3. Foundation of the Brahmo Samāj.
Rām Mohan Roy, with the help of a few friends and disciples, founded, in 1830, the Brahmo Samāj or Society of God. In the trust deed of the meeting-house it was laid down that the society was founded for “the worship and adoration of the eternal, unsearchable and immutable Being who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe, but not by any other name, designation or title peculiarly used by any men or set of men; and that in conducting the said worship and adoration, no object, animate or inanimate, that has been or is or shall hereafter become ... an object of worship by any men or set of men, shall be reviled or slightingly or contemptuously spoken of or alluded to either in preaching, or in the hymns or other mode of worship that may be delivered or used in the said messuage or building.”[4] This well exemplifies the broad toleration and liberality of the sect. The service in the new theistic church consisted in the recital of the Vedas by two Telugu Brāhmans, the reading of texts from the Upanishads, and the expounding of the same in Bengali. The Samāj, thus constituted, based its teaching on the Vedas and was at this time, though unorthodox, still a Hindu sect, and made no attempt at the abolition of caste. “Indeed, in establishing this sect, Rām Mohan Roy professed to be leading his countrymen back to the pure, uncorrupted, monotheistic religion of their Vedic ancestors; but his monotheism, based, as it was, essentially upon the Vedanta philosophy, was in reality but a disguised Pantheism, enriched as regards its ethics by ideas derived from Muslim and Christian literature and theology.”[5]