Is there a better way?

So, lets look at the facts.

Swami Swroopanand says that the Swami Jayendra Saraswati of Kanchi is not considered to be a Shankaracharya.

According to Vidyasankar Sundaresan, quoting the Illustrated Weekly of India, "...on August 25, as speculation about the whereabouts of Jayendra Saraswati mounted, the Sankaracharya of Dwaraka, Swaroopananda Saraswati, camping at Pune for the Chaturmasya Vrata, while demanding a high level probe into the mystery, asserted: 'Sri Jayendra Saraswati cannot be regarded as a Sankaracharya at all, because the Kanchi math is not one of the four peethas constituted by Adi Sankaracharya. It is only a shakha (branch) of the Sringeri peetham.'"

Reference:

"The Strange Case of the South Indian Bigman"
Cover Story, 'The Illustrated Weekly of India'
by K. P. Sunil
September 13, 1987.

Other titles of interest:

"The Truth about the Kumbhakonam Math"
by Sri R. Krishnaswamy Aiyar and Sri K. R. Venkatraman
Sri Ramakrishna Press, Madurai, 1977.

"Kanchi Kamakoti Math - a Myth"
by Sri Varanasi Raj Gopal Sarma
Ganga Tunga Prakashan, Varanasi, 1987.

# posted by Richard J. Williams @ Friday, November 19, 2004