96 



THE REV. H. D. GRISWOLD, M.A._, PH.D., ON 



III. Doctrine. 



We come now to the doctrine taught by Swami Dayanand. 

 It has already been stated that the Arya Samaj is the joint 

 offspring of Hinduism and Western thought. As Swami 

 Dayanand wandered up and down throughout India, he studied 

 not only the past but also the present, not only the thought of 

 India as embodied in Yeda and Upanishad, Sutra and Epic, but 

 also the thought of Europe as embodied especially in the 

 devices of modern science, everywhere manifest in India, such 

 as railroads, telegraphs and other mechanical inventions. He 

 finally arrived at a scheme for reconciling the present with the 

 past, the West with the East. It was something like this. 

 The word " Veda " means knowledge. It is God's knowledge, 

 and, therefore, pure and perfect. This transcendent and heavenly 

 knowledge embraces the fundamental principles of all the 

 sciences. These principles God revealed in two ways : (1) in 

 the form of the four Vedas, which were taught to four rishis, 

 Agni, Vayu, Suraj and Angira, at the begiuning of Creation 

 over one hundred billion years ago, and (2) in the form of the 

 vv'orld of nature, which was created according to the principles 

 laid down in the Vedas, somewhat as the Tabernacle is said 

 to have been built according to the pattern shown in the 

 mount (Exodus xxv, 40). 



]N"otice the ambiguity in the meaning assigned to the word 

 " VedcC It is (1) God's knowledge, the content of the Divine 

 omniscience, which is one thing ; and (2) it is the collection of 

 Aryan literature known as the Four Vedas, which is quite a 

 different thing. One may believe in the Veda in the first 

 sense, without accepting it in the second sense. The Vedas, 

 then, being regarded as " the Scripture of true knowledge," the 

 perfect counterpart of God's knowledge so far as basic 

 principles" are concerned, and the "pattern" according to 

 which Creation proceeded, it follows that the fundamental 

 principle of Vedic exegesis will be the interpretation of the 

 Vedas in such a way as to find m them the results of natural 

 science. As E. D. Maclagan remarks : " The bases of the 

 Aryan faith are the revelation of God in the Vedas and the 

 revelation of God in nature, and the first practical element in 

 this belief is the interpretation of the Vedas in conformity 

 with the proved results of Natural Science."* In other words, 

 there is involved the assumption that the Vedas as "the 



Census of India, 1891, vol. xix, p. 175. 



