200th birth anniversary of Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati
On 12 February 2023, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the year-long celebrations to commemorate the 200th birth anniversary of Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Delhi.
Dayanand Saraswati
- Dayanand Saraswati was born as “Mool Shankar” on February 12, 1824 in Tankara, Gujarat to Darshanji Lalji Tiwari and Yashodabai.
- In Mathura, Swami Virjanand entrusted Mool Shankar with the task of spreading Vedic knowledge throughout the society and named him Rishi Dayanand.
- On April 7, 1875, Dayanand Saraswati established the Arya Samaj in Bombay. It was a Hindu religion-social reform movement.
- Arya Samaj has played an important role in the cultural and social awakening of the country by emphasizing on social reforms and education to remove the evils that came in the society after the Vedic era by calling “return to the Vedas”.
- He opposed the practice of idol worship and considered it an evil practice started by the priests. He was against other social evils like superstition and caste segregation.
- The Arya Samaj started programs to support widow remarriage in the 1880s.
- Maharishi Dayanand also underlined the importance of educating the girl child and opposed child marriage. He advocated the concept of Swarajya, which means a country free from foreign influence.
- Maharishi Dayanand started the Shuddhi movement to bring people back to Hinduism who had either voluntarily or involuntarily converted to other religions like Islam or Christianity.
- Satyarth Prakash is an 1875 book originally written in Hindi by Dayanand Saraswati.
- The Paropakarini Sabha was founded by Maharishi himself and today it is propagating Vedic traditions through Gurukulas and publications.
- Inspired by his beliefs, teachings and ideas, his disciples established the Dayanand Anglo Vedic (DAV) College Trust and Management Society after his death in 1883.
- The first DAV High School was established on June 1, 1886 in Lahore with Lala Hans Raj as the headmaster.
Source – PIB
