The life and letters of Raja Rammohun Roy - WordPress.com

RAMMOHUN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF 123have reason to suppose he would himself give you if he were now writingto you ;and I have only further to add that ... I do not feel these reasonsto be quite so convincing as they appear to him. ... I have no doubtthat in his opinion they possess all the force necessary fully to justify himin the sight of God and his own conscience in the course which hehas pursued.Since writing the preceding paragraph, I have had an opportunity ofshowing it to Rammohun Roy, who considers it a correct representationof his feelings and sentiments.In a later letter to Dr. Tuckerman, of date Oct. 14, 1826,Mr. Adam remarks :You . .inquire whether Rammohun Royis a Unitarian Christian,or only a Theist, and on this point I beg to refer you to my No. VI.,which contains all the information I can give you respectingit. . . Inaddition to the particulars then given, he permits me now to say thatfailing the male heirs of his own body, of whom there are two, he hasbequeathed the whole of his property to our Mission ;and while heregrets the appearance of ostentation which this statement may bear, heleaves it to yourself to judge whether he would have been likely to doso if he did not sincerely embrace the Christian religion and ardentlydesire to extend its blessings to his countrymen.To Dr, Tuckerman's inquiry concerning the ritesof castewhich Rammohun as a Brahman observed, Mr. Adam (June24, 1827) answered:All the rules in the present state of Hindu society he finds it necessaryto observe relate to eating and drinking. He must not eat of the foodforbidden to Brahmins nor with persons of a different religion from theHindu or of a different caste or tribe from his own. This is the onlyremnant of the rules of caste to which he still adheres, and even thisremnant I have reason to know he frequently but secretly disregards.. .Both in the marriages and deaths that happen within his domestic circlebe rigidly abstains in his own person from every approach to the idolatrousrites usually practised on such occasions, although he does not pro-|hibitthe other members of his family from engaging in them if they:hink proper.This compliance with the rules of caste must, one wouldthink, have been extremely distasteful to Rammohun, inasluchas he considered caste to be one of the gravest of the