Born in Jat family of village Magloona in Sikar district of present-day Rajasthan in 1883, Swamiji, whose actual name was Birama, was the son of Thakarsi, a penurious camel-driver, and his wife Saran.

He approached Mahant Kushaldas of the Udasin sect, to whom he expressed the desire to learn Sanskrit, to be able to study the higher Hindu scriptures from primary sources.

Accordingly, Birama became a sannyasi in 1904, was inducted into the Udasin sect, and commenced his education at the Sadhu Ashram Fazilka, a Hindu seminary located in Punjab.

Swami Keshwanand, an orphan, illiterate, nomadic man who never received formal education, was the founder of more than 300 schools, 50 hostels and innumerable libraries, social service centres and museums.

In 1911, within a few years of his initiation into the Udasin Dasnami sect as a sanyasi, swami Keshawanand started the "Vedant Pushp Vatika" library within the precincts of the Sadhu Ashram Fazilka.

Within the precincts of this school, Swami Keshwanand developed a museum with a valuable collection of rare documents, paintings and antiques, thus initiating the idea of conservation in a profoundly backward area.

Swami's own mother-tongue was of course Hindi, and he somehow felt that forcing people from other parts of India to learn that language would aid national unity.

In 1933, he started a press named "Deepak" at Abohar, which published material in Hindi language that was distributed either free or at a very nominal price.

Swami Keshwanand's deep understanding of the rural society of the desert region can be gleaned from his book "Maru Bhumi Seva Karya".

It was Swami Keshwanand's lifelong endeavour to eradicate social evils like untouchability, illiteracy, child marriage, indebtedness, poverty, backwardness, alcohol abuse, moral dissipation, etc.

Swami Keshwanand, born in a Jat Hindu family of Dhaka clan, and a renunciate belonging to the Udasi sect which was propagated by Srichandji, son of guru Nanakdevji, the founder of the Sikh faith, was a unique example of communal harmony.

[citation needed] Swami Keshwanand started a girls' school called (Gramothan Vidyapeath) in Sangriya in August 1917.