Swami Dayanand Saraswati

Swami Dayanand Saraswati's real name was 'Mool Shankar Tiwari'. He was born in 1824 in Tankara, Gujarat in a rich Brahmin family. At the age of eight, he underwent the sacred thread ceremony (Upanayana). When he turned fourteen his father took him to the temple on Shivaratri. Dayanand kept fast and kept himself awake the entire night. He was a great devotee of Lord Shiva. At night, he saw a rat nibbling the offerings to the God and running over Lord Shiva's body. He tried to find out why the 'God Almighty' could not protect himself against the danger of petty mice. After this incident, Dayanand had no faith in the idol worship and thereafter he refused to participate in the religious rites for the rest of his life.

At the age of nineteen, he ran away from home to escape from an enforced marriage. He was caught and locked up. He fled again in 1845. For fifteen years, he moved all over the country in search of a spiritual leader. In 1860, he found his spiritual leader and mentor 'Swami Virjanand Saraswati' at Mathura. He was a blind man. Dayanand Saraswati underwent rigorous training under Swami Virjanand Saraswati. Virjanand Saraswati gave him the name Dayanand and as guru Dakshina took a promise from Dayanand that he would devote his whole life to the revival of Hinduism.

Dayanand Saraswati toured throughout the county, made sizzling speeches, accused the caste system, idol worship, and child marriage. Dayanand Saraswati welcomed the advances of sciences and technology. To him, the Vedas were the sourcebook that contained the seeds of science and they supported the philosophy of dynamic realism.

Dayanand Saraswati founded Arya Samaj in Mumbai in 1875 to promote social service. Arya Samaj stresses on the principles of equal justice for all men and all nations, together with equality of the sexes. It rejects the caste system and only recognizes professions or guilds, suitable to the complementary aptitudes of men in society. Dayanand Saraswati gave new interpretations to reform the stagnant Hindu thought through his book 'Satyaprakash' (The Light of Truth).

He profusely quoted the Vedas and other religious texts to insist that salvation was not the only motto of a Hindu or Arya, as was believed. To lead a fruitful worldly life, working for a noble cause was important and he preached that salvation was possible through social service. Due to his radical thought, Swami Dayanand had acquired enemies from all spheres of life. On the occasion of Deepawali in 1883, he was a guest of the Maharaja of Jodhpur. The king was a womanizer and Dayanand advised the king to lead a righteous life as a ruler, upsetting a mistress by the name of Nanhi Jan. That night Swami Dayanand was poisoned during the festival meal and he died.