In Ayodhya, he became a disciple of Mahant Ram Manohar Das and graduated with a Shastri (degree) from Sanskrit University in Varanasi.

[2] The temple is one of the main religious and spiritual attractions of the city, and everyday Mahant Nritya Gopal Das meets hundreds of pilgrims.

[6] Mark Tully narrates a meeting with Mahant Nritya Gopal Das in 1992 in his book India In Slow Motion:[7] The mahant insisted that although he was the vice-president of the trust established by the VHP to build their Rama temple, he had nothing to do with politics.

[…] Broad shoulders, with the arms of a wrestler, and the torso of a man who no longer exercised with the vigour of his youth, Nritya Gopal Das had the dishvelled appearance most sadhus cultivate.

His broad forehead was smeared with orange paste, his oily greying hair, faintly coloured with henna, fell down to his shoulders, his beard was untrimmed, the white cotton robe wrapped round him creased.