The Aryan movement was once
described as an “invasion,” but in recent
years it has become more common to
describe it as a “migration.” According to
the accounts in the Vedas, the Aryans
were a pastoral people, and although
some Vedic passages mention war
chariots, the majority describe herds of
cattle. Given this picture of nomads fol-
lowing their cattle to pasture, the image
of an invading army seems improbable.
The Aryan migration theory
accounts for the dissemination of vari-
ous languages but is not universally
accepted. Many modern Indians
subscribe to the Indigenous Aryan(IA)
theory, which maintains that the Aryans
are the original inhabitants of India and
as proof points to the artifacts found in
the Indus Valley civilization. Some of
the people that believe the IAtheory may
be reacting against the Aryan migration
theory’s perceived colonialist bias, since
the theory was developed by Europeans
and assumes that the dominant groups
in modern India must have come from
outside. Other supporters are the propo-
nents of Hindutva, who claim that all
Indians are “really” Hindus and thus one
social group, whatever their particular
religious beliefs.
This assertion has profound political
implications in modern India, where
Christians and Muslims are not only
religious communities but social and
political ones as well. By connecting
Hindu identity with good Indian
citizenship, Hindutva proponents are
marginalizing Christians and Muslims
as outsiders.
Arya Samaj
Reformist Hindu organization formed in
1875 by Swami Dayanand Saraswati.
The Arya Samaj was formed in an era of
sweeping social, economic, and reli-
gious change—the last particularly
caused by Christian missionary evange-
lism—and represented an authentic
Hindu response to these changes.
For some time, more traditional
Hindus perceived this organization as a
genuine religious threat. Swami
Dayanand’s fundamental assumption
was that ultimate religious authority lay
only in the ancient scriptures called the
Vedas. This stance allowed him to attack
many of the “social evils” plaguing nine-
teenth-century Hinduism, such as child
marriages, sati, image worship, the
caste system, and a ban on widow
remarriage. He contended that these
practices were corrupt and illegitimate
since they could not be found in the
Veda, and the Arya Samaj worked cease-
lessly to get rid of such practices.
Unlike the Brahmo Samaj, an
earlier reformist organization, the ideas
of the Arya Samaj showed no
Christian influence. It certainly addressed
many concerns raised by Christian
reformers, but the Arya Samaj was
militantly anti-Christian. It was
equally opposed to the “corruption”
of contemporary Hinduism.
Although the Aryas claimed that they
were simply getting back to the Veda, the
ultimate aim was not to reclaim that
long-gone era but to develop a form of
Hindu religious life more compatible
with “modern” times. The Aryas
replaced image worship with a fire sac-
rificebased on the rituals in the Veda.
The Arya Samaj was also notable for
promoting the ceremony of “purifica-
tion” (shuddhi), through which Hindus
who had become members of other reli-
gious communities were received back
into the Hindu community.
Dayanand and his followers were
quite militant in espousing such reforms
and saw themselves as developing the
leadership for the future of Hinduism.
To accomplish this the Arya Samaj
strongly emphasized education, and
one of its most lasting achievements has
been establishing schools and colleges
to educate its womenand men.
Although the Arya Samaj was highly
controversial for its first sixty years, by
the late 1930s its revolutionary spirit had
somewhat cooled; at present the Aryas
have become a sectarian group more or
less assimilated into larger HinduArya Samaj