a[s']wamedha is to be translated not "sacrifice of a horse," but
destruction of ignorance,--sacrifice of an ass, as one may jestingly
say.[56] Offerings for deceased parents, prescribed in detail in the
Vedas, are similarly rationalised into kind treatment of parents in old
age. The ancient and modern condemnation of eating beef was rationalised
by the [=A]ryas as follows: To kill a cow is as bad as to kill many men.
For suppose a cow to have a lifetime of fourteen or fifteen years. Her
calves, let us say, would be six cow calves and six bull calves. The
milk of the cow and her six cow calves during her natural lifetime would
give food for a day to an army of 154,440 men, according to the
calculation of the founder of the [=A]ryas, while the labour of the
other six calves as oxen would give a full meal to an army of 256,000
men. Therefore to kill a cow, etc., Q.E.D. Modern democracy, the
Copernican system of astronomy, a knowledge of the American continent,
of steamships, and of the telegraph are all discovered by Dyanand in the
Vedas, as no doubt wireless telegraphy and radium would have been, had
death not cut short, in 1883, the discoveries of the founder of the
[=A]ryas.[57]

[Sidenote: The modern leaven still affecting the [=A]ryas.]

These specimens of [=A]rya exposition of the Vedas I have given with no
intention of scoffing, although we may be permitted a laugh. I desire to
show the conflict of modern ideas and the new patriotic feeling, and how
the latter has affected the religious and theological position of the
[=A]ryas. It is the prominence of the patriotic feeling in many branches
of the Sam[=a]j that has led some observers to describe it as less of a
religious than a political organisation, anti-British and anti-Mahomedan
and anti-Christian. But the opponents of the Sam[=a]j are always
associated by [=A]ryas with rival religions; _keranis, kuranis,_ and