Brajendra Nath Seal

Sir Brajendra Nath Seal (Bengali: ব্রজেন্দ্রনাথ শীল; September 3, 1864 – December,3 1938) was a Bengali Indian humanist philosopher.[1][2]

Brajendra Nath Seal
Brajendra Nath Seal
Born3 September,1864
Haripal, Hoogly, Bengal, British India (now in West Bengal, India)
Died3 December,1938
Nationality[Indian]
OccupationPhilosopher

Life

Brajendranath Seal was born in Haripal, Hoogly District (in West Bengal), in 1864. His father Mohendranath Seal was one of the earliest followers of Comtean positivism in Bengal. As a student of philosophy at the General Assembly's Institution (now Scottish Church College, Calcutta), he became attracted to Brahmo theology. And along with his better-known classmate and friend Narendranath Dutta, the future Swami Vivekananda, he regularly attended meetings of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. Later they would part ways with Dutta aligning himself with Keshub Chunder Sen's New Dispensation (and later on to found his own religious movement, the Ramakrishna Mission) and Seal staying on as an initiated member.

Seal was the inaugural chair of philosophy at India's first graduate school in philosophy at the University of Calcutta.[3] Seal was regarded as 'a versatile scholar in many branches of learning, both scientific and humanistic,' and in his major work The Positive Sciences of Ancient Hindus demonstrated 'interrelations among the ancient Hindu philosophical concepts and their scientific theories.'[3]

Seal was the keynote speaker at the first session of the First Universal Races Congress of 1911 on 26 July 1911, which gathered speakers and attendees from across the world to discuss racial issues and encourage international cooperation. Part of his address included the declaration that

We are assisting at a solemn function, the conferring of a new charter, the charter of the modern conscience, on each race and nation as a member of the world-system.... From this watch-tower of Humanity, we seem to hear the measureless tread of generations behind and before, to witness the universal march and procession of Humanity, at the opening of a new era...[4]

Michael Biddiss notes that Seal's opening words 'set the tone of effusion and euphoria' which pervaded much of the Congress as a whole.[4]

References
  1. "Seal, Brajendra Nath - Banglapedia". en.banglapedia.org. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  2. "Brajendra Nath Seal (1864-1938)". people.stfx.ca. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  3. "Indian philosophy - 19th- and 20th-century philosophy in India and Pakistan". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  4. Biddiss, Michael D. (1 July 1971). "The Universal Races Congress of 1911". Race. Vol. 13, No. 1: 37–46 – via Sage Journals.
  • Kopf, David. 1979. The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press
  • Scottish Church College Magazine(Year – 1999,2000 and 2001.Volume – 87,88 and 89).
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