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 (ie.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. (Rabindranath Tagore with wife Mrinalini Devi from a Pirali Brahmin clan which some Tagores regularly married into)
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.
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