Swami Dayananda Saraswati
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- This page is about the founder of the Arya Samaj. For others known by the same name, please see Swami Dayananda (disambiguation)
Swami Dayananda Saraswati (स्वामी दयानन्द सरस्वती) (1824 - 1883) is an important Hindu religious scholar born in Gujarat, India. He is best known as the founder of the Arya Samaj "Society of Nobles", a great Hindu reform movement, founded in 1875. He was a sanyasi (one who has renounced all worldly possessions and relations) from his boyhood. He was an original scholar, who believed in the infallible authority of the Vedas. Dayananda advocated the doctrine of karma, skepticism in dogma, and emphasised the ideals of brahmacharya (celibacy and devotion to God). The Theosophical Society and the Arya Samaj were united for a certain time under the name Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj.
Swami Dayananda's creation, the Arya Samaj, is a unique component in Hinduism. The Arya Samaj unequivocally condemns idol-worship, animal sacrifices, ancestor worship, pilgrimages, priestcraft, offerings made in temples, the caste system, untouchability, child marriages, discrimination against women on the grounds that all these lacked Vedic sanction.The Arya Samaj discourages dogma and symbolism and encourages skepticism in beliefs that run contrary to common sense and logic. The Arya Samaj aims to be a "universal church" based on the authority of the Vedas.
Among Swami Dayananda's immense contributions is his championing of the equal rights of women - such as their right to education and reading of Indian scriptures - and his translation of the Vedas from Sanskrit to Hindi so that the common man may be able to read the Vedas. The Arya Samaj is rare in Hinduism in its acceptance of women as leaders in prayer meetings and preaching.
Dayananda starting questioning traditional beliefs of Hinduism and inquiring about God in early childhood. Still a young child on the night of Shivratri (literally: the night for God Shiva)when his family went to a temple for overnight worship, he stayed up waiting for God to appear to accept the offerings made to idol of God Shiva. While all else slept, Dayananda saw mice eating the offerings kept for the God. He was utterly surprised and wondered how a God, who cannot even protect his own "prasad", would protect humanity. He argued with his father that he should not be worshipping such a helpless God. He started pondering over the meaning of life and death and started asking questions, which worried his parents. His parents decided to marry him in his early teens, but he decided marriage was not for him and ran away from home. He was disillusioned with classical Hinduism and became a wandering monk. He learned Panini's Grammar to understand the vedas. He reached Swami Virjananda's ashram at Mathura who became his guru and told him to throw away all his books in the river. Dayananda stayed in the ashram for two and a half years. After finishing his education, Virjananda asked him to spread the concepts of Vedas in society as his gurudakshina ("tutition-dues").
Dayananda set about the difficult task with dedication despite attempts on his life. He would challenge Hindu scholars and priests of the day to discussions and won repeatedly on the strength of his arguments. He believed that Hinduism has been corrupted by divergence from the founding pronciples of the Vedas and misled by the priesthood for the priests' self-aggrandisement. Priests of Hinduism discouraged the common folk from reading Vedic scriptures and encouraged rituals (such as bathing in the Ganages and feeding of priests on anniversaries) which Dayananda pronounced as superstitions or self-serving.
Dayananda's ideas cost him his life. He was poisoned in 1883 while a guest of the Maharaja of Jodhpur. On his deathbed, he forgave his poisoner - the Maharaja's cook - and actually gave him money to flee the king's wrath.
Far from borrowing concepts from other religions, as Raja Ram Mohan Roy had done, Swami Dayananda was fiercely critical of Islam and Christianity as may be seen in his book Satyartha Prakash. He was against what he considered to be the corruption of the pure faith in his own country. Unlike many other reform movements within Hinduism, the Arya Samaj's appeal was addressed not only to the educated few in India, but to the world as a whole as evidenced in the 6th principle of the Arya Samaj. Arya Samaj is a rare component in Hinduism that allows and encourages converts to Hinduism.
Dayananda’s concept of Dharma is succinctly set forth in his Beliefs and Disbeliefs. He said, "I accept as Dharma whatever is in full conformity with impartial justice, truthfulness and the like; that which is not opposed to the teachings of God as embodied in the Vedas. Whatever is not free from partiality and is unjust, partaking of untruth and the like, and opposed to the teachings of God as embodied in the Vedas - that I hold as adharma." Again he says "He, who after careful thinking, is ever ready to accept truth and reject falsehood; who counts the happiness of others as he does that of his own self, him I call just."
He was the among the first great Indian stalwarts who popularised the concept of Swaraj - that is, right to self-determination vested in Indians, when India was ruled by the British. His philosophy inspired nationalists in the mutiny of 1857 (a fact that is less known) as well as champions such as Lala Lajpat Rai and Bhagat Singh. All his works for human being all are precious.He say that do not worship idols or stones only but take choose the path which he adopted. Like Ramchandra ,Sree Krishna he walked on the path of morality, murcy they are obedients of him parants, elders we must do all they do. over all he said that "ALL THE WORKS MUST BE DONE AFTER AFTER THINKING HIS RESULTS AND THEY MUST BE IN FAVORE OF MAN KIND". He is the person who suggested us the right way of getting MOKSH.
Dayananda's back-to-the-Vedas message influenced many thinkers. Taking the cue from him, Sri Aurobindo decided to look for hidden psychological meanings in the Vedas [1]. Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. 1972.
Dayananda and his Arya Samaj provide the ideological underpinnings of the Hindutva movement of the 20th century, Ruthven (2007:108) recognizes his "elevation of the Vedas to the sum of human knowledge, along with his myth of the Aryavartic kings" as religious fundamentalism, but identifies its consequences as nationalistic, since "Hindutva secularizes Hinduism by sacralizing the nation".
[edit] Works
- Satyartha Prakash / Light of Truth - translated to English published in 1908 [2][3]
- R̥gvedādi-bhāṣya-bhūmikā / An Introduction to the Commentary on the Vedas. ed. B. Ghasi Ram, Meerut (1925). reprints 1981, 1984 [4] [5]
- ed. New Book Society of India, Glorious Thoughts of Swami Dayananda (1966) [6]
- Autobiography, ed. Kripal Chandra Yadav, New Delhi : Manohar, 1978.
- Yajurvēda bhāṣyam : Samskr̥tabhāṣyaṃ, Āndhraṭīkātātparyaṃ, Āṅglabhāvārthasahitaṅgā, ed. Mar̲r̲i Kr̥ṣṇāreḍḍi, Haidarābād : Vaidika Sāhitya Pracāra Samiti, 2005.
- The philosophy of religion in India, Delhi : Bharatiya Kala Prakashan, 2005, ISBN 8180900797
[edit] References
- Prem Lata, Swami Dayananda Sarasvati (1990) [7]
- Autobiography of Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1976) [8]
- M. Ruthven, Fundamentalism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, USA (2007), ISBN 978-0199212705.
- N. A. Salmond, Hindu Iconoclasts: Rammohun Roy, Dayananda Sarasvati and nineteenth-century polemics against Idolatry (2004) [9]
[edit] External links
| Brahmo Samaj · Prarthana Samaj · Arya Samaj · Ramakrishna Mission · Gandhism · Hindutva · Sri Aurobindo Ashram · Parisada Hindu Dharma |
| Topics |
| Bhakti · Caste · Indian independence movement ·Persecution of Hindus ·Shuddhi ·Women in Hinduism |
| Important Hindu reformers and Hindu revivalist writers |
| Sri Aurobindo · Ananda Coomaraswamy · Alain Daniélou · Koenraad Elst · David Frawley · Sita Ram Goel · M. S. Golwalkar · Mahatma Gandhi · Harsh Narain · Gedong Bagus Oka · The Mother · Srila Prabhupada · Raja Ram Mohun Roy · Ramakrishna · Dayananda Saraswati · V. D. Savarkar · Keshub Chandra Sen · Swami Sivananda · Arun Shourie · Ram Swarup · Debendranath Tagore · Rabindranath Tagore · B. G. Tilak · Vivekananda · Yogananda |
