This year Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati jayanthi fell on February 15, 2023 and here is what you should know about it.
Dayanand Saraswati Ji (Mula Shankar Tiwari) was born in a sanatani family on February 12, 1824.
He is the founder of Arya Samaj which is a reformist movement based on the Vedic Dharma.
He is also the author of Satyarth Prakash which forms the center-stone of the reformist advocacy of Arya Samaj. First edition of this book was published in 1875 in Hindi and a second revised edition was published in 1882. The book has now been translated in more than 20 languages.
In 1876 he gave the call for Swaraj (India for Indians) that later influenced Lokmanya Tilak in starting the Swarajya movement for Independence of India from the British rule.
“Among the makers of modern India, the chief place will be assigned to him (Dayananda Saraswati Maharaj). At a time when there was spiritual confusion in our country, when many of our social practices were in the melting pot, when we were overcome by superstition and obscurantism, this great soul came forward with staunch devotion to truth and a passion for social equality and enthusiasm, and worked for the emancipation of our country, religious, political, social and cultural.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, former (second) President of India
The third Indian contribution is older in date, but nearer to my present purpose. It is the remarkable attempt by Swami Dayananda, the founder of the Arya Samaj, to re-establish the Veda as a living religious Scripture. Dayananda took as his basis a free use of the old Indian philology which he found in the Nirukta. Himself a great Sanskrit scholar, he handled his materials with remarkable power and independence. Especially creative was his use of that peculiar feature of the old Sanskrit tongue which is best expressed by a phrase of Sayana’s, — the “multi-significance of roots”. We shall see that the right following of this clue is of capital importance for understanding the peculiar method of the Vedic Rishis.
Aurobindo, S. (1914). The Secrets of the Vedas with selected hymns, The Complete works of Sri Aurobindo (Volume 15) (p. 31). Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.
On his 200th birth anniversary Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi honored his efforts to fight against social discrimination and untouchability. Saraswati advocated for a return to the teachings of the Vedas, which were believed to be the source of the “ultimate truth” in the world. By preaching the supremacy of the Vedas, he sought to address the fragmentation of Hindu society that had resulted from the corruption of the Sanatan Dharma. He toured India and established multiple Vedic schools that sought to provide an alternative to missionary schools while advocating for significant caste reform and education for all castes. The Arya Samaj was a monotheistic Hindu order that promoted a united Hindu society based on Vedic teachings and rejected the ritualistic excesses and social dogmas of orthodox Hinduism. His legacy has endured as he advocated for education and respect for all human beings, campaigned for the education of women, and supported the idea that all activities must be done for the benefit of humankind as a whole. Additionally, his work helped to consolidate Hindus, and his support for the idea of shuddhi to bring back Islamic or Christian converts to Hinduism became a popular movement, especially aimed at lower caste converts who were given higher social status and self-esteem under the more egalitarian Arya Samaji philosophy.
