. Brahmoism drew on reformed Hinduism with elements from Christianity and Islam, and it later became legally recognised as a distinct religion in India and Bangladesh.
After Rammohun died near Bristol in 1833, attendance fell, and Dwarkanath's money kept the society alive. His son Debendranath Tagore revived it through the Tattwabodhini Sabha, founded in 1839, which within two years had over 500 members and attracted reformers such as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar; its members formally joined the Samaj in 1843. Branches spread to Lahore and across Punjab from 1861, but a split between 1865 and 1866 saw followers of Keshub Chandra Sen form the Brahmo Samaj of India.
The Samaj fought the taboo on crossing the sea, sati, polygamy and untouchability, and backed widow remarriage. A controversy over the marriage of Keshub's young daughter led to the Special Marriages Act of 1872, which set 14 as girls' minimum marriage age. The Calcutta movements faded after 1920; in 2001 only 177 people told the census they were Brahmo.
Source: Brahmo Samaj
