Adi Shankaracharya

Also called: Shankara · Topic: Bhakti and Sufi Traditions · NCERT: Class 7, Ch 3 "Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries"; Class 7, Ch 4 "Turning Tides: The 11th and 12th Centuries"

Meaning

Adi Shankaracharya (also called Shankara) was a philosopher born in Kerala in the 8th century. He taught advaita vedanta (the "not-two" teaching), which says that only Brahman (the one Supreme Reality) is real and that the world we see is not finally real. He matters because his advaita became the main school that later bhakti thinkers, above all Ramanuja, argued against. Tradition also credits him with founding four mathas (monasteries) in the four corners of India.

Explanation

Background: who he was

• Shankara lived in the 8th century. His exact dates are not certain, and scholars disagree about them.
• According to tradition, he was born at Kalady in Kerala.
• He wrote in Sanskrit. His best-known works are bhashyas (commentaries) on the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita.
• He worked inside the Vedic–Upanishadic tradition. His aim was to explain the Upanishads as one clear system of thought.

Main teaching: advaita vedanta

• Advaita means "not-two", or non-dualism.
• Brahman is the only, final reality.
• Brahman is formless and has no attributes (it is nirguna, "without qualities").

• The individual soul (atman) and Brahman are one and the same.

• The world is maya. Maya means illusion: the world looks real to us, but it is not finally real.

• Path to liberation (moksha):
• Knowledge (jnana): seeing the true nature of Brahman.
• Renunciation: turning away from worldly life.
• In this view, knowledge matters more than ritual or emotional devotion.

The mathas: spreading the teaching

• Tradition says Shankara set up four mathas, one in each direction of India:
• Sringeri (Karnataka) in the south
• Dwarka (Gujarat) in the west
• Puri (Odisha) in the east

• Jyotirmath, near Badrinath (Uttarakhand), in the north

• The heads of these mathas still carry the title "Shankaracharya".

• Tradition also links him to the Shankaracharya temple on a hill in Srinagar (Kashmir).

Results: the challenge from bhakti

• Advaita became the standard philosophy that others had to answer.
• Ramanuja (c. 1000–1100) challenged it with vishishtadvaita ("qualified non-dualism"):
• the world is real, not an illusion
• individual souls are real and are not wiped out when they unite with God

• liberation comes through bhakti (love of God) and prapatti (total surrender), not dry knowledge alone [2].

• So Shankara's ideas shaped the bhakti movement too, because bhakti thinkers built their philosophy as an answer to him.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: 8th century, during the time NCERT covers as "Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries".
• Region: born in Kerala (Kalady, according to tradition). His ideas spread across India through the four mathas.
• Named sites: Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri and Jyotirmath (the mathas); the Shankaracharya hill temple in Srinagar (linked to him by tradition).
• Key people: Shankara himself, and his later critic Ramanuja (born Sriperumbudur, died Srirangam) [2].
• How we know: mainly from his own Sanskrit commentaries and from the traditions kept by the mathas. Many stories about his life, such as his travels and the founding of the mathas, come from later traditional biographies, so details like his exact dates are uncertain.

Don't confuse with

• Ramanuja: taught vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism: the world and souls are real). Shankara taught advaita (only Brahman is real; the world is maya).
• Shankaradeva: a much later bhakti saint of Assam who preached devotion to Vishnu. He is a different person from Shankara, the Kerala philosopher.
• Basavanna: founded the Virashaiva/Lingayat movement in Karnataka in the 12th century (1106–68). He rejected caste and Brahmanical rules. Shankara was an 8th-century philosopher working inside the Vedic tradition.
• "Shankaracharya" as a title: today it means the head of one of the four mathas, not Adi Shankara himself.

Prelims Hooks

• Shankara: 8th century, born in Kerala (Kalady, according to tradition). He taught advaita vedanta.
• Four mathas and their states: Sringeri, Karnataka (south); Dwarka, Gujarat (west); Puri, Odisha (east); Jyotirmath near Badrinath, Uttarakhand (north).
• Advaita = Brahman alone is real, formless and without attributes; the world is maya; the path is jnana (knowledge).
• Advaita (Shankara) vs vishishtadvaita (Ramanuja): a common "match the following" pair [2].
• Chronological order: Shankara (8th c.) → Ramanuja (c. 1000–1100) → Basavanna (1106–68).
• Trap: the Shankaracharya hill temple is in Srinagar, and only tradition links it to him. Do not confuse it with the four mathas.

Mains Points

• Unity through philosophy and institutions: Shankara gave the Upanishads one system of thought (advaita). Tradition says he founded mathas at the four corners of India: Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri and Jyotirmath. This tied distant regions into one shared religious network. It is useful for GS-I answers on cultural unity in early medieval India.
• Knowledge vs devotion, a long debate: Shankara put knowledge and renunciation first and called the world maya. Ramanuja answered that the world and souls are real, so bhakti and daily work have meaning [2]. The bhakti movement therefore grew partly as a philosophical reply to advaita, not only as an emotional movement.
• Continuity and change: Shankara worked inside the Sanskritic, Brahmanical frame. Later southern reformers either stayed inside it (Ramanuja, with temple and Sanskrit) or broke away from it (Basavanna, with Kannada vachanas and rejection of caste). Comparing the three shows how religious authority slowly moved towards regional languages and ordinary people [3][4].

Related concepts

• Advaita Vedanta
• Shankaracharya mathas
• Ramanuja
• Vishishtadvaita
• Madhvacharya
• Haridasa movement
• Purandara Dasa
• Kanaka Dasa
• Annamacharya
• Basavanna

Read more

• Reforming the south: Ramanuja and the Virashaiva tradition