where, near Sadya, the Lohit, the Dibong and the Dihong unite to form the wide placid Brahmaputra of the plains—one of the grandest rivers of the world—its south-westerly course to the Bay of Bengal is sufficiently well known. It still retains the proud distinction of being unbridged, and still the River Flotilla Company appoints its steamers at regular intervals to visit all the chief ports on its banks as far as Dibrugarh. Here, however, a new feature has been introduced in the local railway, which extends for some 80 m. to Sadya, with a branch to the Buri Dihing river at the foot of the Patkoi range. The Patkoi border the plains of Upper Assam to the south-east, and across these hills lies the most reasonable probability of railway extension to Burma.
The following are the “lowest level” discharges of the principal affluents of the Brahmaputra in Upper Assam, estimated in cubic feet per second:—
| Lohit river, 9 m. above Sadya ... | 38,800 |
| Dibong, 1 m. above junction with Dihong . | 27,200 |
| Dihong ” ” Dibong . | 55,400 |
| Subansiri ...... | 16,900 |
The basins of the Dibong and Subansiri are as yet very imperfectly known. That of the Lohit has been fairly well explored. Near Goalpara the discharge of the river in January 1828 was computed to be 140,000 cub. ft., or nearly double that of the Ganges. The length of the river is 700 m. to the Dihong junction, and about 1000 in Tibet and eastern Bhutan, above the Dihong. The Brahmaputra, therefore, exceeds the Ganges in length by about 400 m. The bed of the great river maintains a fairly constant position between its extreme banks, but the channels within that bed are so constantly shifting as to require close supervision on the part of the navigation authorities; so much detritus is carried down as to form a perpetually changing series of obstructions to steamer traffic.
An enormous development of agricultural resources has taken place within the Brahmaputra basin of late years, chiefly in the direction of tea cultivation, as well as in the production of jute and silk. Gold is found in the sands of all its upper tributaries, and coal and petroleum are amongst the chief mineral products which have been brought into economic prominence. During the rains the Brahmaputra floods hundreds of square miles of country, reaching a height of 30 to 40 ft. above its usual level. This supersedes artificial irrigation, and the plains so watered yield abundantly in rice, jute and mustard.
See Reports of the native explorers of the Indian Survey, edited by Montgomery and Harman; Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908); Sir T. H. Holdich, India (“Regions of the World” series, 1903); Ryder, Geographical Journal, 1905; Rawlings, The Great Plateau (1906). (T. H. H.*)
BRAHMA SAMAJ, a religious association in India which owes its origin to (Raja) Ram Mohan Roy, who began teaching and writing in Calcutta soon after 1800. The name means literally the “Church of the One God,” and the word Samaj, like the word Church, bears both a local and a universal, or an individual and a collective meaning. Impressed with the perversions and corruptions of popular Hinduism, Ram Mohan Roy investigated the Hindu Shastras, the Koran and the Bible, repudiated the polytheistic worship of the Shastras as false, and inculcated the reformed principles of monotheism as found in the ancient Upanishads of the Vedas. In 1816 he established a society, consisting only of Hindus, in which texts from the Vedas were recited and theistic hymns chanted. This, however, soon died out through the opposition it received from the Hindu community. In 1830 he organized the society known as the Brahma Samaj.
The following extract from the trust-deed of the building dedicated to it will show the religious belief and the purposes of its founder. The building was intended to be “a place of public meeting for all sorts and descriptions of people, without distinction, who shall behave and conduct themselves in an orderly, sober, religious and devout manner, for the worship and adoration of the eternal, unsearchable and immutable Being, who is the author and preserver of the universe, but not under and by any other name, designation or title, peculiarly used for and applied to any particular being or beings by any man or set of men whatsoever; and that no graven image, statue or sculpture, carving, painting, picture, portrait or the likeness of anything shall be admitted within the said messuage, building, land, tenements, hereditament and premises; and that no sacrifice, offering or oblation of any kind or thing shall ever be permitted therein; and that no animal or living creature shall within or on the said messuage, &c., be deprived of life either for religious purposes or food, and that no eating or drinking (except such as shall be necessary by any accident for the preservation of life), feasting or rioting be permitted therein or thereon; and that in conducting the said worship or adoration, no object, animate or inanimate, that has been or is or shall hereafter become or be recognized as an object of worship by any man or set of men, shall be reviled or slightingly or contemptuously spoken of or alluded to, either in preaching or in the hymns or other mode of worship that may be delivered or used in the said messuage or building; and that no sermon, preaching, discourse, prayer or hymns be delivered, made or used in such worship, but such as have a tendency to the contemplation of the Author and Preserver of the universe or to the promotion of charity, morality, piety, benevolence, virtue and the strengthening of the bonds of union between men of all religious persuasions and creeds.”
The new faith at this period held to the Vedas as its basis. Ram Mohan Roy soon after left India for England, and took up his residence in Bristol, where he died in 1835. The Brahma Samaj maintained a bare existence till 1841, when Babu Debendra Nath Tagore, a member of a famous and wealthy Calcutta family, devoted himself to it. He gave a printing-press to the Samaj, and established a monthly journal called the Tattwabodhinī Patrikā, to which the Bengali language now owes much for its strength and elegance. About 1850 some of the followers of the new religion discovered that the greater part of the Vedas is polytheistic, and a schism took place,—the advanced party holding that nature and intuition form the basis of faith. Between 1847 and 1858 branch societies were formed in different parts of India, especially in Bengal, and the new society made rapid progress, for which it was largely indebted to the spread of English education and the work of Christian missionaries. In fact the whole Samaj movement is as distinct a product of the contest of Hinduism with Christianity in the 19th century, as the Panth movement was of its contest with Islam 300 years earlier.
The Brahma creed was definitively formulated as follows:—(1) The book of nature and intuition supplies the basis of religious faith. (2) Although the Brahmas do not consider any book written by man the basis of their religion, yet they do accept with respect and pleasure any religious truth contained in any book. (3) The Brahmas believe that the religious condition of man is progressive, like the other departments of his condition in this world. (4) They believe that the fundamental doctrines of their religion are also the basis of every true religion. (5) They believe in the existence of one Supreme God—a God endowed with a distinct personality, moral attributes worthy of His nature and an intelligence befitting the Governor of the universe, and they worship Him alone. They do not believe in any of His incarnations. (6) They believe in the immortality and progressive state of the soul, and declare that there is a state of conscious existence succeeding life in this world and supplementary to it as respects the action of the universal moral government. (7) They believe that repentance is the only way to salvation. They do not recognize any other mode of reconcilement to the offended but loving Father. (8) They pray for spiritual welfare and believe in the efficacy of such prayers. (9) They believe in the providential care of the divine Father. (10) They avow that love towards Him and the performances of the works which He loves, constitute His worship. (11) They recognize the necessity of public worship, but do not believe that communion with the Father depends upon meeting in any fixed place at any fixed time. They maintain that they can adore Him at any time and at any place, provided that the time and the place are
