ARYA-SAMÁJ. – Properly, “community, society of the Aryans”; one of the numerous religious-social movements of modern India, founded in 1865 by Dayánand Saraswati, a Brahman from Kathyawar (1824–1883), and rapidly spread throughout northern India (Panjab and the United Provinces). An opponent of European culture and of all its influence, and particularly hostile to the teachings of Christianity and Islam, Dayánand advocated the return of Hinduism to its primitive purity through its restoration to the Vedic sources, in whose divinities he saw the symbolic personification of the forces of nature.
His doctrine is therefore monotheistic: God, the most perfect being—whose worship is an indispensable means, together with uprightness of life, to the emancipation of souls from wandering through successive existences and to celestial blessedness—is the creator, ruler, and destroyer of the world; its existence is consequently a perpetual arising, perishing, and renewal. Every possible knowledge of the past, the present, and even of whatever future ages may conceive—not only concerning India—must be regarded as already contained in the Veda, which must thus be considered the book of divine wisdom. Every other religion that does not accept its word must therefore be rejected, whether it be not only Christianity or Islam, but also Buddhism and Hinduism, the latter of which admits the idolatry categorically repudiated by Dayánand. Dayánand likewise did not admit the remission of sins; the caste system and child marriage were opposed; the need for greater education among the lower classes and the equalization of women’s rights with those of men were defended.
The propaganda conducted by the A.-S. among the Christians and Muslims of India is noteworthy, even since, following Dayánand’s death in 1883, it divided into three distinct groups, with gradually differing tendencies. Of these, one, strictly conservative, adheres closely to the teachings 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, vigorously opposes every foreign influence and would like to “revive the golden age of ancient India.”
In 1921 the A.-S., whose adherents were constantly increasing, counted, as a consequence not only of its active propaganda but also of its nationalist spirit, 468,000 followers in Bengal alone.