Raja Ram Mohan Roy is considered to be the father of modern Indian renaissance. He was born in an orthodox and well-to-do Brahmana family in a village in the Burdwan district of West Bengal in 1772, and died in 1833 . Besides English and Bengali, Ram Mohan Roy acquired knowledge of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic. On 20 August 1828 , he founded the Brahmo Samaj, the literal meaning of which is "One God Society". The orthodox Hindus did not cherish the ideals of this institution, but generally people welcomed this new organisation. Ram Mohan Roy was a secularist as he was inspired by Christianity, Islam and the Upanishads. He had great faith in the uncompromising monotheism of Islam. He learnt about the concept of the unity of God as an essence of Hinduism from the study of the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras and Gita.