?RYA SAM?J

?RYA SAM?J The ?rya Sam?j (literally, "society of the nobles") was perhaps the most influential of the many reform movements that sprang up in nineteenth-century India in reaction to the double challenge Hinduism had to face: Christian missionary zeal and European modernity in the shape of British colonialism. The impact of the movement can be measured not only in terms of the number of its adherents—by 1947 the Sam?j counted almost 2 million members—but also by the fact that many of its leaders became prominent in Indian politics, academia, journalism, and other spheres of public life throughout the twentieth century. Clearly, the religious association provided an ideology that was attractive to certain strata of (North) Indian society in a particular historical situation.

Origins, Doctrinal Basis, and Early Development

The first branch of the ?rya Sam?j was founded in Bombay in 1875 by Sw?mi Day?nanda Sarasvat? (1824–1883). Day?nanda, a Gujarati Brahman with a Shaivaite background, had grown dissatisfied with the polytheism and shallow ritualism that characterized the varieties of Hinduism he had experienced in his youth. During his wandering years as a sany?sin (ascetic world renouncer) in the 1850s and 1860s he built his own vision of a reformed and "purified" ?rya dharma. In his view, arbitrary and selfish Brahmans were the root cause for what he saw as a degenerate state of Hinduism: the prevalence of idolatry, "blind faith" and "social evils" like child marriage, the abuses of the caste system, and the suppression of women in Hindu society. The pandits, he maintained, had neglected the study of the Veda, which contained the guidelines for a perfect society, and had instead imposed morally corrupting texts like the Pur??as. Only a return to the sober and rational monotheism he believed to find in Vedic scripture would provide the solution to India's spiritual, social, and political problems, ensuring that the Hindus could carry on where their proud Aryan ancestors left off.

Making use of the new technologies of mass communication, the sw?mi expounded his textual revisionism in various pamphlets and in his book Saty?rth Prak?sh (The light of truth), published in Hindi in 1875. The book also contained a polemical critique of Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Hindu "orthodoxy," a fact that made the ?rya Sam?j a rather controversial body from its inception. Nonetheless, in a period where many educated Hindus found it hard to reconcile their religious tradition with the new Western knowledge they had acquired, Day?nanda's reformatory message became particularly popular with the emerging Anglicized middle class in the urban centers of the Hindi-speaking regions, particularly in the Punjab.

The death of the founder in 1883 did not stop the movement from expanding further and becoming conspicuous in various fields of public activity. In 1886 the Dayananda Anglo-Vedic High School (DAV) was founded in Lahore, and it became the nucleus of a tremendously successful network of educational institutions, which continues to blossom today. Already at this early stage it was obvious that one of the strengths of the ?ryas was their efficient organization, energetic fund raising, and propaganda. Their techniques were partly inspired by Christian missionaries and partly by recycled elements of Hindu tradition.

A Religious Movement in the Age of Nationalism

In 1893 the movement split over the question of doctrinal purity. Sw?mi Shraddh?nanda (1857–1926), the second charismatic figure to emerge from the movement, accused the faction running the DAV School of being too Westernized and thereby betraying the founder's ideological legacy. From 1900 onward, he established his own network of schools, the Gurukulas, which were outwardly modeled after ancient Hindu seats of learning and which placed more emphasis on the study of the Vedas. Yet at the same time, they also borrowed heavily both from the curricula and the pedagogical practices used in British public schools.

Both factions became politically active from the 1890s onward, albeit in completely different ways. Whereas some of the prominent leaders of the DAV wing joined the Indian National Congress and became part of the mainstream national movement (e.g., L?l?L?jpat R?i), Shraddh?nanda and his followers for decades advocated an "evolutionary nationalism" based on a Spencerian perception of society as a "social organism." Political self-rule, far from being a birthright, had to be earned through an arduous learning process. Only the gradual perfection of the individual through education, it was believed, could pave the way for independence. It was only after the nationalist agitation had reached new heights in the wake of the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919 that the Gurukul ?ryas joined the mass campaigns organized by Mahatma M. K. Gandhi.

Education for both men and, crucially, for women, thus certainly was the cornerstone of ?rya activity, but their reformatory zeal expressed itself also in other fields. From the 1880s they undertook various experiments in "untouchable uplift" with the final goal of breaking all caste barriers. Orthodox distrust of the ?ryas and their general reluctance to accept "purified" untouchables in their midst, however, soon produced a backlash. Shuddhi, the purification ritual used to "reclaim" outcastes, was also employed to reconvert (neo-)Muslims who had left the fold of Hinduism during Islamic rule. Such endeavors soon brought the Sam?j into conflict with Islam. Communal tensions were further acerbated by the ?rya fight for the ban of cow slaughter and the propagation of Hindi (instead of Urdu, spoken by most Muslims) as the administrative language in large parts of North India. In the context of steadily worsening relations between Hindus and Muslims during the 1920s, the ?ryas seem to have deliberately cultivated their image as pugnacious, avant-garde defenders of Hinduism in the hope of gaining greater acceptance among their conservative Hindu brethren. Some of today's scholars, therefore, see the organization in the first place as a forerunner of contemporary Hindu chauvinist parties and organizations. However, the picture seems to be more complex, as the movement was quite heterogeneous, and militant Hindu chauvinism was but one of the many strands accommodated within the regionally diverse ?rya movement.

Reaching its peak from the 1920s to the 1940s, the popularity of the organization waned steadily after independence. Nowadays, it is no longer the vital movement it used to be for almost a century, even in its former strongholds in the Hindi belt of North India. However, in some of the homelands of the Hindu diaspora (like Guyana, Fiji, and Mauritius), where the Sam?j had spread with the immigration of indentured laborers from India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the ?rya Sam?j brand of "purified" Hinduism is still very much alive.

Harald Fischer-Tiné

See alsoHinduism (Dharma) ; Hindutva and Politics

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fischer-Tiné, Harald. "Kindly Elders of the Hindu Biradri: The Arya Samaj's Struggle for Influence and Its Effect on Hindu-Muslim Relations." In Gurus and Their Followers: Studies in New Religious Movements in Late Colonial India, edited by A. Copley. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.

——. "The Only Hope for Fallen India: The Gurukul Kangri as an Experiment in National Education." In Explorations in the History of South Asia: A Volume in Honour of Dietmar Rothermund, edited by G. Berkemer, et al. New Delhi: Manohar, 2001. In-depth discussion of the Gurukul wing.

Jones, K. W. Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century Punjab. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. The locus classicus for a historical analysis of the ?rya movement.

——. "The Arya Samaj in British India, 1875–1947." In Religion in Modern India, edited by R. D. Baird. New Delhi: Manohar, 1994. The best informed general overview.

Jordens, J. T. F. Swami Dayananda Saraswati: His Life and Ideas. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978.

——. Swami Shraddhananda: His Life and Causes. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981. Detailed and reliable biographies of the founder (above) and his most charismatic successor.

Llewellyn, J. E. The Arya Samaj as a Fundamentalist Movement: A Study in Comparative Fundamentalism. New Delhi: Manohar, 1993. Particularly strong on the textual basis of the movement.

Sarasvat?, Day?nanda. The Light of Truth: Or, an English Translation of the Satyarth Prakash. Translated by Chiranjiva Bharadwaja. Reprint, New Delhi: Sarvadeshik ?rya Pratinidhi Sabh?, 1975. English translation of the ?rya Sam?j's "bible."