Rishi Dayanand Saraswati and Arya samaj

Rishi Dayanand Saraswati and Arya samaj

1. Life:Perhaps the most vigorous,lasting and effective social and religious organisation and movement set up in the nineteenth century (1875)in India was the Arya samaj movement which crossed the barriers of seven oceans..of the world.Swami Dayanand Saraswati ,the founder of this movement, which is popularly known as Arya samaj movement and it's followers Arya samajist ,was born in a rich family in the Morvi town of tankara village in kathiawad (Gujarat) state.Early in his childhood at the age of fourteen he saw the rat eating prasadam from shivling .It was the night of shivratri.His mind wandered after seeing this incident...He started thinking Is these shivlingam the same Lord shiva who is the creator of these wonderful universe ????Or some one else !!!!If these shivlingam is the same shiva why not he removed these small rat (mice)from the idol of Siva...!!!! If he cannot protect himself ,how can he protect others????Next morning he asked his father but did not get the satisfactory answers from his father and relatives.He left his family in search of the truth.He left his royal palace and luxurious life of his father to know about the true Siva who is the creator of universe .He left his family and took up the Sanyass.He wandered from place to place and studied sanskrit with great passion.Very soon he became a great scholar of sanskrit and found in the Vedas the real knowledge of world.He went to Mathura and learnt sanskrit grammar from virjannand Saraswati,the guru of Swami Dayanand Saraswati.His motto was "Back to the Vedas ".He came to have a passion to take Hinduism back to the age of the Vedas .He did not believe in the Puranas .Once he remarked If Puranas were written by Rishi ved Vyas ,there must be not a single fault from the side of Vyas because Rishi Vyas was a great scholar of his time .But after reading 18 Puranas we find lots of irrational and superstitious story of Hindu deities each different from the other Puranas and the one Puranas did not match with the other .So he did not believe in the authority and genuineness of the Puranas and he openly remarked in front of the pandits of kaashi that your Puranas are the work of the selfish ,ignorant and malevolent (hostile )men ...""

Swami Dayanand Saraswati was a very fear less personality of his era and self less man .He raised the "pakhand khandini pataka" in the very heart of Kashi several times and severely challenged the pandits of Kashi single handedly and asked them to show the genuinity of idol worship from Vedas ..He spent the whole of his life in the propagation of vedic religion and the reform of the Hindu society .Whatever he thought proper for the Hindu society and Hindu dharma he preached that with great courage and determination .He was much opposed by the orthodox people of Hindu society and pandits of kaashi and also several times an attempt was made on his life but still he did not leave the path of truth and dharma.In this respect he anticipated and follow the path of great Rajput king of Mewar ,the Maharana Pratap and the Maratha tiger , chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj.In 1875 ,he founded the Arya samaj which ultimately became a great religious ,social and educational movement.swami Dayanand Saraswati spent the latter part of his life in preaching his mission in Rajputana for preaching unity among Rajput rulers against foreign government.He ultimately died untimely at Ajmer due to severe poisoning and the conspiracy hatched by his enemy .Even today if we want to know ,what Rishi Dayanand Saraswati ji had taught and preached we can do this by reading his immortal work "The Satyarth Prakash " or "The light of truth"

2.Work in the religious field-To cure the Hindu society of its various ills ,from time to time many great social reformers came and did a great work ,but it was beyond the capacity of single a single man to remove the age -long and deep rooted ills and evil customs or प्रथा of Hindu society.The Hindu people were still being attracted towards other religions due to many inherent weakness in their own faith /dharma.They had lost all faith in their ancient vedic civilization and vedic culture.They

had also lost all their self confidence and self respect and hope too!!!They had become much tired of the existence of class distinction ,caste hatred and many more social evils which slowly and steadily crept in to the Hindu society.Perhaps the most dreadest evils and customs of the time--- untouchability was also preying upon the Hindu faith.With any attraction of money or high post the Hindus used to give up their own faith and Dharma for which their forefather like Guru tegh bahadur ,Banda bahadur bairagi ,veer hakikat Rai ,Guru Arjun Dev and many more brave son of India give their heads for the sake of humanity and for the protection of Hindu dharma but not bow before the tyranny of evil foreign forces ,there by they add a lot to the number of followers of other faiths.Blind faiths, superstition and worship of numberless gods and goddesses and local deities were also doing a great harm to Hinduism .So the ancient vedic dharma was loosing its charm and so it became quite easy for the foreigners and followers of other faith and religion to trap innocent Hindus into their own fold and faith ..

At such a critical juncture /situation, Swami Dayanand Saraswati ji appeared as a herald of hope for the slumbering Hindus and cured Hinduism of various ills .

1)First of all he put before the people some of the attractive elements of ancient vedic Hindu society and in this way he created a feeling of self confidence and self respect in the people .He tried to show that the vedic civilization was the most ancient of all the civilization of the world (and not the harrapan civilization) and there was none of the civilization of the world that could be compared with the ancient vedic civilization.He also thwarted the attempt of the Britishers which was being made by them for long time to create rift between the Aryan race and Dravidian (south)race.Swami ji strongly opposed the Britishers by remarking that both Aryan and Dravidian are brothers of the same soil /mother land .In these way he foiled the attempt of Englishmen.

2) In these way Swami Dayanand Saraswati not only checked the conversion of his people to other religions but also by starting suddhi movement he tried to bring the Hindu converts back to their fold who had once embraced Islam or Christianity due to fear of Islamic swords and ignorance .Arya samaj an institution started by Rishi Dayanand Saraswati played a very important part in this respect.Swami Dayanand Saraswati's famous disciple Swami sraddhanand who founded Gurukul kangdi Vishwavidyalaya in Haridwar played an important part /role in re -converting of Muslims back to Hindu folds for which Swami sraddhanand had to pay the price with his own life..

3)Next Rishi Dayanand Saraswati preached against idol worship and taught the people to have faith in one God ,all powerful and omnipresent and omnipotent.

4)He was a great enemy of caste system based on birth .He preached the caste system based on merits , qualities and talents of the said person and not by birth.

5)He was dead against animal sacrifice in the name of religion and so as to appease gods and goddesses or local Devi's and deities.He preached compassion , ahimsa (non violence) and love towards animals and other living beings .He started mass movement to protect the cows and started signature campaign for the same.But due to his untimely death at Ajmer his work and wishes are not fulfilled yet.But not before he left this mortal world ,he wrote the famous book "Gau Karunanidhi " /ocean of mercy for the cow...for the protection of cows.This book must be read by every people as the author has put his heart and tears out for cows ,the very soul of Hindu civilisation and Hindu dharma.

6)But his greatest achievement in the religious field was the foundation of Arya samaj which carried on his mission of religious reforms even after his death .The Arya samaj had done a very splendid work in the religious , social and educational fields .It has remained ,"a great and powerful factor to this day in the national life of India and one seriously to be reckoned with in future."

From time to time ,men of high character and great ability ,like Lala Hansraj,Lala Lajpat rai,pandit gurudatta Vidyarthi,pandit lekhram,Bhagat Singh ,pandit Ramprasad Bismil,,Swami sraddhanand ,pandit Swamiji Krishna Verma,guided this Arya samaj movement and served the Hindu community a lot .

Once a Britishers remarked for Arya samaj "where there is Arya samaj ,there is unrest and anarchy in that area . "

3.Work of Rishi Dayanand Saraswati in social field --

-1)Equally important was the work done by Swami Dayanand ji in the social field .He opposed child marriage like anything because such a practise was injurious to health and was the chief cause of various social evils in the Hindu society.2)He was in favour of the remarriage of widows.He could not tolerate that certain girls rendered widows due to early marriage should live a wretched life for no fault of theirs.

3)He advocated an equal status for women and for that purpose he laid much emphasis on female education. Goswami Tulsi das has regarded women as shudras .Tulsi das has written disgraceful comments on women...."Dhol gawaar shudra pashu naari,ye sab taadan ke adhikari ".It was only Rishi Dayanand Saraswati who compared the women as "Devi" by quoting the verse of Manu Smriti of Manu maharaj .Swami Dayanand Saraswati explains the verse of manu as"Yatra naryastu pujyante ,ramante Yatra Devta" i.e. were women folk and girls are respected ,only in that home comes Devta.Where the women folk is not respected nor treated well ,all the good work and deeds goes in vain.

4)He preached against untouchability and advocated the equality of status for all the members of the society.By quoting various examples from the Vedas he tried to show that the caste system with all its modern rigidity and evils did not exist in the vedic society ,so it stands condemned and should be avoided at the earliest .To Rishi Dayanand ,caste means Varna like Brahman ,Kshatriya ,vaishya and shudra .And their position should be made clear by merits and academic qualifications and not by birth.

5)Swami Dayanand Saraswati was not in favour of the western education because it was a sign of India's slavery and often lead to materialism,take away men from spiritualism ,bhakti ,karma and devotion.He advocated the intensive study of the Vedas and the Upanishads and all the Brahman granthas which are commentary and explanation on Vedas by ancient rishis from time to time.He also advocated the study of

" aranyaks "book whic were composed by sages and rishis in the forest and epics like Ramayan and Mahabharat in the light and guidance of Vedas .

4.An estimate of his work :

Swami Dayanand Saraswati did such a useful work for the Hindu religion and society that it could be remembered for ages to come .If measured by the actual success he stands on the front line of the greatest Indian social reformers of his era .There was a possibility that in the absence of his preaching a large number of the Hindu population might have been converted to Christianity and Islam .He filled in his country men a feeling of greatness and pride because of their high ancient culture and in this way he pulled up the degenerated Hindu society from a deep hollow in which it had fallen and placed it on the road of progress.The foundation of the Arya samaj was his another great achievement.The institution not only played an important part in the field of untouchability, weakening of the bond of caste system,the remarriage of widows,and the discourage ment of the early marriage of boys and girls,but also did a commendable work in the educational field by starting various D.A.V .Schools and colleges.The Gurukul kangdi which has grown into a university ,is also another off-shoot taken birth from the teachings of Swami Dayanand Saraswati and Arya samaj .The University played an important part in reviving the Gurukul system of education ,the age old education pattern system of ancient times which reminds us of the greatness and glory of those time .

Again like Saint Ram Das,the guru of Shivaji,Swami Dayanand Saraswati by removing various social and religious ills ,prepared his country men for the battle of freedom .He even declared that " self government even if bad,is much better than a good foreign government."In this way he greatly added to the cause of nationalism. Rishi Dayanand Saraswati was perhaps the first men long before Tilak to preach the gospel of Swadeshi and India for the Indians"'

An extract from the book ' A new text book of history of India" by D.N. kundra..