कृण्वन्तो विश्वमार्यम्
A frame of adamant, a soul of fire ;
No dangers fright him, no labours tire.
"GREAT MEN are the fire-pillars in this dark pilgrimage
o mankind ; they stand as heavenly Signs,
ever-living witnesses of what has been, prophetic
tokens of what still may be, the revealed, embodied
possibilities of human nature."
Great men are pillars of light to light up the path
of man in this life ; their lives and their work serve
as guides to men to enable them to traverse the
passage of life in this world in safety and peace. They
are the divine and never-failing embodiments of
knowledge of the good that there was in the Past, and
they reveal in an unmistakable manner what man-
kind in future may be, and to what height of greatness
every man may rise. Great men are the living illus-
trations of the noble elevation to which humanity will
eventually rise in the future.
A Great Man, is an unfailing guide of mankind and
embodies in himself the nobility and perfection of
human nature. Dayanand Saraswati was, in this sense
of the term, a perfect example of a great man.
"Great men seem to be part of the Infinite, brothers
of the Seas and the Mountains," says Colonel Ingersoll,
the greatest of the American orators. Humanity is infinite.
Great men, possessing in a greater measure
Great men, possessing in a greater measure
the qualities that distinguish man from animals, help
us to realise infinity in their greatness. As the skies,
the seas and the mountains transcend our physical
vision and appear to us to have no end, so do great
men transcend our mental vision and their proportions
fade into infinity. The seas and the mountains deter-
mine on the physical plane, the settlement of people,
the growth of cities and towns, and the flow of trade;
so do great men elevate the moral and spiritual life of
men, and bring into being ideas and forces, that control
and regulate in a great measure, the ordinary day to day
life of peoples, and permanently affect their out-look
and their ideals. The influence of great men is lasting,
as is the influence of the seas and the mountains.
Great men are not all fashioned after one pattern.
Every one has an individuality of his own. There is
no single standard by which to measure them all. No
one in this world can remain uninfluenced by the
environment in which he grows up ; and the environ-
ment never being the same, different people develop
different qualities and in different measures.
One generally accepted standard used in judging
great men, however, is the good they have done to the world, the extent to which they have helped the masses, the level of happiness and prosperity to which they have raised mankind, the intellectual and spiritual advancement of the peoples of the world they have brought about. It is this standard that reminds one of the dictum that great men are part of the infinite.
Sri Rama Chandra, Bhishma, Sagara, Asoka,
Samudragupta, Vikramaditya, Harsha, Devapala, Alexander, Caesar, Vikramadotya, Rana Kumbha, Bhoja, Charlemagne, Napolean were all great
men, each in his own way. Great poets like Valmiki,
Kalidas, Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Goethe;
philosophers and thinkers like Vyas, Gautama,
Kanada, Sankaracharya, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Herbert Spencer have brought much light and joy to
the world and have helped in raising the intellectual
and spiritual level o mankind, and added to their
happiness and contentment. Patriots like Pratap,
Sivaji, William Tell, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Robert
Bruce, Kamal Pasha have served humanity through
their own countries, raised the moral level of
mankind and have established landmarks which are
a never-failing source of strength and inspiration
to men in every country and clime. Greater than
all these, however, are men, who having known Truth
and received the light not vouch safed to ordinary
men, love mankind; who, burning with the desire
to promote human welfare, themselves lead lives of
absolute purity and self-denial, and devote themselves
to revealing fundamental truths of life, forgotten or
long hidden; who hold aloft high ideals of conduct
for people to follow, and ceaselessly work to lighten
their burdens and to remove the injustices, the suffer-
ings, the sorrows of the world by banishing ignorance,
and guiding them towards truth, light and happiness.
While heroes extort admiration and furnish inspira-
tion; poets, thinkers and philosophers win gratitude
and affection ; mankind offer their reverence, love,
homage and adoration to the Regenerators of people
like Krishna, Buddha and Jesus. Dayanand Saras wati
belonged to this small number of the Elect.
These men represent the highest and the noblest
in humanity; they have reached the summit of human
glory and greatness.
THE VEDAS
According to Hindu belief, when God created
man, he revealed the Vedas for his guidance.
The Vedas radiated the light that illumined the
world by teaching those eternal truths and principles
that help us to realise the nature and the co-relation o God and man of Parmatma, Atmd and Prakriti
of Humanity and Divinity.
Professor Max Muller says; "In the history of
the world, the Vedas fill a gap which no literary
work in any other language could fill." Guigault
says: "The Rigveda is the most sublime conception of
the great high-ways of humanity." 'Mons Leon Delbos
says : " There is no monument of Greece or Rome
more precious than the Rig Veda." When the
Yajur Veda was presented to Voltaire, he expressed
his belief that "the Veda was the most precious gift
for which the West had ever been indebted to
the East."
Sriyut Aurovindo Ghosh, one of the great living
Indians, says: "The ancient civilization did possess
secrets of science, some of which modern knowledge
has recovered, extended and made rich and precise,
but others are even now not recovered. There is then
nothing fantastic in Dayanand's idea that the Veda
contains truth of science as well as truth of religion.
I will even add my own conviction that the Veda
contains truths of science, the modern world does not
at all possess, and in that case Dayanand has rather
understated than overstated the depth and range of
the Vedic wisdom.
"In the matter of Vedic interpretation, I am
convinced that whatever may be the final complete
interpretation, Dayanand will be honoured as the
first discoverer of the right clues. Amidst the chaos
and obscurity of old ignorance and age-long misunderstanding, his was the eye of direct vision that pierced to the truth and fastened on that which was essential. He has found the key of doors that time had closed, and rent asunder the seals of the imprisoned fountain. The essential is that he seized justly on the Vedas as the Indian rock of ages and had the daring conception to build on what his penetrating glance perceived in it a whole nationhood. Ram Mohan Roy, that greai
soul and puissant worker, who laid his hand on Bengal and shook her out of her long indolent sleep by he rivers and her rice fields, stopped short at the Upanishads. Dayanand looked beyond and perceivec
that our true or original seed was the Vedas. He
had the national instinct and he was able to make
it luminous an intuition in place of an instinct
Therefore the works that derive from him, howeve
they depart from received traditions, must needs be
profoundly national... If the character given by the Vedic Rishis to their goals is admitted, we are
bound whenever the hymns speak of Agni or some
other god, to see behind that name what was presen
always to the thought of the Rishi, the One Supreme
Deity, or else one of His powers with its attendan
qualities and attributes. Immediately the whole
character of the Vedas is fixed in the sense, Dayanand gave to it, the merely ritual, mythological am polytheistic interpretation of Sayanacharya collapses the naturalistic and historical interpretation ofEuropeans also vanishes. We have instead read
scripture, one of the world's sacred books and that
divine word of a lofty and noble religion. "
THE HINDU RACE
The Indians were thus the original teachers and
leaders of mankind. They gave civilization and
religion to the world; and their country, Aryavart
(now called India) became the sacred land of civilized humanity. The Aryas carried dharma, truth and enlightenment to the remotest corners of the world all over Asia, Europe, Africa and America. With the lapse of time, after reaching the highest meridian of earthly prosperity, decline set in amongst them, and gradually, they lost the knowledge of the Vedas and the sciences based on their teachings. They forgot the Dharma their forefathers had taught the world. Their spiritual light, their moral grandeur, their
physical prowess and their purity of life deteriorated,
till those eternal truths of Being that underlie true
Dharma, fell in danger of disappearing. The knowledge of Sanskrit ($crwroft) declined ; true Dharma became rare. And the term Arya, once a term which connoted nobility, culture and greatness, gave place to "Hindu" which with the progress of time became synonymous with "the weak and the feeble."
The people who taught higher philosophy and
science to the Greeks and the Egyptians, and religion to the whole world, fell a victim to foreign invaders
inferior to them in civilization, culture and refinement. So great was the fall that even a correct copy of the
Vedas the most precious heritage bequeathed by
the Kishis to mankind was not easily available in
India. The Hindu nation became a byword for an
inefficient, helpless and subject people.
The people that first preached to the world the
brotherhood of man and the unity of mankind
became hopelessly divided into innumerable castes
watertight compartments. They even began to
regard it a sin for a member of one caste to marry
into another caste, to take food cooked by a member of another caste, even to dine with him. Nay, in
some parts of this sacred land, they even now
regard it a pollution to be within a certain distance
of a member of certain castes. Owing to this ignorant, narrow, exclusive and iron-bound caste system resulting in disunity, the country, fell a prey to the greed, oppression and domination of backward but virile tribes, who, from time to time invaded the hospitable, fertile and rich land of India from the West or the North West. The people who had reached the summit of spritual glory, and the pinnacle of worldly prosperity, who carried their messages of peace, good-will, enlightenment and happiness to every part of the world ; who taught arts and sciences to the ignorant and un-enlightened nations of both the hemispheres, who were
justly celebrated as the greatest, the richest, and the
wisest people on earth, were found in the beginning
of the nineteenth century A hopelessly divided,
weak and ignorant, strangers to their sublime language and their superb literature, unable to defend themselves against foreign invasion ; unable to protect their arts and sciences, their noble Culture, their magnificent civilization and their divine religion.
Such was the state of affairs in this laud when
Swami Dayanand Saraswati was born in Vikrama
Samvat 1881 (A.D. 1824-25).
The Hindu Sastras inculcate that truth reasserts
itself, that when the salvation of mankind is in
jeopardy, a great soul appears and leads men again
towards those eternal springs which give life and
vigour.
This sloka of the Gita merely gives expression
to the eternal truth that whenever the eternal truths
of life are in danger of disappearance, whenever the
race through which these truths were revealed to
mankind is in danger of forgetting them, the Divine
Mercy begins to operate and a great soul appears to
re-unfold those truths and teach people anew the true faith that leads to life and happiness.
Dayanand saw the world steeped in ignorance and
superstition, torn asunder by prejudice and selfishness, and without light to guide the path of man and of womens to salvation. Life-long study and contemplation based on careful observation drove him to the conclusion that the prime cause of degeneration was the neglect of those eternal truths taught in the Vedas, which govern humanity and which, properly understood and practised, will elevate mankind and bring prosperity and happiness to the world. He determined to revive their study.
Finding also that the evils that ate into the vitals
of Hindu society were multifarious and manifold, he
resolved to tackle them all; and in order to throw
the light of Vedic teachings on all important matters
that concerned the life of the people religious,
social and economic he began to write books
containing those teachings, all in Hindi, for the use
and benefit of all classes of society for the Hindus
as well as the non-Hindus. He travelled all over
the country, spreading the light of truth wherever
he went, preaching Vedic religion and ideals, giving
public lectures, holding private discourses and friendly discussions with Christian missionaries, Muslim Mauliis and the protagonists of other religions as well as with the learned Brahmins.
He knew that the Brahmins, who are the law-
givers of India, accept without question, the supreme authority of the Vedas in all things and at all
times they hold that the Vedas, being divine wisdom,
override all Sastras and none may question their
authority. As Aurovindo Ghosh says: " Even,
when the Vedas were no longer understood, even
when their traditions were lost behind Pauranic
forms, they were still held in honour, though without
knowledge, as authoritative revelation and inspired
Book of Knowledge, the source of all sanctions
and standard of all truth." He therefore decided
that the best way to redeem his people was to
teach them what the Vedas contained. He resolved
to show them that the Vedas, the Revelation, the source of Hindu religion and its highest authority,
did not support superstition, idolatry, class privilege,
sex and caste disqualifications, pernicious customs,
emasculating and degrading practices that had reduced the Hindu nation to a state o helpless decrepitude and weakness.
DAYANAND, A WORLD-TEACHER
Swami Dayanand Saraswati was not a mere
Reformer. He was a World Teacher. His mission
was to uplift all mankind. Some people, while fully
admitting Dayanand's greatness and the great work
he did for the Hindus, while also appreciating that
his teachings would help to uplift mankind, find it
difficult to reconcile their idea of his great and noble
aim with his exposure and criticism of the doctrines
and practices prevalent in Islam and Christianity
and other religions. They think that the great man
that he was, that his aim being the progress and
unity of human race, he should not have denounced
the religious beliefs or condemned the practices followed by the followers of those faiths. They approve of his denunciation of idol-worship, the caste system, untouchability, child marriage, enforced widowhood, class privilege evils prevalent amongst the Hindus. They do not mind the unrest and the disturbance he created amongst the Hindus by his ceaseless campaign against the evils that rent Hindu society asunder ; but they would not, dare not, expose or condemn the falsehoods and the evils prevalent in Islamic or Christian society. A highly placed English-man, while expressing his admiration for his noble character and the great work Swamiji had done, said to me that great men like him should not condemn or denounce the beliefs and practices of the followers of other religions.
Those who hold such opinions, judge of the greatness of others by their own smallness. They
fail to understand Dayanand's aim, his character or
the work he had set before himself. They betray
their ignorance of his mission. They fail to compre-
hend the real greatness, the high nobility of purpose
which inspired his work. They only look upon him
as a Hindu Reformer, as one whose work was to
purge Hindu Society of what they think are the
evils and falsehoods in Hinduism. They only see a
part of the man, not the whole of him. They fail to see that he was not a mere Hindu Reformer, but a lover of Humanity, a World Redeemer. His mission was to purge human society not Hindu Society only
of the evils from which it suffered owing to wrong
beliefs, whether those beliefs and doctrines were
inculcated by Hinduism or Christianity or Islam. He
made no difference between faith and faith. He was
a World Teacher and his task was to uplift mankind,
whether it lived in India and followed Hinduism,
or in Persia or Arabia and followed Islam, or in
Europe and America and followed Christianity. He
loved all mankind, and his aim was to save from
degradation and falsehood all men whether they lived in this country or that, or followed this faith or
that. He says in the Satyarth Prakash : u Though
I was born in Aryavarta (India) and still live in it;
yet just as I do not defend the falsehoods of the
religions prevailing in this country but expose them
fully; in like manner I deal with the religions of
other countries and their supporters I treat the
foreigners in the same way as my own countrymen so far as the elevation of the human race is concerned. It behoves all men to act likewise."
This declaration of his, clearly shows that when he
criticised Hinduism or Islam or Christianity, it was
not in a carping spirit, not as an antagonist, but in
a spirit of love and philanthropy. A father anxious to secure the happiness and prosperity of all his
sons who have gone astray does not confine himself
to guiding and warning the eldest son, leaving the
others to their fate; but loving all of them, points
out to them all, the wrong paths they had taken,
warns them all against the evils they suffer from ;
shows them all, the right path they should follow.
So did Dayanand. His aim was not to save Hindus
only ; he looked upon Hindus, Muslims, Christians,
Buddhists, Zoarastrians, all as his kith and kin, all as
his sons ; and as he loved them all, he could not
but point out the falsehoods and the evils of the
various faiths they followed. He would not haye been the World Redeemer that he was, had he not done so.
DAYANAND, A PRODUCT OP PURE HINDUISM
A remarkable thing about Dayanand Saraswati
is that he and his teachings are the products solely
of Hindu shastras and Hindu culture. Foreign culture,
Western civilization had not the slightest influence
in making him what he was. He did not know
English and was in no way influenced by European
culture or European thought.
English-educated people in India began to condemn
idolatry, class privilege, caste system, evil customs
and practices like the child marriage and enforced
widowhood, in consequence of the English education they had received. And because they thought that
these practices constituted Hinduism, they began to
reject Hinduism too. Dayanand without receiving
any Western education or coming under Western
influence, by a study of the real Hindu Sastras
found that these practices were against the teachings of Hindu Sastras and therefore rejected them. He shewed that the Vedic religion (true Hinduism) was free from all these evils that now go under the name of Hinduism.
HIS DISTINGUISHING FEATURES
A study of Dayanand's life and work brings out
prominently his three distinguishing features. They
are :
1. Love of truth and absolute rejection of
untruth.
2. The dedication of his life to the service
of mankind. He set to work to free
India from untruth, superstition, and the
worship of false gods in all matters,
religious, social, economic and political,
and through India, the whole human race.
3. His love of mankind.
LOVE OF TRUTH
From his childhood he was a Seeker after Truth.
His descriminating mind accepted truth as soon as he
found it and instantly rejected untruth. Born in a
rich, high class Brahmin family in a town which has
since been identified as Tankara in the Morvi State
in Kathiawar, when only eight years old, Mulshankar,
for such was the name given to him by his parents,
was invested with the sacred thread which marks
the initiation of a child into Brahmacharya a life
of celebacy, purity, acquisition of knowledge and
search after truth.
During a vigil at night, on the Shivratri day,
in a temple of Siva, he saw mice play on the idol
and eat the food placed before it, which he had
been taught to worship as God. The truth flashed
on his mind that the idol which was unable to
prevent mice from running about on it and eating
up its food, could not be God, who is the Creator
and all powerful Ruler of the world. He woke up
his father, who had fallen asleep during the vigil,
and asked him to explain the phenomenon he had
witnessed. The father's attempt to explain away the occurence proved futile and Dayanand lost faith
in idol-worship.
Dayanand Saraswati had an insatiable appetite
for knowledge as he was determined to know the
truth in every matter the real substance of things.
He was not only a most diligent student, but had
expressed his determination to devote his life to
acquisition of knowledge, and to go for study to
Benares, the chief seat of Sanskrit learning in India.
Finding his parents resolved to prevent this by
forcing him to enter into wedlock, he made up his
mind to flee from the uncongenial atmosphere which stifled truth. He took the earliest opportunity to
leave the environment where life moved in a narrow,
false and artificial circle, He left home and his
parents, and began to prepare himself for a life of
service to truth, service to his country and service
to humanity. He went wherever he could find a
teacher to impart hirn knowledge. He spent a
number of years going from place to place regard-
less of bodily discomforts, gladly suffering hardships and privations, leading a life of strenuous, unceasing
toil and wholeheartedly devoted himself to the study
of ancient Sanskrit learning. He went to Mount
Abu, the Satpura Hills, to the distant Himalayas,
explored hermitages, lonely caves, and mountain
retreats in search of sages, teachers of truth, yogis
and Mahatmas who would initiate him into the
realms of the highest knowledge which man can
acquire in order that he may become fully fitted
to lead a life devoted to the service of Humanity.
He underwent strict discipline, led a life of true
Brahmacharya to find the Truth. He found it at
last in Muttra, where he became a disciple of Swami
Virjanand Saraswati, from whom he acquired perfect
proficiency in Sanskrit learning, in order to be able
to hold his own against the most learned in the land, whose opposition he was sure to encounter in
his campaign against untruth.
Dayanand early realised that untruth leads to
error and sin, and entails sorrow and suffering. He
also realised that the world was full o sorrow and
suffering because it had accepted untruth, and that
it could be saved only by bringing it back to the
citadel of truth. He went to Benares, stormed the
chief citadel of prejudice and privilege and demolished it. He challenged the most learned of the Pandits there to accept truth, and give up untruth
and superstition. He told them that the Vedas, the
Revelation, the sole authority on religion, condemned idol-worship, caste by birth, child marriage and
untouchability, that the Vedas taught pure monotheism, equality of man and the sexes, and challanged them to prove the contrary. The Pandits failed to do so: orthodoxy was beaten in its own stronghold. Vested interests, class privileges and life-lonff habits and beliefs, but chiefly caste bondage, stood in the way of mankind and it was the birth-right of every person to read them and act according to their teachings. He therefore took up the work of translating them into Hindithe lingua franca of India the lingua Indica so that every one may have access to them and understand them. Dayanand believed that the acceptance of the Vedas and acting according to their teachings will bring salvation to mankind; and he set to work to achieve that object. He took to propagating the truth as taught by the Vedas by lectures, discourses, debates, discussions, conversations and by writing books, and pamphlets. He went round the country taking the banner of Truth to every important town in India where Hindi was understood, every sacred place where large masses of people gather together to perform religious ceremonies, celebrate festivals and to bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges, the Jumna, the Narbada, the Tapti, e.g. the Kumbha at Hardwar, the Ardha Kumbhis at Allahabad and Ujjain. He visited every place of pilgrimage, small or great, Pushkar, Benares, Gaya, Muttra, Ajodhia, Allahabad, Nasik, Badrinarain etc. He had no headquarters, no place to go to, for rest or recuperation. Day and night, night and day, he devoted himself to the service of the people writing, preaching, debating, advising, counselling.
Not content to do what he would be able to
accomplish during his own life, which he foresaw
would not be long, and convinced that it was
necessary to carry the message of Truth to all
countries of the world, he created a Trust the
Paropkarini Sabha and appointed 23 Trustees to
continue his work after him and carry the Banner
of Truth to every country in the world, in Europe,
America and Asia, and thus free men from supersti-
tions, falsehoods and shackles of all kinds. He
enjoined upon the trustees the duty
(1) To propagate and spread the knowledge
of the Vedas and the Vedangas, i. e. to say,
to expound them and get them expounded, to
read and hear them read, to recite and get
them recited, and to publish them.
(2) To establish Missions and send mision-
aries to all countries of the world to teach
men the Vedic Faith, and to preach that Truth
should be accepted and Untruth rejected.
(3) To give protection and right education
to the orphans and the poor people of India.
LOVE OF MANKIND
The philosopher Helvetius says:- "Don't expect
too much from men if you would love mankind/ 1
Dayanand knew that the evil in the world was due
to ignorance, want of knowledge of Troth. As his heart was full of love for mankind, he had only
pity for the wrong- doing, even the wickedness of
men. He denounced untruth, often in strong terms,
but had no hatred for any one, not even for the
wrong-doer, the criminal and the wicked. The
infinite love and compassion that filled his heart
left no room there for feelings of recrimination or
revenge.
Several incidents in his life illustrate how a
wrong committed by a person against him instead
of exciting hatred or anger invoked pity and com-
passion in him. Once when he was in Anupshabar
(U. P.) carrying on his crusade against untruth, a
Brahmin, enraged by Swamiji's denunciation of idol-
worship resolved to kill him, and gave him poison
in a pan (betel leaf). Swamiji came to know of it
in time, and saved himself by performing a yogic
act, Neoli Kriya. He, however, said nothing to the man.
Somehow or other the news of this reached the ears
of the Tahsildar and Magistrate of the place, Sayad
Muhammad, who arrested and imprisoned the Brah-
min, Thinking that Swamiji would appreciate his
action, he went to Swamiji to inform him of it.
The Swami would not speak to him. The Tahsildar
was surprised and asked him the reason of it. Swa-
miji said to him "I have not come to this world to
imprison people, but to free them from shackles. If
men do not give up evil-doing why should we leave
our nobleness and higher purpose." Swamiji then
got the culprit released.
When we think of Dayanand Saraswati, we see
the sublime spectacle of a superman, who, knowing
the Truth, and also knowing that the world is
full of sorrow because it has left the path of Truth,
stands before it with a heart full of pity and com-
passion for erring mankind; with no resources except
his own dominant intellect, his superb courage and his indomitable will; with only a piece of cloth round
his loins and a stick in his hand; convinced that it
was his duty to save mankind and determined to do
so; conscious that he possessed the strength to free
it from falsehood, superstition and sin which had taken a firm hold of it and were dragging it lower and
lower down the slough of despondency and degradation.
DAYANAND'S PLACE IN HISTORY
It is not possible at the present time to assign
Swami Dayanand Saraswati his true place in History.
We are too near him yet to get a full view of his
proportions. True perspective is wanting. If you
stand at the foot of a mountain, or fifty yards away
from it you can only say that it is a great big thing,
but you cannot say where it stands in the grade of
mountains. You must stand at a great distance from
a mountain and be able to get a comprehensive view
of its length and height, of the space it occupies in
the landscape as compared with the others, before
you can give it its rank amongst the mountains of
the world. So with great men. A century or two
must pass before even the best informed can form
a tolerably clear idea of a great man's proportions.
You have to wait till the forces generated and set
to work by a great personality have fully developed
and adjusted themselves not only to the forces at work when that personality appeared on the horizon, but have also met and come to some adjustment with the reactions to the^ disturbing forces brought into being by that great man. You have to wait till this is done; for it is then that you can get a true perspective of the man and can assign him his true place amongst great personalities.
Dayanand, as stated before, was one of the great
teachers and redeemers of the world like Krishna,
Buddha and Jesus. Time, however, is not yet for assigning Dayanand his true place among them. Could any one, fifty years after Buddha's death, or the Crucification of Christ, declare the position Buddha or Christ was to occupy in history ? Could any one
even so late as the conversion of Emperor Asoka
have assigned Buddha the place he now occupies in
human history; or even a thousand years after his
death assign Jesus the position he now holds amongst mankind ? It took centuries to bring to fruition the seeds sewn by them, It was several centuries before Buddha and Jesus were recognised as great benefactors of mankind. As a matter of History, within fifty years of their deaths no one assigned to Buddha or Jesus even that position amongst men, which, according to the informed people all over the world, Dayanand occupies to-day. And if the logic of things and human experience are any guide, there is no doubt that a couple of centuries hence, the world will accept Dayanand as as great a benefactor of mankind as Jesus or Buddha.
The heart of Jesus like that of Dayanand was
full of pity for the sufferings of men. Intellec-
tually, however, Dayanand was far superior to him.
Dayanand was a profound scholar. His supreme
place in the field of knowledge of Vedic Literature
was undisputed and unquestioned. Both Jesus and
Dayanand tried to redeem the people. Both loved
them and served them. Both had to give up
their lives at the altar of the service of humanity.
Jesus was crucified : Dayanand was poisoned.
Buddha, one of the noblest of men, is nearer
Dayanand than Jesus. Both spent a large part of their lives in search of truth, and at last finding it, gave up
the rest of their lives to proclaiming it and making
it accessible to all. Both were equally pure in their lives, and gave up the world to serve mankind. Both loved Humanity and were full of pity and compassion for the failings, the foibles, the follies, the fatalities of men. Both were incarnations of mercy and forgiveness. Buddha's mission, born as he was in the India of the sixth century B. a, was to do away with superstition, ritualism run riot, and to teach men simplicity and brotherhood. Dayanand declared that he had come to the world to break the chains of slavery, and free mankind from error, superstition, ignorance, domination of all kinds, ecclesiastical, social, economic. Dayanand was equipped for the purpose with a cultivated intellect of the highest order, and knowledge of the Vedic literature, unrivalled and supreme. In this, Dayanand had an advantage over Buddha. Then, Buddha had only to deal with the Brahmin priesthood: Dayanand had to meet and overcome not only the Brahmin orthodoxy but the prejudices and errors of the votaries of Islam, Christianity, Jainiwm, Sikhism and others.
Both Buddha and Dayanand were products of pure
unadulterated Hindu culture and Hindu thought, and
owed nothing to alien civilizations, cultures or reli-
gions. In Buddha's time, little of the world outside
India was known: Dayanand had a pretty clear idea
of the great world outside India. Buddha found his
people politically independent but suffering from
excessive ritualism and presumption, and given to
excessive self-indulgence. Dayanand found his people weaklings, steeped in ignorance and superstition, helpless and degraded, bound hand and foot, slaves politically^ economically and socially. He had, a harder task to perform to redeem them and, through them, the rest of mankind. Yet he has sown the seed which will bear the fruit of World Redemption. Time will prove that he was one of the greatest benefactors of humanity true Redeemer and Deliverer, true Regenerator of mankind.
A humble tribute to the epitome of wisdom and spirituality, an embodiment of service and compassion.
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