Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati passes away at age of 99

Dwarkapeeth Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati passed away at the age of 99 in Madhya Pradesh`s Narsinghpur on Sunday. He died of a minor heart attack and breathed his last at 3:50 in the ashram. The funeral of Shankaracharya ji will take place on Monday. Swami Swaroopanand, who was the Shankracharya of Dwarka, Sharda, and Jyotish Peeth, was not keeping well for over a year, he said. He passed away at his Ashram in the Narsinghpur district around 3:30 PM, Swami Sadanand Maharaj, second-in-command (known as Dandi Swami) of the Dwarka Peeth, told PTI.

The Shankaracharya was born as Pothiram Upadhyay in Dighori village in the Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh in 1924. He had left his home in pursuit of God at the age of 9. He was incarcerated during the freedom struggle. He became Shankracharya in 1981, his followers said, adding Shankaracharya's 99th birthday was celebrated recently.