" Back to the Vedas " was his battle cry, as the great sannyasi emerged on the controversial arena. India's only hope was, according to him, to redis cover the faith that was once delivered to the Munis and Rishis as these were enwrapped in holy medita tion, grappling with the ultimate mysteries of life.
Surely in India, if anywhere, has the battle of the soul been fought with a fierce intensity that knows of very few parallels in the annals of religious experience. And these champions of the Eternal have left behind them the records of their mystic struggles and of their triumphant discoveries of the spiritual realm, all recorded and preserved for us in the Vedas. To the Swami, no doubt, the Vedas were the only revealed word of God ; infallible, containing in them the secret not only of all religious truth, but also the promise and potentiality of all scientific discovery, of the latest philosophical view of life, of mechanical inventions and political theory. But of this later.
But what, after all, has this mysterious conversion led to ? The students of comparative religion or of the science of religion might, no doubt, point out that the learned Swami, in repudiating the traditional faith and striving to propagate the above ideas had only fallen from one error on to another. If what he boldly repudiated was erroneous, false, degrading, priest-ridden, is what he later preached capable of vindication on strict scientific grounds ? The limits of the present book preclude our entering on technical metaphysical issues or our reviewing the Swami's teachings in the light of the latest findings of the science of religion. We are not primarily interested, in the course of these essays, with the Arya Samaj as promulgating a body of doctrines, but with the movement in so far as it has worked for national regeneration, for instilling the ideals of progress, social purity, nationality, self reliance and social reform into the mind of the rising generation in India. Judged by these criteria the Swami will continue to occupy a conspicuous position in the muster-roll of fame, as one who undermined the very foundations of orthodoxy and effected a revolu tion in ideas and outlook in an exceedingly conserva tive country like India, and prepared a way for the wonderful Renaissance whose varied healthy mani festations we see to-day, in every department of thought, feeling and action.
" Words, words piled on words and words again " the sceptically inclined may say to the above. They evidently ask for signs and wonders. To such we shall point out the Gurukula in Hardawar, which as an educational experiment along indigenous lines possesses unique value, and together with its highly gifted and self-sacrificing governor, Mahatma Munshi Rama, is a living monument to Daya Nand's life and teachings. With a stroke of the pen has the Arya Samaj changed the individual worship of the Hindu devotee into organised congregational worship of believers professing a unity of faith ; it has served as a pathfinder in the trackless jungle of Hindu beliefs ; it has abolished caste ; it has demolished priesthood.
At the magnificent Durbar held in Delhi on the 1st of January, 1877, when Queen Victoria was proclaimed, during Lord Lytton's viceroyalty, as Empress of India, there was a remarkable man present on the occasion, as guest of one of the ruling princes, who was destined to revolutionise the religious ideas and preconceptions of orthodox India.
That man was Mul Shankara, the subject of the present sketch. It is curious that very few should know of his original and real name almost till the day of his death. He was born in 1824, in the town of Tankara, situated in the Indian state of Morvi Gujerat, Western India. His father was a wealthy banker in the town and was, more over, Jamadar or headman of the small village, which office the family held as a hereditary right. Amba Shankar, for that was the father's name, was very anxious naturally that the son should be well-grounded in the tenets of Shivaism, and turn out eventually to be a worshipper of the god Shiva. At the early age of fourteen, the boy had committed to memory large portions of the Vedas, besides being trained in the elaborate rules of Sanskrit grammar.