The DAV institutions are the Gift of the Arya Samaj, a progressive movement founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 1875.

Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the great path–maker of modern India, led a crusade against the superstitious and pernicious practices that prevailed in contemporary India.

With a view to bringing about balanced and harmonious development of the future citizens of this country and to infuse in their ideas of Vedic Culture and high sense of patriotism, Arya Samaj founded a school at Lahore in 1886 by the name of DAYANAND ANGLO VEDIC SCHOOL.

This established the DAV College Trust and Management Society which later set up a network of such educational institutions all over India and abroad.

The DAV movement would not have achieved its goal had not a young brilliant graduate–Mahatma Hansraj, the first Principal of the first DAV institutions, Offered his honorary services as "Jeevan Daan" for 25 years.

Matchless also is the sacrifice of his brother, Lala Mulkraj who fulfilled his pledge of supporting Hansraj's family all these years.