Modern figure
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
ਦਯਾਨੰਦ ਸਰਸਵਤੀدیانند سرسوتی
Founder of the Arya Samaj in 1875. His movement found its strongest support in Punjab, where it founded the DAV colleges.
Dayananda Saraswati was born in 1824 in Gujarat and became a wandering ascetic and reformer who rejected idol worship and caste by birth and called Hindus back to the Vedas.
He founded the Arya Samaj in Bombay in 1875, but it was in the Punjab, where he spent 1877 and 1878, that it found its strongest support among the educated Hindu middle class. It founded the DAV schools and colleges.
His book Satyarth Prakash included harsh criticism of Sikhism and Guru Nanak, and the Arya Samaj's claim that Sikhs were Hindus provoked the Singh Sabha's reply, Ham Hindu Nahin. He died in 1883.
