He was one of the best known prose writers in Bengali in the nineteenth century, writing often for the Tattwabodhini Patrika, a premier Brahmo journal.

[5][6] Basu was born on 7 September 1826, in a Bengali Kayastha family of the present-day South 24 Parganas district in West Bengal.

[citation needed] Rajnarayan Basu was a rival of Michael Madhusudan Dutta, a prominent poet of the time, and the introducer of free verse in Bengali.

[7] The Parishad was established to promote Bengali language literature yet ironically conducted meetings in English until Basu's request.

As an intellectual, he founded the Brahmo Samaj house and inaugurated Nabagopal Mitra's Hindu Mela, an organisation created to spread nationalist feelings among Indians.

Into that splendour caught thou hast no lost thy special brightness.Power remains with thee and old genial force unseen for blinding light; not darkly larks; as when a sacred river in its course dives into ocean, there its strength abides Not less because with because with vastness wed and works unnoticed in the grandeur of the tides.