Under the regis of the Arya Samaj women are being educated, and their seclusion is being steadily dis couraged. Widows are allowed to remarry, should they chose to do so. The untouchables are being reclaimed, and on admission to the Samaj invested with the sacred thread that till recently was the monopoly of the Brahmins. Orphanages, schools, colleges, Gurukulas, numerous places for corporate worship, Maha Kanya Pathashalas for girls, these form the milestones in the Samaj's onward march to progress. Early marriages are under a ban.
All these wholesome developments are undoubtedly due to the great inspiration given by the Swami's convictions and teachings and by his life. Religious self-torture is condemned by the Samaj as a degrading penance that is gross superstition and has no religious value. Shraddhas or food-offerings for the souls of departed relatives are positively discountenanced as mere animistic rites. Child-marriages are strictly forbidden in theory, though it is difficult to say for certain what happens in actual fact. It is to be presumed, however, that a large majority of pro gressives do observe the ordinance that men are not to marry till they are twenty-five and women till they are sixteen. An exchange of photographs between the contracting parties to a marriage was suggested by Dayananda as an improvement on the old-fashioned marriages, where the parties do not even see each other's faces until they are married.
The history of a nation is indissolubly bound up with the biography of its illustrious men and women. It is the lives and personalities of a country's heroes and heroines that profoundly affect its prevailing ethical standards and, in fact, call into being a new environment in which the masses might live and move. Judged by any standards, however severe or exacting, Daya Nanda Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj in Bombay and Upper India was indeed a great man, not only in the estimation of his friends and adherents, but what is still more striking in the judgment of his opponents as well. The Indian tradition, whatever its failings and limitations still, has been considerably enriched by the Swami's message and life-work. It would have been poorer but for his opportune appearance and the grand delivery of a great message. Even to-day, the con tagious influence of his virile, independent and truth loving personality is visibly operative in the various activities, social, religious, educational and propa gandist, on which the Arya Samaj has courageously launched. Daya Nanda, though dead, yet speaketh
in clear, clarion accents to the advocates of social and religious reform. It is easy, fatally easy, to praise him ; easier still to condemn his teachings, at least some of them ; but it is difficult, very difficult, to appraise the nature of his services to the national regeneration of India. And yet, this task, arduous though it be, must be undertaken in a spirit that combines generous appreciation with fidelity to truth.
The Swami may, quite appropriately, be called the Luther of Hinduism, since he has, beyond doubt, rendered the same service to Hinduism by way of purging it of its errors, excesses and anomalies, that Martin Luther did to the cause of Reformation in Europe, towards the beginning of the sixteenth century. Opinions may differ as to the precise value or permanence of the contributions either of Luther in the course of the sixteenth century in Europe, or of Daya Nanda in the last decades of the nineteenth century in India. But there can be no two opinions on the point that both worked for religious emancipation, for liberty of conscience, for the right of individual judgment and for the asser tion of individuality against the cramping, crush ing effects of time-old ecclesiastical systems. There may be nothing inherently wrong in a system as such. In fact all human efforts must be co-ordinated and systematised, before they can be prolific of lasting and far-reaching results. But the moment a system, in its overpowering zeal, however laudable that zeal may in itself be, becomes a menace to individuality, to personal character, to the right of interpreting truth, to the capacity for challenging error enjoyed in various degrees by all individuals : the moment a system begins to extort a me chanical obedience to tradition, whatever its character, and to mandates however arbitrary ; to the fiats of will exercised by an interested hierarchy of priests—all that we can say, then, is that the life has departed from that system. And a mere semblance of life is worse than the trappings of death. It is during crises when bad and defunct systems professed to play the role of vital power, that good and great men have been needed— and have appeared.