#MaharajaRanjitSingh

Maharaja Ranjit Singh · 1780–1839

In the books · 1 chapter

Who this is

Religious and social reform — founder of the Arya Samaj, the "Society of the Noble," and the fiercest of the nineteenth century's Hindu reformers.

“A fourteen-year-old keeping vigil watched a mouse eat the offerings off a Shiva idol and asked a question nobody could answer — and spent the next forty-five years building, out of that one unanswered question, a movement that attacked caste, child marriage and priestcraft in the name of India's oldest books.”

— The Great Indians, Ch. 172

The big idea, in the book's words:

“Everything he thought rotten in the Hinduism around him — idol worship, caste by birth, child marriage, priestcraft — was a later corruption; the Vedas alone are revelation, and the way forward for India was all the way back: "Back to the Vedas."”

— The Great Indians, Ch. 172