ARYA SAMAJ
[Bibliography: Sir E. D, Maclagan's Punjab Census Report of $97: Jr. R. Burn's United Provinces Census Report of 1901 ; Professor J. C. Oman's Culls, Custones and Superstitions of tzia.]
LIST OF PARAGRAPIS 1. The founder of the sect, Daya- 3. Tenets of the Samej. 72nd Saraswati. 4. Modernising tendencies. 2. His methods and the scientific 5. Aims and educational institie- interpretation of the Vedas. tions. 6. Prospects of the sect.
Arya Samāj Religion. This important reforming sect of Hinduism numbered nearly 250,000 persons in India in 1911, as against 92,000 in 1901. Its adherents belong principally to the Punjab and the United Provinces. In the Central Provinces 974 members were returned. The sect was founded by Pandit Dayānand Saraswati, a Gujarati Brāhman, born in 1824. According to his own narrative he had been carefully instructed in the Vedas, which means that he had been made to commit a great portion of them to memory, and had been initiated at an early age into the Saiva sect to which his family belonged; but while still a mere boy his mind had revolted against the practices of idolatry. He could nott bring himself to acknowledge that the image of Siva seated on his bull, the helpless idol, which, as he himself observed in the watches of the night, allowed the mice to run over it with impunity, ought to be worshipped as the omnipotent deity.[1] He also conceived an intense aversion to marriage, and fled from home in order to avoid the match which had been arranged for him. He was attracted by the practice of Yoga, or ascetic philosophy, and
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- ↑ Calls, Cristoms, p. 130.
