A search in secret India

[Nanda Kumar]

I saw a copy of Paul Brunton's 'A search in secret India' in a book shop
and out of curiousity leafed thru it. There's a chapter where he
describes his meeting with the Shankaracharya of Kumbhakonam. This
was surprising because the only acharya in Tamil Nadu is the
Shankaracharya at Kanchipuram (Can somebody throw more light on
this?). Anyway on his request to accept him as a disciple, the acharya
declines but suggests that threre're two truly realized saints in India
whom he could try. The first he says is somewhere in North India, hidden
in some religious establishment and very difficult to access and that
there's not much chance that the saint would accept a European as a
disciple. The second saint he suggests is Ramana Maharishi and the rest
is history.

My first question is does anybody know the first saint that the acharya
was referring to? And again as the European asked some 50 years
back, has anybody heard of any truly realized souls in India?