ARYA-SAMAJ. - Properly "community, society of the Aryas"; one of the numerous religio-social movements of modern India, founded in 1865 by Dayánand Saraswati, a Brahmin of Kathiawar (1824-1883), which spread in a short time throughout all of northern India (the Punjab and the United Provinces). An opponent of European culture and of every influence of it, and particularly hostile to the tenets of Christianity and of Islam, Dayánand advocated the return of Hinduism to its primitive purity through its restoration to the Vedic sources, in whose deities he saw symbolically personified the forces of nature.
His is therefore a monotheistic doctrine according to which God, a most perfect being — whose worship is an indispensable means, as is rectitude of life, for the emancipation of souls from their wandering through existences, and for celestial beatitude — is the creator, ruler and destroyer of the world; the existence of which is consequently a perpetual arising, perishing and renewing. Every possible cognition of the past, the present, and even of whatever future ages may conceive — not only for India — must be considered as already included in the Veda, which is thus to be regarded as the book of divine wisdom. Every other religion that does not accept its word is therefore to be rejected, be it not only Christianity or Islam, but also Buddhism and Hinduism, the latter of which admits idolatry, which Dayánand clearly repudiated. Nor does Dayánand admit the remission of sins; the caste system and child marriage are opposed; the necessity of greater education for the lower classes and the equalization of women's rights with those of men are defended.
Noteworthy is the propaganda that the A.-S. carries on among the Christians and Muslims of India, also since, after Dayánand's death in 1883, it divided into three distinct groups, with gradually differing tendencies. Of these, one, severely conservative, holds fast to the dictates of the Veda; another does not disdain to accept European customs and permits the eating of meat; the third, finally, animated by a nationalist spirit, energetically opposes every foreign influence and would wish to "revive the golden age of ancient India."
In 1921 the A.-S., whose adherents are constantly increasing, counted, also as a consequence of its nationalist spirit as well as of its active propaganda, in Bengal alone 468,000 members.