The Modern Review/Volume 38/Number 4/The Late Maharshi Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar

by V. S. Sohoni

THE LATE MAHARSHI RAMKRISHNA GOPAL BHANDARKAR

By V. S. SOHONI

“Well done, thou good and faithful servant:
... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
Matt.; xxv, 14-30.

On Monday the 24th of the last month, which happened to be the Rishi Panchami day, passed away from his field of labour one who was rightly looked upon as a modern Rishi. Like the rishis of old Sir Ramkrishna Bhandarkar utilised his unequalled talents for the spread of education in its widest sense. Like the rishis he lived a life of purity, love and justice—a life that hankered after nothing so much as the love and knowledge of the Author of this Universe. His purity of thought, word and act, his love of God and His righteousness are now the heritage of the country and they will always shine like the celestial fire-pillars and shed the splendour of their influence on many a succeeding generation. Sir Ramkrishna died at the glorious age of eighty-eight, full of honours and all that the world could give, full of love and respect of his countrymen.

Sir Ramkrishna had a brilliant school and college career. He was one of the finest products of early English education in this Presidency. A great believer that he was in the power and efficacy of English education to elevate the condition of our society, he devoted himself unsparingly to the spread of the education at whose fountain he himself had drunk deep indeed. He served as a Dakshina Fellow in his College; took the head-mastership of a Government High School, served as Professor of Sanskrit—a subject of which he was an unequalled master, in the Elphinstone and Deccan Colleges. In all these years of service hundreds of students had the privilege of learning at his feet and though austere and stern in his manners, he succeeded in earning the love and affectionate regard of all of them. We have seen several of his students who are themselves advanced in age, still speaking of him as their beloved Acharya to learn at whose feet was, in their opinion, the greatest good fortune—nay a high privilege of their lives. While in the Educational Service of the Government, Sir Ramkrishna kept himself in close touch with the University, where for more than thirty years his voice was listened to with great respect by the Fellows of that body. The interests of students were safe in the hands of Sir Ramkrishna who, by the way, was the second Indian Vice-Chancellor of his Alma Mater.

Sir Ramkrishna’s fame as an educationist was undoubtedly great. His services to that cause were immense and of long duration. His research work in the cause of Indian antiquity was of a high order and was much appreciated by those who knew what an amount of patient labour it involved. His expert Knowledge of all educational problems was admitted to be great and he was chosen as one of the members of the Viceroy’s Council while the University Commission’s report was being discussed therein. While Sir Ramkrishna certainly rendered uncommon services to the educational advancement of the Presidency and has for that reason a claim on the lasting gratitude of his country-men, in our opinion his life-long work as a religious and social reformer more even than his work in the field of education entitles him to the unstinted gratitude of all. By his labour in these fields he taught the men and women of two generations at least to understand and realise the true paths leading to a nation’s greatness.

Sir Ramkrishna’s work as a social reformer was both practical and theoretical

 

Sangamashram—Dr. Bhandarkar’s Residence

and it was done quite disinterestedly. As a scholar of antiquity he had long realised the height of social greatness of the ancients and he was never slow in telling his countrymen that they had fallen very low indeed from that great ancient ideal. The miserable condition of Indian womanhood excited his pity and he set the example of how it could be improved by sending his own daughters to school. The result of the introduction of female education in his family is that six of his grand-daughters today are graduates of the University of Bombay. On the question of marriage he held very advanced views. Widow marriage in those days was not much in public favour, nor can it be said that it is so to-day. But in those days it required undoubtedly greater courage to espouse the cause than it does now. When an opportunity to exhibit this courage came, he did not hesitate to get his own widowed daughter remarried. He abhorred the prevalent custom of marrying girls in their tender age and characterised it as human sacrifice. On the question of caste, he held very distinct and advanced views and was in favour of the uplift of the depressed classes. Social and moral reform was according to him the great and perhaps the only panacea for the many evils from which our country suffers. He most firmly believed that there could be no political advancement without social and moral advancement. In social matters, as in all other things, Sir Ramkrishna was not a revolutionary, at least he considered himself not to be so. Speaking on one occasion on the question of caste-distinction, he said, “I do not wish you to obliterate all distinctions at once,” because he realised that an evil of very long standing could not be destroyed in a short time and easily. It required patient and persevering labour to do it. But so far as he was personally concerned, distinctions of castes and creeds were unknown to him. He sat with all, touched all, ate with all and did all he could to put even the untouchables on the way to progress. He presided over the deliberations of the Anti-Untouchability Conference and from his knowledge of the subject showed that the people who are considered untouchables now were not so in the olden days, and that justice and fairplay required that they should be treated as our equals and every sympathy and love be shown to them. In his opinion social reform was not a subject on which it was possible to compromise. “Social reform is to be based on truth, love and morality and how can there be any compromise on these subjects?” This is what he said on the occasion. And he added, “What

 

Dr. Sir R.G. Bhandarkar in his Library

ever your conscience tells you to be, just do it courageously, regardless of the consequences involved.”

Sir Ramkrishna was in our opinion the greatest religious reformer produced by the Bombay Presidency in modern times. He was one of the founders of the Prarthana Samaj of Bombay, and he rendered much help in preparing its Trust Deed. Since his arrival in Bombay in 1869 from Ratnagiri began a ministry which practically continued till within a few years of his death. His services to the cause of Theism in Western India are unequalled. By his personal example, by his spotless character, by his sermons and lectures, by his writings and speeches, by his Kirtans, he has served the cause of the Samaj as no living man has done. Dr. Bhandarkar was one of the greatest exponents of the Bhakti School, but his Bhakti had the element of reason in it and was therefore free from the tinge of irrationality and morbidity. He preached directly and plainly and was never in the habit of mincing matters. “Without religion of the right kind” all was vain. He believed in prayer and family services and paid no lip homage to them. His prayers were soul-stirring and those who know say that it was an experience never to be forgotten to see this great patriarch conducting a family service under his own roof with his numerous children and grand-children sitting round about him. Those who have had the good fortune of listening to his sermons and Kirtans in the Samajes in Bombay and Poona will not fail to remember with gratitude the great service rendered by him to the cause of Theism on this side of the country. They will also realise now more fully than ever before, what a source of inspiration Sir Ramkrishna’s example and precept have been to them to live nobly and religiously as he did.

Sir Ramkrishna’s writings and speeches on various subjects are in print and have been read by different people with different objects in view. To us the volume of his sermons, which had gone through three editions now has been the one inspiring book of all. Writing about this book of sermons, the late Sir Narayan Chandavarkar said, “To have this gem by your side with another gem of its kind—Martineau’s Endeavours after the Christian Life—when you retire into the sanctuary of devotion; to open and light your eyes on any of its pages, and read and brood over it for say fifteen minutes a day and then to bow down and pray to Him who is the type and Symbol of Eternity—this is an invigorating tonic to the mind, a sanctifying

 

Dr. Bhandarkar at Work

discipline of life; and readers, if life is to you, as it ought to be to everyone of us, a living up steadily to the best light we can have, you and I cannot do better than strive for life’s prize—Truth, Love and the Divine harmony of being—with the help of utterances contained in this volume.” This volume contains sermons which were the outcome of a heart which had unflinching faith in the goodness of God, which had experienced His marvellous Love and which yearned to see that the Creator of the Universe— the Universal Mother—was loved and worshipped in the right way—in spirit and truth—by every son and daughter of India.

And yet what did Sir Ramkrishna think of these priceless, gemlike utterances of himself? Such was the man’s humility that he styled them as the “Prattle of a believer in God”! No man we know of was so very conscious of his personal limitations as Sir Ramkrishna was. Every sermon of his bears ample testimony to this. Like Newton, he considered his knowledge and vast erudition as nothing. Although he had fully realised the love of God throughout his life and experienced His goodness at every step, he considered himself as a mere novice in religious experiences. It was his marvellous faith in the goodness of God that enabled him to endure the many family sorrows to which he was subjected and the acute suffering which his old age brought to him with it. By his passing away we have lost one who loved and practised truth, whose watchword was courage, whose precept and practice were never at variance with each other, whose faith in God nothing could shake and who, to speak in the words of Ramdas, was blessed because he in his lifetime conquered prapancha and obtained paramartha.

It has been India’s misfortune to lose her really great sons when they were comparatively young. Gokhale, Agarkar and a host of others died before they were even fifty. Asutosh Mukerjee and Das died before they were sixty. Ranade and Tilak had just passed that age when they were called away. Chandavarkar and Pherozshah were well advanced in years at the time of their death; but it was given to Surendranath, Dadabhai and Bhandarkar to die at what may be considered old age. What was the secret of the long lives of these men? Surendranath in his “A Nation in Making” has told us what it was. A life well-disciplined from every point of view enabled him to live to a good old age. If Dadabhai and Bhandarkar were asked to give out the secret of their really glorious long lives, we have little doubt that they would have attributed it to the same cause as Surendranath. Early in life Bhandarkar realised that man is made of the body, the mind and the soul, and for the full realisation of his destiny he had to care equally for the three. He was regular in his physical exercise almost to the day when he became physically helpless to take it. He was singularly free from the fashionable vices of the day. While he lived he was a blessing to all. Now that he is dead he still leaves behind the blessing of

A good life lived, a true fight fought,
True heart and equal mind.

May his life prove to all a source of inspiration to do and dare, to be true and good, faithful and obedient to the call of duty, ever and anon striving to be approved of their God, even as he did.

---

---