Reformist Hindu organization formed in
1875 by Swami Dayanand Saraswati.
The Arya Samaj was formed in an era of
sweeping social, economic, and religious change—the last particularly
caused by Christian missionary evangelism—and represented an authentic
Hindu response to these changes.
For some time, more traditional
Hindus perceived this organization as a
genuine religious threat. Swami
Dayanand’s fundamental assumption
was that ultimate religious authority lay
only in the ancient scriptures called the
Vedas. This stance allowed him to attack
many of the “social evils” plaguing nineteenth-century Hinduism, such as child
marriages, sati, image worship, the
caste system, and a ban on widow
remarriage. He contended that these
practices were corrupt and illegitimate
since they could not be found in the
Veda, and the Arya Samaj worked ceaselessly to get rid of such practices.
Unlike the Brahmo Samaj, an
earlier reformist organization, the ideas
of the Arya Samaj showed no
Christian influence. It certainly addressed
many concerns raised by Christian
reformers, but the Arya Samaj was
militantly anti-Christian. It was
equally opposed to the “corruption”
of contemporary Hinduism.
Although the Aryas claimed that they
were simply getting back to the Veda, the
ultimate aim was not to reclaim that
long-gone era but to develop a form of
Hindu religious life more compatible
with “modern” times. The Aryas
replaced image worship with a fire sacrifice based on the rituals in the Veda.
The Arya Samaj was also notable for
promoting the ceremony of “purification” (shuddhi), through which Hindus
who had become members of other religious communities were received back
into the Hindu community.
Dayanand and his followers were
quite militant in espousing such reforms
and saw themselves as developing the
leadership for the future of Hinduism.
To accomplish this the Arya Samaj
strongly emphasized education, and
one of its most lasting achievements has
been establishing schools and colleges
to educate its women and men.
Although the Arya Samaj was highly
controversial for its first sixty years, by
the late 1930s its revolutionary spirit had
somewhat cooled; at present the Aryas
have become a sectarian group more or
less assimilated into larger Hindu
57
Arya Samaj
society. For further information see
Ganga Prasad Upadhyaya (trans.), Light
of Truth, 1960; Kenneth W. Jones, Arya
Dharm, 1976; Daniel Gold, “Organized
Hinduisms: From Vedic Truth to Hindu
Nation,” in Martin Marty and R. Scott
Appleby (eds.), Fundamentalisms
Observed, 1991; and Kenneth W. Jones,
“The Arya Samaj in British India,
1875–1947,” in Robert D. Baird (ed.),
Religion in Modern India, 1998.