Shankaracharya dispute settled after 26 years

The dispute over the crown of Shankaracharya of Dwarika and Jyotishpeeth, a court in Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad district, on Tuesday ruled that Swami Swaroopananda Sarswati was the real Shankaracharya.

The court rejected the claims his rival Swami Vasudevananda Sarswati on the title. Settling the 26-year long dispute, the court barred Vasudevananda from using ‘chanwar’ (an object which is held over head of the seer by one of the disciples) and ‘dand’ (the reverred stick), which were symbols associated with the shankaracharyas.

The dispute over the ‘crown’ of shanakaracharya dated back to 1989, when Vasudevananda Sarswati claimed that he was the real shankaracharya of Jyotishpeeth, which was based at Joshimath in Uttarakhand.

Swaroopananda had moved a petition in the court challeging Vasudevananda’s claim.
As many as 100 witnesses had been examined during the trial.

The trial had been moving at a snail's pace but after the supreme court's intervention it gathered momentum.