Swami Dayananda Saraswati was born in a village Tankara near Morbi in Rajkot district of Gujarat on 12th February 1824. He is known as the first leader to give the call for Swarajya. He propounded India for Indians. Later on Lokmanya Tilak continued the movement. Swami Dayananda is also the founder of Arya Samaj. Even though in the beginning he was an ardent worshiper of Lord Shiva, yet later he advocated ancient Vedic traditions of Hinduism. He expressed that ideal that idol worship had brought many ills in the Hindu society. In Vedic tradition chanting mantras and performing havans are prominent.
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan who was a great philosopher and also the President of India called Swamiji as one of the ‘makers of modern India’. Shri Aurobindo Ghosh also gave great importance to the contribution of Swami Dayananda in modernizing the Hindu society. There were many others who were deeply influence by Swami Dayananda. These included Madam Cama, Pandit Guru Dutt Vidyarthi, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Lala Hardayal, Madan Lal Dhingra, Ram Prasad Bismil, Mahadev Govind Ranade, Swami Shraddhananda, Mahatma Hansraj, Lala Lajpat Rai and others.
Maharshi Dayanda believed in the philosophy of Karma. Further, he was a first to call Dalits, Harijans long before Mahatma Gandhi, though it is attributed to the latter. The D. A. V organization was started by Swami Dayananda. Even today many schools and colleges are run by the organization not only in Gujarat but also in Rajasthan, Punjab, U.P and various other states.
We pay our heartfelt tribute to the great Swami who devoted all his life for reforming Hinduism and for propagating education.
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