What does one have to be -- and do -- to become a shankaracharya? One must be a Hindu of course -- but what else? Well nothing. One does not need to attend a seminary, or start out early in the pursuit of godhood. One can train to become a doctor, an engineer -- anything… And then, provided there is the money to buy the 
passage to sainthood – anyone can take the route that Gauri Shankar Shukla of Allahabad took in 1990. That was the year when Shukla quit his job as an army wireless operator -- the transforming year for this family man who had sired five children. But the saffron gods had bigger plans for him, and within five years he was made head of the Ani Akhada and given the title of Mahamandleshwar Madhavanand. Another five years, and he was a “shankaracharya”!
“I have been declared shankaracharya of Prayag Peeth by the great Kashi Shankaracharya himself, and duly approved by the Prayag Vidvat Parishad (committee of Prayag intellectuals),” he told TSI.
Shukla is not alone in this. This was the very route that Sudhakar Dwivedi, a non-commissioned officer of the Indian Air Force, took to become “shankaracharya” of the Sharada Sarvadnya Peeth in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. In his case the “approval” came from the Varanaseya Vidvat Parishad (committee of Varanasi intellectuals). Dwivedi was nabbed on the basis of his mobile phone records. He had borrowed the phone from Pandey, his neighbour in Kanpur. That was also how the surname came to be attached to his own.....Continue
passage to sainthood – anyone can take the route that Gauri Shankar Shukla of Allahabad took in 1990. That was the year when Shukla quit his job as an army wireless operator -- the transforming year for this family man who had sired five children. But the saffron gods had bigger plans for him, and within five years he was made head of the Ani Akhada and given the title of Mahamandleshwar Madhavanand. Another five years, and he was a “shankaracharya”!“I have been declared shankaracharya of Prayag Peeth by the great Kashi Shankaracharya himself, and duly approved by the Prayag Vidvat Parishad (committee of Prayag intellectuals),” he told TSI.
Shukla is not alone in this. This was the very route that Sudhakar Dwivedi, a non-commissioned officer of the Indian Air Force, took to become “shankaracharya” of the Sharada Sarvadnya Peeth in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. In his case the “approval” came from the Varanaseya Vidvat Parishad (committee of Varanasi intellectuals). Dwivedi was nabbed on the basis of his mobile phone records. He had borrowed the phone from Pandey, his neighbour in Kanpur. That was also how the surname came to be attached to his own.....Continue
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