Hemendranath Tagore (1844–1884),
Debendranath Tagore's third son, is notable for being the first
Brahmo as the first child born in 1844 to any of the original 21 Brahmos who swore the First Brahmo Covenant on 21 December 1843 at
Calcutta
Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
(now Kolkata). An intensely private person, he was also well known as the strict disciplinarian entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the education of his younger brothers in addition to being administrator for his large family estates.
He was also the constant spiritual companion to his father Debendranath Tagore who founded
Brahmoism and, despite his youth, he acted as the mediator between his father and the seniors of the ''Tattwabodhini Sabha''. At the time of the First Brahmo Schism of 1865, he was responsible for expelling the non-Brahmin workers from the Calcutta
Brahmo Samaj. The
Adi Dharm
Adi Dharm refers to the religion of Adi Brahmo Samaj (, romanized: ''Adi Brahmô Shômaj'') the first development of Brahmoism and includes people of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj who were reintegrated into Brahmoism after the second schism of 1 ...
religion is founded exclusively on his philosophy and is today the largest development from
Brahmoism with over 8 million adherents in India alone.
Early Life and Contributions
Much like his siblings he had wide interests in various fields and can be regarded as a
polymath
A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...
and 'the scientist of the family'. He attended the
Calcutta Medical College and wrote articles on physical science which he planned to compile and edit into a textbook for school students. If his premature death had not prevented him from completing the project, this would have been the first science textbook in Bengali.
From 1867, Hemendranath Thakur began conducting his first experiments into radio waves and electromagnetic propagations. Between 1872 and 1873, he wrote several articles on the results of his researches, these were transcribed by another Brahmin Ramendra Sundar Trivedi. In 1874, he compiled the first scholarly Asian work on physics entitled ''Prakritik Vijnaner Sthulamarma'' which was updated in 1878–79. Since the knowledge contained within was potentially explosive its circulation was restricted only to Brahmins of the Adi Brahmo Samaj. Later all works of Hemendranath Tagore and his grandfather Dwarkanath Tagore in the records of Adi Brahmo Samaj were destroyed.
He was known for his extraordinary physical strength and prowess in wrestling contests – described as being a "renowned wrestler", as also his expertise in martial arts like
judo
is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, combat sport, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyc ...
and
ninjitsu. He was also an adept of ancient
Raja Yoga
Raja (; from , IAST ') is a noble or royal Sanskrit title historically used by some Indian rulers and monarchs and highest-ranking nobles. The title was historically used in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
The title has a long ...
at the highest levels with control over Time and Space. Exceptionally modern for the times, after siring 3 sons he sired only daughters thereafter and insisted on formal education for all of them. He not only put them through school but trained them in music, arts and European languages such as French and German. It was another mark of his forward looking mentality that he actively sought out eligible grooms from different provinces of India for his daughters and married them off in places as far away as UP and
Assam
Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...
. A staunch modernist, he instituted various financial trusts for the womenfolk of Tagore family (especially his sisters) and was responsible for settling the
Shantiniketan
Shantiniketan (IPA: �antiniketɔn is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and ...
estate near
Bolpur
Bolpur is a city and a municipality in Birbhum district in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Bolpur subdivision. Bolpur municipal area includes Santiniketan. The city is known as a cultural and educational hub of ...
which later evolved into
Visva Bharati.
A practical and scientific humanist, he was deeply loved by the peasants of his estates in Bengal.
Hemendranath and Tattwabodhini
A series of developments in Tattwabodhini Sabha after its merger in 1843 with Calcutta Brahmo Samaj resulted in a select Brahmin group of the Tattwabodhini forming a reformist core which stood apart from Calcutta Brahmo Samaj during the fractious period of 1858 to 1865 to later emerge as
Adi Dharm
Adi Dharm refers to the religion of Adi Brahmo Samaj (, romanized: ''Adi Brahmô Shômaj'') the first development of Brahmoism and includes people of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj who were reintegrated into Brahmoism after the second schism of 1 ...
. This core was initially under
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay (26 September 1820 – 29 July 1891), popularly known as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (), was an Indian educator and social reformer of the nineteenth century. His efforts to simplify and modernise Bengali language, Ben ...
who later entrusted it to Hemendranath in 1859. Finally in 1865 Hemendranath took charge for firmly insisting on the expulsion of non-Brahmins from preaching posts in the religion. He thereafter organised researches in the formal practices, rituals and observances for
Brahmo adherents which were privately circulated in early 1860 as Brahmo ''Anusthan''. This ''Anusthan'' was limited for the Brahmin families of the 1843 First Covenant only and was first used publicly on 26 July 1861 for the marriage of his second sister Sukumari. The ''Anusthan'' involving discarding the sacred Brahmin thread created considerable controversy and was thereafter adopted for the non-Brahmins also with some small modifications who possessed no thread.
Vision of Brahma
Description of vision of Brahma in 1848:
Children
Hitendranath (son), Kshitindranath (son), Ritendranath (son)
Pratibha (daughter),
Pragna (daughter), Abhi (daughter),
Manisha (daughter),
Shovana (daughter), Sushama (daughter)
Sunrita (daughter), Sudakshina (daughter)
Kshitindranath was well known as official Historian of Adi Brahmo Samaj and editor of the Tattwabodhini journal, a duty carried on by grandson Commander Amritamoyi Mukherjee I.N. He tirelessly strove to unearth the Tagore family records which were missing since the days of Debendranath who had redistributed the entire property and in the process had denied legitimate shares to the families of the other scions of the Tagore family.
Pratibha Debi married Ashutosh Chaudhuri. Their son Arya Chaudhuri studied architecture in England.
Pragnasundari Debi married the most famous Assam author ''Sahityarathi''
Lakshminath Bezbaroa (1864–1938) (whose father was the physician to the last Kings of Assam). "The inventive genius of Bezbarua who was an intellectual of the highest order and a humorist of considerable power ... his song ''
O Mur Apunar Dex'' is the most popular Assamese patriotic song of all time" and the de facto anthem of Assam. Prajnasundari Debi (née Tagore) was a literary phenomenon in her own right, her cookbook ''Aamish O Niramish Ahar'' (1900, reprinted 1995) was a standard given to every Bengali bride with her trousseau, and earning her the appellation "India's Mrs Beeton". From 1897 to 1902 Prajnasundari was the editor of the periodical ''Punya'', at first started as the in-house publication of ''Thakur-bari''. Containing fiction, poetry and domestic science an cooking, it was later edited by Hitendranath and Rithendranath Tagore.
Manisha Debi married D.N. Chatterjee a famous surgeon of Calcutta educated in Edinburgh, who later settled in Assam. Their daughter Dipty Chaudhuri married into the family of Pandit Navin Chandra Ray the famous
Adi Dharm
Adi Dharm refers to the religion of Adi Brahmo Samaj (, romanized: ''Adi Brahmô Shômaj'') the first development of Brahmoism and includes people of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj who were reintegrated into Brahmoism after the second schism of 1 ...
social reformer of Punjab. Sushama Devi married to barrister Darikanath Mukherjee, they had four sons and two daughters:- Elder son (became
sanyasi
''Sannyasa'' (), sometimes spelled ''sanyasa'', is the fourth stage within the Hindu system of four life stages known as '' ashramas'', the first three being '' brahmacharya'' (celibate student), '' grihastha'' (householder) and '' vanaprasth ...
), Lokendranath Mukherjee (never married) was a freedom fighter, third son (became sanyasi), Dr. Bharganath Mukherjee married to Gauri Devi, daughter Bharati married to Janak Prokash Gangooly (son of artist Jamini Prokash Gangooly), daughter (expired in childhood), Bhaskarnath Mukherjee married to Usha Devi.
Hemendranath's youngest child was a daughter Sudakshina née
Purnima Devi (later Mrs. Jwala Prasada) who was born on 13 May 1884, at No. 6, Dwarkanath Tagore's Lane, Jorasanko, Calcutta. Purnima Devi was educated at the Loretto Convent (a school for European Girls) at Park Street, Calcutta, as a day scholar and in addition to English she knew Bengali, Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi, French, Piano and Violin. She passed the Cambridge Trinity College Music Examination. She is the first Bengali lady married in the United Provinces, her husband being the late Hon'ble Pandit Jwala Prasada, M.A., Deputy Commissioner of Hardoi,(an officer in the Imperial Civil Services, great-grandfather of Late Kunwar
Jitendra Prasada, a veteran Congress party Leader) in 1903. She was the winner of the B. P. R. A. medal for Diana matches for schooling (1911 Meerut). She is an expert rider going round her villages on horse back and an expert hunter having taken part in big game shooting with her husband. She took a very keen interest in the education and uplift of her sex in India. In memory of her husband she founded 'The Pandit Jwala Prasad Kanya
Pathshala' at Shahjahanpur in UP. She helped in the establishment of the Hewett Model Girls' School at Muzaffarnagar, United Provinces, and founded Pardah Clubs at Shahjahanpur and Muzaffarnagar with a view to the improvement of Pardah ladies. She was the owner of several villages in Shahjahanpur District and a beautiful hill property at Nainital(Uttrakhand)called
Abbotsford, Prasada Bhawan
(Now lived in by her 4th generation of Prasada's who carry their ancestral heritage at best to date), and a house acquired by the army in 1947 in Badami Bagh, Srinagar, Kashmir now the official residence of the Army Head and a house beach in Jagannath Puri. She is the author of a Hindi publication, "unki bunat ki PrathaiJi Siksha" adopted by the United Provinces Educational Text Book Committee for schools. She was engaged in writing a novel in English under the title of "The Last Lamp out." She is the holder of a Kaisar-i-Hind medal and was the first Indian lady exempted from
the operation of the Arms Act.
[WHO'S WHO IN INDIA - SECOND SUPPLEMENT. https://archive.org/details/secondsupplement00luckrich]
Family tree
See also
*
Tagore family
*
Adi Dharm
Adi Dharm refers to the religion of Adi Brahmo Samaj (, romanized: ''Adi Brahmô Shômaj'') the first development of Brahmoism and includes people of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj who were reintegrated into Brahmoism after the second schism of 1 ...
*
Brahmoism
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tagore, Hemendranath
Bengali zamindars
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1844 births
1884 deaths
19th-century Bengalis
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People from Kolkata
Hemendranath
Indian columnists
Indian science writers
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Indian social workers
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19th-century Indian scholars
19th-century Indian writers
19th-century Indian essayists
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Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata alumni