THE ARYA SAMAJ. 



93 



" twice born " castes. The founder of the Arya Samaj thus 

 sought to glorify his society and make it attractive by bestow- 

 ing on it a name of conspicuous dignity, and one, too, clothed 

 with patriotic associations. 



II. The Founder. 



The Arya Samaj was founded by Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, 

 a Gujrati Brahman, who was born in the year 1824, in 

 Kathiawar. He refused to give either his name or his birth- 

 place during his life, lest he should be hindered in his work. 

 After his death in 1883 it came out that his real name was 

 Mul Shankar, son of Amba Shankar, a banker and revenue 

 collector living in a village under the jurisdiction of the Raja 

 of Morvi in Kathiawar. He was brought up in the Shaiva 

 type of doctrine. For his home life and for the account of 

 his early wanderings and studies, we are indebted to his 

 Autobiography first published in the Theosophist (October and 

 December, 1879, and November, 1880), and the only important 

 fruit of the temporary union of the Arya Samaj and the 

 Theosophical Society. There are three moments of religious 

 interest in the home life of Mul Shankar, alias Dayanand 

 Sarasvati — first, his revolt from idolatry owing to an 

 experience on the night of his initiation into the mysteries of 

 the Shaiva cult, when he saw mice running over the image of 

 Shiva and defiling it ; second, his determination to abandon 

 the world and seek Mukti (salvation), the result of his profound 

 grief on account of the death of his sister ; and third, his flight 

 from home at the age of twenty-one, in order to avoid the 

 entanglement of marriage into which his parents were 

 determined he should enter. There is no reason for question- 

 ing the essential truthfulness of the account of these early 

 experiences. The sincerity of his revolt from idolatry, however 

 it came about, is proved by the magnificent courage and vigour 

 with which he afterwards attacked idolatry in its chief centres, 

 such as Hardwar and Benares. In fact, in his attitude towards 

 idolatry he was an ally of Christianity rather than a foe. 

 After his. flight from home he spent about eighteen years as a 

 Sannyasi or religious mendicant, wandering from place to place 

 and learning from a great variety of teachers. He first came 

 under Vedantic influences, and for a time w^as convinced of the 

 identity of the individual soul and the Supreme Soul. After- 

 wards he became interested in the science of Yoga and deserted 

 the Vedanta standpoint. Later on he studied the Vedas under 



