Gour Govinda Ray - Personal Traits

Personal Traits

The great scholar led a perfectly ascetic life, devoting his entire time to studies, never touching money. His worldly needs were met by the head of the Prachar Ashram, Kanti Chandra Mitra. It was the latter who took care of the education of his two children. Prachar Ashram was a small establishment of Brahmo Samaj of India at Patuatola Lane in Kolkata, meant primarily for missionaries and their families, with a students’ hostel and a press in an adjacent building.

He was generally late in rising, as he worked late into the night. After attending prayers with others in the morning, he sat on a hard desk seat or bench and worked throughout the day till late into night, till around 2 am. He was unperturbed by the activities of others around him. He never felt disturbed when others spoke to him, sought advice or discussed matters. He had visitors ranging from foreign missionaries to local scholars, who had serious discussions with him on religious matters. His publications were highly rated by scholars. They often wondered how a non-Brahmin could master such profound knowledge of Hindusim. His thirst for knowledge and his ascetic habits ‘made his contemporaries acknowledge him as the most formidable intellectual in the Durbar,’ formed by the group of ascetics in the New Dispensation after Keshub Chunder Sen’s death.

He never accepted any money for the long hours of work he performed and made it a practice not to touch money. When Kanti Chandra Mitra happened to be absent, he signed on money order receipts but the money was kept on the desk by the post man and picked up by Mitra when he came back. After 1872, he lived in Bharat Ashram with his wife and children.

As a missionary, he visited many parts of the country and was associated with the establishment of a Brahmo Samaj at Mangalore.