Adi Shankara (8th c. CE), also called Adi Shankaracharya (, ), was an Indian Vedic scholar-monk, philosopher, and teacher (acharya) of Advaita Vedanta. He wrote influential commentaries on the Brahma sutras and other texts, and in recent times is often revered as the most important Indian philosopher. Reliable information on Shankara's actual life is scant, and the historical influence of his works on Hindu intellectual thought has been questioned. The historical Shankara was probably relatively unknown and Vaishnava-oriented and his true impact lies in the popular perception of him as a heroic religious leader who re-established traditional Hinduism.
Until the 10th century Shankara was overshadowed by his older contemporary Maṇḍana Miśra, and there is no mention of him in concurrent Hindu, Buddhist or Jain sources until the 11th century. The legendary Shankara was created in the 14th century, centuries after his death, when Sringeri maṭha (monastery, temple-school) started to receive patronage from the emperors of the Vijayanagara Empire and shifted their allegiance from Advaitic Agamic Shaivism to Brahmanical Advaita orthodoxy. Hagiographies dating from the 14th-17th centuries deified him as a ruler-renunciate, travelling on a digvijaya (conquest of the four quarters) across the Indian subcontinent to propagate his philosophy, defeating his opponents in theological debates. These hagiographies also portray him as founding four mathas. Adi Shankara also came to be regarded as the organiser of the Dashanami monastic order, and the unifier of the Shanmata tradition of worship. The title of Shankaracharya, used by heads of certain monasteries in India, is derived from his name. Tradition also portrays him as the one who reconciled the various sects (Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism) with the introduction of the form of worship, the simultaneous worship of five deities – Ganesha, Surya, Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi, arguing that all deities were but different forms of the one Brahman, the invisible Supreme Being.
Owing to his later fame over 300 texts are attributed to him, including commentaries (bhāṣya), introductory topical expositions (prakaraṇa grantha) and poetry (stotra). However, most of these are likely to have been written by admirers, or pretenders, or scholars with an eponymous name. Works widely accepted to have been written by Shankara himself are the Brahmasutrabhasya, his commentaries on ten principal Upanishads, his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, and the Upadeśasāhasrī. The authenticity of Shankara as the author of the has been questioned and mostly rejected by scholarship.
His authentic works present a harmonizing reading of the shastras, with liberating knowledge of the self at its core, synthesizing the inherited Advaita Vedanta teachings of his time. The central concern of Shankara's writings was the liberating knowledge of the true identity of jīvātman (individual self) as Ātman-Brahman, emphasizing that "right knowledge arises at the moment of hearing" the mahāvākyas. These mahavakyas are found in the Upanishads, which Shankara saw as the authoritative means of knowledge, beyond the ritually oriented Mīmāṃsā-exegesis of the Vedas. Shankara's Advaita showed influences from Mahayana Buddhism, despite Shankara's critiques; and Hindu Vaishnava opponents have even accused Shankara of being a "crypto-Buddhist," a qualification which is rejected by the Advaita Vedanta tradition, highlighting their respective views on Atman, Anātman and Brahman.
Dating Several different dates have been proposed for Shankara. While the Advaita tradition assigns him to the 5th century BCE, the scholarly-accepted dating places Shankara to be a scholar from the first half of the 8th century CE.
Matha datings The prominent Advaita-mathas date Shankara to the 5th century BCE. This dating is based on records of the heads of Shankara's cardinal institutions s. The exact dates of birth of Adi Shankaracharya believed by several monasteries are Kali 2593 (509 BCE) according to the Kanchipuram, 507 BCE according to Govardhan Math, 491 BCE according to Dvarka (Dvārakā), 485 BCE according to Jyotirmath, 484 BCE according to Jagannatha Puri, and 483 BCE according to Sringeri.
The records of the Sringeri Matha state that Shankara was born in the 14th year of the reign of "Vikramaditya", but it is unclear to which king this name refers.K.A. Nilakantha Sastry, A History of South India, 4th ed., Oxford University Press, Madras, 1976. Though some researchers identify the name with Chandragupta II (4th century CE), modern scholarship accepts the Vikramaditya as being from the Chalukya dynasty of Badami, most likely Vikramaditya II (733–746 CE).
Scholarly datings 788–820 CE: This was proposed by late 19th and early twentieth century scholars, following K.P. Tiele, and was customarily accepted by scholars such as Max Müller, Macdonnel, Pathok, Deussen and Radhakrishna. Though the 788–820 CE dates are widespread in 20th-century publications, recent scholarship has questioned the 788–820 CE dates. CE: Late 20th-century and early 21st-century scholarship tends to place Shankara's life in the first half of the 8th century. This estimate is based on the probable earliest and latest limits for his lifetime. His works contains traces of debates with Buddhist and Mimansa authors from the 5th-7th century, setting the earliest limit at . The latest limit is established by Vachaspati Mishra's commentary on Sankara's work, dated first half of the 9th century, thus setting the latest limit for Sankara at .
Other datings 44–12 BCE: the commentator Anandagiri believed he was born at Chidambaram in 44 BCE and died in 12 BCE. 6th century CE: Telang placed him in this century. Sir R.G. Bhandarkar believed he was born in 680 CE. 805–897 CE: Venkiteswara not only places Shankara later than most, but also had the opinion that it would not have been possible for him to have achieved all the works apportioned to him, and has him live ninety-two years.
Traditional and historical views on Shankara
Traditional views of Shankara
Shankara has an unparalleled status in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta. Hagiographies from the 14th-17th centuries portray him as a victor who travelled all over India to help restore the study of the Vedas.Per Durst-Andersen and Elsebeth F. Lange (2010), Mentality and Thought: North, South, East and West, CBS Press, , p. 68 According to Frank Whaling, some Hindus, particularly those who follow Advaita, view Shankara as someone who defended Hindu dharma in response to Buddhist and Jain challenges and contributed to the decline of Buddhism in India. His teachings and tradition are central to Smartism and have influenced Sant Mat lineages. Tradition portrays him as the one who reconciled the various sects (Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism) with the introduction of the Panchayatna form of worship, the simultaneous worship of five deities – Ganesha, Surya, Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi, arguing that all deities were but different forms of the one Brahman, the invisible Supreme Being, implying that Advaita Vedanta stood above all other traditions.
Historical Shankara and (lack of) early influence (until 10th century)
Scholars have questioned Shankara's early influence in India. The Buddhist scholar Richard E. King states,
According to numerous scholars, Shankara and other early Advaitins were probably Vaishnavites, or at least teaching in a Vaishnava-oriented milieu, and Shankara may have had a Pancharatra background.
According to Clark, "Shankara was relatively unknown during his life-time, and probably for several centuries after, as there is no mention of him in Buddhist or Jain sources for centuries; nor is he mentioned by other important philosophers of the ninth and tenth centuries." According to King, until the 10th century, Shankara's works seem to have been overshadowed by his older contemporary Maṇḍana Miśra; Roodurmun notes that Maṇḍana was considered the major representative of Advaita. Maṇḍana Miśra, a Mimansa scholar, follower of Kumarila Bhatta, and older contemporary of Shankara, wrote the Brahma-siddhi, a seminal text on Advaita that has survived into the modern era. The "theory of error" set forth in the Brahma-siddhi became the normative in later Advaita Vedanta discussion of error. His student Vachaspati Miśra, who is believed by Advaita tradition to have been an incarnation of Shankara to popularize the Advaita view, wrote the Bhamati (Bhāmatī), a commentary on Shankara's Brahma Sutra Bhashya, and the Brahmatattva-samiksa, a commentary on Mandana Mishra's Brahma-siddhi. His thought was mainly inspired by Mandana Mishra, and harmonises Shankara's thought with that of Mandana Mishra. The Bhamati school takes an ontological approach. It sees the jiva (jīva) as the source of avidya (avidyā). It sees meditation as the main factor in the attainment of liberation, while the study of the Vedas and reflection are additional factors. The later Advaita Vedanta tradition identified Maṇḍana Mishra with Sureśvara, Shankara's pupil,: "There is little firm historical information about Suresvara; tradition holds Suresvara is same as Mandana Misra". believing that Maṇḍana Mishra became a disciple of Shankara after a public debate which Shankara won.
According to Satchidanandendra Sarasvati, "almost all the later Vedantins were influenced" by Mandana Mishra and Bhaskara "in working out their own line of thought". Potter notes that modern interpreters of Advaita such as Satchidanandendra Sarasvati argue that most post-Shankara Advaita Vedanta actually deviates from Shankara, and that only his student Sureśvara - whose interpretation had little influence, represents Shankara correctly. In this view, Shankara's influential student Padmapada misunderstood Shankara, while his views were maintained by the Sureshvara school.
Vaishnavite Vedanta (10th-14th century) Hajime Nakamura states that prior to Shankara, views similar to his already existed, but did not occupy a dominant position within the Vedanta. Until the 11th century, Vedanta itself was a peripheral school of thought; Vedanta became a major influence when it was utilized by various sects of Hinduism to ground their doctrines. The early Vedanta scholars were from the upper classes of society, well-educated in traditional culture. They formed a social elite, "sharply distinguished from the general practitioners and theologians of Hinduism." Their teachings were "transmitted among a small number of selected intellectuals". Works of the early Vedanta schools do not contain references to Vishnu or Shiva. It was only after Shankara that "the theologians of the various sects of Hinduism utilized Vedanta philosophy to a greater or lesser degree to form the basis of their doctrines," whereby "its theoretical influence upon the whole of Indian society became final and definitive." Examples are Ramanuja (11th c.), who aligned bhakti, "the major force in the religions of Hinduism," with philosophical thought, meanwhile rejecting Shankara's views,Encyclopædia Britannica, Ramanajua and the Nath-tradition.
Vijayanagara Empire and Vidyaranya (14th century) - creation of legendary (hagiographic) views