Hinduism saw renaissance in Swami Dayananda Saraswati's times

The ashram fosters Vedanta and Sanskrit and is unique in the sense that the classes are conducted in English yet the adherence and reverence to the ancient tradition of teaching (Sampradaya) is total. There is a temple dedicated to Lord Siva as Gangadhareswara, facing the Ganga. Swami Dayananda who expressed a desire to his devotees to breathe his last on the banks of Ganga, is regarded as one of the founders of RSS and was a renowned Sanskrit scholar. He was closely associated with Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt. “The Swamiji had clarity of thought and always called a spade a spade. With his foresight and abilities he was able to establish service oriented organisations and he was also the motivating spirit behind Dharma Rakshana Samiti,” claims Ganesan who accepted the 87-year-old seer as his “manasiga guru.”

The swami was not keeping well for sometime and was on dialysis. He returned from New York refusing to continue dialysis and went straight to Rishikesh to voluntarily withdraw himself into a Samadhi state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on his guru Swami Dayananda Saraswati on September 11, at Rishikesh and enquired about his health. He appealed to him to continue the treatment. Though the Swami underwent dialysis once again, his end came around 10.20 pm on Sept. 23, sending a pall of gloom in the ashram and a agony among his followers.

In addition to teaching, Swami Dayananda Saraswati had initiated and supported various humanitarian efforts for the last 45 years. The most far-reaching of these is the establishment of All India Movement for Seva in November, 2000, that provides medical, educational, nutritional and infrastructure assistance to villagers in the remote areas of the country. This movement enjoys the blessings of all traditional Hindu spiritual leaders who have united as a single body, the Acharya Sabha, through the coordinating efforts of the Swami.

Awarded consultative status with ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) by the United Nations in 2005, this organisation is devoted to serving people in the remote areas, mainly in education and health care. Swami Dayananda Saraswati had also promoted several international events and participated as a speaker in several global forums, among which are: the United Nations gathering of NGOs, Unesco Seoul Global Convention, United Nations 50th Anniversary Celebration, Millennium World Peace Summit, International Congress for the Preservation of Religious Diversity, Conference on Preservation of Sacred Sites, World Council for Preservation of Religious Diversity, Youth Peace Summit, Global Peace Initiative of Women Religious and Spiritual Leaders, a Hindu-Christian dialogue with the World Council of Churches, and the Hindu-Jewish Leadership Summit

The Rishikesh ashram was established during the 1960s by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, who was an internationally recognised teacher of Vedanta and foremost scholar of Sanskrit. Regular residential courses are conducted at the ashram with focus on Bhagavad Gita and the ten principal Upanishads as commented upon by Adi Sankara. These and selected ancillary texts are analysed and taught along with Sanskrit grammar in the Paninian style. Vedic chanting is also taught during courses.

He took Deeksha from Swamy Chinmayananda in 1962. “The AIM for Seva was started for the benefit of the poor children and downtrodden. He was closely associated with Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam and had the UN conference of spiritual leaders on behalf of the mutt. Dayananda Ashram is the parent Vedanta institute of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam group, established by Swami Dayananda. Known as Arsha Vidya Pitham (established in 1990), meaning a centre of learning based on the teachings of ancient rishis, it is situated about 25 Km from Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore in the picturesque The Nilgiris mountains.

The Swami was a distinguished traditional teacher of Vedanta. His depth of understanding and nuanced appreciation of both Eastern and Western cultures made him that rare teacher who could communicate the vision of non-duality to modern listeners. He was able to make one see, with immediacy, the truth of oneself as the whole. An eminent teacher of Vedanta and an erudite scholar in Sanskrit, he had been teaching Vedanta in India for over four decades, and around the world since 1976.

The Ashrams founded by the Swami in India are the Arsha Vidya Pitham in Rishikesh, the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam at Coimbatore and the Arsha Vijnana Gurukulam at Nagpur. In the U.S., the main centre is the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam at Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.In November 2001, the Swami convened the first World Congress for Preservation of Religious Diversity, in Delhi, inaugurated by the Dalai Lama and the then Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee.

An important outcome of the Congress is the formation of a Global Commission for the Preservation of Religious Diversity, spearheaded by Swami Dayananda Saraswati. He was also active in forming and participating in the Women’s Global Peace Initiative, which met at the United Nations in Geneva in October 2002.

Inspired by the enlightening talks of Swami Chinmayananda during 1952–53, Natarajan became actively involved with the then newly-formed Chinmaya Mission in various roles. He was made its secretary within the first year of its inception. He attended Sanskrit classes of P.S. Subramania Iyer, a retired Professor of English, who introduced the mode of chanting the Gita verses that is still being followed by Chinmaya Mission and Arsha Vidya Centres.

Swami Chinmayananda instructed Natarajan to set up Chinmaya Mission’s Madurai branch and in 1955 Natarajan accompanied Swami Chinmayananda to Uttarakashi and helped him in the preparation of a Gita manuscript for publication. In Uttarakasi, he met Swami Chinmayananda’s Guru, Swami Tapovanam Maharaj, who advised him, to do japa, meditate and study.

Natarajan returned to Madras and took up the editorship of ‘Tyagi,’ a fortnightly magazine of Chinmaya Mission. On the advice of Swami Chinmayananda, Natarajan shifted to Bangalore in 1956 and continued to edit Tyagi which was also moved to that city. During his stay there, Natarajan joined the Sanskrit College in Chamrajpet and had the privilege of studying one on one with Prof. Veeraraghavachariar.

Sanyasa: He was given sanyasa by Swami Chinmayananda in 1962 and given the name Swami Dayananda Saraswati. A year later, he went to Mumbai to the newly inaugurated Sandeepany Sadhanalaya of Chinmaya Mission, where he undertook the responsibility of editing the magazine of the mission Tapovan Prasad. In addition, Swami Dayananda taught chanting of Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads to students of Sandeepany. In November 1963, Swami Dayananda Saraswati undertook a study-pilgrimage to Rishikesh and spent three years there, studying Brahma Sutras under Swami Tarananda Giri at the Kailash Ashram.

The conservative streak, though, in Dayananda Saraswati seemed even more pronounced, given his patient and erudite scholarship in Sanskrit and various basic philosophical texts. He began giving discourses in ‘Vedanta’ in different parts of the country and abroad, to drive home the “wisdom received from Rishis”. The ‘Advaitic’ approach to truth and tradition came naturally to him from his family roots. The Rishikesh Ashram’ conducted regular residential courses on the basic philosophical texts and constantly informed by Advaita Vedanta’s founder Adi Sankara’s insight that ultimate reality is ‘One Being’.

Brush with DK: The activist side of Dayananda Saraswati saw him candidly speak out against any form of religious conversion. As Convenor of the ‘Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha’, an effort that he made to bring together the various Hindu pontiffs under one umbrella, he took the lead to articulate a position that any religious conversion per se “is violence”, and “opposed to freedom or religion and the spirit of mutual respect”.

While conversions remained an open-ended debate – he later took part in various international forums like the International Congress for the Preservation of Religious Diversity to keep this dialogue going. However, the ‘Hindu Dharma Rakshana Samiti’ was seen as being revivalist when he convened a conference in Delhi to prove how river Saraswati was no mythical river and that it had cradled a civilisation. Perhaps, his only open brush with the rationalist Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) in Tamil Nadu was in December 2006, when he opposed the idea of erecting a statue of Periyar, near the southern entrance to Sri Ranganthaswamy temple at Srirangam.

Days before the DK leader K. Veeramani was to unveil the Periyar statue, some miscreants damaged it. Dayananda Saraswati was later included in the FIR in the case after police arrested some activists of a fringe Hindu group. But Dayananda himself condemned the act of damaging the statue thereby ensuring peace.