The greatest glory that Raja Rammohun Roy's name has acquired in history is his being called the FATHER of modern Indian Renaissance At a time when benighted India stood in urgent need of regeneration or upliftment, the advent of the great Raja marked an epoch in her history. He was fully conscious to what a great height of civilization the Hindus had at one time reached, and for the qualities of head and heart that his compatriots still possessed they did not deserve to be in the degraded state of life and mind in which they had been for a long time past. A keen and mottifying feeling for it gave to the patriotic and humane heart of Rammohun the urge to launch his reforming or renaissant movements. His was also the truly nationalist mind in its broadest sense. It is true that he stood for the introduction of the new and enlightened ideas and ideals that brought in a new life in the West and raised the nation to the height of civilisation, but his idea or purpose should not be misunderstood. His effort was like pouring new wine into the old wine-skins. He realised that the new and enlightened ideas and ideals of the awakened West had the needed potency of making the life of his countrymen richer and fuller, without its having to lose anything of its own. And in the fitness of things all the movements that Rammohun initiated for this purpose, or identified himself with, not only bore the desired fruits in his life time in a degree per. haps beyond his own expectation, but has received the highest honour of being deemed proper to be followed by posterity for a long time. Accounts of these multifarious movements of Rammohun have been given by his biographers, but much more was left to be brought out and recorded for a more proper and fuller understanding and appreciation of the great and unique contribution of the Raja to the regeneration of his country. The present volume is but an humble attempt to fulfil the desideratum but is in no way exhaustive. Not only new materials on the matters already narrated by his biographers have been recorded, but records of movements hitherto unknown have also been happily discovered and embodied. To the selection of official records incorporated in this book has been prefixed an historical introduction mainly based on the documents herein published but partly on other works of acknowledged authority. The space at my disposal has not allowed me to deal with the subjects in any full or exhaustive way, but only in their bare outlines. A full and exhaustive treatment of each of the subjects is capable of easily filling a volume. I shall, however, feel my arduous labour amply repaid if it would in any way promote further research into the most important subjects dealt with in the present volume, or help those already engaged or interested in the work.

There can be no gainsaying the fact that at the time, of which we are speaking, Indian civilization had come to a very low, if not the lowest limit of degeneration The spring of life and the source of alertness of mind of the people had long ceased to flow, listlessness prevailed, bringing in its train corruption and decay. This especially characterized the once great Hindus. The Hindu ideas and ideals had become so perverted that they not unjustifiably became the objects of derision of the awakened and enlightened peoples of the West. The renaissance had heralded a new age and civilization in Europe. It brought in its wake a surge of life that saw the birth of higher and richer conceptions and ideals, which gave a new meaning to life or existence itself. The Western mind after a long stagnation had broken off its shackles to new meanings and ideals, in the face of which the extant Hindu ideas and ideals appeared to be grossly mediæallistic and retrogressive. This new awakening in the West had brought the British nation to the forefront of civilization by their being imbued with a new idealism so that the establishment of a connection between such an enlightened nation and India has been thought, not without reason, by many a patriotic son of the land, to be a divine dispensation, fraught as it was with immense possibilities. For the British administrators and legislators, both at home and in India, to have been actuated by the enlightened and forward ideas and ideals that prevailed in their own country, for the guidance of the Indian affairs in its various departments, had been a most happy augury for her regeneration. But however strong the inclination of the Britishers might have been to uplift Indians from their slough of despond, another condition was to be be fulfilled, and that was for the real and patriotic sons of the soil to come forward with bold and enlightened hearts to grasp the new ideas and ideals, as well as to avail themselves of the opportunities and possibilities that were presented by the changed circumstances This happened, as never before, with the advent of Raja Rammohun Roy on the public arena as a pioneer amongst his countrymen It has been significantly said that birth of the Raja synchronised with a great event in India's history, namely, the standing forth as Dewan by the East India Company, which was really pregnant with great possibilities. It was left for Rammohun's genius to grasp the implications of the new order that was being established here, and to com forward with a stout and redoubtable heart to avail himself of the opportunities that were floating about.