EDUCATION SYSTEM UNDER ARYA SAMAJ

The nineteenth century India was an era of revivalism and renaissance where multiple organisations such as Brahmo Samaj, Singh Sabha, Dev Samaj, Prarthana Samaj etc. worked towards reformation, development and eradicating social evils from the society. The laying of foundation of Arya Samaj by Dayanand Saraswati in 1875 during this scenario marks a crucial event in the pages of history. The Arya Samaj draw its inspiration from Vedas and indigenous culture. It based itself on the values of equality, karma and merit. It opposed child marriage, purdah system, ban on widow marriage and other evil practices prevailing in the society. Among all the socio-religious reform movements of that time, the “question of women” assumed a crucial place and no other movement was as contributing and successful in imparting education as was the Arya Samaj. Apart from its contribution in education of boys, the paper would focus on the initiatives taken by it in the emancipation of women through the most important pillar in development i.e. education. From the three major dimensions of Arya Samaj- social, religious and educational, our focus would be to study the third one in detail.