Tattwabodhini Patrika

All you want to know about Tattwabodhini Patrika

Tattwabodhini Patrika (Bengali: তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা) [Tattwabodhini ("truth-searching") Patrika ("newspaper")] was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore in 1843 and continued publication until 1883. It was published from Kolkata, India.

It had a distinguished editorial board including Devendranath Tagore, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Akshay Kumar Dutta, Rajnarayan Basu, and Rajendra Lala Mitra. The journal changed the tone of vernacular (Indian language) journalism. From its earliest days, it propagated the positive aspects of the religious scriptures but did not accept their infallibility. It strongly reacted against revelations and miracles.

The Patrika criticised avatarism or messiah worship, and ran into long debates with both the Christian missionaries and orthodox sections of Hindu society. It placed before its contemporaries its considered opinion on the place of rituals in society, and focused on the spiritual and ethical aspects of human personality in an ideal scheme of education. Before the intelligentsia it placed the ideal of a dynamic religion progressing with the development of the human mind. It propagated the religion of harmony. In a series of articles, it sought to represent theism as inherent in Hinduism.

The newspaper took up social reform causes, opposing child marriages and polygamy. Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar published his famous article “Should widow marriage be introduced into society” in it in 1855. The debates that followed lead to a significant change from the sacramental to the contractual conception of marriage. It held progressive views about development of society and was alive to the economic situation in the country.

References

Tattwabodhini Patrika and the Bengal Renaissance by Amiya Kumar Sen, formerly lecturer, Calcutta University and principal, City College, Kolkata, published by Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 1979.