. Hindu Revivalism (a) Swami Dayanand Saraswati and Arya Samaj In the Punjab, the reform movement was spearheaded by the Arya Samaj. It was founded ( ) by a wandering ascetic in the western Gangetic plain, Swami Dayanand Saraswati ( – ). Swami Dayanand later settled in the Punjab to preach his ideas.
His book, Satyarthaprakash , enjoyed wide circulation. He declared the practices such as child marriage, the prohibition of widow remarriage, and the alleged polluting effects of foreign travel had no scriptural sanction. The positive principles enunciated by Dayanand were: strict monotheism, condemnation of idolatry, and rejection of Brahman domination of ritual and social practices. He also rejected superstitious beliefs in Hinduism and his cry was “go back to Vedas.” Arya Samaj attempted to check the incidence of religious conversion in British India.
One of its main objectives was counter- conversion, prescribing a purificatory ceremony called suddhi, directed at Hindus who had converted to Islam and Christianity. Swami Dayanand Saraswati Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar Social and Religious Reform Movements in the 19th Century (c) Swami Vivekananda Narendra Nath Datta (l863– ), later known as Swami Vivekananda, was the prime follower of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. An educated youth, he was drawn to Ramakrishna’s message. Dissatisfied with conventional philosophical positions and practices, he advocated the practical Vedanta of service to humanity and attacked the tendency to defend every institution simply because it was connected with religion.
He emphasized a cultural nationalism and made a call to Indian youth to regenerate Hindu society. His ideas bred a sense of self-confidence among Indians who felt inferior in relation to the materialist achievements of the West. He became famous for his addresses on Hinduism at the World Congress of Religions in Chicago. Despite his fame, he was condemned by orthodox Hindus for suggesting that the lower castes should be allowed to engage in the Hindu rituals from which they were traditionally excluded.
Vivekananda’s activist ideology rekindled the desire for political change among many western-education young Bengalis. Many of the youths who were involved in the militant