Swami Dayananda Saraswati (15 August 1930 – 23 September 2015) was a renunciate monk of the Hindu Saraswati order of sannyasa. He was also known as Pujya Swamiji and was a traditional teacher of Advaita Vedanta. He was the founder of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulams in Pennsylvania, USA; Rishikesh, Uttarakhand and Coimbatore Tamil Nadu, India. He was also the spiritual Guru of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, (the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India), for his service to the nation in the field of spirituality in 2016.
Swami Dayananda Saraswati was born as Natarajan in Manjakkudi in the Thiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu on 15 August 1930 to Shri Gopala Iyer and Smt Valambal, of a Brahmin family. He was the eldest of four sons. His early schooling was at the District Board School in Kodavasal. His father died when he was eight years old, which meant Natarajan had to shoulder the responsibility in the family alongside his education.
After the completion of his education at seventeen years of age, Natarajan came to Chennai to earn a livelihood. There he learnt English and began his career as a journalist for the weekly magazine Dharmika Hindu, run by T. K. Jagannathacharya (TKJ). However, owing to nominal income and at the behest of a friend, Rangachari, Natarajan enrolled in the Airforce as a combatant in Bangalore with the GTS (Ground Training Station). He was underweight and could not qualify but was allowed to continue. He later stated that he aspired to be a pilot. Family duties, namely his father's shraddham (a ceremony performed in honour of a dead ancestor), caused him to leave the Airforce. Above all, he did not like the rigidity. "There was no freedom, I felt they were trying to control my mind. I have never allowed anybody to ever control me at any time, no one. That is why I think I am a Swami."
Natarajan resumed his career as a journalist with 'Dharmika Hindu' magazine before joining a news agency, 'The Lens' run by Shri Rajagopal. He also worked for the erstwhile Volkart Brothers (now Voltas Limited). In his absence, his younger brother M.G.Srinivasan took charge of the agricultural fields of the family household and ensured that the family had income to live.
Involvement with Chinmaya Mission
Natarajan was interested in Vedanta. After listening to the public talks of Swami Chinmayananda in the year 1952, Natarajan was involved with the Chinmaya Mission in various roles and was appointed secretary of the Mission within the first year of its inception. He attended sanskrit classes of P.S. Subramania Iyer, a retired Professor of English. It was Iyer who introduced the meter of chanting the Bhagavad Gita verses that was initially followed by Chinmaya Mission centres, and is followed even today by all the Arsha Vidya centres amongst other centres as well.
Swami Chinmayananda entrusted Natarajan with the responsibility to set up Chinmaya Mission's Madurai branch. In 1955, Natarajan accompanied Swami Chinmayananda to Uttarakashi and helped him in the preparation of a Gita manuscript for publication. In Uttarakashi, he met Swami Chinmayananda's Guru, Tapovan Maharaj, who advised him, 'You have a duty to yourself which is also important. Stay here, meditate and study.' Natarajan could not take up that offer at that point in time. However, he promised Swami Tapovan Maharaj that he would return after one year to study with him and he did. Natarajan returned to Madras and took up the editorship of Tyagi, a fortnightly magazine of Chinmaya Mission. In 1956, on the advice of Swami Chinmayananda, Natarajan shifted to Bengaluru and continued to edit Tyagi which was also moved to Bengaluru. During his stay, Natarajan joined the Sanskrit College in Chamrajpet and studied with Prof. Veeraraghavachariar.
In 1961, with the permission of Swami Chinmayananda, Natarajan went to study under Swami Pranavananda at Gudivada to clarify his doubts on Vedanta and self-enquiry. The stay with Swami Pranavananda helped Natarajan learn that Vedanta is a Pramāna (a means of knowledge) to know the truth of the Self. In Natarajan's own words,
I saw the Swami giving direct knowledge to the people he was teaching. This resolved all my conflicts. My problems with Vedanta had been my mistaken notion that it was a system.
This shift in his vision about Vedanta impelled Natarajan to study the Shastra with Sankara's commentaries. In 1962, he was given Sannyasa by Swami Chinmayananda and named Swami Dayananda Saraswati. In 1963, he went to Mumbai, to the newly inaugurated Sandeepany Sadhanalaya of the Chinmaya Mission, where he undertook the responsibility of editing the magazine of the mission Tapovan Prasad. In addition, Swami Dayananda taught chanting of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads to the students of Sandeepany.
In November 1963, Swami Dayananda undertook a study-pilgrimage to Rishikesh and stayed in a grass hut in Purani Jhadi now known as Dayananda Nagar. He spent three years there, studying Brahma Sutras under Swami Tarananda Giri at the Kailash Ashram.
Around 1967, due to the declining health of Swami Chinmayananda, the Mission approached Swami Dayananda to give public talks and lectures. Between 1967 and 1970, Swami Dayananda travelled to different towns and cities in India spreading the teachings of Gita and the Upanishads. In 1971, Swami Dayananda agreed to conduct a long-term study program at Sandeepany Sadhanalaya, Powai, Mumbai and formulated a curriculum that would 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, 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.
Swami Dayananda Saraswati died by the banks of the Ganga, surrounded by his devotees and students in the late evening of 23 September 2015. He had been ailing for some weeks and been in and out of hospitals for some time. He was 85 years of age. Swamiji's last rites were performed in the traditional manner as befitting a renunciate. He was buried in a grave, known as "bhu" samadhi, to the loud chanting of Vedic hymns and mantras. Many dignitaries, Hindu leaders and his students were there to pay their final respects.
Swami Dayananda assisted by his senior disciples has taught ten three-year programs (eight in India and two in the United States) and many of his students from these programs are now teaching all over the world. More than two hundred of his Sannyasi disciples are teaching Vedanta and Panini system of grammar. They form the Arsha Vidya Sampradaya.
Swami Dayananda has established four traditional teaching centres and many more across the globe through his students with a primary focus on teaching Vedanta, Sanskrit and related disciplines. These traditional teaching centres are known as 'Arsha Vidya' or 'Arsha Vijnana' (Knowledge of the Rishis). The word 'Arsha' has been used by many of Swami Dayananda's students in naming their facilities to mark their lineage.