Raja Rammohan Ray: The Father of Modern India.

• Author: Hay, Stephen

This is a difficult book to review, because it contains so much that is valuable and so much that is flawed. It is certainly good to see a young scholar explore Rammohun Roy's Vedanta philosophy, which, despite the book's title, is the subject it deals with. Its solid core is Robertson's careful comparison of Rammohun's English and Bengali commentaries on Vedanta texts, which he shows are sometimes identical with Sankara's and sometimes different.

Robertson begins with a survey of the available sources on Rammohun's life, followed by an original and well-researched essay on his life and times. He next considers his protagonist's theological writings, judging (p. 30) that the 1803-4 Tuhfatu'l muwahhidin "certainly has not deserved the attention it has received." This would have been a good point at which to note Rammohun's shift from reliance on reason alone to a combination of tradition, reason, and devotional faith in his later writings, as in his 1817 "Introduction" to the Kena Upanisad.

Particularly interesting is Robertson's examination of subtle differences between Rammohun's English and Bengali glosses on the Kena, Isa, Katha, Mandukya, and Mundaka upanisads, which he explains are due to the two audiences for whom he was writing. It is unfortunate that Robertson has not compared the Sanskrit texts with Roy's translations and noted where Rammohun has added his own ideas. For example, in his "Abridgement of the Vedant" (i.e., of Badarayana's Brahmasutras) in translating 3.4.27, Rammohun adds "and good acts" to the text's "calmness and control over the sense organs" (V. M. Apte's translation; the idea may have its origin in Vacaspati's commentary ad loc.). As part of his efforts to move Hindus toward a more egalitarian society Rammohun also interpolates the words "householders possessed of a portion of wisdom," where they are not mentioned in the Sanskrit, when he translates Mundaka Upanisad, 1.2.11, which refers only to "they who practise austerity (tapas) and faith (sraddha) in the forest" (Robert Ernest Hume's translation). Hume reads Mundaka 3.1.10 as: "Whatever world a man of purified nature makes clear in mind / And whatever desires he desires for himself"; while Rammohun has: "Whatever desirable object he may wish to acquire for himself or for another [his italics]. . ."

Clearly, with these and other additions and his introductory remarks Rammohun puts his own spin on the Vedanta. Although the Mundaka is addressed to a wealthy...