Maharishi Dayanand Founder of Arya Samaj

“Among the great company of remarkable figures at the head of all the Indian Renaissance one stands out by himself with the peculiar and solitary distinctness, one unique in his type as he is unique in his work. It is as if one were to walk for a long time amid a range of hills rising to a greater or lesser altitude, but all with sweeping contours, green-clad, flattering the eye even in their most bold and striking elevation. But amidst them all, one hill stands apart, piled up in sheer strength, a mass of bare and puissant granite, with verdure on its summit, solitary pine jutting out into the blue, a great cascade of pure vigorous and fertilizing water gushing out from its strength as a very fountain of life and health to the valley. Such is the impression created on my mind by Dayanand.”

The above statement of Aurobiondo Ghosh might well demonstrate the passionate tone of poet, but in its spirit and substance it conveys a historical truth. In the galaxy of the great men who rescued India from the clutches of degeneration and despondency in the nineteenth century, Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1833) occupies a very important place. Possessed of sharp intellect, rational thinking, and a vision far ahead of his time, he ceaselessly worked for religious reformation, social reconstruction, cultural regeneration and political emancipation of his country. He ‘transfused into her morbid body his own formidable energy, his certainty, his lion’s blood’, and thus came to share with other great sons of India, the coveted title of the Maker of Modern India.

A brief life sketch

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Dayananda was born in 1924 at Tankara, a small town in the princely state of Morvi, Gujarat, in an orthodox Brahmana family. He left his house in 1836, to devote himself to the introspection on life and its ultimate meaning. He became an ascetic and roamed about the a little over fourteen years, visiting one place after the other, seeking the help of literally hundreds of sadhus and yogis for the solution of his problem. Despite his frantic search the inquisitive ascetic could get no teacher with a critical enough approach to popular religious beliefs to satisfy his exacting standards.

However, In 1846, by a stroke of chance, he found at Mathura a teacher of his choice in an old blind sanyasi, Virjananda Saraswati (c. 1779 – 1868). Possessed of a powerful intellect and prodigious memory, the sanyasi was well – versed in the Vedas and Shastras, and his mastery over Sanskrit grammar was unrivalled. He introduced Dayananda, after his preliminary in-depth study of the Sanskrit grammar to the Vedas and Shastras, which revolutionized his entire thinking. He was no more a pessimistic thinker disinterested in everything except his own well-being now. He was now a true yogi, a man of action, with ‘God in his soul, vision in his eyes, and power in his hands’, and his chief concern was the well- being of his three hundred million countrymen sunk in the densest depths of ignorance, sloth, and inertia.

The year 1869 is very important in Dayananda’s life when he went to Kashi, the seat of the Hindu orthodoxy and launched a forceful attack on the monstrous excrescence that had warped both Hinduism and India for thousands of years. Here, on 16th Nov. 1869, was held the historic contest in the presence of about 5,000 people, Dayananda, alone on one side, and three hundred of the most learned and influential pandits of orthodox Hinduism, led by Swami Vishuddhananda, on the other. Ishwari Prasad Narain Singh, the ruler of Kashi, was in the chair, and the subject for disputation was whether the Vedas permitted idolatry. The orthodoxy proved no match to Dayananda and felt discomfited under the pressure of his sound scholarship and logical strokes. Ultimately, in the words of the Hindu Patriot, ‘finding it impossible to overcome the great man (Dayananda) by regular discussions, the pandits resorted to a sinister course to subserve their plans’. They raised pandemonium and the hired ruffians threw brickbats and stones on the victor.

The hooliganism could not deviate Dayananda from his chosen path. He accelerated the pace of his activities. Moving from one end of the country to another, with incredible quickness, he visited almost every part of India from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, from Calcutta to Bombay. Erect and tall (six foot-four), spare figure topped by a round handsome face, with a long, sharp nose and deep jet-black eyes, he attracted the masses wherever he went. He was a fine orator, possessed of great persuasive power. He could be extremely plausible even while facing a wholly hostile audience and very often those who came to heckle him remained to applaud.

His beliefs

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He denounced evils and vulgarities spread by the vested interests in the name of religion, with an almost divine passion. With the Vedas in hand, he challenged the Hindu orthodox establishment to justify on their basis polytheism, pantheism, idol worship, casteism, untouchability, infant marriages, forced widowhood, sati, infanticide and a hundred and one other superstitions degenerating Hinduism. Both the vanguard and the reserve of the orthodoxy came forward to silence him. But Dayananda’s profound scholarship, incisive logic, powerful persuasion and opportune hammerings’ brought them to their knees.

Besides the work of social reform, Dayananda also gave serious thought to three other problems faced by his countrymen, namely, illiteracy, economic poverty and political dependence. To eradicate the problem of illiteracy, he envisaged free and compulsory education for all. There should be a state legislation, he said, to the effect that nobody should keep his sons or daughters away from school. Also, the state should own the responsibility of educating its citizenry without any discrimination between the rich and the poor.

His understanding of the problem of poverty was still sharper. India had never suffered such a calamity before. Dayananda observed. Known as the ‘golden chersonese’ in the old annals, flowing with milk and honey, this land was, truly speaking, ‘the proverbial philosophers’ stone, by the mere touch of which the base metals of the foreigners used to turn into gold’. But ignorance and illiteracy, slavery and selfishness, inaction and indolence on the part of its people had turned the land of plenty into the land of abject poverty and suffering. And he believed, that ‘this ancient land of the Aryas would go on suffering in the present manner so long as its people did not give up superstitions and backward notions, inaction and laziness’. He also laid stress on going in for science, and technology and swadeshi products.

The third problem, i.e. arousing of political consciousness and national awareness among the people was also very formidable. To begin with, he examined the plans of his predecessors in this regard which did not appeal to him at all. The early national leaders, though well-intentioned, had borrowed too heavily from the west. He believed that no nation could be built its edifice on a foreign foundation. He, therefore, gave a clarion call to his countrymen to go back to the Vedas, and to lay their foundation on them. This was, as rightly pointed out by Aurobindo Ghosh, surely a master glance of practical intuition on Dyananand’s part, for in a real sense, the Vedas were the original source of religion, culture and civilization of India. They were the foundations of Indian thought, philosophy and knowledge, and they concealed the seed for a radical new birth of the Indian nation.

A Nation Builder

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After providing the foundations, Dayanands took up the task of building up the national edifice – a magnificent skyscraper. But he felt that single-handed he would not be able to accomplish this gigantic task effectively. He, therefore, founded an organization, the Arya Samaj at Bombay on April 10, 1875. The ranks of the newly founded organization were thrown open by the liberal leader to all and sundry, irrespective of caste, creed and religion, provided they adhered to the
following ten principles:

  • Of all true knowledge and whatever is known from knowledge the primary cause of God.
  • God is an embodiment of truth, intelligence and bliss, and one without form, all powerful, just, kind, unborn, infinite, unchangeable, beginning less, incomparable, support of all, all pervading, omniscient, un deteriorable, immortal, fearless, eternal, holy and creator of the Universe. He alone is worthy of worship.
  • The Vedas are the books of all true knowledge. It is the paramount duty of all Aryas to read them, to teach them, to hear them and to preach them.
  • We should be ever ready to accept truth and renounce untruth.
  • Everything should be done according to dharma, that is, after considering what truth is and what is untruth.
  • The chief object of the Arya Samaj is to do well to the world, i.e. to make physical, spiritual and social improvement.
  • We should treat all with love and justice according to their deserts.
  • We should dispel ignorance and diffuse knowledge.
  • Nobody should remain contented with his personal progress, one should count the progress of all as one’s own.
  • Everyone should consider himself as bound in obeying social and all benefiting rules, but everyone is free in matters pertaining to individual well-being.

The Arya Samajas were set up in almost all the provinces of India and Dayanand’s inspiring message reached the masses through them. He posed searching questions to his countrymen, why do you feel inferior to others? What is it that makes you ashamed of calling yourselves Indians? Why have you parted with your national pride and prestige? Why cannot you walk with heads erect and high? ‘In the whole world there is no country like India, he thundered. He told them to look at their past which was so great and glorious. He narrated impassioned, though not always scientifically correct, historical episodes to substantiate his statements. The Indians were the sole overlords of the whole world. There were their dependent rulers in other countries. Now Europeans seem to be cultured and educated to you. You praise their cultural achievements. But as a nation they are nowhere as compared to us. Culturally we are far superior a nation. We were sometimes world teachers’, he observed. ‘All education that has spread in the world sprang originally from India. Then it went to Egypt, from there to Greece, form Greece to Turkey and then to Europe. From Europe it went to America and other countries’.

He quoted the authorities of the foreigners to convince his people of the correctness of his stand. Jacoiet, a French scholar, he said, had written in his book The Bible in India: ‘India is the fountain – head of all knowledge and all righteousness. All knowledge and all religions have sprung from here’. He (Jacoiet) prays in the book, said Dayananda, ‘O God make my country as advanced in knowledge as India was in olden days. But now misfortune has overshadowed the descendants of the world teachers and world – rulers and they are down-trodden under the heels of foreigners’.

He made a fervent appeal to his countrymen to take pride in their land, and things made by their own brethren in preference to the ones made in other countries. Dayananda was possibly not the first author of the swadeshi Movement in India, as Dr. R.C. Majumdar has pointed out, but he was certainly its first forceful advocate in modern times. He laid great stress on its as a means for the reconstruction of India’s economy, as also for its social and political unity. ‘Look at the Europeans’, he observed, ‘they have come into this country for a little more than a hundred years, yet they wear coarse cloth made in their own country. They allow into their offices and courts only English shoes and no Indian shoes. This one point is sufficient in their behavior to show how patriotic they are – they respect the shoes made in their country more than they respect the men of other countries. These Europeans have not forsaken the ways of their country. These qualities and deeds have contributed to their advancement.

Although appreciative of their reforming zeal, Dayananda lashed out at the Brahmo Samajists and the Prarthana Samajists for looking towards the west for inspiration and light. ‘Do you think’, he asked them ‘that this attitude of yours will do you and your country good….’? There have been in India many men of learning from Brahma onwards. Not to appreciate them and to go on praising Europeans is nothing short of prejudice and flattery. Commenting on their following the western ideals, he observe: ‘When they are born in India, they have eaten and drunk water of this country and are still doing the same, it does not behave them to abandon the path of their ancestors’. He disliked their founding a new religion ‘in their pride for English education’. Their reforms seemed to be superficial to him.

They are working under false nations that they and their country would be regenerated simply by removing the restrictions of food (interdining with persons belonging to different faiths) and caste. They have no remedy for the county that I am ailing. Europeans do not care for them and the people of India look upon them as aliens… They have not been able to do well to the country.

A clarion call for Swaraj

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He made a forceful plea for political independence of the country. “The ‘swarajya’, was always the best thing. A foreign government could not be beneficial even when it was free from religious bias, race prejudice and was just and sympathetic.” ‘Therefore come out in the sixth chapter of his magnum opus, Satyartha Prakash, ‘to form your own government for that was God’s dispensation’. In a religious garb, the great statesman-sanyasi gave an open message of an all- out revolt against the British Raj: Let no man abide by the law laid down by men ignorant of the Vedas.

A man should use all his influence and power to destroy a sovereign who does not happen to be acquainted with the intricacies of the Vedas.

A King should have seven or eight good, righteous, and intelligent ministers born in Swadesh and swarajya who are well conversant with the Vedas.

These statements, said Mr. Grey, the public prosecutor in the notorious ‘Arya Samaj Sedition Case, Patiala, 1910’, ‘read as political speeches made by Tilak or Bipin Chandra Pal at a meeting or conference, except that they go further than any one dare go in lecturing to the public’.

Surprisingly Dayananda does not stop there. A book like Satyartha Prakasha, he knew, though important, was not likely to be read every day; nor was there a binding on every Arya to read it. In such a case, the above passage would not receive the attention of one and all. The thoughtful ascetic, therefore, devised a foolproof method to reach each Arya everyday with his message of revolt against the British imperialism. He compiled a book of prayers, Aryabhivinaya, for use by every Arya everyday in the morning. The book, as the following quotations show, is full of his political message.

– Effulgent God and Mighty Donor… may I acquire gold and other precious metals, diamonds and other valuable mighty sovereign sway, the knowledge of sciences.

– God, Lord of infinite activity… fulfill our desires in this life by granting us good faculties of speech, good cattle, good means of conveyance, etc., and the right of political sovereignty.

Sovereign Ruler of all kings… make for us easily accessible imperial sovereign sway, and immense wealth May our riches and our kingdom ever increase by Thy Grace’.

Chastiser of the wicked, living according to Thy commandments, we may be Thy grace, enjoy the benefits of sovereign sway’.
India’s political freedom was veritably an obsession with the great sanyasi-stateman. While discussing purely religious or social matters, he would somehow or the other bring in the subject of political freedom and even at the cost of seeming irrelevant, would rouse his people ‘into active resistance to the alien influence’. For instance, while discussing idol worship, he said:

I do not approve of the wrangling of the various religions against one another, for they have, by propagating so many false things, misled the people and turned them into one another’s enemy. My purpose and aim is to help in putting an end to this mutual wrangling, to preach universal truths to bring all men under one religion so that they may, by ceasing to hate each other and firmly loving each other, live in peace and work for their common welfare.

A Crusades for National Unity

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Some people believe that Dayananda’s criticism of and attack on other religions had done more harm than good to the national cause by setting in motion communal controversies and disputes. An excerpt from his Autobiography settles this problem. Here Dayananda himself has given an explanation as to why he criticized other religions: ‘My sole object is to believe in what is true and help others to believe in it. I neither accept the demerits of different faiths, whether Indian or alien, nor reject what is good in them. A thorough perusal of his other works also confirms this. He attacks what he calls untrue elements in Islam or Christianity in the same way as he does in regard to Hinduism. He shows no leniency to the latter on account of its being his own, or that of his forefathers’ religion.

In fact, Dayananda criticized only those elements in different religions which misled the masses and made them fight each other.

Interestingly, Dayananda did not remain content with mere theoretical proposition in this respect. He embarked on practical ventures. For instance, he invited a conference of the representatives of almost all the religions in India on the occasion of the Delhi Durbar, 1877. Keshub Chandra Sen, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Munshi Alakhdhari responded to his invitation. Though the conference led at that time to no practical results, it helped pave the way for the later religious parliaments and conferences working for peace and happiness of mankind.

Thus it is difficult to agree with those of his critics who hold that Dayananda had hatred towards other religions. No doubt he criticized other religions, but hat criticism, it must be borne in mind, concentrated on what he thought was untrue (in these religions). In fact, he wanted to bring different faiths under the banner of one universal religion.

In the light of the above discussion it is clear that Dayananda was a great social crusader and religious reformer, and also a political leader gifted with great foresight. Sir Jadunath Sarkar, the doyen of Indian historians is indeed right when he says in his assessment of the man that he ‘was a true statement who could set the forces at work which will go on influencing the lives and thought of unborn generations’.