Here we have in fact the keynote of his doctrines.

The sanctity of the cow is the touchstone of Hindu hostility to both Christian and Mahomedan, and the whole drift of Dayanand's teachings is far less to reform Hinduism than to rouse it into active resistance to the alien influences which threatened, in his opinion, to denationalize it.

Hence the outrageously aggressive tone of his writings wherever he alludes either to Christianity or to Mahomedanism.

It is the advent of "meat-eating and wine-drinking foreigners, the slaughterers of kine and other animals," that has brought "trouble and suffering" upon "the Aryas"-- he discards the word Hindu on account of its Persian origin--whilst before they came into the country India enjoyed "golden days," and her people were "free from disease and prosperous and contented." In fact, "Arya for the Aryans" was the cry that frequently predominated in Dayanand's teachings over that of "Back to the Vedas," and Lajpat Rai, one of his most zealous disciples, has stated emphatically that "the scheme of Swami Dayanand has its foundation on the firm rock of _Swadeshi_ and _Swajati_." Since Dayanand's death the Arya Samaj has split up into two sections--the "vegetarians" who with regard to religious doctrine may be described as the orthodox, and the "meat-eaters," as the latitudinarians.

It is difficult to differentiate between the precise tendencies of these two sections, whose feuds seem to be waning.