Arya Samaj

Arya Samaj was a powerful religious movement in India during the nineteenth century. The movement was led by Swami Dayanand Saraswati, who started it in 1875. Arya Samaj had similarities with the Brahmo Samaj in its ideology and the mode of operations. Dayanand Saraswati was a Sanyasi (renouncer) who believed in the flawless authority of the Vedas. He advocated the doctrine of Karma and reincarnation and also emphasised on the ideals of Brahmacharya (chastity) and Sanyaas. He founded the Arya Samaj to propagate his ideas among the common people. The Arya Samaj upholds the sanctity of the cow, Samakars, oblations to fire and social reform, including the education of women.

Swami Dayanand Saraswati became a disciple of Swami Virajananda in 1840 and it changed the way of his life. He accompanied Virajananda for nearly three years and emerged with a new set of goals. His main objective was to purify Hinduism and save it from its contemporary degenerate state. Dayanand also devised a method of accomplishing these objectives. He believed that all truth was to be found in the Vedas by anyone who used the proper analytic and grammatical tools needed to understand Vedic Sanskrit. Dayanand separated all Hindu scriptures into two categories namely Drsba and Un-drsba. While, the former included the Vedas and any text based on a proper understanding of the Vedas, the latter were the products of the post-Mahabharata period of history when true Vedic knowledge was lost and ignorance prevailed.

To accomplish his aims and objectives completely, Dayanand Saraswati started to preach a `purified` Hinduism. His Hinduism rejected nearly all of contemporary Hinduism that include the popular Puranas, polytheism, idolatry, the role of Brahman priests, pilgrimages, etc. He started to roam around here and there and visited the major cities like Calcutta, Gujarat, Bombay, Punjab, etc. After roaming for a few years, he established the Bombay Arya Samaj (Noble Society) on 10th April, 1875. The Arya Samaj became the first successful organisational expression of his ideas. Dayanand strongly opposed the evil practices of Hinduism like idolatry, child marriage, elaborate rituals, etc. He also attacked the Brahman priests and insisted on the infallibility of the Vedas.

The Arya Samaj soon started to spread into the other parts of India and branches of the Samaj were established in the prominent cities like Punjab, Lahore, Delhi, Madras, etc. and also in Rajasthan and Maharashtra. However, there was no central organisation for Arya Samaj in India and each Samaj used to operate independently. After the death of Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 1883, the members of Arya Samaj took the responsibility to spread his ideas. They started to establish more centres of Arya Samaj in different parts of India. They established schools and other institutions to spread the ideas, out of which, the Dayananda Anglo-Vedic Trust and Management Society was one of the most prominent ones.

However, the Arya Samaj witnessed a few conflicts among its members during the later half of the nineteenth century. A group of members led by Pandit Guru Datta and others started to refer Dayanand Saraswati to as a Rishi and they wanted the school of the Samaj to focus on Aryan ideology, on the study of Sanskrit and the Vedic scriptures. They believed that the school should be modelled after the ancient Hindu universities and would thus produce the new `pure` Hindu youth. However, after its establishment, the school expressed the ideas of more moderate Aryas, who thought of providing English education that is safe from non-Hindu influence and relevant to careers within the colonial milieu. As a result of this, Pandit Guru Datta and his friends decided to leave the Arya Samaj and the Samaj was formally divided in 1893. They also established a new organisation named the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha.

The Arya Pratinidhi Sabha soon developed their own ritual of readmitting the lower caste Hindus, who were converted to Islam or Christianity. They named the ritual as Shuddhi and it was aimed at readmitting those converted Hindus to Hinduism. Though initially Shuddhi was applied only for those converted, soon it started to be performed for anyone whose ancestors had once been Hindus. The Aryas also developed another ritual named Shuddhito to purify the untouchables and transform them into members of the clean castes.

Apart from purifying the untouchables and readmitting the converted into Hinduism, the Aryas were also active to achieve a few other objectives. They were supporters of women education and they established a girls` school, named the Arya Kanya Pathshala to provide education that is safe from missionary influence. They also founded the Kanya Ashram or women`s hostel. They further established the Kanya Mahavidyalaya on 14th June, 1896 to provide higher education to the women. This institution was established with inspiration from the success of Kanya Pathshala. Besides educating the women, the Aryas also actively supported the movement for widow remarriage. They launched societies to support such marriages and also to put these ideals into practice.

The Arya Samaj did establish itself as one of the major acculturative movements with its purified Vedic Hinduism that rejected almost all aspects of contemporary Hinduism. The leadership of the Samaj mostly came from the educated Hindus of the upper castes and the Arya Samaj did adopt a wonderful organisational structure and parliamentary procedures. Both the wings of Arya Samaj created a wide variety of institutions; offered new forms of worship; introduced proselytism including paid missionaries, a conversion ritual; and also reduced their teachings to a fundamental creed. The Samaj mainly focused on the energies and wealth of its members into a variety of fields. The ideals of the Samaj were put into action, rather than be only preached.

The Arya Samaj was an organisation founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati and was aimed at making significant social and religious reforms. The Samaj was founded in Punjab and operated mostly in that region. The ideology of the Samaj was based on the thoughts of Dayanand Saraswati and he wanted to purify Hinduism and save it from its contemporary degenerate state. The reforms of Arya Samaj were mostly in the religious field and the Samaj brought about significant changes in the social field as well.

The Arya Samaj spread the idea of a purified Hinduism that would reject the popular Puranas, polytheism, idolatry, the role of Brahman priests, pilgrimages, nearly all rituals and also the ban on widow marriage. The Samaj condemned the orthodox Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism and believed that there was only one true faith, Vedic Hinduism. The Arya Samaj raised its voice against idolatry, child marriage, elaborate rituals, the Brahman priests, etc. and also insisted on the infallibility of the Vedas, at the same time. However, the Arya Samaj did not have any central organisation and various branches of the Samaj operated independently.

The disciples of Dayanand Saraswati, who carried forward his teachings after his death, unanimously decided to found a school that would impart the Aryan form of Hinduism. The Arya Samaj was inclined to spread the religious education among the common men and thus brought about a significant social reform. With efforts from the Lahore Samaj, the newly founded Dayananda Anglo-Vedic Trust and Management Society became successful to establish the school on 1st June, 1886. The school was later upgraded to Dayananda Anglo-Vedic College on 18th May, 1889, by the Punjab University. Both the high school and college got significant success, as the students trained in this institution demonstrated the quality of their education in the annual examinations.

After the success of the high school and the college maintained by the Dayananda Anglo-Vedic Trust and Management Society, another formal representative body was convened. The new representative body was convened in October, 1886 and was named as the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha, Punjab. Representatives from the branches of Arya Samaj through Punjab attended the Pratinidhi Sabha and it dealt with variety of questions and provided a degree of centralisation that was missing since Dayanand`s death. The local branches of Arya Samajes also started to build elementary and secondary schools through Punjab, following the model of the Lahore school. The Arya Samaj also started a campaign to collect funds for orphan relief.

However, the split in the Arya Samaj in 1893 led to the foundation of Arya Pradeshik Pratinidhi Sabha and the objective of the two divisions was also different. While the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha continued with their main purpose of spreading education, the other group replaced the purpose with an emphasis on Ved Prachar (proselytism and preaching). It created a plan for professional missionaries and in November, 1895, it hired six full-time missionaries to preach and work with the local Arya Samaj branches. There were also many volunteers to aid the missionaries. The Samaj published newspapers in both English and the vernacular languages to spread the Vedic knowledge as well.

The Shuddhi ritual was one of the most important reforms of Arya Samaj during the nineteenth century. Hinduism traditionally lacked a conversion ritual and the Shuddhi ritual was developed by the Arya Samaj to serve this purpose. During the last half of nineteenth century and first half of twentieth century, many lower caste Hindus were converted to Islam and Christianity and the Arya Samaj was deeply concerned with this large scale conversion. The Samaj developed the Shuddhi ritual to readmit the converted Hindus to Hinduism. Initially, the Samaj employed the Shuddhi ritual to purify and readmit the Hindus who had converted to Islam or Christianity; however, soon it was performed for anyone whose ancestors had once been Hindus.

In addition to Ved Prachar and Shuddhi, the Arya Samaj also worked for the cause of spreading education, especially women education. The leaders of Arya Samaj in Jullundur like Lala Munshi Ram (later known as Swami Shraddhanand), Lala Dev Raj, etc. established a girls` school by the early 1890s. The school was christened as the Arya Kanya Pathshala and was established to provide the women an education safe from missionary influence. They also founded the Kanya Ashram or women`s hostel. Arya Samaj got significant success with the Kanya Pathshala and encouraged by this success, it decided to expand towards higher education. The Samaj established the Kanya Mahavidyalaya on 14th June 1896 to provide the women with higher education and though initially it was an extension of the older school, it grew steadily. Soon, the Mahavidyalaya became a fully developed high school and eventually a women`s college. The students of the college included a mixture of unmarried, married and widowed women.

One of the major reforms of Arya Samaj was advocating for widow remarriage. The Samaj always raised its voice for widow remarriage and it launched societies to support such marriages and to put these ideals into practice. Mainly due to the efforts made by the Arya Samaj, widow remarriage soon became increasingly acceptable among Punjabi Hindus. However, only the remarriage of virgin widows was being accepted in the late nineteenth century.

In 1898, the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Punjab decided to establish an institution, where the students would follow a life of celibacy, discipline and Vedic learning. The institution was established in Hardwar on 22nd March, 1902 and was named as the Gurukula Kangri. The students were taught residentially in the institution, under strict faculty discipline. They learned selected western subjects through the lens of Aryan ideals, Hindu scriptures and the vernacular languages.

The reforms of Arya Samaj were mainly aimed at improving the educational scenario of Punjab and also at disseminating the Vedic knowledge among the common people. Education had always been one of the principal objectives of Arya Samaj. Apart from spreading education, the Samaj also raised its voice against the evil rituals practiced in the Hindu society and strongly supported widow remarriage. The Arya Samaj also introduced a unique concept of Shuddhi ritual that was intended at readmitting the converted Hindus to Hinduism. As a whole, it can be said that the reforms of Arya Samaj were of great significance and made huge impacts on the contemporary Hindu society in Punjab. The Arya Samaj became a major acculturative movement with its purified Vedic Hinduism.