Brahmabandhab Upadhyay @ (Narahori Das)
After performing Prayaschitta (great regret) in 1905, Catholic Brahmabandhaba started Saraswati Puja and popularised the same in Calcuttan schools. Brahmabandhab realised that Christianity was utter nonsense and was an anti-Indian British Raj supporter. Their institutional spirituality was against the Indian ethos and Vedantic Adhyatma. The Jesus of the Catholic church was neither Brahma nor Bandhu (friend) of the Indian Swadeshi movement. He did his second Prayaschitta (public) in February 1907 and disconnected his relationship with the Church. He devoted his energy to the ouster of Britishers.
Bhavanicharan Bandyopadhyay was born on 11 February 1861 in the Hooghly district of West Bengal. On 10 September 1907, while he was giving an inflammatory Swadeshi speech before St. Paul’s Cathedral, the members of the church informed the police, and he was arrested for sedition. During the trial, he chose not to defend himself and submitted his written statement through barrister Chittaran Das. In jail, his health deteriorated, and he died on ย 27 October 1907. His last rites were performed according to the Vedic rituals (Sraddha Karma)
At the age of nine, under the influence of his uncle, he was baptised in the Anglican church and admitted to the General Assembly Institution in Calcutta, where he first read the English Bible and the Bengali Susamachar of Sadaprabhu. In 1880, Keshab Chandra one day took him to Ramakrishna, but uneducated rustic Ramakrishna did not attract Bhavani. He never met him again. He was in touch with Keshab Chandra.
In 1891, he was rebaptised in the Catholic Church. In 1893, he became the editor of ‘Sophi’ and started to live like a monk. He began to wear saffron clothes and adopted the name of Brahmabandhab (Theophilus). He made an idea of establishing a Catholic-Vedanta monastery like the Ramakrishna Mission of Vivekananda. He wrote several Sanskrit devotional songs on Jesus Christ…’ Bande Sacchidanandam’ etc. His mixture of Hinduism with Christianity and his independent attitude did not go well with the then catholic establishment. He was banned from the catholic church (1899).
In 1902, he went to visit England and Europe and came back in 1904 as a completely reformed person, filled with Indian nationalism and hatred for the Church. He started his ‘Sandhya’ magazine in support of the Indian National Movement and declared that Lord Krishna is the ultimate moral example for the Indian sub-continent and Vedanta is superior to Christian theology.
The Christians (Catholics) had no idea what they did with Bhavanicharan, and Bhavanicharan also had no clue how to deal with the Catholics. Christians speak English, drink wine, and dress nicely, but they live under the bondage of church control; on the contrary, half-naked Hindus can easily articulate typical subjects like Vedanta and live freely. Bhavani soon understood that his catholic vocation and invocation of Sat-Chit-Ananda Jesus had no place in the church. His argument for the church was a waste of time. Advaita Vedanta was much better than the Union of the Trinity.
Bhavanicharan mixed with the Brahma Samaj in or around 1887 under the influence of Gourgobinda Ray. He was also with Tagore in Shantiniketan. He was in Navadwipa in 1905 under the touch of Vaishnava and adopted the name of ‘Narahori Das’ (servant of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu). He wanted to become everything and failed to become anything. Hundreds of people gathered in Babughat to see Brahmabandhab’s Prayaschitta. He did Prayaschitta for his Christian life and vocation. He gave Dakshina to Brahmins and wore sacred thread around his neck, did pranayama in the name of Vishnu. And became sinless before his death.
Everybody forgot him until a professor of Sreerampore (1985) theological college excavated and mentioned his works in his Thesis (Christian Hindu Vedanta Idea), and theological colleges started to sing ‘Vande Sacchidanandam’ in the Carnaticย tune.
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