Swami Dayanand Saraswati took inspiration from
- A.Puranas
- B.Vedas
- C.Medieval saints
- D.Sufism
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Vedas. Swami Dayanand Saraswati held the Vedas to be the only true and infallible source of knowledge, and his call was "Go back to the Vedas". Born as Mul Shankar in 1824 at Tankara in Gujarat, he founded the Arya Samaj at Bombay in 1875 and set out his ideas in Satyarth Prakash, written in Hindi. On the basis of the Vedas he opposed idol worship, caste by birth, child marriage and the dominance of priests, and supported widow remarriage, women's education and the shuddhi movement for reconversion. His followers later set up the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic (DAV) schools and colleges, the first at Lahore in 1886. Option A is wrong because Dayanand rejected the Puranas, seeing them as the source of idol worship and later rituals. Option C is wrong because he did not base his teaching on the medieval saints of the Bhakti tradition. Option D is wrong because Sufism is an Islamic mystical tradition, unrelated to his Vedic reform. Exam tip: Dayanand Saraswati = Arya Samaj (1875), Satyarth Prakash, "Go back to the Vedas".
Practice Questions
View allThe call for 'renunciation of (all) voluntary associations with the (British) Government' was given during
- A.Non-Cooperation Movement.
- B.Civil Disobedience Movement.
- C.Quit India Movement.
- D.Protest against partition of Bengal.
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The Congress resolution on non-cooperation, passed at the special Calcutta session of September 1920 and confirmed at Nagpur in December 1920, called for the renunciation of all voluntary association with the British Government.
Read the full explanation →Consider the following events leading to the Indian Independence : 1. Lucknow Pact 2. Return of Subhash Chandra Bose to India 3. Cripps Mission 4. Naval Mutiny in Bombay Select the chronological sequence of these events (earliest to latest) from the code given below:
- A.4, 3, 2, 1
- B.3, 4, 2, 1
- C.1, 2, 3, 4
- D.2, 1, 3, 4
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The events run from the Lucknow Pact of 1916, through Subhas Chandra Bose's return to India in the 1920s and 1930s, to the Cripps Mission of 1942 and the Naval Mutiny of 1946.
Read the full explanation →During the period 100 BCE - 200 CE, valuable evidence of India's maritime trade links has been identified from which of the following sites on the Coromandel Coast ?
- A.Arikamedu
- B.Tamralipti
- C.Bharukachcha
- D.Muchiri
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Arikamedu, near Puducherry on the Coromandel Coast, has yielded clear evidence of trade with the Roman world between about the first century BCE and the second century CE.
Read the full explanation →Who was the founder of Mahakali Pathshala in Calcutta?
- A.Her Holiness Mataji Maharani Tapaswini
- B.Sister Nivedita
- C.Madame Blavatsky
- D.Sarojini Naidu
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Mataji Tapaswini founded the Mahakali Pathshala in Calcutta in 1893 to give girls an education rooted in Indian tradition. Tapaswini was a woman ascetic from Maharashtra who settled in Calcutta and won the support of leading Bengali families for her school.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following terms were used in the Indo-Persian sources of the Mughal period to denote a peasant ? 1. Raiyat 2. Asami 3. Muzarian 4. Majur Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- A.1 and 2 only
- B.2 and 3 only
- C.1, 2 and 3 only
- D.1, 3 and 4 only
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Raiyat, muzarian and asami were all used for the peasant in Mughal-period sources, while majur means a labourer. The Indo-Persian sources of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries most often called the peasant raiyat (plural riaya) or muzarian; the words kisan and asami also appear.
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