Sringeri Week: The Shishya Sweekara

When this trip was first planned it was only to see His Holiness. It wasn’t until after we had our tickets and our travel plans confirmed that the Sringeri Math put out a huge announcement…

(English subtitles after the Sanskrit)

His Holiness announced that he had found a successor to the title of Shankaracharya and the ceremony that would make him officially next in line would be happening while we were in Sringeri!

An amazing coincidence and a once in a lifetime opportunity. There have only been 36 Shankaracharyas in the unbroken line back to 700 a.d. with Adi Shankara himself. As one of our friends there put it, “What great karma we must have to be here for this.”

So while our first couple of days in Sringeri were normal, our last few were very different. Thousands of people flooded in for the event. The day of started early with the Shishya (the student) bathing in the holy river Tunga and being given his orange robes. Then he visited the various temples on the math grounds and ended up at the Sharadamba Temple were we had some exclusive seats.

Here is some of the ceremony that happened at that temple (we were in seats to the right of where the camera is pointing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnF2qNlgAcw

It was all being broadcast live on Shankara TV and we had screens set up too to help us see the parts we didn’t have a good view of. For a few moments one of the cameras actually panned over to our section and showed a couple of my friends and travel companions! I am sitting right in front of where they’re standing. A bunch of friends who were watching Shankara TV live called to tell us they saw our group!

http://youtu.be/DflTTqYwkkk?t=4m59s

You’ll see them at 4m59s in

The next day there was an event my dad termed “double darshan” where both His Holiness and the Shishya were giving darshan. We rushed to get there early but it was already packed when we arrived. There were security guards keeping order and we were packed into the tightest space we could fit in. It was a bit of a crazy scene but thanks to some of our new friends we were able to very quickly show our respects to the Shishya.

I still can’t believe that we were really there for such a momentous occasion!