A FORGOTTEN SAGE

A FORGOTTEN SAGE

We remember Rabindranath every other day but sadly forget his illustrious father, Debendranath Tagore. Read his autobiography to know more about him and his seminal contribution to the founding of the Brahmo Dharma. Rammohan Roy had founded the Brahmo Samaj and well over a decade after his demise Debendranath, his young protégé, formalised its theological principles on a grand universal basis to found effectively the Brahmo Dharma.

Debendranath was not merely the father of illustrious children but was himself an illustrious soul, one of the pioneers of the Bengal Renaissance. He was in his later years immersed in God-consciousness, so much so that Sri Ramakrishna had visited him at his Jorasanko house. Young Narendranath Datta in his eagerness to find God had swum across the Ganga to ask the venerable Tagore patriarch, then in solitude in his houseboat, if he had seen God. Later, after returning from his first trip to the West, Narendranath, now the celebrated Swami Vivekananda, had visited Debendranath at Jorasanko to pay his respects to the sage.

Such luminous souls as Rammohan and Debendranath are nowadays casually forgotten by the public owing to lack of public propagation of their message and principles. Debendranath is remembered in Shantiniketan owing to his having virtually founded the city, so to say, and owing to his being Rabindranath's father. Rammohan is remembered by Brahmos and students of Indian history. But these two great men are sadly not in the surface mind nor in the depth consciousness of the lay public and India is the poorer for it. We must remember our great men and women, each one of them. Only then may we fully blossom into a flourishing nation with enlightenment as its foundational basis. 

Written by Sugata Bose 

Photo: Debendranath Tagore