Person · Arya Samaj founder · India
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Also known as Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Dayananda, Mool Shankar
Nineteenth-century Gujarati reformer who founded the Arya Samaj at Bombay in 1875 with the slogan 'Back to the Vedas', campaigned against image worship and caste-based ritual, promoted widow remarriage and women's education, and wrote the Satyarth Prakash as the Samaj's foundational text. His argument that Vedic Hinduism had been monotheistic and casteless, and that the Puranas, image worship and caste as practice were later degenerations, gave north India's Hindu reform movement its rhetorical frame through the colonial period. His Shuddhi movement for reconverting Muslims and Christians was one of the first substantial Hindu missionary efforts.
- Date
- 1824–1883
- Function
- Social reform & movement
- Tradition
- Standard reference and biographical literature; contemporary chronicles and institutional records as applicable.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
He was poisoned at Jodhpur in 1883 — tradition says by a cook on the raja's instruction after Dayananda had publicly condemned the raja's dancing-girl mistress. The Samaj he founded split later into the Gurukul (orthodox-Vedic) and College (modernist DAV) wings; the DAV schools he inspired now number in the hundreds and span the subcontinent and the diaspora.
About the place
Placed at Bombay where he founded the Arya Samaj.
Connections (1)
- FoundedMumbai
Dayananda Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj at Bombay on 10 April 1875, with the slogan 'Back to the Vedas' and ten foundational principles that rejected image worship, caste as hereditary, child marriage and widow seclusion. The founding meeting at Dr Mangnani's residence drew about a hundred Gujarati and Marathi businessmen. The Samaj spread quickly through Punjab and north India through the DAV schools and gurukul networks that followed, and became the most organised Hindu reform movement of the late nineteenth century.