While our hero was only twelve years old, he was married by his parents, but his girl-wife soon died.
He was married, later, to two girls, and was accord ingly a polygamist till 1824. These little incidents should not be misconstrued as detracting from Ram Mohan's greatness ; in the first place, he was not responsible for marrying the two wives, he only had to submit to the mandates of the father ; secondly not having attained to years of discretion, he could not have been expected to judge whether the parents' decision was faulty and reprehensible or good. Lastly, his views and convictions which really made him great subsequently had not yet formed and taken shape. He was till then only a creature of cir cumstances ; not yet the creator of a new environ ment for Hinduism and—India.
About the year 1784, he was sent, for instruction, to the Muhammadan seat of learning in Patna, where he continued as pupil till 1787. While he pursued his studies there, he was greatly attracted by the teach ings of Moslem Sufis (i.e., mystics) who had broken away from the rigid orthodoxy of the Schools. These Sufi doctrines suggested affinities with the teachings of Vedanta and held his mind under their spell. They became formulative influences in his life. The Sufis, in common with Vedantists, set forth the ultimate goal of the religious endeavour to be absorption into the Divine, and full initiation into the last stage of revelation is attained after preliminary grounding and probation in the stages called " The Way," " The Truth," etc. Intuition was recognised as the best vehicle for the apprehension of reality, by the Sufis. It is also more than probable that Ram Mohan came into touch, while at School, with the Mua' tazallite philosophers, who taught that Reason was a sure and unfailing guide to the facts of life ; that belief in the resurrection of the body was untenable and that sensitiveness to the great moral issues of life was the inner core of religion. This school of thought exercised great influence during the eighth century A.D., in Baghdad and during a period, when through its numerous conquests in the East and the West, Islam came into touch with Greek civilisation and Christian ideals, and enriched —and was in its turn replenished by—non-Islamic cultures and traditions.
When Ram Mohan returned home, the rationalistic teachings his mind was steeped in, encouraged him to a revolt against idol-worship. His parents offered ingenious explanations, justifying the worship of images as mere symbols of the divine. But Ram
Mohan had finally made up his mind to renounce idolatry, once and for all. Miss Collet tells us an amusing story of how Ram Mohan Roy was once prevailed upon by his mother to do homage to the idols for her sake. When he could no longer resist the repeated requests, he went and did the required homage, all the time being as pessimistic and sceptical as ever concerning the utility of the act. He went through great persecution at home and while very young was asked not to darken his father's doorstep again. For several years he went about as a wandering ascetic, in search of truth and desirous of meeting great men who might give him fuller knowledge concerning the things that disturbed his soul. It is even suggested that he held, in the course of these wanderings, prolonged discussions with the Lamas of Tibet. But we possess no con vincing evidence in support of this statement. After some time, however, his father pardoned him and allowed him to return, when he settled in Benares, and began the study of Sanscrit and Hindu scriptures, but did not commence the study of English till 1796. After the death of his father in 1803, Ram Mohan was most virulently attacked and persecuted by his mother, who wanted, by launching law-suits, to deprive him of his share in the ancestral property and even of his acquired means. But in this attempt she was completely defeated. She wanted to urge the plea that Ram Mohan's persistent refusal to conform to Hindu ceremony and rites was proof positive that he was beyond the pale of Hinduism. In 1804, when settled in Murshidabad, he brought out a book in Persian called " Tuhfatul Muwah hiddin " or " A Gift, to those who believe in the unity of the Godhead." His rationalistic utterances may have given offence to not a few, but these certainly mark a definite advance on irrational theory and pre-supposition expressed both by orthodox, unreformed Hinduism and the dogma ridden Christianity of the missionary pathfinders like Carey, Marshman and Ward. We cast no reflection on the work that was splendidly done under diffi cult conditions by these really great men, who not only preached the gospel, but translated the Bible, started the first printing press in India, and helped in raising the depressed classes. But their theology was as crude and as hopelessly Calvinistic as their intentions were benevolent, and through theological narrow-mindedness they defeated the very object, for the promotion of which they had so heroically consecrated their lives.