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Tattvabodhini Sabha reform movement organisation to popularise Brahmodharma or Brahmo faith. When brahma samaj became weak after the death of its founder rammohan roy, debendranath tagore revived it and established 'Tattvaranjini Sabha' on 6 October 1839. It was later renamed 'Tattvabodhini Sabha'. Its prime objective was to propagate the essence of Hindu Scriptures, including the vedas. In 1842 Tattvabodhini Sabha and Brahmo Samaj were united, and Tattvabodhini Sabha took over the responsibility of running the Brahmo Samaj and popularizing the Brahmo faith. The Sabha then built up a widespread movement against conversion of Indians to Christianity. Tattvabodhini Sabha adopted three strategies to spread the message of the Brahmo faith: setting up Tattvabodhini schools, publishing journals and books, and encouraging young scholars to study and collect religious books like the Vedas. At the initial stage, a primary school was set up in the village of Bangshabati. Here arrangements were made to study Bangla, Sanskrit and English as well as books on various religions. In 1843 the school was moved to Banshberia in Hughli. On 16 August 1843 the second phase of the Sabha's activities began with the publication of Tattvabodhini Sabha's mouthpiece, tattvabodhini patrika, with akshay kumar datta as editor. Henceforth Brahmo faith began gaining ground. The third stage of the Sabha's activities started in 1845 when four students, including Anandachandra Vidyavagish, were dispatched to Benares to study Chaturvedas.
The Tattvabodhini Sabha encouraged a rational attitude
towards religion, a feature that attracted both a conservative like ishwar
chandra gupta as well as a person with a modern outlook
like iswar
chandra vidyasagar. Debendranath, the founder of the
Sabha, however, modified his philosophy and conflicted with many of the
views of the members of the Sabha. This led to the schism in the Sabha
in May 1859. Subsequently, the responsibility of publishing journal and
books for the propagation of the faith fell on Calcutta Brahmo Samaj.
[Sambaru Chandra Mohanta]
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