It is written that on Thursday, 21 December 1871 the village of Gana close to Ayodhya, Rajaram Mishra was born. After leaving home he stayed in his guru's ashram where he was known as Brahmachari Brahma Chaitanya. Later, in 1904 at the age of thirty-three years old, his guru initiated him as a sannyasi and gave him the name of Swami Brahmanand Saraswati. Much later, in April 1941, the title of Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math was conferred upon him.*

As told by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1952:

Swami Brahmand Saraswati Maharaj, the present Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath Badarikashram (in the Himalayas) is a magnetic personality with a sweet amalgam of High Wisdom and Love of humanity. He combines in himself the Knowledge of the self with the mysterious powers -- the siddhis arising out of yogic perfection and hard penances, which he has undergone throughout his life. He is a great living yogi and scholar.

This great Saint of the modern age was born in Uttar Pradesh in a well to do and renowned Brahman family in 1871 and was enthroned to the seat of His Holiness Jagatguru Shankaracharya in 1941 at Benares, during the ninth session of the All India Sanatan Dharma Maha Sammelan convened by the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal in conjunction with a countrywide support of almost all the ruling princes and different socio-religious institutions all over the country.

It may be recalled that it was a long persuasion of about twenty years which could convince Param Virakt Swami Brahmanand Saraswati to accept the great responsibility of the Shankaracharya at the age of seventy.

From the tender age of nine when he came out of his home in Search of God, till this time, his life was mostly spent in the lonely hidden regions of the Himalayas, Vindya Giris and the Amarkantakas which are rarely frequented by men and are chiefly inhabited by wild animals. For years together he has lived in hidden caves and thick forests where even the midday sun frets and fumes in vain to dispel the darkness that may be said to have made a permanent abode there in those solitary and distant regions.

But today he is easily accessible as he is now the presiding head of Shri Jyotirmath which is the greatest religious institution of the Vedas of Northern India, covering all different creeds and sampradayas and branches lying under the fold of the Vedas.

This brief description attempts to mirror a few hurried and short glimpses of the life journey of this great living sage who has actually transformed into a living fact the inner latent potentiality of the soul. He has known the great universal Truth, whose realization is the aim of the entire scheme of life. For him the mists of ignorance have completely disappeared and having known the Divine Reality he has verily become an embodiment of the great Divinity.

His aim of life, if the life of a realized soul can be said to possess any such aim, is to broadcast the message of the Great Divine light that he has himself realized, the Light that is the Soul of all human beings.

Having himself attained the pinnacle of Self development; he aims at transforming the worldly minded people into the Godly minded, and through his inner Divine touch to change the materialistic hearts of iron into spiritual hearts of gold.

His entire personality emanates the sweet perfume of spirituality. His race radiates that rare light which comprises love, authority, serenity and self assuredness that comes only by righteous living and Divine Realization -- one feels as if some ancient Maharishi mentioned in the pages of the Upanishads has assumed human form and feels that it is worth while leading a pious life and to strive for the realization of the Divine.