Thinkers Timeline

Adi Shankara (traditionally 788-820, though some scholars propose earlier dates) was an Indian philosopher and theologian whose consolidation of the Advaita Vedanta school shaped Hindu thought more decisively than any other single figure in the tradition. He was born in Kaladi in what is now Kerala, in southern India, into a Nambudiri Brahmin family. Traditional biographies describe his father as dying when he was young and his mother as devout and learned. He is said to have become a renunciate at eight — a striking step taken, according to tradition, with his mother's reluctant consent. He studied under Govinda Bhagavatpada, himself a student of Gaudapada, whose commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad provided Shankara with much of his philosophical starting point. Shankara spent his short life travelling across the Indian subcontinent, debating rival philosophers, establishing monasteries, and writing prolifically. He founded four major monastic centres (mathas) at the cardinal points of India — at Sringeri in the south, Puri in the east, Dwarka in the west, and Jyotirmath in the north — each to be led by a lineage-holder called a Shankaracharya. This institutional network remains active today. His writing output was extraordinary for someone who lived only thirty-two years by traditional reckoning. His commentaries on the three foundational texts of Vedanta — the Upanishads (particularly the ten principal Upanishads), the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutras — are the authoritative statements of Advaita Vedanta. He also wrote shorter philosophical works including the Upadesasahasri (A Thousand Teachings), and devotional hymns including the Bhaja Govindam, that remain widely recited. Traditional accounts place his death at Kedarnath in the Himalayas. The dating of his life has been contested — some scholars propose sixth- or seventh-century dates based on textual evidence — but the ninth century remains the conventional position.