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The Autobiography & travels of
Swami Dayanand Saraswati
It was in a Brahmin family of the Oudichya caste in a
town belonging to the Rajah of Morwee, in the province of
Kathiawar, that in the year of Samvat, 1881, (1924 A. C.)
I,
now known as Dayanand Saraswati, was born. If I have
from the first refrained from giving the names of my father
and of the town in which my family resides, it is because I
have been prevented from doing so by my duty. Had any
of my relatives heard again of me, they would have sought
me out. Au I then, once more face to face with them, it
would have become incumbent upon me to follow them home.
I would have to touch money again,' serve them, and attend
to their wants. And thus the holy work of the Reform, to
which I have wedded my whole life, would have irretrievably
suffered through my forced withdrawal from it.
Education
was hardly five years of age when I began to study the
Devanagari characters, and my parents and all the elders
commenced training me in the ways and practices of my caste
and family; making me learn by rote the long series of reli-
gious hymns, mantras, stanzas and commentaries. And I was
but eight when I was invested with the sacred Brahminical
cord (triple thread), and taught Gayatri Sandhya with its
practices, and Yajur Veda Sanhita preceded by the study of
the Rudradhya. As my family belonged to the Shiva sect,
1. No Swami or Sanyasi touches money, or personally trans-
acts any monetary business.
2. Rudradhyaya is a chapter about Rudra ( a name of
Shiva).