Swami Karpatri (Swāmi Karpātrī; 1905–1980; born as Har Narayan Ojha in a village called Ojhawali in Barhalganj town area of Gorakhpur district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India^[1][2]) was a monk in the Hindu dashanami monastic tradition. His ordained name as a monk was Hariharananda Saraswati, but he was popularly known by the name Karpatri ("he who uses his hand as a food vessel") Swami. He was married and the father of a baby daughter when he left home at age 17 to seek ordination as a sannyasi (monk). After his years of learning, including three years in icy caves in the Himalaya, he was ordained as a monk. He was the pupil of the very famous Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath Swami Brahmananda Swaraswati. He was also the founder of Dharma Sangha in Varanasi. He spent most of his life at Varanasi. He was a teacher in the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Hindu philosophy. In 1948, he founded the Ram Rajya Parishad, a traditionalist Hindu party. He also guided Alain Daniélou, a noted French indologist into converting into Hinduism under the name, Shiv Sharan. Swami Karpatriji was the most popular teacher of Advaita Vedanta in Varanasi in his lifetime. He was also the great expert of Shree Vidya and probably all the present day experts in Varanasi have somehow or the other obtained Shree vidya from him or his pupils. There are some tales that he was a siddha purush. His certain pupils include Swami Nischalananda Swaraswati the present shankaracharya of Puri as well as Swami Chinmayananda Swaraswati the present Shankaracharya of Varanasi.^[3]