Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University is a university in Ajmer, Rajasthan, India. It opened in 1987 and is named after the philosopher Maharshi Dayananda Saraswati. The university was established August, 1 1987 as the University of Ajmer. The name was changed in 1992. Jurisdiction of the university extends to the entire state of Rajasthan. Since inception the university has conducted the examination of nearly 1,500,000 students in colleges throughout the state. In 1990, the history, political science, zoology, botany and mathematics departments were founded; in 1991 courses in environmental technology, microbiology and laboratory technology and instrumentation were started. In 1993, after transferring to a new campus, the courses of food and nutrition, applied chemistry, management studies and computer applications were created, offering M. Sc., MBA, postgraduate (PG) diploma and Ph.D. programmes. The university started a PG programme in environmental science in 1998 and PG programmes in botany, zoology, business economics, commerce, population studies, history, political science and computer science in 2000.