Disclaimer: I am not an Arya Samajist
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I am reproducing a brief narrative of Swami Dayananada Saraswati.
Swami Dayananda was born in 1825 into a wealthy Saivite family in Gujarat. At the age of eight he was invested with the sacred brahmin thread. In February of the year 1839, he got disillusioned with the idol worship being followed, and took the renunciate vows of sannyasa at the age of 24 from Swami Purnananda Saraswati and for twelve years studied and practiced yoga with great teachers such as Swami Yogananda at Mount Abu and saints in Rishikesh and Haridwar.
He also received some training in tantric practices. During his extensive wanderings, he practiced great austerities, but apparently became disillusioned with these methods. The conviction grew within him that his mission in life was to help others. As time went on, he focused progressively more and more on the social and political arena, an inclination greatly motivated by the events of his time.
Swami Dayananda Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875 as a social/political reform movement within Hinduism. He sought to reestablish the Vedas as the primary scriptural source. Toward this aim, his Arya Samaj opposed idolatry, child marriage, child labour, untouchability, non-Vedic literature such as the Puranas, animal sacrifice, discrimination against women, a caste system based on birth rather than merit, pilgrimage, austerity and complex temple rituals.
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Let me clarify a few issues here.
- Rig Veda and Sama Veda came first almost more than 10,000 years ago, Yajur Veda came some 10,000 years later to Rig Veda, Brahmanas/Upanishads came next, Ramayana, Mahabharata appeared next in line, Atharva Veda next, and Puranas came last in the line.
- Sage Vyasa composed ONLY Jaya Samhita, the original version of Mahabharata
- In view of some interpolated shlokas available in the Mahabharata, there is a misunderstanding that Sage Vyasa divided the Veda into 4 parts.
- We have to remember that even Brahmanas, Ramayana mentioned 3 vedas, indicating that even before Sage Vyasa existed the veda remained in 3 parts, requiring no further division.
- Sage Vyasa did not compose Puranas.
- The Puranas were composed by later date scholars, ie., (i) Vaishnavaite scholars composed Vishnu Purana, Bhagavata Purana, Padma Purana, etc, (ii) Shiva Purana was composed by Shaivaite scholars, (iii) Shakteya scholars composed Devi Bhagavata Purana.
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As the founder of Arya Samaj Swami Dayananda Saraswati did not believe in Puranic literature, the followers of Arya Samaj do not believe in Puranas.
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The Puranas came into existence in order to explain the basic Rig Vedic spiritual concepts, narrated in esoteric manner, and to eulogise the respective deity as the SUPREME POWER, ie, Vaishnavaites projected Vishnu as the SUPREME POWER, Shaivaites projected SHIVA as the SUPREME POWER, and Shakteyas projected DEVI as the SUPREME POWER.
While those scholars succeeded in eulogising their respective deities, they failed at majority issues in properly explaining the spiritual concepts of the Rig Veda.
I am quoting below a few major failures of the scholars of the Puranas:
- Rig Veda did not mention any physical gods.
- The names like AGNI, INDRA, VAYU, VISHNU, SARASWATI, etc, mentioned in Rig Veda are the epithets to indicate the same formless ENERGY or BRAHMAN. However, the Puranas projected those epithets as the proper names of the Physical gods
- In order to elevate their respective deity, ie., Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, the scholars of the Puranas composed stories, viz., Indra as a womanizer, power monger, thus, demeaning the Rig Vedic deities like INDRA, AGNI, etc.
- In Rig Veda, Saraswati’s another name is Urvaśī - Rig Veda 5.41.19. However, the scholars of the Puranas converted this venerable name Urvashi into the name of a celestial damsel.
- The Saadhana of a spiritual practitioner and experiencing the DIVINE BLISS or SOMA (Rig Veda 10.109.6), as mentioned in the Rig Veda, was converted to a sexual relationship between Tara, the wife of Brihaspati and Chandra in Puranas.
- Ridiculous and deplorable stories/interpolations indeed
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Shri Dayananda Saraswati might have observed these types of deplorable writings in Puranas, compared to Rig Veda, and might have got vexed.
His approach may be a little bit aggressive, but we cannot find fault with his sincerity.
