emselves are
numerically unprogressive, are two other organisations--first, the
[=A]rya Sam[=a]j of the United Provinces and the Punjab, and secondly,
the Theosophists, who are now most active in Upper India, with Benares
the metropolis of Hinduism, as their headquarters. These two have taken
hold of educated India as no other movements yet have done. They appeal
directly to patriotic pride and the new national feeling, or, more
truly, are primarily shaped thereby.

Founded in 1875, the [=A]ryas are the most rapidly increasing of the new
Indian sects. In 1901 they numbered 92,419, an increase in the decade of
131 per cent. What ideas have such an attraction for the educated middle
class, for to that class the [=A]ryas almost exclusively belong? In
certain parts of the United Provinces and the Punjab, it seems as much a
matter of course that one who has received a modern education should be
an [=A]rya, as that in certain other provinces he should be a supporter
of the Congress.

[Sidenote: Foundation ideas of the [=A]ryas--two.]

The prime motive ideas are two. One is the result of modern education
and of Christian influence, namely, a consciousness that in certain
grosser aspects, such as polytheism, idolatry, animal sacrifices, caste,
and the seclusion of women, the present-day Hinduism cannot be defended.
Those things the [=A]ryas repudiate,--all honour to them for their
protest in behalf of reason, although in respect of caste and the
seclusion of women, their theory is said to be considerably ahead of
their practice. In the same modern spirit every [=A]rya member pledges
himself to endeavour to diffuse knowledge; and a college and a number of
schools are carried on by [=A]ryas in the Punjab. Repudiating all those
current customs, of course the [=A]ryas have parted company with the
orthodox Hindus. [=A]rya preachers denounce the corruptions of Hinduism,
and in turn, what may be called a Great Council of orthodox Hindus has
pronounced condemnation on the [=A]ryas. At an assembly of about four
hundred Hindu pandits, held in 1881 in the Senate House of the
University in Calcutta, the views of the founder of the [=A]ryas,
Dyanand Saraswati, were condemned as heterodox.[53]

The second motive idea is the new national consciousness, the new
patriotic feeling of Indians. The patriotic feeling is manifest in the
name; the [=A]ryas identify themselves with the [=A]ryans, the
Indo-European invaders of India, from whom the