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Originally Posted by Still_Waters
Has there ever been a female Shankaracharya at the head of any of the four monastic peethas of India?
If not, has this ever been considered as a possibility or is that not even possible ?
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These Shankaracharya's are most usually saints or scholars who look after the administrative matters of the peethas. None of them are enlightened sages.
So, there has been no female Shankaracharyas, but there has been female enlightened sages whom even the shankaracharyas prostrate to , like Mata Amritanandamayi, Nirmala Devi, Anandamayi Maa, Anandmurti Gurumaa.
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, considered as an Avatar of the nineteenth century, prostrated to all women , including children or prostitutes, considering them as manifestations of the Divine Mother.
Some sayings of his....
Women are, all of them, the veritable images of Śakti.
He who has realized God does not look upon a woman with the eye of lust; so he is not afraid of her. He perceives clearly that women are but so many aspects of the Divine Mother. He worships them all as the Mother Herself.
'All women are images, reflections of the Blessed Mother and should be looked upon and revered as mothers'.
The Divine Mother revealed to me in the Kali temple that was She who had become everything. She showed me everything was full of Consciousness. The image was Consciousness, the altar was Consciousness, the water-vessels Consciousness, the door-sill was Consciousness, the marble floor was Consciousness -- all was Consciousness. I found everything inside the room soaked, as It were, in Bliss,
Bliss of God. I saw a wicked man in front of the Kali temple; but in him also I saw the power of the Divine Mother vibrating. That was why I fed a cat with the food that was to be offered to the Divine Mother. I clearly perceived that all this was the Divine Mother-even the cat.