India, Its Life and Thought

by John P. Jones

The old society settled down into inactivity, lost much of its spirit of reform, and has never since accomplished much in the realm of theistic advance.

The new Somaj, however, soon acquired prominence and became the life and embodiment of the Indian theistic movement.

But Chunder Sen had his serious dangers; and those lay in the very excess of his virtues.

Hurried on by his intense nature, exalted to power by his brilliant intellectual qualities, and yearning with a passion for the release of his beloved India from the religious and spiritual thraldom which he witnessed all about him, he acquired irresistible charm and power with his followers, and his words became their undisputed law; and his deliverances were surcharged with what they regarded as divine inspiration. And there is no doubt that he soon came to believe himself to be a direct vehicle of God in the communication of his message of truth and of life to the world.

Under the influence of this conviction or delusion (whichever one may choose to call it), he was swept on, and carried with him most of his followers, into startling novelties of ritual and of organization.

Finally, however, he became so extreme and radical that some of his principal followers became frightened and grew restless. The occasion of another split was found in the marriage of Chunder Sen's daughter to the young Maharaja of Cooch Behar, in 1876. Chunder Sen had worked heroically for the enactment of a new marriage law for the members of the Brahmo Somaj, whereby no bride should be married before fourteen and no bridegroom under eighteen years of age. Yet, in the marriage of his own daughter, he ignored this law, which was passed chiefly through his own energy. Notwithstanding the fact that the leader claimed divine guidance in this affair, his leading followers attributed the marriage to his weakness and pride.

This led to another secession, in May, 1878, whereby the majority of the societies and their members broke away from the Sen party and established the Sâdhârna Somaj—"The Universal Somaj." This schism was a terrible blow to Mr. Sen; and yet it released him from the trammels which the dissatisfied had hitherto thrust upon him, and gave him, among the remnant, an opportunity to launch out on new projects, and to introduce many religious vagaries, which to most men were striking and, to many, were shocking. Under the banner of the "New Dispensation," he practised a varied liturgy and cultivated an unique ceremonial which seemed to be a close imitation, and almost a mockery, of some of the most sacred institutions of Christianity and of other religions.

The schismatic weakness of the theistic movement did not reach its consummation in this last division. It was almost immediately upon the death of Keshub Chunder Sen, at the beginning of 1884, that his immediate family and a few of his followers proclaimed that his spirit still abode in the Mandir, where he so often spoke, and that no one should succeed him or speak from the Mandir hereafter!

Within these few short years a new cult had begun to grow around the person of Chunder Sen, like those around a thousand others well known in the history of India. He became to some of his followers not only a great religious teacher, but also something of an incarnation on his own account, so that it seemed to them blasphemy for any living being to aspire to speak from the pulpit of the beloved dead master.

His natural successor was Babu Protap Chunder Mozumdar. He protested against this apotheosis of the departed leader, and insisted upon the fact that their movement must be open to new light, and must seek after ever increasing progress and advance. But the family were obdurate, and the new split became inevitable; and thus Chunder Sen has passed into the ranks of the Mahatmas of India and will erelong be promoted to a place among the incarnations of their deities.