DAYANAND SARASWATI AND HIS FOLLOWERS

[The Theosophist, Vol. III, No. 2, Supplement, November, 1881, pp. 3-4]

TO THE EDITOR OF The Theosophist.

MADAM: The following is a very important notice received from Benares. Please publish it in your columns, and give your readers an opportunity of judging thereby for themselves.
Your very truly,
PANDIT GOPI NATH,
Editor, Mittra Vilasa.

“Being led away by the misleading reputation of Swami Daya Nanda Saraswatee, we, the undersigned, repaired to him to hear his Vedic lectures and act according to his dictates. But no sooner had we heard him than we became convinced that he was no true reformer. Our doubts now having been removed by our Vedic Guru Pandit Jugulkishore Pathak, a member of The Brahmamrit Varshini Sabha, we made penance, as commanded in our Shastras, for this mistake and sin of ours, and we hereby promise never to deviate from the true and just way taught by our Guru.

“Sita Rama, Babu Nand Pande, Krishna Rama Shukul and Rama Prasda Dube.
“Published by
“PANDIT JUGULKISHORE PATHAK,
Brahmamrit Varshini Sabha,
“Benares.”

Editor’s Note.—True to our policy of perfect impartiality, to the promise that every religion, sect, and school of philosophy will be given a chance of a fair hearing before the public, and the adherents permitted to defend their respective opinions in our journal, we are forced to make room for the above manifesto. But we do so with regret, for this is no philosophical proof that the doctrines taught by

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the learned Pandit in whose favour it is issued, namely—Pandit Jugulkishore Pathak—are more philosophical, or in any way more true than those expounded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati. As it stands, the declaration is simply the confession of a short-lived apostasy, and, a public contrition in consequence of it. Tomorrow the disciples of Swami Dayanand may send us in their reply, and we would have to publish it in our next on the same principle. If ever any good is calculated to come out of such mutual denunciations, then, ought the two learned pandits to furnish us, at least with papers pro and contra their respective interpretations of the Vedas; and so leave the verdict to the opinion of the impartial readers. Otherwise such denunciations are calculated to do more harm than good.

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