The Telegraph: 21.03.2003

Mumbai, Jan. 20 (PTI): Putting an end to controversy, sankaracharyas across the country today unanimously accepted April 3, 509 BC as Adi Sankara’s exact date of birth.

Sankaracharyas of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, Dwarka Jyotirmath, Badrinath Govardhanpeeth and Puri unanimously accepted the date and said there was no need for debate on the subject.

At a seminar organised by the Ved Shastra Pandit Raksh Sabha, scholar Srikant Jichkar said the date, which was arrived at by both scientists and historians, coincides with the paramparas of the mutts across the country.

The controversy over the date that western scholars and historians in country had raised should now come to an end, he said.

Kanchi sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi said according to Indian philosophy, “we have to regard tradition, and since no political party or government in the country has understood the importance of Indian tradition, it is the duty of spiritual leaders to come together to establish this date as the beginning of determining and asserting many more truths of Bharat, now India”.

The seers urged the government to organise Adi Sankara’s birth centenary celebrations at his birthplace, Kaladi in Kerala, in 2010.

https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/adi-sankara-birthdate-row-ends/cid/965788