Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday unveiled a 12-foot statue of Adi Guru Shankaracharya at Kedarnath in Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand. During his visit to the Himalayan shrine near the Mandakini river, the PM also inaugurated the rebuilt samadhi (final resting place) of the eighth-century seer. It may be noted that the seer’s samadhi, which was next to the Kedarnath temple, was damaged in the 2013 floods.
The new statue of Shankaracharya has been installed just behind the Kedarnath temple.
The unveiling of the statue was streamed live at the 12 jyotirlingas, four Shankaracharya mutts (monastic institutions), his birthplace, and several prominent temples across the country.
The PM sat in meditation at the foot of the statue for a while.
Adi Shankaracharya was a Kerala-born Indian mystic and philosopher of the 8th century. He helped consolidate the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta and unify Hinduism by establishing four mutts all over India.
It is said that Adi Shankaracharya took samadhi at Kedarnath in Uttarakhand. He also established one of the four mutts in the state’s Chamoli district and also placed the idol at Badrinath.
PM Modi arrived in Kedarnath this morning and offered prayers at the magnificent Shiva temple.
During the visit, the PM also inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of reconstruction projects worth more than Rs 400 crore at the Himalayan temple.
Uttarakhand Governor Lt Gen Gurmit Singh (retd), Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and his cabinet colleagues Subodh Uniyal and Ganesh Joshi, and Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker Premchand Aggarwal had received the PM at the Dehradun airport earlier today.