MADHUSUDAN PARVAT Vs. SHREE MADHAV TEERTH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff brought this suit for a declaration that the defendant is not entitled to the style, title and dignities of a Shankaracharya and that he is not entitled to call for or receive any offerings from the people of Ahmedabad and other places in Gujerat either in his assumed capacity of a Shankaracharya or of a Shankaracharya of the Jotir Math or of a branch of that Math, for an account of the money received by the defendant as a Shankaracharya in Gujerat with a decree for payment to the plaintiff of the sum found to have been so received by the defendant, and for an injunction restraining the defendant from styling himself a Shankaracharya in Gujerat and from claiming or receiving offerings in Gujerat as a Shankaracharya or as a Shankaracharya of the Jotir Math or of a branch of the Jotir Math of Badrinath. The Subordinate Judge made a declaration that the defendant is not entitled to call himself a Shankaracharya of the Jotir Math of Badrinath or of a branch of it at Dholka and to claim or receive any offerings from the people of the Judicial District of Ahmedabad in his assumed capacity of a Shankaracharya of the Jotir Math of Badrinath or of the so-called branch of it at Dholka and an injunction against the defendant so styling himself and claiming or receiving offerings. He held, however, that the claim for an account and recovery of offerings received by the defendant was un-sustainable as the offerings might or might not have been made to the plaintiff. From the decree of the Subordinate Judge the defendant has appealed to this Court.

(2.) It is not disputed that the religious reformer Shankar about the 8 century, A.D., established four Maths or Monasteries for Sanyasis or Ascetics in the North, South, East, and West of India, namely the Jotir Math at Badrinath in the Himalayas, the Shringeri Math in Southern India, the Sharada Math at Dwarka in Gujerat and the Govardhan Math at Puri in Cuttack.

(3.) The name Shankaracharya, which means the preceptor Shankar, properly belongs to the reformer Shankar alone but after his death some of his leading followers appear to have adopted the name as a title; probably, as Mr. Ghose in his work on Hindu law (p. 784) suggests, because they thought themselves incarnations of the reformer.