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Adi Shankara
Also Known As Shankara Name without the honorific Adi.
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Adi Shankara, also called Shankaracharya, was the pre-eminent teacher of Advaita Vedanta, the nondual school of Hindu philosophy, and one of the most influential figures in the history of Indian thought. Traditionally dated 788-820 and generally placed by scholars in the eighth century, he was born a Brahmin in Kerala and became a renunciant in youth. In terse and powerful commentaries on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras he argued that the individual self, atman, is identical with the absolute, Brahman, and that the perceived plurality of the world is a superimposition dissolved by liberating knowledge. He is remembered as a tireless debater who travelled the length of India and, by tradition, established four monastic seats, the mathas, at Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri and Jyotirmath, and organized the Dashanami order of monks. He is counted the foremost of the Vedanta founders, alongside Ramanuja and Madhva who later opposed his nondualism.
Facts
Disputed
Lifespan or FloruitTraditional Advaita Vedanta chronology places Shankara from 788 to 820 CE. Hajime Nakamura argued for an earlier 700 to 750 CE, and Karl Potter placed him in the late seventh to early eighth century; there is no dependable historical record beyond Shankara's own writings to settle the question. Lifespan or FloruitThe dating of Adi Shankara to roughly 700 to 750 CE is the chronology scholars now generally prefer, placing him earlier in the eighth century than the traditional dates. The Encyclopedia of Hinduism (Cush, Robinson and York, eds., Routledge, 2008) records this as the currently favoured scholarly placement. 1 Lifespan or FloruitThe traditional dates given for Adi Shankara, 788 to 820 CE, are later than the dating scholars now generally prefer, and the Encyclopedia of Hinduism (Cush, Robinson and York, eds., Routledge, 2008) records the chronology as disputed between the traditional dates and the earlier eighth century placement favoured by current scholarship, without resolving it in favour of either. 1 Attestation
HistoricityHistorically attested; his dates are disputed. Hagiographies supplying most of his traditional biography are centuries later Traditions Revering This Figure Life
Place of ActivityAcross the subcontinent 1 Place of ActivityFour mathas ascribed to him: Sringeri, Dvaraka, Puri, Jyotirmath 1 Position Profile
Key TextHis commentaries on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras set out his argument that the individual self, atman, is identical with the absolute, Brahman. 1 Status
Status Within the TraditionThe four mathas traditionally ascribed to him diverged over the following centuries on points of ritual practice and lineage authority, yet all four continue to recognize a shared Advaita philosophical foundation traced back to him. 1 Origins
Place of Origin Practice
LineageTradition holds his guru was Govinda Bhagavatpada, a renunciant disciple of Gaudapada, the author of the Mandukya Karika and an early architect of Advaita thought. 1 Publications
Notable PublicationTradition credits him with commentaries, or bhashyas, on the Brahma Sutras, the principal Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, together called the Prasthanatrayi commentaries and treated as the foundational textual basis of Advaita Vedanta philosophy. 2 Learn More
Advaita Vedanta: The Non-Dualism of Brahman and Atman
Adi Shankara (traditionally 8th century CE) is the pre-eminent exponent of Advaita Vedanta, "non-dual" Vedanta, the most influential of the schools that interpret the Upanishads. Its central claim is a strict non-dualism: the ultimate reality, brahman, is one, without a second, and the innermost self, atman, is not merely similar to but identical with it, tat tvam asi, "that thou art." The world of multiplicity, and the individual's sense of being a separate self within it, is the work of maya, a beginningless cosmic ignorance (avidya) that misperceives the one reality as many.
Liberation (moksha) is therefore not an attainment of something new but the removal of ignorance, the direct realization that one's true self was always the undivided brahman. Shankara developed this through close commentary on the "triple canon" (prasthanatrayi): the principal Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutras. He distinguished two levels of truth, the conventional and the absolute, allowing ordinary religious life its place while insisting on the higher, non-dual realization as final.
The Organiser, and the Problem of the Dates
Shankara was not only a philosopher but a formidable organiser of tradition, and much of his lasting authority rests on institutions credited to him. He is said to have travelled across the subcontinent debating rival schools and to have founded four monastic centres (mathas) at the compass-points of India, Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri and Jyotirmath, and to have established the Dashanami order of monks, giving Advaita a durable institutional body; he is also closely linked with the Smarta brahmanical tradition and its flexible worship of multiple deities as forms of the one brahman. Yet much of the biography is hagiography: the traditional life-story, the Shankara Digvijaya, is a devotional composition written centuries later, and even his dates are genuinely uncertain, a traditional reckoning gives 788-820 CE, but scholars debate the period and some place him earlier. Distinguishing the historical teacher from the vast legend that grew around him, including a proliferation of works doubtfully attributed to him, is one of the standing problems of Indian intellectual history.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Adi Shankara directly: "A Wikipedia article on Adi Shankara, the eighth century Indian philosopher and monk credited with systematizing Advaita Vedanta and establishing four monastic centers across India."
Otto's comparative study of 1926 sets the Advaita Vedanta of Shankara beside the mysticism of Meister Eckhart and argues that the parallels are structural rather than accidental.
This source names Shankara directly: "Ravi Varma (1848 to 1906), depicts Adi Shankara, the eighth century philosopher and org..."
Why this is disputed. Advaita tradition holds that Adi Shankara personally established four monastic seats, at Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri and Jyotirmath, to carry his teaching after him. The fullest surviving accounts of this founding come from the Shankara Vijayas, hagiographies composed centuries after his traditional lifetime, and historians treat the founding narrative with more caution than the mathas' own antiquity, which is well documented; scholars differ on how many seats Shankara actually founded, on their original locations, and on the dates of his own life, any of which would move the founding date along with it.
Attributed Works
Why this is disputed. Vivekachudamani is ascribed to the eighth century philosopher Adi Shankara and is printed among his collected works in the Advaita tradition. Modern scholarship studying Shankara's authenticated commentaries, including work by Sengaku Mayeda comparing style and doctrine across the corpus attributed to him, places several works long included among his writings, Vivekachudamani among them, considerably later than his own lifetime, likely composed by later Advaita teachers working in his name and philosophical lineage rather than by Shankara himself.
Belongs to Tradition
Depicted In
The painting's directly named and focal subject per the holding foundation's own record, shown teaching his four principal disciples, matching Wikipedia's independent use of the same image as its own portrait of him.
Traditions Founded
Adi Shankara is the standard-scholarship systematizer and effective founder of Advaita Vedanta as an organized school.
Works Attributed
Bhaja Govindam is attributed to Adi Shankara, with additional verses ascribed to his disciples.
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Encyclopedia of Hinduism
Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.), Routledge, 2008s.v. Adi Shankara, dates of birth and deathView the Source 1. Encyclopedia of Hinduism
Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.), Routledge, 2008s.v. Adi ShankaraView the Source 2. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Volume III: Advaita Vedanta up to Samkara and His Pupils
Karl H. Potter (ed.), Motilal Banarsidass, 1981On Shankara and Advaita VedantaView the Source 2. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Volume III: Advaita Vedanta up to Samkara and His Pupils
Karl H. Potter (ed.), Motilal Banarsidass, 1981Advaita Vedanta up to Shankara and his pupilsView the Source 2. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Volume III: Advaita Vedanta up to Samkara and His Pupils
Karl H. Potter (ed.), Motilal Banarsidass, 1981Traditions Founded: Advaita VedantaView the Source An Introduction to Hinduism
Gavin Flood, Cambridge University Press, 1996Shankara within the history of HinduismView the Source The Principal Upanishads
Harper, 1953The Upanishads on which Shankara wrote his principal commentariesView the Source Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (eds.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2024Traditions Founded: Advaita Vedanta, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shankara/View the Source Adi Shankara (Wikipedia)
WikipediaDepicted In: Adi Shankaracharya (Raja Ravi Varma and Ravi Varma Press, Ganesh Shivaswamy Foundation)Quote, Depicted In: Adi Shankaracharya (Raja Ravi Varma and Ravi Varma Press, Ganesh Shivaswamy Foundation)
Painting of Adi Shankara, exponent of Advaita Vedanta with his disciples by Raja Ravi Varma.
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