Ram Chandra Vidyabagish

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Ramchandra Vidyabagish (1786-1845) taught at the Vedanta College established by Raja Rammohun Roy and later at Sanskrit College. Closely associated with the work of Raja Rammohun Roy in Kolkata, he was the first secretary of the Brahmo Sabha established in 1828 and initiated Debendranath Tagore and 21 other young men into Brahmo Samaj in 1843. After Raja Rammohun Roy went to England, his unparalleled erudition and the devotional singing of Bishnu Chakraborti helped in the survival of the Brahmo Samaj.

Although he was opposed to Raja Rammohun Roy’s move to abolish the practice of sati, he extended support to Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar in his move for remarriage of widows. He spoke strongly against the system of polygamy, then prevalent in Hindu society, primarily amongst the Brahmins.

He was associated with the Tattwabodhini Sabha and aimed at the advancement of Bengali language through it. He worked for sometime on the government’s desire to replace Persian by Bengali as language of the courts. In this he had the active support of both David Hare and Prasanna Coomar Tagore. He strived hard for the use of Bengali as medium of education. He compiled the first dictionary in Bengali in 1818 and was author of several books.

He was the younger brother of Nandakumar Vidyalankara (later Hariharananda Tirthaswami Kulabadhuta), a wandering hermit, who had acquaintance of Raja Rammohun from his younger days. He was the worshipper of One True God according to the Mahanirvana Tantra.