The Ten Important Tenets The Arya Samaj Lives By

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Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati was born on 12 February 1824, at Tankara located in Gujarat. He was a social revolutionary whose motive was to establish a society that could easily conform to the Vedic tenets without the Brahmin interference and create a society without its social loopholes. To achieve this purpose, he founded the Arya Samaj, which was based on ten pillars or commandments set by Dayanand Saraswati. The Samaj condemns practices like idol worship, pilgrimage, animal sacrifice, priesthood etc and advices its followers to question the beliefs rather than blindly accept them and follow them.

It instilled a fresh new awareness of Hindu religion and culture in the minds of the orthodox Indian and tried to abolish its social practices. Widow remarriage and women education are major questions that Arya Samaj set out to tackle. He believed that the marriage between educated man and wife could bring the required transformation that our society needs.

On 7 April, 1875, Arya Samaj was founded. The purpose of the Samaj was to move the Hindu away from a narrow and an uneducated mindset. The motto that Arya Samaj lives by is "Make this world noble". The ten tenets of the Arya Samaj are as follows:

1. God is the repository of knowledge and is known through the pursuit of Knowledge only.

2. God exists, is intelligent and full of love and bliss. He is omniscient, just, merciful, with beginning or end, unparalleled, Immortal and holy. He is worthy of being worshipped.

3. We must discard ignorance and opt for knowledge.

4. Vedas should be learnt by all Arya samajis and they have to be taught, recited and read by the members of the Samaj.

5. Arya Samaj's primary intention is to wish and do good to the society at all levels.

6. One must renounce falsehood and accept truth.

7. We should conduct ourselves with love towards all, righteousness and sense of justice.

8. One should behave as per the dharmic tenets and each act should be performed after analysing it to know if it is right or wrong.

9. One should follow all the rules and restrictions laid out by society in order to bring about the good of all.

10. No one should be selfish. He should work not only for his good, but also for the good of the universal mankind. He should recognize his true purpose which is to serve the humanity and not to just fend for his livelihood.

They extol the importance of human obligations towards oneself, towards God and towards others in society. This is the essence of Arya Samaj,