Life of Swami Shraddhanand Saraswati

Born on February 22, 1856, at village Talwan in Jalandhar district of the Punjab province, Swami Shraddhanand Saraswati was named as Brihaspati and Munshiram. His father, Lala Nanak Chand, was a police officer in the East India Company administered United Provinces. The young boy, a pampered child, moved from place to place on his dad's transfers and was bereft of formal education in the formative years of life.

After a long intellectual discourse with Swami Dayanand Saraswati at Bareilly there was a gradual change of heart in Munshiram. The seed sown in the United Provinces germinated and flowered in the Punjab. Munshiram was transformed into a man with a mission. It was also a turning point in the religious and political history of India which was struggling for freedom from the British Empire. He became a successful lawyer, was quite active in the Arya Samaj circles and took the Reformation movement seriously. When he saw his own daughter, Ved Kumari, coming under the influence of Christianity while studying in a Christian Mission run school, he made up his mind to wean away children of his compatriots from the external influence by providing them good education in schools run by the Arya Samaj.

When it was decided in Lahore to launch a scheme for the Gurukul system of education, Munshiram spearheaded the movement. The Gurukul was officially inaugurated on 16 May 1900 at Gujaranwala in the West Punjab, now in Pakistan. Their missionary zeal to make the novel project a success was of immense help when the infant Gurukul moved from Gujranwala in the Punjab to Kangri- Haridwar in the United Provinces.

Munshiram entered the Sanyas ashram of his own volition. It was the call of his conscience. In his life span of three scores and ten, half of which he lived as a widower; he wore ochre clothes of an ascetic and lived like one for nine years. He owned no property. However, the cause of upliftment of the downtrodden and the Shuddhi movement, that is , bringing back to the Vedic Dharm those men and women who had strayed into other religious folds, was very dear to his heart.

He surmised that it was the duty of every Indian to free the motherland from the British rule. It was this mission that saw him leading processions in Delhi's Chandni Chowk area against the oppressive Rowlett Act. In 1919 the Mahatma emerged as an intrepid leader of the masses. His undaunting behaviour and reaction to the menacing soldiers of the Raj when he bared his chest inviting the soldiers to fire on him first made him a darling of the masses, both Hindus and Muslims.

Last update : 04-10-2009 01:21

Keywords : Martyred Swami and the Blow of Islam, Mahendra Mathur

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