, and various fragrant
gums and spices on the sacred fire, with the repetition of Sanskrit
texts. They now explain this by saying that it is a sanitary measure,
designed to purify the air.

The Samaj does not believe in any literal heaven and hell, but
considers these as figurative expressions of the state of the soul,
whether in this life or the life to come. The Aryas therefore do not
perform the _shradhh_ ceremony nor offer oblations to the dead, and
in abolishing these they reduce enormously the power and influence
of the priesthood.

5. Aims and educational institutions.

The above account indicates that the Arya Samaj is tending to become
a vaguely theistic sect. Its religious observances will probably
fall more and more into the background, and its members will aspire
to observe in their conduct the code of social morality obtaining in
Europe, and to regulate their habit of life by similar considerations
of comfort and convenience. Already the principal aims of the
Samaj tend mainly to the social improvement of its members and their
fellow-Indians. It sets its face against child-marriage, and encourages
the remarriage of widows. It busies itself with female education,
with orphanages and schools, dispensaries and public libraries, and
philanthropic institutions of all sorts. [246] Its avowed aim is to
unite and regenerate the peoples of Aryavarrta or India.

As one of its own poets has said: [247]

Ah! long have ye slept, Sons of India, too long!
Your country degenerate, your morals all wrong.

Its principal educational institutions are the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic
College at Lahore and the Anglo-Vedic School at Meerut, a large
orphanage at Bareilly, smaller ones at Allahabad and Cawnpore, and a
number of primary schools. It employs a body of travelling teachers
or Upadeshaks to make converts, and in the famine of 1900 took charge
of as many famine orphans as the Local Governments would entrust
to it, in order to prevent them from being handed over to Christian
missionaries. All members of the Samaj are expected to contribute one
per cent of their incomes to the society, and a large number of them
do this. The Arya Samaj has been accused of cherishing political aims
and of anti-British propaganda, but the writers quoted in this article
unite in acquitting it of such a charge as an institution, though some
of its members have been more or less identified with the Extremist
party. From the beg