Tributes to Swami Dayanand

"As I regard the figure of this formidable artisan in God's workshop, images crowd on me which are all of battle and work, conquest and triumphant labour. Here, I say to myself, was a very soldier of light, a warrior in God's world, a sculptor of man and institutions, a bold and rugged victor of the difficulties, which matter presents to spirit. And the whole sums itself up to me in a powerful impression of spiritual practicality. The combination of these two words, usually so divorced from each other in our conceptions, seems to me the very definition of Dayanand." - Sri Aurobindo

"I offer my homage of veneration to Swami Dayanand, the great pathmaker in northern India, who through bewildering tangles of creed and practices, the dense undergrowth of the degenerate days of our country, cleared a straight path that was meant to lead the Hindus to a simple and rational life of devotion to God and service for man." - Rabindra Nath Tagore

"The rise of Dayanand in the nineteenth century is a phenomena which baffles the historian. But there are such life germs in the civilization of Hindus, which evidently make it indestructible and which are beyond the ken of that empiricist observer called the historian. The present reformed and rejuvenated Hinduism is solely a gift of Dayanand Saraswati. Dayanand had the humanity of the Buddha, but he combined with it the preservative complex of Sankara." - Historian Jaiswal

"By declaring that everyone, including women and non-Brahmins had the right to study the Vedas and by rendering them into Hindi, the language of the common people, both of which were considered a sacrilege, Dayanand brought about a revolution which by one masterstroke shattered the shackles, which Hindus had borne for centuries." - Lala Lajpat Rai

"It is perfectly certain that India never saw a more learned Sanskrit scholar, a deeper metaphysician, a more wonderful orator, and a more fearless denunciator of any evil than Dayanand, since the time of Shankaracharya." - Madam Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society

"Dayananda was the first leader in the field of theology who welcomed the advances of sciences and technology. To him, the Vedas as the source book contain the seed of science, and to him, the Vedas advocate the philosophy of dynamic realism." - Romain Rolland

"De moruis nil nise bonum. All our differences have been burnt with the body...We remember only the grand virtues and noble qualities of our former collegue and teacher, and late antagonist. We bear but his life-long devotion to the cause of Aryan regeneration; in his ardent love for the grand philosphy of his forefathers; his relentless, untiring zeal in the work of the projected social and religious reforms; and it is with unfeigned sorrow that we now hasten to join the ranks of his many mourners. In him, India has lost one of her noblest sons. A patriot in the true sense of the word, Swami Dayanand labored from his earliest years for the recovery of the lost treasures of Indian intellect. His zeal for the Reformation of his motherland was exceeded only by his unbounded learning." - Colonel H.S. Olcott, President, Theosophical Society

"Whatever one may think of the correctness or other wise of Swami Dayanand's interpretaton of many Vedic passages, one cannot withhold one's admiration for a man whose work, perhaps more than that of any other individual, has helped to make India conscious of itself as unity with some distinctive contribution to make to the culture of the world as a whole." - DR. R.L. Turner, Haverbrack Bishop's Storford.

"The Swami never got tired of preaching that in reality, Vedic religion is apt to satisfy the cravings of modern man and to give him strength in the struggle of every day's life, and that the ancient Vedic civilization can be revived and lead to a national renaissance." - Dr. Sten Know, Sweden

"I have observed, during my travels in India, the effects of Swami Dayanand Saraswati's influence in ernest efforts to vitalise life in India with the Vedic ideal, which for thirty years had been a fundamental influence in my own life and in that of Mrs. Cousins and for this much-needed service to India and the world; I offer our joint homage to his memory." - Dr. James H. Cousins, D. Litt

".......Wandering up and down Northern and Central India in the decade that followed the Franco-German War - just when English thought was rejoicing in the most scientific materialism and the most commercialism - Dayanand preached a monotheism of an exalted type, and the union of spiritual asceticism with an elaborate ritual and strictly defined rules of conduct for every department of life." - Mr.Sydney Webb, Later Lord Passfield