Swami Dayanand Saraswati

Swami Dayanand Saraswati was endowed with titanic personality. He was blessed with creative mind, strong physique and extraordinary intelligence and courage. He was born on 20th September 1824 in a village named ‘Tankara’ in the State of Gujarat. His original name was Mool Shankar. He was 6 feet and 4 inches tall and very fair. His memory was so strong that at the age of 14 he memorised the whole of Yajurveda.

An incident on Mahashivaratri day, when he was just 14 resulted in a turning point in his life. Sight of a rat climbing unhesitatingly on the idol of Lord Shiva and eating the food offered to the God shook his faith in God.

At the age of 21, when he came to know that his marriage is being planned by his father, he left the home forever and entered the arena of unknown, uncertain future. He remained celibate for his whole life. He preached vegetarianism. This young man was initiated into Sanyas at the age of 23 by Swami Purnanand Saraswati and now renamed as Swami Dayanand Saraswati. He wandered throughout India in search of true and real knowledge. His ultimate objective was to guide spiritually the common masses. He learnt the philosophy of Vedas and Yoga. He studied Panini’s Ashtadhyayi and Patanjali’s Mahabhashya from his revered blind Guru Swami Virajanand. Dayanand paid Gurudakshina in the form of disseminating the knowledge of Vedas and interpreting the Vedic philosophy anew. He fought against superstitious beliefs and orthodoxy in all religions. He was iconoclast all his life. He opposed hypocrisy and idol worship. He gave a message of Truth. Being a prolific writer, he wrote more than 60 books containing real knowledge of Vedas. ‘Satyartha Prakash’ written by him is treated as the bible of Arya Samaj.

A great orator, Dayanand delivered hundred of lectures throughout the length and breadth of India and took part in religious debates known as ‘Shastrartha’. He believed that God is formless, Nirguna, Nirakar. He was against the man made caste distinctions. In the beginning, Swami Dayanand Saraswati used to deliver lectures in Sanskrit; but in his later life he shifted to Hindi, a language easily understood by rank and file.

Swamiji founded Arya Samaj in Mumbai in 1875. Arya Samaj was spread all over India and got popularity and large number of followers in the Punjab. The Lion of Punjab Lala Lajpat Rai and Mahatma Hans Raj, the founder of the DAV movement were earnest followers of Arya Samaj. The main objective of the Arya Samaj is attaining welfare of the world – physical, social and spiritual.

Christian missionaries were engaged in luring Hindus to get converted to Christianism. Hinduism did not provide any rites for return of such converted persons to their original faith. Swami Dayanand Saraswati stepped in and evolved a program of ‘Shuddhi’, a process and rites for reconverting them back into Hindu religion.

Swamiji advocated for social justice and upliftment of untouchables, labourers and giving equal and prestigious position to women. Swamiji had opened four Vedic schools during his life time where the education was free and the students got free food, clothing, books and notebooks. But because of paucity of right kind of teachers this educational experiment of the Swamiji was not successful. However, his disciples, Arya Samajis, fulfilled his cherished desire by starting DAV movement after his death in 1883. The seed of educational movement sown by Swamiji has now grown into a large group of trees because of the untiring efforts and dedicated service of the DAV family in the form of about 1000 educational institutions imparting education of all types throughout India as well as abroad.