Editing Raja Ram Mohan Roy (section)

== Christianity and the early rule of the East India Company (1795–1828)==
During the early years of [[Honourable East India Company|East India Company]] rule, Ram Mohan Roy acted as a political agitator while employed by the company.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ram Mohan Roy: The Father of the Indian Renaissance |url=http://www.youngbites.com/newsdet.aspx?q=206336 |publisher=Young Bites |author=Singh, Kulbir |date=17 July 2017 |access-date=25 August 2018 |archive-date=24 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124022629/http://www.youngbites.com/newsdet.aspx?q=206336 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1792, the British [[Baptist]] shoemaker [[William Carey (missionary)|William Carey]] published his influential missionary tract, ''An Enquiry of the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of Heathens''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/enquiry/enquiry.html|title=An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens|website=www.wmcarey.edu|access-date=2 October 2017}}</ref>

In 1793, William Carey landed in India to settle. His objective was to translate, publish and distribute the Bible in Indian languages and propagate Christianity to the Indian people.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wmcarey.edu/|title=Home – William Carey University|website=www.wmcarey.edu|access-date=2 October 2017|archive-date=29 September 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090929143822/http://www.wmcarey.edu/|url-status=live}}</ref> He realised the "mobile" (i.e. service classes) [[Brahmins]] and [[Pandits]] were most able to help him in this endeavour, and he began gathering them. He learnt the Buddhist and Jain religious works to better argue the case for Christianity in a cultural context.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Reed |first1=Ian Brooks |title=Rammohan Roy and the Unitarians |url=http://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu:253129/datastream/PDF/view |publisher=Master Thesis, Florida State University |date=2015 |access-date=25 August 2018 |archive-date=25 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180825143304/http://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu:253129/datastream/PDF/view |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1795, Carey made contact with a Sanskrit scholar, the Tantric Saihardana Vidyavagish,<ref>''Kaumudi Patrika'' 12 December 1912</ref> who later introduced him to Ram Mohan Roy, who wished to learn English.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Samuel |first=Dibin |title=Wiliam Carey played significant role in abolishing Sati system |url=https://www.christiantoday.co.in/news/wiliam-carey-played-significant-role-in-abolishing-sati-system.html |access-date=25 October 2022 |website=www.christiantoday.co.in |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Raja Ram Mohan Roy |url=https://www.gktoday.in/topic/raja-ram-mohan-roy/ |access-date=25 October 2022 |website=www.gktoday.in – GKToday}}</ref>

While there are rumors that between 1796 and 1797, the trio of Carey, Vidyavagish, and Roy created a religious work known as the "Maha Nirvana Tantra" (or "Book of the Great Liberation"). Scholars like John Duncan Derrett are skeptical of this claim calling it "highly improbable"<ref>{{cite book|author=Derrett, John Duncan Martin |title=Essays in Classical and Modern Hindu Law: consequences of the intellectual exchange with the foreign powers vol. 2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yH8eAAAAIAAJ&q=maha+nirvana+tantra|url-access=registration |year=1977|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-04808-9}}</ref> and Hugh Urban argues that "It is probable that we will never know the true author and date of the Maha Nirvana Tantra".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Urban |first1=Hugh |title=The Strategic Uses of an Esoteric Text: the Mahanirvana Tantra |journal=South Asia |date=1995 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=77|doi=10.1080/00856409508723228 }}</ref> Carey's involvement is not recorded in his very detailed records and he reports only learning to read [[Sanskrit]] in 1796 and only completed a grammar in 1797, the same year he translated part of The Bible (from Joshua to Job), a massive task.<ref>{{cite book|access-date=8 December 2008|chapter-url=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/carey/04chapter.html|title=The Life of William Carey (1761–1834)|author=Smith, George|year=1885|page=71|chapter=Ch. 4|archive-date=27 June 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100627112602/http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/carey/04chapter.html|url-status=live}}</ref> For the next two decades Maha Nirvana Tantra was regularly augmented.<ref name=himalaya>{{cite web|last1=Syed|first1=M. H.|title=Raja Rammohan Roy|url=http://www.himpub.com/documents/Chapter107.pdf|publisher=Himalaya Publishing House|access-date=29 November 2015|archive-date=8 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208104241/http://www.himpub.com/documents/Chapter107.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Its judicial sections were used in the law courts of the English Settlement in Bengal as Hindu Law for adjudicating upon property disputes of the zamindars. However, a few British magistrates and collectors began to suspect and its usage (as well as the reliance on [[pandit]]s as sources of Hindu Law) was quickly deprecated. Vidyavagish had a brief falling out with Carey and separated from the group, but maintained ties to Ram Mohan Roy.<ref>Preface to "Fallacy of the New Dispensation" by Sivanath Sastri, 1895</ref>

In 1797, Raja Ram Mohan reached Calcutta and became a [[bania (caste)|bania]] (moneylender), mainly to lend to the Englishmen of the Company living beyond their means. Ram Mohan also continued his vocation as [[pandit]] in the English courts and started to make a living for himself. He began learning Greek and Latin.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Patel |first1=Tanvi |title=Google Honours 'Maker Of Modern India': Remembering Raja Ram Mohan Roy |url=https://www.thebetterindia.com/142457/raja-ram-mohan-roy/ |publisher=The Better India |access-date=25 August 2018 |date=22 May 2018 |archive-date=25 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180825143412/https://www.thebetterindia.com/142457/raja-ram-mohan-roy/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1799, Carey was joined by missionary [[Joshua Marshman]] and the printer William Ward at the Danish settlement of [[Serampore]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Joshua Marshman, D.D. |url=https://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/marshman/ |publisher=William Carey University |access-date=25 August 2018}}</ref>

From 1803 until 1815, Ram Mohan served the East India Company's "Writing Service", commencing as private clerk (''Munshi'') to Thomas Woodroffe, Registrar of the Appellate Court at Murshidabad (whose distant nephew, [[John Woodroffe]]—also a magistrate—and later lived off the Maha Nirvana Tantra under the pseudonym [[Arthur Avalon]]).<ref>{{cite book|author=Avalon, Arthur|title=Mahanirvana Tantra Of The Great Liberation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oZRGodG_PJkC|date=2004|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|isbn=978-1-4191-3207-0|access-date=13 February 2016|archive-date=13 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200613135254/https://books.google.com/books?id=oZRGodG_PJkC|url-status=live}}</ref> Roy resigned from Woodroffe's service and later secured employment with John Digby, a Company collector, and Ram Mohan spent many years at Rangpur and elsewhere with Digby, where he renewed his contacts with Hariharananda. [[William Carey (missionary)|William Carey]] had by this time settled at Serampore and the old trio renewed their profitable association. [[William Carey (missionary)|William Carey]] was also aligned now with the English Company, then head-quartered at Fort William, and his religious and political ambitions were increasingly intertwined.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Smith|first1=George|title=Life of William Carey|url=http://www.ccel.org/s/smith_geo/carey/carey.htm|publisher=Christian Classics Ethereal Library|access-date=29 November 2015|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070059/http://www.ccel.org/s/smith_geo/carey/carey.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

While in Murshidabad, in 1804 Raja Ram Mohan Roy wrote ''Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin'' (A Gift to Monotheists) in Persian with an introduction in Arabic. Bengali had not yet become the language of intellectual discourse. The importance of ''Tuhfat-ul-muwahhidin'' lies only in its being the first known theological statement of one who achieved later fame and notoriety as a [[Vedanta|Vedantin]]. On its own, it is unremarkable, perhaps of interest only to a social historian because of its amateurish eclecticism. ''Tuhfat'' was, after all, available as early as 1884 in the English translation of Maulavi Obaidullah EI Obaid, published by the Adi Brahmo Samaj. Raja Ram Mohan Roy did not know the Upanishad at this stage in his intellectual development.<ref>{{cite book|author=Robertson Bruce C.|page=25|title=Raja Rammohan Ray: the father of modern India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2TI-AAAAMAAJ|year=1995|publisher=Oxford University Press, Incorporated|isbn=978-0-19-563417-4|access-date=19 December 2018|archive-date=27 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200227124206/https://books.google.com/books?id=2TI-AAAAMAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Crawford, S. Cromwell|page=11|title=Ram Mohan Roy, his era and ethics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oYdaAQAACAAJ|year=1984|publisher=Arnold-Heinemann|access-date=19 December 2018|archive-date=16 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200216062944/https://books.google.com/books?id=oYdaAQAACAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1814, he started [[Atmiya Sabha]] (i.e. Society of Friends) a philosophical discussion circle in [[Kolkata]] (then Calcutta) to propagate the monotheistic ideals of the vedanta and to campaign against idolatry, caste rigidities, meaningless rituals and other social ills.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ahir |first=Rajiv |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HBziwQEACAAJ&q=a+brief+history+of+modern+india |title=A Brief History of Modern India |date=2018 |publisher=Spectrum Books (P) Limited |isbn=978-81-7930-688-8 |page=210 |language=en |access-date=15 April 2022 |archive-date=30 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220430144833/https://books.google.com/books?id=HBziwQEACAAJ&q=a+brief+history+of+modern+india |url-status=live }}</ref>

The East India Company was draining money from India at a rate of three million pounds a year by 1838. Ram Mohan Roy was one of the first to try to estimate how much money was being taken out of India and to where it was disappearing. He estimated that around one-half of all total revenue collected in India was sent out to England, leaving India, with a considerably larger population, to use the remaining money to maintain social well-being.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=3517499|doi=10.2307/3517499|title=Some Aspects of the Economic Drain from India during the British Rule|journal=Social Scientist|volume=15|issue=3|pages=39–47|last1=Roy|first1=Rama Dev|year=1987}}</ref> Ram Mohan Roy saw this and believed that the unrestricted settlement of Europeans in India governing under free trade would help ease the economic drain crisis.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=3516354|doi=10.2307/3516354|title=Indigo Planters, Ram Mohan Roy and the 1833 Charter Act|journal=Social Scientist|volume=4|issue=3|pages=56–65|last1=Bhattacharya|first1=Subbhas|year=1975}}</ref>

During the next two decades, Ram Mohan along with William Carey, launched his attack against the bastions of Hinduism of Bengal, namely his own [[Kulin Brahmin]] priestly clan (then in control of the many temples of Bengal) and their priestly excesses.<ref name=himalaya/> The Kulin excesses targeted include [[sati (practice)|sati]] (the co-cremation of widows), polygamy, child marriage and dowry.<ref name=":0" />

From 1819, Ram Mohan's battery increasingly turned against William Carey, a Baptist Missionary settled in Serampore, and the Serampore missionaries. With Dwarkanath's munificence, he launched a series of attacks against [[Trinitarian]] Christianity and was now considerably assisted in his theological debates by the [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] faction of Christianity.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Das |first1=Pijush Kanti |title=Rammohun Roy and Brahmoism |chapter-url=http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/165007/8/08_chapter%205.pdf |publisher=University of Calcutta |pages=200–208|chapter=Ch. I}}</ref>

He wrote ''Gaudiya Vyakaran'' which was the first complete Bangla grammar written book. It was published in 1826.<ref name="v925"/>

In 1828, he launched Brahmo Sabha with [[Debendranath Tagore]]. By 1828, he had become a well known figure in India. In 1830, he had gone to England as an envoy of the Mughal Emperor, Akbar Shah II, who invested him with the title of Raja to the court of King William IV.<ref name=":1" />