33 Ārya Samāj

G. Vedaparayana

Introduction

Creation of a modern and progressive India was the paramount objective of the social reform movements in the Renaissance period of India. The reformers aimed at making India an active, enterprising, a free and moral nation. The greatness of the 19th century reformers was that they were the trend setters in making India a new nation. Their thought and activity centered around reconstruction of India. They contributed in different ways to the furthering of Indian Renaissance. Their contact with Western civilization gave rise to a number of reform movements in India. After Brahmo Samaj and several of its different dispensations Ārya Samāj was one such reform movement which made an indelible impact on the people of India. Arya Samaj was founded on the bedrock of the Vedas. Unlike the Brahmo Samāj and its offshoots, Arya Samaj was not influenced by Christianity and so was considered to be militantly Hindu. It passionately advocated a return to the pristine purity of the Vedic Hinduism. Swami Dayanada Saraswati was its founder. He was a dynamic humanist who shook the structure of established Hinduism to its foundations and infused into it new blood and fresh vigor. Ārya Samāj founded by him became a potent factor in the socio-political awakening of modern India. As a powerful religious force the Samaj still remains a source of unifying India socially, religiously and nationally.

2. Swāmi Dayānanda Saraśwati

Dayānanda Saraśwati’s was born in 1824 in the state of Morvi, Kathiawar as the son of Amba Shankar, a wealthy Brahmin and well-to-do banker. Dayanada’s original name was Mulshankar. His father was a Jamindar of the town and an ardent and faithful worshipper of Śiva. Like his father, Mulshankar was a man of strong will. His father wanted Mulshankar to become a religious man and he was careful to give him a Hindu education. His education was in vernacular, and by the time he was fourteen, he had learned by heart large pieces of Sanskrit religious literature and had a brief idea of Sāṅskrit grammar. He never learned English. Dayānanda Saraśwati’s biographers pointed out three instances of special reference in his life (1824-1845) which had a great effect on his life and philosophy. First, on his initiation at the age of fourteen in the temple of Śiva, on a Śivarātri day while he was fasting, he saw mice running over the image of Śiva and so lost faith in the worship of idols. Second, at the age of eighteen the death of his sister and uncle affected him. Third, at the age of twenty-one he fled from home in order to escape from the entanglement of marriage. Because of these three instances he had developed a negative determination of eschewing idolatry, a positive determination of seeking deliverance or mukti and a firm resolution to allow no such entanglement as marriage to interfere with this supreme purpose.

The period between 1845-1863 may be said to constitute the second stage of the life of Mulshankar. It was a period of his mendicant wanderings and deep religious studies. In his wanderings, he met a number of ascetics who received him into their order. In the process he happened to mee a sanyāsi, named, Brahmanand who convinced him of the truth of the Vedanta doctrine of the identity of his own soul and God. He had discourses and discussions with Vedāntic teachers, and received initiation into the Saraswati Order of Śaṅkara Dandis.As a result he was rechristined with the new name as Dayānanda Saraśwati. But, soon, he gave up the Vedānta stand point. Nevetheless, he always remained an ascetic and to the end retained the new name Dayānanda Saraśwati. For the next eight years, he pursued the study of yoga, both classical and tantric. He regarded yoga as the proper means for reaching emancipation which was his aim. But later he became skeptical and suspicious about many books on yoga. It is said that once he pulled a dead body floating down the river and cut it open to examine the so-called Chakras. Thereby he convinced himself that many books on yoga, especially, which gave descriptions of nerve circles and nerve centers, were false. After a practical experience along he threw the idea of Chakras into the river along with the dead body.

Another landmark event took place in Dayanada’s life in1860. He came across a blind Brahman, Swāmi Virājananda of Mathura, and became his disciple for two and half years. He studied Pānini’s grammar and the Vedāntasūtras with him. His master wanted Dayānanda to ‘spread knowledge of the true śāstras and fight against the prevailing false sects.’ But, in 1863, he took leave his master and began his wanderings once more. When he started out, he was a devotee of Śiva. But in the course of his wanderings his mind experienced a change of clearly recognizing Śiva as only one of the many names of the Supreme. Thereby, he began ardently worshipping Shiva. By 1868 he felt that it was his duty to give a public exposition of his ideas. He went on tours preaching throughout India, holding public discussions with pundits, maulavies and missionaries on religious, philosophical and literary works. He published a number of books and went from town to town delivering lectures in Sāṅskrit on the right interpretation of the Vedas. He was successful in his attempt as he could draw huge audiences wherever he went. He still lived like a sanyāsi, wearing only minimum of clothing.

Another important event took place in Dayananda’s life in 1872. That is, he happened to go to Calcutta and meet the leaders of Brahmo Samaj,namely, Keshub Chandra Sen, Devedranath Tagore and Sri Ramakrishna. As consequence, the Samāj exercised great influence on Dayānanda Saraśwati. As a result, Swāmi Dayānanda began to wear regular clothes. He also gave up using Sāṅskrit in his public lectures and spoke in Hindi like the Brahmo leaders. His fame and influence continued to spread and his wisdom became deeper as he taught throughout North India. At Allahabad in 1874 he completed his most important work, Satyārtha Prakāśa (Light of Truth). In the end of 1874, he went to Bombay where he came in close touch with both the Hindu community and the new organization called Prārthana Samāj. As he was well received and very successful there, he launched in Bombay his great foundation, namely, Ārya Samāj in 1875.The main features of this new society were modified in accordance with the ideals of the Brahmo Samaj and Prārthana Samāj. But, their organic union of these organizations was prevented by Dayānanda‘s conviction of the infallibility of the Vedas and the truth of transmigration. In 1877, Swāmi Dayananda visited Punjab and his visit particularly to Lahore was a great success. So the headquarters of the Arya Samāj was moved to Lahore from Bombay. After this for the next six years, Dayānanda lived and worked, touring throughout North India and steadily extending presence and the activities of the Samāj. A little later there developed a partnership between Ārya Samāj and the Theosophical society. In 1878, the founders of the Theosophical Soceity, Col. Olcott and Madam Blavatsky, wrote to Dayānanda Saraśwati and suggested a union of the two movements on the ground that their aims were the same. Dayānanda accepted the proposal. The Theosophist leaders came to India in January 1879 and unified the two organizations but their union continued only until 1881. Their partnership was dissolved over the question of the personality of God.

Swāmi Dayānanda passed away on the 30th of October 1883, at the age of fifty nine at Ajmer. He was a man of great strength of will and absolutely fearless. He strived hard to stem the tide of pessimism affecting the people of India by recovering the Vedic optimism. He was progressive and he attacked superstitions, denounced polytheism and promoted mass education. He was an ardent champion of the untouchables and opened the doors of the Ārya Samāj to them. His message of swarāj and swadeshi became a part of the national consciousness of Indians. He was not only a religious reformer but also a national and social reformer. He propounded a theory of nationalism based on spiritualism and laid stress on moral and mental improvement rather than on material prosperity. He led the revolt against the blind acceptance of western ideas and ideals. The Ārya Samāj founded by him became a potent factor in the religious, political and social awakening of India. It helped in expanding the consciousness of the Indian people.

3. Ārya Samāj

Ārya Samāj is the product of a typical Hindu reform movement founded by Swāmi Dayānanda Saraśwati in 1875. It literally means ‘Society of the Nobles’ and believed in the infallibility of the Vedas and its slogan was ‘back to Vedas.’ It is an offspring of a peculiar interpretation of the Vedas and upheld their absolutism. It believes that the Vedas contain the seeds of all sciences and knowledge. Everything worth knowing, even the most recent inventions of modern science, were alluded to in the Vedas. Religiously, Ārya Samāj was against idol-worship, animal sacrifices, ancestor worship, priest craft, offerings made in the temples. Socially, it denounced the caste system, untouchability, child marriages and discrimination against women on the grounds that all these lacked Vedic sanction and accepted women as leaders in prayer meetings and preaching. It is the only stream of Hinduism that allowed and encouraged converts to Hinduism. It accepted as dharma whatever is in full conformity with the Vedas. Dharma is that which is impartial, just, truthfulness and that which is not opposed to the teachings of God as embodied in the Vedas.’ According to the Samaj, the authority of Vedas should remain supreme and it should pave way for the social regeneration of Hindu society. Thus, Ārya Samāj was a revolutionary movement both religiously and socially showing the purity and scientific background of the Vedas. Its main aim was to save Hinduism from the onslaught of Christianity and Islam.

4. Religious Reforms

Along with Brahma Samaj, it played a vital role in the resurgence of Hinduism. But in the realm of religious and social reforms, the approach of the Ārya Samāj was basically different from Brahmo Samāj and other reform movements in India. The other reform movements did completely rely on reason to the exclusion of faith or disregard for the past traditions of the country. The difference between Arya Samaj and other reform movements lies in their objectives and vision of the future Indian society. The basic objective of the others was the unity of all religions on the basis of theism and the establishment of a just, tolerant and democratic socio-political set up. But Arya Samaj stressed on theism of Vedic Hinduism though not on the unity of religions. It intended to check the growth of Islam and Christianity. It wanted to discover the indigenous monotheism with its virility and militant character. It wanted to create a distinctly Indian monotheism, not like that of the Brahmo Samāj with its international platform and all-embracing creed. It interpreted the many Gods of the Ṛgveda as diverse names for the one God. It firmly stood for the restoration of the Āryan culture with all its ancient institutions and practices. It intended the restoration of the Vedic values and practices in their pristine purity. This is mostly because, unlike Ram Mohan Roy and other reformers, Swāmi Dayānanda was not at all familiar with English or Western civilization and culture.

Arya Samaj depended on the Sanskrit scriptures and regarded Islam and Christianity as false religions and Muslims and Christians are the enemies of Āryan culture. According to it, even Brahmo Samāj was unpatriotic as it was inspired by Islam and Christianity. Arya Samaj offered a bold and straight forward monotheism and rejected all scriptures other than the Vedas. It provided the individual with a creed that one could carry out and hope of salvation as a result of right conduct. Its preaching and activity were at once protest and restorative. Ārya Samāj held that every human being has a right to study the scriptures and that the restrictions imposed by the ecclesiastical system on the study of the Hindu scriptures should be removed. It did not want the Vedas remain a sealed book but the word of God should be spread among God’s sons, irrespective of caste, creed and color. Following are the five principles that the Members of Samaj should daily practice.

• Brahmayajňa (studies of the Veda and meditation)
• Devayajňa (fire Sacrifice with ghee etc)
• Social Service
• Gāyatri Maṅtra recitation
• Sacrifice according to the Vedic rituals

But, with the opening of the Ārya Samāj at Lahore, the constitution of Ārya Samāj underwent a formal change. Its niyamas or principles were precisely stated. In these principles, after stating the two principal items of the creed, namely, belief in God and faith in the Vedas, the universal objectives of the Ārya Samāj were set forth in outline. The niyamas formulated by Dayānanda himself, are as follows:

 God is the primary cause of all true knowledge, and of everything known by its nature.

God is All-Truth, All-knowledge, without a beginning and the support and Lord of All, All-pervading, Omniscient, Imperishable, Incomparable, Immortal, Eternal, Holy and the cause of the Universe. To Him alone worship is due.

• The Vedas are the book of true knowledge, and it is the paramount duty of every Arya to read or hear them read, to teach and preach them to others.
• One should always be ready to accept truth and renounce untruth.
• All actions ought to be done in conformity to virtue; i.e. after a thorough consideration of right or wrong.
• The primary objective of the Samāj is to do good to the world by improving the physical, spiritual and social conditions of mankind.
• All ought to be treated with love, justice and due regard to their merits.
• Ignorance ought to be dispelled and knowledge diffused.
• None ought to be contented with his own good alone, but everyone ought to regard his prosperity as included in that of others.
• In matters which affect the general social well-being of the whole society, one ought to discard all differences and not allow one’s individuality to interfere, but in strictly personal matters every one may act with freedom.

Out of these ten principles, three of them are theological and seven of them are ethical. A candidate, for enlistment as a member of Ārya Samāj, has to put his signature to these principles. The conditions of membership are acceptance of the canons of Vedic interpretation laid down by Swāmi Dayānanda and implicit faith in the ‘Ārya Decalogue.’ The Samaj comprised several grades of members, probationers or non-voting members, and sympathizers. There were local samājee, provincial assemblies and a General Assembly for all India. The meetings of Ārya Samāj were held on every Sunday. The service was of three or four hours long, but people may come and go whenever they liked. The first part of the service consists of the ritual of the Vedic fire alter, the burning of incense and the chanting of the Vedic hymns. The second part consists of prayers, hymns, sermon etc., almost like an ordinary Protestant Christian service. It was puritan in its simplicity and there was no official priesthood. Thus , Ārya Samāj represents a stern reaction against the priesthood of orthodox Hinduism.Its work consists of preaching, education, literature, newspapers, orphanages and the upliftment of the depressed classes. The societies which were under the Ārya Samāj include the Ārya Tract society, women’s Ārya Samāj, Young Men’s Ārya Association, and Vedic Salvation Army. Through the different programmes of these societies Arya Samaj sought to outflank the Christian missionary movements and to meet the impact of Islam also.

Ārya Samāj is open to all, both men and women, to study the Vedas. The Samāj teaches that there are three eternal existences—-God, the Soul and Elemental Matter. The soul undergoes transmigration according to the law of karma. The soul even when released form transmigration is not absorbed in God. Salvation comes only by continued well-doing. The Samaj denied the doctrine of avatāras or divine incarnation. It vehemently criticized idolatry and the practice of killing animals in sacrifice. But the fire sacrifice of the Vedas is retained as a means of purifying the air. The Hindu form of ancestral worship known as śrardha is condemned as useless and pilgrimage should given up as superstitious. The Ārya Samāj primarily worked for the fulfillment of these ideals and did remarkably useful work for reforming a Hindu society and religion. It also began to take back the converted Muslims and the Christians into Hindu-fold after purifying them. It was called shuddin movement. It also established educational institutions and contributed towards arousing national consciousness. It preached the gospel of swadeshi and the slogan ‘India for Indians.’ It defended the honor of the Hindus and instilled in them self-respect and confidence which inspired patriotism among them. Under its impact Indian started taking pride in the cultural and intellectual heritage of India. Thus the Samaj contributed to creating many Indian personalities like Lala Lajpat Rai, Gopalakrisihna Gokhale etc., who participated actively in the national movement. It did yeomen service to create a new Indian religion, society, education, and national consciousness.

The death of Dayānanda was a great blow to the Samāj. But the members carried on the work he entrusted to them with great enthusiasm and the movement continued to grow at a   rapid pace since then. To perpetuate the memory of Swāmi Dayānanda, an Anglo-Vedic College was opened in Lahore in 1887. The college is the largest in Punjab and forms a worthy memorial to Dayananda’s devotion and energy. In 1892, the Ārya Samāj was divided into two just like the first split in the Brahmo Samāj. The Ārya Samāj broke up into two groups, namely, the ‘Cultured’ party and the vegetarian or ‘Mahatma’ party. The former were progressive and stood for modern education and for freedom in diet and declared that the Ārya Samāj is one true universal religion which must be taught to the entire world. But the opponents favoured the ancient Hindu education, stood by vegetarianism and declared that the teaching of the Samāj should be pure Hinduism, but not the universal religion. However, Swāmi Dayānanda Saraswati was the key personality of the Ārya Samāj. His substantial teachings were retained in the society he founded. He and his Samaj have done much towards naturalizing in modern India the old Vedic optimism. As the founder of the largest indigenous reform movement in India Swāmi Dayānanda Saraśwati can rightly be called a builder of Modern India and crusader of the Indian Renaissance.

5. Social Reforms

As it has been mentioned above, Ārya Samāj set itself the goal of purging the society of its rampant evils. It fought against early marriage, enforced widowhood and held that these were entirely ‘UnVedic.’ It also championed the cause of the ‘untouchables’ and opened the door of the Ārya Samāj to them. It was also against the purdah system and the custom of dowry. The Samaj had a vision of India purged of her superstitions, filled with the fruits of science, worshipping one God, capable of self rule, occupying a place among the other nations and restored to her ancient glory. All this was to be accomplished by throwing overboard the accumulated superstitions of the centuries and returning to the pure teachings of the Vedas. One of the contributions of the Samaj was the discovery of the principle of social equality in the ancient Indian polity. So, it vehemently attacked the Indian caste system as the bane of society, it created artificial barriers and caused social and cultural stagnation and decline. It taught that all men are of equal nature and brothers to each other. The castes are simply different professions or guilds established by the state to guard against confusion and mutual interference and for better accomplishment of different works. Caste should be determined by character, conduct, merit and worth of the individual. The lower caste or shudras should not be prohibited from studying the Vedas because every human being has a right to read or interpret the Vedas for oneself.

Arya Samaj was a great supporter of the rights of women and wanted to put women on par with men. The Samaj vehemently opposed child marriage and asserted that the natural age for marriage was 18 for girl and 30 for a boy, advocated by the scriptures. It was in favour of widow marriage and women’s education and held that girls should be educated like boys but they should be specially trained in certain subjects especially suited to their nature such a as medicine and art. It took up the work of upliftig Hindus from the slough of despondency into which they had fallen, and not to instill religious conceit into their minds. It inspired Indians to achieve spiritual regeneration of India with confidence and fervor. It promoted the cause of education and organized a net work of schools and colleges in the country both for boys and girls where education was imparted in the mother tongue. The Samāj also did a good deal for the education of girls. It established a very good boarding school for girls at Jullundur. The Mahātma Party of Ārya Samāj founded the Gurukaula Mahavidyalaya at Haridwar 1902. It is a great institution in which an attempt is made to give true Hindu education to students. There is a seventeen year course for boys from the age of eight to twenty five. There are other Gurukulas at Gujaranwala and Farukhabad. The educational programme of Ārya Samāj proved to be a factor in bringing about the transformation of society as it added to the indigenous system of the west. The educational institutions run by the of Ārya Samāj includes 500 high schools and 2000 primary schools, 60 gurukulas, 300 Sāṅskrit schools, 400 schools for Harijans, 12 technical institutions and a number of DAV schools and colleges.

Ārya Samāj was the first purely Indian association to organize orphanages and widow houses. It is also the first non-Christian agency which started a non-official movement for the relief of distress caused by famine. The social ideas and ideals of Ārya Samāj can be summed up as: ‘(1) the fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man (2) the equality of sexes (3) equal opportunities to all according to their nature, karma and merit, and (4) love and charity towards all.’ Through all these reforms its aim was to establish a Hindu missionary movement to bring all the Hindus back to one fold under the banner of Veda. Though Ārya Samāj was successful among orthodox Hindus, it lacked the tolerance towards alien religions and cultures and a universal version and is criticized as a militant movement. Swami Dayānanda’s idea of Vedic religion as the sole religion closed to the appreciation of the truth of other religions. Even though he was against caste system, it continued even within the fold of the Ārya Samāj. Some scholars also feels that Dayānanda’s notion of Niyoga can never be accepted as it was reprehensible to the conscience of the modern man. He did not lay down a clear political programme before the Ārya Samāj and on matters of political importance he offered no concrete and certain guidance. The object of the Ārya Samāj was to serve Hinduism and Hindu community but its independent existence was to deprive of its real mission. Despite these drawbacks, Ārya Samāj offered return to the Vedas as a solution for all the crises of Modern India. What it did was adequate as a corrective to the abuses of Hinduism in its doctrinal and working form. Ārya Samāj takes its stand on the bed rock of Vedas, which, it believes, hold the key to our entire socio-religious problems. To conclude, we can say that Swāmi Dayānanda was a dynamic saint who has imparted his dynamism to the entire Ārya Samāj and there is no doubt that his personality has left an impression on Indians and it will influence the religious history of India. In regenerating India and Hinduism in particular he is no less than Martin Luther King, the protestant theologian and reformer.

6. Summary

Undoubtedly, Ārya Samāj is the largest and most influential reform movement in India. It held that the Vedas are a sole revelation from God. Vedas are also the fountain head of the science and of the religion of mankind. According to Dayānanda Saraśwati, all other religions are bound sooner or later to succumb to the triumphant march of the eternal Vedic religion. Ārya Samāj wanted to recall India to the forsaken Vedic paths and to preach the Vedic gospel throughout the whole world. The Samāj fought against all the then existing evils in the society and favored widow marriages and propagated Hindi and Sāṅskrit language. It also served the educational need of the Indians and inspired patriotism among the Indians. Thus Ārya Samāj became a potent factor in the socio-political awakening of modern India. It augmented regeneration of India with particular emphasis on the wisdom of the Vedas and the greatness of Hinduism. Its contributions are still relevant and the Samaj is still vibrant in socio-religious transformation of India as a nation. The credit goes entirely to its founder, the great soul, Dayananda Saraswati.

Web links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayananda_Saraswati  www.freeindia.org/biographies/dayanand
• www.culturalindia.net.Reformers
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyarth_Prakash
• www.britanica.com/biography/Dayanand_Saraswati
• www.britanica.com/biography/Dayanand_Saraswati

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