Jyotish and Dwaraka Peethadheeshwar Shankaracharya Swaroopanand Saraswati has demanded restructuring of the samadhi sthal of Adi Shankaracharya, the 8th century saint, at Kedarnath. He said he had raised the demand to the President of India. “Besides, the airport at Kalura in Madhya Pradesh should be named after the saint to mark his birth anniversary. I also demand the cave where he undertook sanyas (renunciation) be revamped,” he said while addressing media persons at his ashram in Kankhal on Friday.
To mark the Nav Samvatsar (New year as per Hindu calendar), Swaroopanand released the new Panchang. Also he initiated the religious rituals which would continue for the nine auspicious days during Navratras.
Shankaracharya sounded distressed over the waning of the flow of Ganga. “The fact that there is not enough water in the river for the pilgrims to take a dip during Ardh Kumbh mela pains me a great deal. The level of water is not even waist deep,” he said. He demanded all the hydro projects planned on the river Ganga and its tributaries be scrapped to stop the holy river from drying up.
He lashed out at Narendra Modi government for spending crores of rupees on Ganga cleaning while ignoring the fact that sewage is being dumped indiscriminately in Ganga.
He said warningly that if things continue this way the day is not far-off when Ganga would cease to be Ganga. “The work to clean Ganga must start right from Uttarakhand,” he said.
Swaroopanand also attacked ‘fake, self-proclaimed Shankaracharyas’ who are acting as tools of vested interests against the Sanatan Dharma. “These mountebanks must quit following the High Court order. Neither the court nor the Vidwat Parishad is favouring them,” Swaroopanand said.