05-22-2005, 05:19 AM
I started this topic to discuss anything related to Arya Samaj. It's contributions to Hindu society have been great and need not be repeated here. Also I just wanted to discuss negative aspects of arya samaj as well (like contributing to the alienation of sikhs by calling Guru Nanak a pretender etc) and also the reasons for the decline of arya samaj. I will start off the topic by giving a short passage from Koenraad Elst's book "Who is a Hindu?" in which he discusses whether Arya Samaj is Hindu:
6.6. Is the Arya Samaj Hindu?
Many Hindus feared that a different outcome in the RK Mission court case might have had a disastrous precedent value for other organizations with a weak Hindu self-identification. Jagmohan, former Governor of Jammu & Kashmir and a hero of the Hindutva movement, comments: âHad the Supreme Court come to the same conclusion as the Calcutta High Court, many more sects and denominations would have appeared on the scene claiming positions outside Hinduism and thereby causing further fragmentation of the Hindu society.â37
Then again, perhaps the effect of a recognition of the RK Mission as a minority would not have been nearly as dramatic as Jagmohan expected, for in several states, another Hindu reformist organization has enjoyed minority status for decades without triggering the predicted exodus. Jagmohan himself has noted a case where âthe temptations in-built in Article 30 impelled the followers of Arya Samaj to request the Delhi High Court to accord the status of a minority religionâ but âthe Division Bench of the Delhi High Court rightly rejected the contention of the Arya Samajâ.38 However, as early as 1971, the Arya Samaj gained the status of âminorityâ in Panjab. Then already, it had that status in Bihar, along with the Brahmo Samaj.39
In a way, the Arya Samaj is a minority: the Arya-Samajis are fewer in number than the non-Arya-Samajis.40 By this criterion, every Hindu sect is a minority, and every Hindu school which calls itself âShaiva schoolâ or âRam bhakta schoolâ would pass as a minority institution, protected by Art.30. But that is of course not how the courts and the legislators have understood it: in principle, all Hindu minorities within the Hindu majority are deprived of the privileges accorded to the ârealâ minorities.
In Swami Dayanandaâs view, the term Arya was not coterminous with the term Hindu. The classical meaning of the word Arya is ânobleâ. It is used as an honorific term of address, used in addressing the honoured ones in ancient Indian parlance.41 The term Hindu is reluctantly accepted as a descriptive term for the contemporary Hindu society and all its varied beliefs and practices, while the term Arya is normative and designates Hinduism as it ought to be. Swami Dayanandaâs use of the term Arya is peculiar in that he excludes the entire Puranic (as opposed to the Vedic) tradition from its semantic domain, i.e. the major part of contemporary Hinduism. Elsewhere in Hindu society, âAryaâ was and is considered a synonym for âHinduâ, except that it may be broader, viz. by unambiguously including Buddhism and Jainism. Thus, the Constitution of the âindependent, indivisible and sovereign monarchical Hindu kingdomâ (Art.3:1) of Nepal take care to include the Buddhist minority by ordaining the king to uphold âAryan culture and Hindu religionâ (Art.20: 1).42 Either way, the semantic kinship of the two terms implies that the group which chose to call itself Arya Samaj is a movement to reform Hinduism (viz. to bring it up to Arya standards), and, not another or a newly invented religion.
The Arya Samajâs misgivings about the term Hindu already arose in tempore non suspecto, long before it became a dirty Word under Jawaharlal Nehru and a cause of legal disadvantage under the 1950 Constitution. Swami Dayananda Saraswati rightly objected that the term had been given by foreigners (who, moreover, gave all kinds of derogatory meanings to it) and considered that dependence on an exonym is a bit sub-standard for a highly literate and self-expressive civilization. This argument retains a certain validity: the self-identification of Hindus as âHinduâ can never be more than a second-best option. On the other hand, it is the most practical choice in the short run, and most Hindus donât seem to pine for an alternative.
http://voi.org/books/wiah/ch6.htm
And the following is a link to an online book by Swami Dayananad Saraswati (founder of Arya Samaj) titled "Satyaprakash":
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/3440/books.html
6.6. Is the Arya Samaj Hindu?
Many Hindus feared that a different outcome in the RK Mission court case might have had a disastrous precedent value for other organizations with a weak Hindu self-identification. Jagmohan, former Governor of Jammu & Kashmir and a hero of the Hindutva movement, comments: âHad the Supreme Court come to the same conclusion as the Calcutta High Court, many more sects and denominations would have appeared on the scene claiming positions outside Hinduism and thereby causing further fragmentation of the Hindu society.â37
Then again, perhaps the effect of a recognition of the RK Mission as a minority would not have been nearly as dramatic as Jagmohan expected, for in several states, another Hindu reformist organization has enjoyed minority status for decades without triggering the predicted exodus. Jagmohan himself has noted a case where âthe temptations in-built in Article 30 impelled the followers of Arya Samaj to request the Delhi High Court to accord the status of a minority religionâ but âthe Division Bench of the Delhi High Court rightly rejected the contention of the Arya Samajâ.38 However, as early as 1971, the Arya Samaj gained the status of âminorityâ in Panjab. Then already, it had that status in Bihar, along with the Brahmo Samaj.39
In a way, the Arya Samaj is a minority: the Arya-Samajis are fewer in number than the non-Arya-Samajis.40 By this criterion, every Hindu sect is a minority, and every Hindu school which calls itself âShaiva schoolâ or âRam bhakta schoolâ would pass as a minority institution, protected by Art.30. But that is of course not how the courts and the legislators have understood it: in principle, all Hindu minorities within the Hindu majority are deprived of the privileges accorded to the ârealâ minorities.
In Swami Dayanandaâs view, the term Arya was not coterminous with the term Hindu. The classical meaning of the word Arya is ânobleâ. It is used as an honorific term of address, used in addressing the honoured ones in ancient Indian parlance.41 The term Hindu is reluctantly accepted as a descriptive term for the contemporary Hindu society and all its varied beliefs and practices, while the term Arya is normative and designates Hinduism as it ought to be. Swami Dayanandaâs use of the term Arya is peculiar in that he excludes the entire Puranic (as opposed to the Vedic) tradition from its semantic domain, i.e. the major part of contemporary Hinduism. Elsewhere in Hindu society, âAryaâ was and is considered a synonym for âHinduâ, except that it may be broader, viz. by unambiguously including Buddhism and Jainism. Thus, the Constitution of the âindependent, indivisible and sovereign monarchical Hindu kingdomâ (Art.3:1) of Nepal take care to include the Buddhist minority by ordaining the king to uphold âAryan culture and Hindu religionâ (Art.20: 1).42 Either way, the semantic kinship of the two terms implies that the group which chose to call itself Arya Samaj is a movement to reform Hinduism (viz. to bring it up to Arya standards), and, not another or a newly invented religion.
The Arya Samajâs misgivings about the term Hindu already arose in tempore non suspecto, long before it became a dirty Word under Jawaharlal Nehru and a cause of legal disadvantage under the 1950 Constitution. Swami Dayananda Saraswati rightly objected that the term had been given by foreigners (who, moreover, gave all kinds of derogatory meanings to it) and considered that dependence on an exonym is a bit sub-standard for a highly literate and self-expressive civilization. This argument retains a certain validity: the self-identification of Hindus as âHinduâ can never be more than a second-best option. On the other hand, it is the most practical choice in the short run, and most Hindus donât seem to pine for an alternative.
http://voi.org/books/wiah/ch6.htm
And the following is a link to an online book by Swami Dayananad Saraswati (founder of Arya Samaj) titled "Satyaprakash":
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/3440/books.html