ARYA SAMAJ

Arya Samaj

Arya samaj movement of religious and social reform in Northern India was started by Dayanand Saraswati . At the age of 14 , he became a rebel by rejecting idol worship . Soon after , he left home and led the life of wandering scholar in search of knowledge . During this period , he acquired mastery over Sanskrit language and literature . In AD 1863 , Dayanand started preaching his doctrine - there is only one God and he should be worshipped not in the form of images , but as a spirit . He held that the Vedas contained all the knowledge imparted to man by God and essentials of modern science could also be traced there . 

Dayanand Saraswati looked on the Vedas as India's Rock and Ages . The true original seed Hinduism . His motto was India for the Indians . He said "Go back to Vedas" , by this , he meant revival of Vedic learning and Vedic purity of religion and not revival of Vedic times . With this message , he went about all over the country and in 1875 founded the Arya Samaj in Bombay . Dayanand preached and wrote in Hindi . The Satyarth Prakash was his most important book . The use of Hindi made his his ideas accessible to the common people of Northern India . He wrote three books - Satyartha Prakash , Veda-Bhashya Bhumika and Veda Bhashya . 

The members of Arya Samaj were guided by ten principles , of which the first one was studying the Vedas . The rest were tenets on virtue and morality .

Dayanand framed for them a code of social conduct, in which there was no room for caste distinctions and social inequality . The Arya samajists opposed child marriages and encouraged remarriage of widows . A network of schools and colleges for boys and girls was established throughout Northern India to promote the spread of education . 

In 1886 , Lala Hardayal instituted the Dayanand Anglo Vedic School of Lahore , which soon developed into a premier college of Punjab , set the pattern for such institutions . Here , instruction was given through English and Hindi on modern lines . Those among his disciples who wanted to maintain the original spirit of Dayanand , founded the Gurukul at Haridwar . This was set-up on the pattern of ancient ashrams . Dayanand , asserted the infallibility of Vedas . The influence of Dayanand and Arya Samaj , however , in the promotion of education , uplift of the position of women and weakening the hold of the caste system was deeper than that of many other reform movements .