For many generations, Indian historians have grappled with the importance of Rammohan Roy (1774–1833) (Figure 1.1) within the histories of print journalism, prose literature, and religious reform in early-nineteenth-century Bengal. For some, he is the “father of modern India,” the progenitor of reforms and progress in these areas, a “Universal Man,” a father of “new learning,” given his emphasis on English-language and Western-style debate, discourse, and thought. For other historians of India, he was a tool of imperial power, who constantly sang the praises of the English Company. World historians have seen him as an Indian-style French revolutionary and, in recent parlance, as a constitutional liberal.

When religion enters the picture, many assess his work according to the success or failure of his various ideas and critiques regarding religion. Rather than approach his writings and intellectual labors through a measure of failure or success from the perspective of post-1830s India, this chapter explores the precise nature of those ideas about religion and the institutions nurtured in the wake of those ideas, with a view toward understanding the significance of his work in the history of religions. Building on the recent work of Brian Hatcher, who emphasizes Rammohan's relationship to polity building and political life, I place him in a history of religion as opposed to a history of nationalism, liberalism, or empire. Questions about universal religion, true religion, and revealed religion, as well as demarcating lines between what constitutes religion and what constitutes a space outside of religion, have animated historical actors within a variety of traditions since at least the seventeenth century.