Arya Samaj in Trinidad and Tobago

The earliest efforts to establish the Arya Samaj in Trinidad and Tobago were made by visiting missionaries in the beginning of the 20th century.

[2] In 1934, Pandit Āyodhyā Prasād arrived, and the local Arya Samaj community was so impressed by him that he was asked to prolong his stay for three years.

The movement even included a small number of members who were not willing to undergo the shuddhi ceremony and, in fact, remained Christians.

[3] Pandit Āyodhyā Prasād also laid the foundations of the first Aryan temple, the Montrose Mandir in Chaguanas, which was also often called the Vedic Church.

Already in January 1937 it was decided to change the name of the organization into Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Trinidad, which at the moment of governmental recognition in 1943 became the official name.

Ojah, and Pandit Bhogi Dass founded a new organization called Vaidika Dharam Pracharak Sabha.

Later, when they asked for official recognition with the colonial authorities they changed this name into Vedic Dharam Arya Sabha of Trinidad.

However, after the demise of Solomon Moosai-Maharaj in 1975 the Mission started to wane and in 1985 some members had returned to the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Trinidad.

In 1980 Shivaprasad was replaced by Pandit Harinath Seereeram Maharaj, who put more emphasis on the Brahmanic background of some members in the organization.

One reason of the splits was mostly that a former president did not accept his loss in the elections, which are regularly held in the Ārya Samāj, and started a new organization.

[12] Richard Huntington Forbes, Arya Samaj in Trinidad: An Historical Study of Hindu Organizational Process in Acculturative Conditions, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International 1985.