Swami Dayananda Saraswati is a monk of the Hindu monastic order, a renowned traditional teacher of Advaita Vedanta, and founder of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam.

As a foremost student of Swami Chinmayananda, Swami Dayananda studied with a number of teachers, including Swami Tapovanam Maharaj, Swami Pranavananda and other well-known Sanskrit scholars, including Professor Veeraraghavachariar at Chamrajpet’s Sanskrit College.

Pujya Swamiji, as he is known by his students, became a Hindu Monk in 1962. Several years later he traveled to Rishikesh where he undertook a study-pilgrimage and stayed in a grass hut in Purani Jhadi. He spent three years there, studying Brahma Sutras under Swami Tarananda Giri at Kailash Ashram.

In 1971, Swami Dayananda agreed to conduct a long-term study program at Chinmaya Mission’s Sandeepany Sadhanalaya and formulated a curriculum that would systematically unfold the vision of Vedanta. Between 1972 and 1979, Swami Dayananda conducted two three-year residential Vedanta courses in Mumbai. In his words “At Sandeepany the teaching is traditional and rigorous. What would take a Sadhu in the Himalayas nine years to learn, the students at Sandeepany learned in two-and-half years.”

In 1979 at the request of students in the US, Swami Dayananda established a three-year study program at Sandeepany West, in Piercy, California. In 1982 he returned to India and continued to spread the message of the Upanishads through public talks and lectures.

Once again responding to the request of students, devotees and disciples, Swami Dayananda established the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam at Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania in 1986 wherein a three-year residential course was completed in 1990. This ashram is an established Hindu cultural center as well as an institution for the dissemination of Vedanta and Sanskrit. Classes and retreats are offered here throughout the year, for individuals, families, teens and children.

Swami Dayananda along with his students has taught nine three-year programs and many of his students from these programs are now teaching all over India and abroad. More than two-hundred of his Sannyasi-disciples are teaching Vedanta and Sanskrit around the world.

As a teacher of Vedanta, Swami Dayananda has established three traditional teaching centres and many more across the globe through his students with a primary focus on teaching Vedanta, Sanskrit and related disciplines.