Adi Dharm - Genesis of Adi Dharma

Genesis of Adi Dharma

The Adi Dharma founders were regularly tainted and scandalised by orthodoxy as Pirali Brahmin and defamed as being officially banned from entering temples like Jaganath Temple (Puri) by Govt regulations of 1807. Subsequently their families also faced great difficulty in arranging marriages for some of their children such as India's poet-laureate Rabindranath Tagore who could only manage a Pirali Brahmin bride unlike his brothers who married high caste Brahmin brides. This ultimate exclusionary weapon of Hindu orthodoxy resulted in endogamous (i.e. casteist) tendencies in Adi-Dharm marriage practice between these 2 branches of Adi Dharma in the Tagore family, placing Satyendranath Tagore and Rabindranath Tagore and their families against their exogamous brothers. The noted Adi Brahmo historian Kshitindranath Tagore (son of Hemendranath Tagore) who succeeded Rabindranath Tagore as Editor of the Adi Dharma organ, has written that it was Rabindranath who destroyed many family documents.

"In those days the practice of having Gharjamai was in vogue in our family, mainly because we were Piralis and then became Brahmos; therefore, there was no possibility of somebody from a good Hindu family marrying into our (ie. the endogamous branch) family .. the system of marriages amongst relatives was started. .. it became almost impossible to get our children married. Our being ostracised by the Hindu society provided us with a certain freedom in absorbing western influences, and at the same time the Adi Brahmo Samaj was a branch of Hindu society in all respects except the practice of idolatry. Maharshi always expressed a hearty desire to establish this, and as such all the rituals and customs of Hindu society were followed in his family, and that environment prevailed at least till he was alive, " wrote Indira Devi Choudhurani (Smritisamput Vol I (1997/2000), in Bengali, Rabindra Bhaban, Viswa Bharati, p. 18-19). Indira Devi Choudhurani was daughter of Satyendranath Tagore and very close to Rabindranath. "The Autobiography of Debendranath Tagore" is also "attributed" to Satyendranath Tagore and this daughter.