Ādi Shankara

Ādi Shankara (788-820, according to the dating most widely accepted today) was an Indian monk, commentator and teacher within the Vedanta tradition. He is considered the first to consolidate Advaita Vedanta, one of the most influential philosophical schools in India, and his figure remains central to understanding Hindu thought.

Little is known with certainty about his life. More than three hundred texts are attributed to him, but most were probably written by admirers or by authors who used his name. The works that can most confidently be assigned to him include his commentary on the Brahma Sutras (Brahmasutrabhasya), commentaries on ten principal Upanishads, a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, and the Upadeśasāhasrī. He is said to have been a disciple of Govindapada, who in turn had studied under Gaudapada, author of verse commentaries on the Mandukya Upanishad.

His central concern was liberating knowledge: understanding that the true identity of the individual self (jivatman) is Ātman, which is identical with Brahman. To reach this insight he treated the Upanishads as an independent source of knowledge, placing them above the ritual interpretation of the Vedas defended by the Mimamsa school. His teaching can be summed up in three claims: Brahman, the Absolute, is the only reality; the world is a appearance, something like an illusion; and the embodied soul is not different from the Absolute. Shankara did not call his doctrine monism but non-duality (advaita), since for him no unity exists apart from diversity.

Later tradition credits him with founding four monasteries, or mathas, at Sringeri, Puri, Dwarka and Jyotirmath, and with organising the Dashanami monastic order. His image changed over the centuries. Hagiographies written between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries present him as a travelling teacher who defeated rivals in debate. Historians stress that he was little known in his own time and for long afterwards; until the tenth century his influence was overshadowed by Mandana Mishra. Some scholars have also detected traces of Mahayana Buddhism in his thought, a claim that the Advaita tradition rejects.

His lasting influence lies largely in the image that developed later, of a restorer of Hindu orthodoxy against Buddhism and Jainism. Today he is regarded as one of India's most important thinkers, and Advaita Vedanta remains one of the most studied currents within Hinduism.