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Revision as of 12:28, 22 August 2005 by 62.44.117.187 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Shankara (Adi Shankaracharya, 'the first Shankaracharya' in his lineage), reverentially called Bhagavatpada Acharya (the teacher at the feet of Lord) (very approximately 788–820 C.E., but see below) was the most famous Advaita philosopher, who had a profound influence on the growth of Hinduism through his non-dualistic philosophy. He advocated the greatness and importance of the important Hindu scriptures, the Vedas (most particularly on the Upanishads, also known as Vedanta), spoke to a spirituality founded on reason and without dogma or ritualism, and gave new life to Hinduism at a time when Buddhism and Jainism were gaining popularity.
Life
Shankara was born in Kalady, a small village in Kerala, India, to a Nambuthiri brahmin couple, Shivaguru and Aryamba. The traditional source for accounts of his life is the Shankara Vijayams, which are essentially hagiographies. The most important among them are the MadhavIya Shankaravijaya, the AnandagirIya Shankaravijaya, cidvilAsIya Shankaravijaya, and keralIya Shankaravijaya. What follows is the standard story of Shankara's life; some of it is clearly mythical, but a substantial portion is historical, according to most scholars.
Birth
Shankara's parents were childless for many years, and prayed at the Vadakkumnathan (vRashAcala) temple in Thrissur, Kerala, for the boon of a child. Legend has it that Shiva appeared to both husband and wife in their dreams, and offered them a choice: a mediocre son who would live a long life, or an extraordinary son who would not live long. Both Shivaguru and Aryamba chose the latter. The son was named Shankara, in honour of Shiva.
Formal education
Shivaguru died while Shankara was very young. The child showed remarkable scholarship, and is said to have mastered the four Vedas by the age of eight. Following the common practice of that era, Shankara lived and studied at the home of his teacher. It was customary for students and men of learning to receive Bhiksha or alms from the laity; on one occasion, while accepting Bhiksha, Shankara came upon a woman who had nothing to eat in her house except a single dried amlaka fruit. Rather than consume this last bit of food herself, the pious lady gave away the fruit to Sankara as Bhiksha. Moved by her piety, Shankara composed the Kanakadhara Stotram on the spot. On completion of the stotram, golden amlaka fruits were showered upon the woman by the goddess Lakshmi.
Renunciation
From a young age, Shankara was attracted to asceticism and to the life of a renunciate. His mother Aryamba was however entirely against his becoming a Sannyasi, and consistently refused him her formal permission, which was required before he could take Sannyasam. Once when Shankara was bathing in the river, a crocodile gripped him by the leg and began rapidly to drag him into the water. His mother alone was nearby, and it proved impossible for her to get him away from the grip of the crocodile. Shankara then told his mother that we was on the verge of death; if she would give him her formal permission verbally, he would at this moment renounce the world and die a Sannyasi or ascetic. At the end of her wits, his mother agreed; Shankara immediately recited the words that made a renunciate of him, entered Sannyasa, and awaited death. But lo! inexplicably, the crocodile released him from its very jaws and swam away. Shankara emerged unscathed from the river, now a Sannyasi.
Seeing in this incident the hand of God, Aryamba put no further obstacles in the path of her son. Shankara then left Kerala and travelled thoroughout India. When he reached the banks of the river Narmada at Omkareshwar (presently in Madhya Pradesh), he met Govinda Bhagavatpada, the disciple of the Advaitin Gaudapada. Shankara was initiated as his disciple. He stayed with his master for three years during which he mastered hatha yoga, raja yoga, and jnana yoga, and attained the state of turiya, or the highest samadhi. After that, at the age of only eleven, he embarked on his mission to revitalize sanatana dharma by spreading Advaita Vedanta throughout the Indian subcontinent.
Travels
Shankara travelled extensively, while writing commentaries on the Upanishads, Vishnu sahasranama, Brahma Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita. He engaged in a series of debates with Buddhist scholars, and with scholars of the Purva Mimamsa school, which helped in cementing his spiritual ascendancy. One of the most famous of these debates was with the famed ritualist Mandana Mishra, who adtmitted defeat after a lengthy battle and became one of Shankara's four main disciples Sureshvaracharya.
His most famous encounter was however with an untouchable (chandala). On his way to the Vishwanath temple in Kashi, he came upon an untouchable and his dog. When asked to move aside by Shankara's disciples, the untouchable asked: "Do you wish that I move my soul, the atman which is omnipresnt , or this body made of clay? From the absolute point of view is there a distinction between a Brahmin and a chandala? Is there a distinction between the reflection of the sun in the waters of the Ganga and the reflection of the sun in wine?" Seeing the untouchable as none other than the Lord Shiva, Shankara prostrated before Ishwara, composing five shlokas (Manisha Panchakam).
Once he was saved by Sri Narasimha, at the invocation of his disciple Padmapada, from being sacrificed to goddess Kali by a Kapalika. He then composed the Laksmi-Nrsimha stotra. Another famous composition of Sri Adi Shankaracharya is his Bhaja Govindam, in praise of Vishnu.
It is a traditional belief that Adi Sankara installed at Srirangam a yantra called janakarshana to attract pilgrims to this sacred temple, just as at Tirupati he installed the dhanakarshana yantra. Indeed, Srirangam is the most visited Hindu temple in the world, and Tirupati is the richest. During his travels Shankara founded a number of temples, including one in Srinagar, Kashmir, which stands to this day.
Shankara is believed to have attained the Sarvajnapitha in Kashmir. After a while, he withdrew to Kedarnath and attained Mahasamadhi (final merging with the Absolute) at the age of thirty-two. The Kamakshi Amman temple at Kanchipuram also has a vrindavanam where he is believed to have attained siddhi. (A variant tradition expounded by keralIya Shankaravijaya places his place of death as Vadakkumnathan (vRashAcala) temple in Thrissur, Kerala.)
Shankara's dates
Modern scholarship is agreed on dates in the 8th century C.E., though it has proved impossible to reach agreement on Shankara's precise dates of birth or death. Some religious institutions dedicated to Shankara, such as Shankara mathams, however, ascribe B.C.E. dates to him. If these dates were true, they would require moving back the date of Buddha (which serves as an anchor for modern academic history of India) as suggested here.
Of the major Shankara Mathams active today, the Kanchi, Dwaraka, and Puri ascribe the dates 509–477 B.C.E. to Shankara. The Sringeri Peetham, on the other hand, accepts the 788–820 C.E. dates.
The Guru Parampara of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham can be found here, and the Guru parampara of the Sringeri Sarada Peetham can be found here.
External material supporting the 509–477 B.C.E. dates can be found here and (non-Peetham) material supporting the 788–820 C.E. dates can be found here.
According to Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati's book "Sannyasa Darshan", Shankara was born in Kaladi, Kerala, in 686 C.E., and attained Mahasamadhi at Kedarnath, Uttaranchal, in 718 C.E.
Philosophy and religious thought
At the time of Shankara's life, Hinduism had lost some of its appeal because of the influence of Buddhism and Jainism. Shankara stressed the importance of the Vedas, and his work helped Hinduism regain strength and popularity. Although he did not live long, he had travelled on foot to various parts of India to restore the study of the Vedas.
Shankara's theology maintains that spiritual ignorance (avidya) is caused by seeing the self (Ātman) where self is not. Discrimination needs to be developed in order to distinguish true from false and knowledge (jnana) from ignorance (avidya). Shankara proposed that, while the phenomenal universe, our consciousness and bodily being are certainly experienced, they are not true reality, but are rather maya. He considered that the ultimate truth was Brahman, the single divine foundation, which is beyond time, space, and causation. Brahman is immanent and transcendent, but not merely a pantheistic concept. Indeed, while Brahman is the efficient and material cause for the cosmos, Brahman itself is not limited by self-projection, and transcends all binary opposites or dualities, especially such individuated aspects as form and being.
We must pierce through a hazy lens to understand our true being and nature, which is not change and mortality, but unmitigated bliss for eternity. If we are to understand the true motive behind our actions and thoughts, we must become aware of the fundamental unity of being. How, he asks, can a limited mind comprehend the limitless Ātman? It cannot, he argues, and therefore we must transcend even the mind and become one with absolute consciousness.
Shankara denounced caste and meaningless ritual as foolish, and in his own charismatic manner exhorted the true devotee to meditate on god's love and to apprehend truth. His treatises on the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and Vedanta Sutras are testaments to a keen and intuitive mind that did not want to admit dogma but advocated reason. His greatest lesson was that reason and abstract philosophising alone would not lead to moksha (liberation). It was only through selflessness and love governed by viveka (discrimination) that a devotee would realise his inner self. Charges that his philosophical views were influenced by Buddhism are unfounded, since Shankara vehemently opposed negation of being (shunyata), and believed that the unmanifest Brahman manifested itself as Ishwara, the loving, perfect being on high who is seen by many as being Vishnu or Shiva or whatever their hearts dictate. Shankara is said to have travelled throughout India, from the south to Kashmir, preaching to the local populaces and debating philosophy (apparently successfully, though no documentation exists) with other Hindu and Buddhist scholars and monks along the way.
His beliefs form the basis of the Smarta tradition, or Smartism.
Even though he lived for only thirty-two years, his impact on India and on Hinduism cannot be stressed enough, as he countered the increasing sacerdotalism (the belief that priests can mediate between humans and god) of the masses, and reintroduced a purer form of Vedic thought. He presented a face of Hinduism that could reasonably contend with Buddhist ideas and spread it, as well as reformist measures, across the land, travelling from as far up as Kashmir from areas in the South of India. His Hindu revival movement paved the way for the strict theistic movements of Ramanuja and Madhva, and helped lead to the decline of Buddhism in much of India.
Mathas (Monasteries)
Shankara is said to have founded four mathas (a matha is a monastery or religious order), which are important to this day. These are at Sringeri in Karnataka, in the south, Dwaraka in Gujarat in the west, Puri in Orissa in the east, and Jyotirmath (Joshimath) in Uttaranchal in the north. He put in charge of these mathas his four main disciples: Sureshvaracharya, Hastamalaka, Padmapada, and Trotakaharya respectively; the heads of the mathas trace their authority back to them.
Shankara also reorganized the existing sannyasins or renunciates into what became perhaps the most important religious order in the world - the Swami Order, with its ten branches: Puri, Bharati, and Saraswati, associated with Sringeri Matha, Tirtha and Ashram, associated with Dwaraka Matha, Vana and Aranya, associated with Puri Matha, and Giri, Parvat, and Sagar, associated with Jyotir Matha.
The matha at Kanchipuram or Kanchi in Tamil Nadu claims that it was also founded by Shankara. According to this matha, it was where he settled in his last days and attained mahasamadhi (i.e. left his body), but there are other, equally well-founded accounts which claim that he attained mahasamadhi at Kedarnath.
Works
Books certainly written by Adi Shankara:
- The "Crest-Jewel of Discrimination" or Viveka Chudamani, one of his most famous works, which summarises his ideas of non-dual Vedanta
- The commentary Bhasya on the Brahma Sutra
- The commentary on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
- The commentary on the Taittiriya Upanishad
- The commentary on the Bhagavad Gita
- The Thousand Teachings or Upadesasahasri
- A hymn to Krishna as the Herder of Cows, known as Bhaja Govindam
- Benedictory invocation to Siva and Sakti, namely Sivanandalahari and Saundaryalahari respectively
- Commentary on Vishnu Sahasranama
Books he probably wrote are:
- The commentary on Gaudapada's Karika to the Mandukya Upanishad
- The commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, though there is no scholarly agreement on this.
External links
- The story of Sri Adi Shankara
- Swami Sivananda's biography of Shankara
- Viveka Chudamani and other works
- American historian, Will Durant's article on Shankara's Vedanta
- Official website of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham
- Biography of Adi Shankara
- Advaita Vedanta Anusandhana Kendra
- Visit here to see some of Shankara's works
- Website of the Shringeri Sharada Peetham
- Brief life history of Adi Shankara with informative additional links
- Biography of Shankara at the Advaita Vedanta Library
- Shankaracharya on OM
- Original Shankaracarya
- Life of Shankaracharya — The Adventures of a Poet Philosopher (by Nitin Kumar)
- Adi Śańkara — short introduction to his life & philosophy (by Peter J. King)
