‘Sanatan Dharma’ (common noun) as a phrase is very old. It appears in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions as a common noun meaning ‘eternal order’ or ‘timeless law’. However, ‘Sanatan Dharma’ (proper noun) as the name of an organised conservative Hindu movement emerged only in the 19th century under British colonial rule.

This distinction matters because the 19th century witnessed the transformation of scattered regional Hindu traditions into a consciously organised religious identity. The rise of this movement was not simply the continuation of ancient traditions. It was a modern response to colonialism, missionary critique, social reform, print culture, and new forms of political organisation.

The movement emerged after three interconnected pressures. First came Christian missionary attacks on idol worship, caste hierarchy, pilgrimage, and ritual practices. Second came British colonial reforms such as the abolition of sati and debates around widow remarriage. Third came reformist Hindu movements such as the Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj, which rejected many ritual and sectarian traditions.

Orthodox Hindu elites responded by creating Dharma Sabhas across India. The earliest and most famous Dharma Sabha emerged in Calcutta in the 1830s to oppose the abolition of sati. Over time, similar organisations appeared across Bengal, Punjab, Bihar, Maharashtra, and the United Provinces.

These sabhas represented a major historical shift. Earlier Hindu traditions were largely local and decentralised. They revolved around temples, caste councils, pilgrimage centres, regional gods, and sectarian mathas. But colonial modernity encouraged elites to imagine Hindus as a single civilisational community that needed defence, co-ordination, and organisation.

One of the important figures in popularising this new identity was Pandit Shraddharam Phillauri. He founded the Amritsar Dharma Sabha and wrote works defending orthodox Hindu customs. He helped popularise the phrase ‘Sanatan Dharma’ as the collective name for traditional Hindu identity.

The most ambitious institutional expression of this movement became the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal, founded in the 1880s by Pandit Deendayalu Sharma. The Mahamandal tried to unite scattered dharma sabhas into a pan-Indian network with annual conferences held at pilgrimage centres such as Haridwar.

What made the Mahamandal historically significant was not merely its defence of rituals, but its attempt to create a new Hindu public sphere. It used railways, printing presses, religious fairs, Sanskrit schools, pamphlets, conferences, and pilgrimage circuits to produce a shared Hindu consciousness across regions.

Sacred geography became one of its most powerful tools. The movement promoted Bharatvarsha as a holy civilisational land stretching from the Himalayas to the seas. Pilgrimage routes linking places such as Haridwar, Puri, Dwarka, Kashi, Prayag, and Sringeri were presented as evidence of ancient national unity.

This was a significant shift. Earlier pilgrimage traditions were regional and sectarian. The Mahamandal transformed them into a map of Hindu civilisation itself. Fairs, yatras, and monasteries became instruments for imagining a single Hindu society.

At the same time, the movement collaborated quite comfortably with British colonial rule. Unlike the Indian National Congress, which increasingly moved toward anti-colonial politics, the Mahamandal largely avoided confrontation with the British.

In fact, many Mahamandal leaders openly praised the British administration. A 1910 Mahamandal publication described British rule as divinely ordained and credited the colonial state with bringing peace, railways, telegraphs, and administrative order.

This collaboration was strategic. Conservative Hindu elites feared social reform and religious fragmentation more than colonial rule itself. British governance provided stability within which upper-caste religious institutions, landlords, Sanskrit scholars, and pilgrimage networks could reorganise themselves.

The movement, therefore, combined Hindu revivalism with loyalty to empire. It argued that while the British governed politically, Hindus themselves had to preserve religious order, caste discipline, temple culture, and Sanskrit learning.

The social base of the movement reflected these priorities. Though the Mahamandal spoke in the name of all Hindus, its leadership came overwhelmingly from Brahmins, landlords, Sanskrit intellectuals, princes, and upper-caste elites.

The patronage of Maharaja Rameshwar Singh became especially important. He financed conferences, schools, publications, and religious institutions across northern India.

The movement claimed to speak for the Hindu jati as a whole, but its writings focused primarily on Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas. Shudras and marginal communities appeared rarely except as subjects needing guidance within varnashrama order.

Historically, the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal marked one of the earliest attempts to organise Hindus as a single religious civilisation through sacred geography, print culture, pilgrimage networks, elite patronage, and institutional co-ordination. The modern political imagination of ‘Sanatan Dharma’ emerged not in ancient times, but in the colonial 19th century as a conservative response to reform, modernity, and social change.