Arya Samaj

“ They abjure images and sacrifice, except of flowers and fruits, which I have seen them offer as symbols of thanksgiving and praise to the spirituality of the universe in their bare but sufficient little temple up a flight of steps. By their belief in the Vedas they approach the Arya Samaj. But their more modern advancement and universality bring them nearer the Brahmo Samaj, or cultivated Unitarians of Hinduism, whose freedom of life and social intercourse for men and women alike gives a peculiar charm to Indian society in Calcutta. ”

“ Professor Sidney Webb in the Preface which he has written to this book says—"I believe that this is the first book dealing with what may possibly prove to be the most important religious movement in the whole of India." The author, Mr. Lajpat Rai, gives a biographical account of the Swami Dayananda, who was the founder of the Arya Samaj, and died in 1883. ”

“ The efforts of the Aryas seem to be chiefly directed to checking enlistment, but they have at times actually tampered with the loyalty of certain regiments, and their emissaries have been found within the lines of the native troops. Sikhism itself is at the present day undergoing a fresh process of transformation. Whilst it tends generally to be reabsorbed into Hinduism, the very remarkable movement for sinking the old class distinctions—themselves a survival of caste—and recognizing the equality of all Sikhs, is clearly due to the influence of the Arya Samaj. ”

“ There is room in its ample folds for the Árya Samájist, who rejects idol worship and is divesting himself of caste prejudices and marriage restrictions, and the most orthodox Sanátan dharmist, who carries out the whole elaborate daily ritual of the Brahmanical religion, and submits to all its complicated rules; for the ordinary Hindu trader, who is equally orthodox by profession, but whose ordinary religious exercises are confined to bathing in the morning ”

“ You know, as well as I do, that if we were to avow our real belief on the cow question--if we did not insist on what is virtually, as you very well know, the test point between the orthodox many and the heterodox few, we, the latter, might as well give up our aim of benefiting India, our hope of influencing its masses. It is for this reason that the Arya Somaj, though officered by men like myself, has always professed----' He paused, doubtful of committing himself, even so far; then went on, evasively: 'One has to forfeit some independence of thought in the effort to gain a great end. ”

“ And each householder had the right to be heard, for each in his own house was king and priest and there none might say him nay, were it not that the Brahmans made or unmade his peace with the Lords of Heaven through gifts and sacrifices and a ritual grown exceedingly heavy and burdensome. But against these even the fair-skinned people, the Arya, as they called themselves, did not as yet dare to murmur.
The women of Kapila also were wives and mothers of free men. Their faces were not veiled save when they themselves for modesty chose to draw the folds between themselves and too bold a gaze. ”

“ Arya, meaning “honourable,” “venerable,” is a title given only to those who have mastered the four spiritual truths:— (1) that “misery” is a necessary condition of all sentient existence; this is duhkha: (2) that the “accumulation” of misery is caused by the passions; this is samudaya: (3) that the “extinction” of passion is possible; this is nirodha: and (4) that the “path” leads to the extinction of passion; which is marga. According to their attainment of these truths, the Aryas, or followers of Buddha, are distinguished into four classes,—Srotapannas, Sakridagamins, Anagamins, and Arhats. ”

“ The Arya Somaj is awake to the importance of training men as messengers of its Gospel of Theism. It has established a Guru Kula at the foot of the Himalayas, where quite a number of young men are being trained in its doctrines and supplied with its enthusiasms. From this theological seminary many have already gone forth, in the orthodox style of religious mendicancy, to impart their teaching and spread their movement far and wide, without any expense to the society.
There is to-day, in North India, no enemy to the Christian cause so wide awake and so bitter as the Arya Somaj. ”

“ This seems an unworthy ending to a very worthy life. And yet a movement which has created two such men as Chunder Sen and Protab Mozumdar is a compliment to Christianity and has a mission before it. But it must undergo many changes ere it can exercise a commanding influence in the land.
A much more popular movement is the Arya [pg 352] Somaj. The recent census reports 40,000 members of this organization. If Brahmo Somaj represents the working of that Hindu mind which has been imbued with European culture and Christian thought towards a solution of its religious doubts and problems ”

“ It may be noted as curious that among the Javanese (a people so remote in blood from what we understand by Aryan) , the word ārya is commonly used as an honorary prefix to the names of men of rank; a survival of the ancient Hindu influence on the civilisation of the island.
The earliest use of Aryan in an ethnic sense is in the Inscription on the tomb of Darius, in which the king calls himself an Aryan, and of Aryan descent, whilst Ormuzd is in the Median version styled, 'God of the Aryans.'
B.C. c. ”

“ In the same line we find the testimony of the various types of revived Aryanism of our own times. The Brahmo Somaj, the Arya Somaj, and other similar organizations, are not only all monotheistic, but they declare that monotheism was the religion of the early Vedas. And many other Hindu reforms, some of them going as far back as the twelfth century, have been so many returns to monotheism. A recent Arya catechism published by Ganeshi, asserts in its first article that there is one only God, omnipotent, infinite, and eternal. ”

“ Aryya- C. 48. a Person of eminence, a man of worth, a master. Ayrya- C. 64, a term of high respect, of veneration, and applied to persons of high descent. One of the names of Buddha, but particularly applied to the priests of Buddha. In the Pali form it is called Ariya- C. 64. (Arya with long â, of a good family, Skr., is in the old time of Bali (and Java) one of the titles of the Xatriyas. Fr.) Ariya Bang'a, a character in ancient Javanese history, connected with the foundation of Majapahit and Pajajaran, and elder brother of Chiung Wanara. ”

“ Lala Lajpat Rai sat next me, for it was to this branch that he had devoted all his labours for social and religious reform, till injustice drove him to turn aside into politics from the true objects of the Samaj. I speak of a branch because, like most vital movements, the Samaj is divided into parties, one holding its services inside the crowded old city itself, the other just outside the ancient walls. As usually happens, the two parties in the religion have split on unessential points, for which they are prepared to die, though not to kill. ”

“ It is a religious body—a Universal Church—bent only on religious purification and the training of youth in accordance with Vedic rules. One can understand the opposition of orthodox Hindus, Mohammedans, and Christian missionaries, for in its religious propaganda the Samaj is distinctly militant and gathers in many converts. ”

“ That the Iranians must have come from the East to their later home, is sufficiently proved by their close relationship to the Indians, in conjunction with whom they previously formed a single people, bearing the name Arya. ”

“ One thing I may tell you to mark; we in spite of all radical ideas that we cherish, have not been able to do away with the overidealistic Arya Samajist conception of morality. We may talk glibly about all the radical things that can possible be conceived, but in practical life we begin to tremble at the very outset. ”

“ The Aryan settler lived on excellent terms with his bright gods. He asked for protection, with an assured conviction that it would be granted. At the same time, he was deeply stirred by the glory and mystery of the earth and the heavens. Indeed, the majesty of nature so filled his mind, that when he praises any one of his Shining Gods, he can think of none other for the time being, and adores him as the supreme ruler. Verses may be quoted declaring each of the greater deities to be the One Supreme: "Neither gods nor men reach unto thee, O Indra!" ”

“ It makes many converts among the Sikhs, and not a few among Nau-Muslims or Mahomedans who have embraced Islam in relatively recent times and mainly for the purpose of escaping from the tyranny of caste. For the same reason it attracts low-caste Hindus, for though it does not ostentatiously denounce or defy caste, it has the courage to ignore it. Though the Arya leaders are generally men of education and sometimes of great culture, they know how to present their creed in a popular form that appeals to the lower classes and especially to the agricultural population. ”

“ Thus to the Sanskrit-speaking Aryan, as to the enlightened mind of to-day, not to see it was utter blindness. What we call science, law, morality, religion, was in his view pervaded alike throughout by this concept of Divine presence, or else it would have been less than a dream that had not come to the awaking. He was a follower of the light, not from the senses or the logical understanding, but from the eternal world. Let us not dwell on any darker shade of the picture. Clouds are dark to those who are beneath them; but on the upper side, where the sun shines, they glow with golden splendor. ”

“ Lute read. “You shall become one with us, and your name shall be ‘Arya,’ and you shall—Conqueror 20, Empire 12, Columbia Mountain 18, Midway 140—and, and that is all. Oh, no! here’s a last flourish, Arya, from Kandor—that must surely be the Mahatma.”
“I’d like to have you explain that theosophy stuff on the basis of the subconscious mind, Chris,” Uncle Robert challenged.
Chris shrugged his shoulders. “No explanation. You must have got a message intended for some one else.” ”

“ Finally breaking with the old Samaj under Devendra Nath Tagore, Keshub Chandra Sen founded the new Brahmo Samaj of India on November the 11th, 1860. The new Samaj was to be on the broadest lines and open to any human being no matter what his creed or caste might be. One of its main objects was to include among its members men of all nationalities and races. ”

“ Soma itself becomes a god, and a very mighty one; he is even the creator and father of the gods; 3 the king of gods Soma becomes a very mighty god. and men;4 all creatures are in his hand. It is surely extraordinary that the Aryas could apply such hyperbolical laudations to the liquor which they had made to trickle into the vat, and which they knew to be the juice of a plant they had cut down on the mountains and pounded in a mortar ”

“ But why may not the pro-ethnic Aryans, as well as the savages, have had at one stage of their development a fear of dead kindred?"—a question arising simply from the fact that Mr. Jevons cannot bring himself to believe that the ancient Aryans ever borrowed any of the savage practices of the peoples they conquered. But, so far as I am concerned, I have never suggested that the Aryans have been wholesale borrowers of all the nasty and unpleasant customs and beliefs which are now found to survive amongst the nations who speak an Aryan language. ”

“ EARLY CULTURE OF THE ARYANS.—One of the most fascinating studies of recent growth is that which reveals to us the customs, beliefs, and mode of life of the early Aryans, while they were yet living together as a single household. Upon comparing the myths, legends, and ballads of the different Aryan peoples, we discover the curious fact that, under various disguises, they are the same. Thus our nursery tales are found to be identical with those with which the Hindu children are amused. ”

“ Like the Aryas in the Panjab, the tribes of the Airyas in Iran prayed to Mithra, to the spirits of light, the clear air, the wind, and fire, which protected them against the demons of the night and gloom, and gave increase to their pastures and flocks, and recovered the water of the sky which the demons sought to carry away. As in India, the juice of the Soma plant was the principal offering presented to the gods; as Soma was not only the king of plants, the lord of nourishment and life—so the liquor which gave strength to the gods was here also a god, Haoma. ”

“ It is scarcely probable that the primitively Aryans considered ‘thinking’ to be the essential characteristic of a man. We should rather assume from the earliest Aryan literature, the Old Indian Vedas, that the primitively Aryan felt he was closely allied to the brutes, since the Vedic Indian actually calls himself paçu, ‘beast.’ The literal meaning of Aryan manu-, ‘person,’ can hardly be ascertained now. ”

“ The earlier hymns exhibit the Aryans on the north-western frontiers of India just starting on their long journey. They show us the Aryans on the banks of the Indus, divided into various tribes, sometimes at war with each other, sometimes united against the “black-skinned” aborigines. Caste, in its later sense, is unknown. Each father of a family is the priest of his own household. The chieftain acts as father and priest to the tribe; but at the greater festivals he chooses some one specially learned in holy offerings to conduct the sacrifice in the name of the people. ”

“ And a man with a shining face said unto him, “Needs must; and thy son shall become a true and excellent teacher of God all the days of his life.” Now this Samuel was pure from his youth up, like Samuel the Prophet, and he was always thinking in his heart about the garb of the monastic life. One day he found the opportunity and went forth from his father to go to the desert of Scete, and as he was journeying along the road, the angel of the Lord, disguised as a monk, said unto him, “Whither goest thou?” And Abba Samuel said unto him, “I want to go to the monastery of Scete.” ”