Brahmo Samāj

Formless, one Brahman; rational-ethical monotheism; rejection of ritualism, caste, and social ills.

The Brahmo Samāj was Bengal's crucible of nineteenth-century reform. Rājā Rām Mohan Roy read the Upaniṣads as teaching a single, formless Brahman and campaigned against satī, polygamy, and caste. Under Debendranath Tagore and Keshab Chandra Sen the movement developed a congregational worship without images and shaped modern Hindu self-understanding across a generation of leaders.