Adi Shankara was one of those rare geniuses who are all things to all people and still remain free of any definitive label. To the West he is known as India's most impressive contribution to Philosophy anticipating many of the propositions and ideas of Kant by over a millenium. To many millions of devout Hindus he is one of the most important saints in India's history. To many other equally devout Hindus he is a dangerous preacher of illusion and contempt for the world. He spent his life in combating the Buddhist theologians' assault on the old religion and as his reward had his fellow religionists dub him the pravaccha baudha - the hidden Buddhist! Not only was he India's greatest philosopher he was also one of the great demons of action of all time. His energy level was incredible and he was the supreme organizer of people and institutions. For yet others he is the hero of a panegyric poem where he is forcibly fitted to the grand tradition of miracle working guru. Few hardy souls realize in him a serious trampler of tradition, an aspect of his personality that is overlooked nowadays. That is because he and his works became the new tradition, so pervasive was his impact. Lovers of Sanskrit poetry realize that he is one of the great poets of the world, all the more remarkable because he never covers that staple of the poetic imagination, love! Men as great as Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Radhakrishnan have realized his singular impact on Indian society and above all his great contribution to religious thought in the system of the Advaita Vedanta. All this and he died at the age of 32. Shankara was born in a little Kerala backwater village called Kaladi. It was the literal equivalent of a one-horse town. The date of his birth is in dispute with western authorities plumping for the eight century AD while Indians seem to be inclined to the fifth century AD. His father was a learned brahmin called Shivaguru and his mother a remarkable woman called Aryaamba. These names seem chosen more for the similarity they have with Shiva and his wife Parvati as it would become a vital part of the legend of Shankara that he was an avatar of Shiva. The usual auspicious signs - dreams of white bulls, divine music, peace ad good will on earth between all living creatures when he was born - were all manifest in measures generous enough to satisfy the mythmakers. That they were using a template that began with the birth of the Buddha seems to have been overlooked by them. The name Shankara however means that he is the bestower (KARA) of happiness (SAM) on all and is an original derivation. Astrologers predicted that the baby would become a boy wonder. They also knew that he was destined to die when he was just sixteen and Shankara was always in a tremendous hurry as though this knowledge was never absent form his waking consciousness. He was a formidably brilliant child, with an eidetic memory and an ability to absorb things that has probably never been matched since then. Years later he would reconstruct an epic-poem that had been deemed lost because the only manuscript was burnt by fire. He was not only brilliant he was only too aware of his brilliance, a fact that did not make him to popular amongst his fellow villagers. He was of an astringent nature and only really cared about his mother. Because she was too weak to go to the river to bathe he diverted the river to flow past the house. However his mother, widowed when he was three, would not grant him his ardent wish to become a sannyasin. She finally consented only when he was in the jaws of a crocodile, whereupon he was immediately released. Shankara gave a promise that even though he was a renouncer of the world and all its ties, he was sure to return and perform her funeral rites. This is unthinkable in the Hindu ritual context, a sannyasin is dead to his family, but Shankara as usual followed his own light. He soon found his guru who would formally initiate him into monastic life in the great scholar Govindapada. In answer to the guru's question as to who he was the young boy sang the six stanzas on nirvana, the nirvana - shatakam, which is a precis and crash course of Vedanta all at once. The teacher immediately realized that he was dealing with hot stuff here, and promised to initiate him if the boy would propagate the knowledge he learnt all over the land. He is supposed to have formally begun learning the Vedanta Sutras of Vyasa here. He was only eight years old. By the time he was sixteen he had completed the bulk of his phenomenal philosophic works. Prominent amongst these are the Vivekachudamani, the crest jewel of right discrimination, the Atma Bodha, or Awareness of the Self and of course his path breaking commentaries on the Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita. He was the first great figure to make the Upanishads and the Gita the touchstone of authentic religious experience and his Gita interpretation was so powerful that many people actually though he wrote the Gita himself! The gods, it is said, were so pleased by his prodigious efforts that they doubled the span of his life. For the rest of his life he wrote only philosophic and devotional poetry, with one exception we shall come to. In this embarrassment of riches, his hymns to the Ganga, the Bhaja-Govindam, the Saundarya Lahiri and the Ai Giri Nandini stand out. The latter two poems are perhaps the greatest devotional poetry ever addressed to the divine mother in any culture known to man. In all his writings however he constantly maintained the doctrine of the Advaita Vedanta, the fierce and uncompromising non-dualistic creed that maintains Brahman to be the only truth and everything else a secondary reality or Maya. (See our glossary on the word Maya) He moved to Kashi, or Banaras, as all scholars with a reputation inevitably have to in India. He began to accumulate a band of fiercely intelligent disciples around him, and they soon gained a reputation for routing all disputants with flair and ease. This was a tough band with high standards and if respect would not be given them it would be exacted. Some jealous rivals attempted to assault Shankara once but the only disciple with him gave them the thrashing of their lives though he was careful not to kill them. It is a measure of his unusual attitude that he did no think there was anything wrong with this. The sannyasi's non-violence is only a commitment never to seek trouble. It does not imply that they become a football for all the bullies of the world. Shankara however was in danger of becoming a wee bit inflated with his success and he got his comeuppance unexpectedly. continue >> Archive