Hemendranath Tagore
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Hemendranath Tagore (1844-1884), Debendranath's third son, was well known as the strict disciplinarian entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the education of his younger brothers in addition to administrating the large family estates of Tagore family. While alive, he was also the constant spiritual companion to his father Debendranath Tagore who founded Brahmoism and, despite his extreme youth, acted as the channel between his father and the seniors of the Tattwabodhini Sabha.
Like most of Debendranath's children, he had varied interests in different fields and was a polymath 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 text book for school students. If his early death had not prevented him from completing the project,this would certainly have been the first science text book to be written in Bengali. As a musician he too composed a number of Bromhosangeets.
Built like a bull, he was known for his extraordinary physical strength and wrestling skills as also his expertise in martial arts like judo and ninjitsu. He was also an adept of ancient Raja Yoga 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.
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[edit] Hemendranath and Tattwabodhini
A series of developments in Tattwabodhini Sabha after it's 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. This core was initially under Pt. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar 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 in 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.
[edit] 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 Amrita Moyi Mukherjee I.N. He tirelessly strove to unearth the Tagore family records which were "removed" by Satyendranath Tagore and his daughter Indira Devi from Jorasankoe.
Pratibha Debi married Ashutosh Chaudhuri. Their son Arya Chaudhuri studied architecture in England.[1]
Pragnasundari Debi married the most famous Assam author Sahityarathi Lakshminath Bezbarua (1868-1938) (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 Mor Aponar Desh is the most popular Assamese patriotic song of all time"[2] and the defacto anthem of Assam. Prajnasundari Debi (nee 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 1897-1902 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 social reformer of Punjab.
