Swami Dayananda Saraswati was born in Tamil Nadu. He became a swami as a young man and was the assistant to Swami Chinmayananda when he took the initiative to establish Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
In 1986, Swami Dayananda Saraswati founded the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, a Gurukula that has branches in India and the United States. Arsha Vidya Gurukulam is an institute for the traditional study of Advaita Vedanta, Yoga, Ayurveda, Jyotish, Sanskrit and other classical Hindu studies. The word Arsha means that which is from the Rishis - the great seers of ancient India. The word Vidya means knowledge. Thus, Arsha Vidya means the knowledge flowing from the Rishis. The word Gurukulam, means family of the teacher, referring to a residential center for learning with the Teacher.
Arsha Vidya Gurukulam offers Indians and non-Indians, Hindus and non-Hindus alike an opportunity to study the profound spiritual knowledge of the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Brahma-sutras, and other classical Vedanta texts.
Swami Dayananda is currently the most revered teacher of Advaita Vedanta in the world. He also founded AIM for Seva for social work in India.