Adi Sankara

From Wikinfo

Reverentially called Bhagavatpada Acharya (The teacher at the feet of Lord) and Adi Sankara (roughly "the first Sankara"), Sankara (approximately 788-820 CE) 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 Vedas (the basic scripture of the Hindus) and gave new life to Hinduism when it was suffering due to the increasing influence of Buddhism. He was born in Kaladi, a small village in Kerala, India. His teachers include Gaudapada and Govinda.

During Sankara's time Hinduism had lost some of its appeal, because of the influence of Buddhism. Sankara stressed the importance of the Vedas and his work helped Hinduism regain strength and popularity. Although he did not live long, he had traveled on foot to various parts of India to restore the study of the Vedas.

Sankara's theology maintains that spiritual ignorance (avidya) is caused by seeing the self (atman) where self is not. Discrimination needs to be developed in order to true from false and knowledge (jnana) from ignorance (avidya).

Books written by Sankara for certain are:

• The commentary Bhasya on the Brahma Sutra
• The commentary on the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad
• The commentary on the Taittiriya Upanishad
• The Thousand Teachings or Upadesasahasri
• A hymn to the Goddess Saundaryalahari
• Benedictory invocation to Siva and Sakti, namely Sivanandalahari

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.

He 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. The heads of the mathas trace their authority back to him.

External Links

• Visit here to see some of Sankara's works
• Brief life history of Adi Sankara with informative additional links

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References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Adi_Sankara" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Sankara, used under the GNU Free Documentation License