Biography of Sri Adi Shankaracharya

Biography of Sri Adi Shankaracharya
To those who are fortunate to study his valuable works, devotion and gratitude swell up spontaneously in their hearts. His flowing language, his lucid style, his stern logic, his balanced expression, his fearless exposition, his unshakable faith in the Vedas, and other manifold qualities of his works convey an idea of his greatness that no story can adequately convey. To those who are denied the immeasurable happiness of tasting the sweetness of his works, the stories of his earthly life do convey a glimpse of his many-sided personality.
Sri Shankara Digvijayam
A number of works titled Sankaravijaya, or Sankara digvijaya, are extant in India. These are typically known after the names of their authors, but are mostly hagiographic accounts of Sankara’s life, with myth and legend interspersed with historical fact. The primary reason for this situation is that most of these texts were written many centuries after Sankara lived, so that these authors already regarded Sankara as a legendary figure. The following is a brief survey of these texts.
Madhaviya Sankaravijaya
The Madhaviya is the oldest available, and also the most authentic and widely known among the different Sankaravijayas today. It is certainly the most popular such text in the Advaita tradition, and is also known as the Samkshepa Sankarajaya. The popularity of this work derives from the fame of its author, Madhava, who is usually identified with Sri Vidyaranya, the 13th pontiff of the Peetham. Old manuscripts of this work are available from diverse places in India, and printed editions based on a comparison of various manuscripts are available from as early as 1863 CE. Two commentaries have been written on the Madhaviya Sankaravijaya, one titled Dindima, by Dhanapati Suri (composed in 1798 CE), and another titled Advaitarajyalakshmi by Achyutaraya (composed in 1824 CE). Contemporary accounts of Sankara’s life follow this text in most details, like birth in Kaladi, meeting with his guru on the banks of the river Narmada, writing of commentaries, debate with Mandana Mishra, establishment of the Sharada Peetha at Sringeri, Ascension of the Sarvajna Pitha in Kashmir and his last days in the Himalayas.
There has been some doubt in recent times about the date and authorship of the mAdhavIya Sankaravijaya, including charges that it was reworked extensively in the 19th century CE. Almost all of this criticism is baseless. If the author of this work is not identical with vidyAraNya, the latest date that can be put to it is 1798 CE, the year in which the DiNDimA commentary was completed. Moreover, another author, sadAnanda, who wrote a Sankaravijaya sAra in 1783, informs us that his source is mAdhava’s work. As such, the criticism that the mAdhavIya was written as late as the 19th century CE, or that portions of it were re-written recently, cannot be upheld. However, the earliest possible date of this work (14th century CE) is still several centuries later than Sankara’s own date.
Anandagiriya Sankaravijaya
This work is not available today, although according to many secondary sources, it must have existed at one time. It is attributed to Anandagiri, the 13th century author of well-known Tikas to SankarAcArya’s bhAshyas. One 19th century author, who wrote a commentary to the mAdhavIya refers to Anandagiri’s Sankaravijaya as bRhat Sankaravijaya in one place and as prAcIna Sankaravijaya in another place. It seems clear that this text was considered to be old (prAcIna) and huge (bRhat). However, as it is no longer extant, the quotations attributed to this text are not very trustworthy.
In recent times, there have been various claims about a bRhat Sankaravijaya of an author named citsukha, although no manuscripts of this work have ever been available. No secondary sources refer to this text either, unlike the case with Anandagiri’s text. citsukha is claimed to have been a childhood friend of Sankara’s, and his work is therefore claimed to be an authoritative eye-witness account. However, even the source for this story about citsukha remains unknown, as none of the other Sankaravijayas mention such a childhood friend who witnessed all of Sankara’s life. All claims about the bRhat Sankaravijaya of citsukha seem extremely far-fetched, and within the living advaita tradition, there is great controversy over the very existence of this text. There is a more recent text, called bRhat Sankaravijaya, by one brahmAnanda sarasvatI, which seems to date from the 17th or 18th century.
Another prAcIna Sankaravijaya is also sometimes attributed to one mUkakavi. As with the bRhat Sankaravijaya of citsukha, nothing specific is known about this prAcIna Sankaravijaya either, as all attempts to trace source manuscripts have failed. Some quotations from a prAcIna Sankaravijaya are found in some very recent works, but the real source of these quotations remains unknown.
Anantanandagiriya Sankaravijaya
To begin with, it is a very late text and all available versions seem extremely corrupt. The author of this text identifies himself as Anantanandagiri. Many scholars mistakenly identify this text with that of Anandagiri, the TIkAkAra, probably due to the misleading similarity of their names. About forty out of the seventy-odd chapters in this work describe some 72 different religious cults and sects prevalent in India, which Wilson uses in his study. A. C. Burnell, however, thinks that the work is spurious and very modern, written in the interests of southern maThas which had broken their ties with the Sringeri maTha. Be that as it may, a casual reading of this Sankaravijaya text is enough to convince the reader that its author cannot be identified with Anandagiri at all. anantAnandagiri appears to be a quite different author altogether. He quotes sections from the adhikaraNa ratnamAlA, a 14th-century work of vidyAraNya and bhAratI tIrtha, but attributes these quotations to Sankara. He also makes barely veiled references to rAmAnuja, the 11th-century teacher of viSishTAdvaita, and AnandatIrtha, the 13th-century teacher of dvaita. Both of them have been described as direct disciples of Sankara himself.
Moreover, most of the available manuscripts of this work are incomplete, and even these seem to have been heavily tampered with. Two separate accounts of Sankara’s life may be found in different editions of this work. For example, the 19th century editions from Calcutta, and all their source manuscripts, describe Sankara’s birth at Cidambaram in Tamil Nadu, while the 1971 Madras edition says that Sankara was born at Kaladi in Kerala. The earlier 19th century editions mention a maTha at Sringeri, and no maTha at Kancipuram. However, in the 1971 Madras edition, an ASrama has been mentioned near Sringeri, and a maTha at Kancipuram has been described in great detail. All editions mention that Sankara stayed at Sringeri for twelve years, and his last days are placed at Kancipuram, but this text is totally silent about any sarvajnapITha. It has been pointed out that the 1971 Madras edition is not true to the manuscripts that it lists as its sources. T. M. P. Mahadevan’s introduction to this edition also wrongly identifies this work with that of Anandagiri, the TIkAkAra, and claims that this must be the work that is called both bRhat and prAcIna. However, Mahadevan is silent about the bRhat text said to have been written by citsukha and the prAcIna text attributed to mUkakavi.
Chidvilasiya Sankaravijaya
This text is also known as the Sankaravijaya vilAsa, and was probably written between the 15th and 17th centuries. It is in the form of a dialogue between one cidvilAsa and his disciple, named vijnAnakanda. This is one of the few texts that explicitly record the tradition that four maThas were established by Sankara, at Sringeri, Dvaraka, Puri and Badrinath. cidvilAsa devotes three entire chapters to the founding of the Sringeri maTha, and one chapter to a sarvajnapITha at Kancipuram. However, he does not say anything about the establishment of a fifth maTha at Kancipuram, and Sankara’s last days are placed near Badrinath in the Himalayas. Except for its variant tradition about the sarvajnapITha, this text also agrees with the mAdhavIya in most other details.
Keraliya Sankaravijaya
This text is also called the SankarAcAryacarita and is attributed to one govindanAtha in all manuscripts. This text conflates the variant traditions about the sarvajnapITha, and mentions both Kashmir and Kancipuram in the same verse. It is completely silent about the establishment of any maThas, and describes Sankara’s last days at the vRshAcaleSvara temple in Trichur, Kerala. In this last detail, it differs from all other available oral traditions and Sankaravijaya texts. It dates from the 17th century.
Other minor texts
The kUshmANDa Sankaravijaya of purushottama bhAratI describes the establishment of a SAradA temple at a place called Pammapura, and is rather unique in describing Sankara and his four disciples as incarnations of the five Pandavas, who are in turn described as partial incarnations of Siva! A 17th century author named rAjacUDAmaNi dIkshita wrote a short hagiographical poem named SankarAbhyudaya. Among more recent works (late 18th century and after), sadAnanda’s Sankaravijaya sAra and nIlakaNTha’s SankaramandAra saurabha follow the details given in the mAdhavIya. Both authors explicitly mention their source in their introductory chapters. nIlakaNTha also wrote another poem named SankarAbhyudaya, which is one of the few works to give the 788 CE date for Sankara’s birth. Another SankarAbhyudaya is attributed to one tirumala dIkshita. This and a work known as vyAsAcalIya Sankaravijaya are of extremely doubtful authenticity, as they reproduce a large number of verses from the mAdhavIya Sankaravijaya. The bhagavatpAdAbhyudaya of mahAkavi lakshmaNa sUrin is an early 20th century work, which recounts all the traditional details of Sankara’s life.
A Brief Sketch of the Life of Sri Adi Shankaracharya
Birth and childhood
Sankara was born to the nambUdiri brAhmaNa couple, Sivaguru and AryAmbA, in a little village called kAlaDi in Kerala. The couple had remained childless for a long time, and prayed for children at the vaDakkunnAthan (VRshAcala) temple in nearby Trichur. Siva is said to have appeared to the couple in a dream and promised them a choice of one son who would be short-lived but the most brilliant philosopher of his day, or many sons who would be mediocre at best. The couple opted for a brilliant, but short-lived son, and so Sankara was born.
Sankara lost his father when quite young, and his mother performed his upanayana ceremonies with the help of her relatives. Sankara excelled in all branches of traditional vaidIka learning. A few miracles are reported about the young Sankara. As a brahmacArin, he went about collecting alms from families in the village. A lady who was herself extremely poor, but did not want to send away the boy empty-handed, gave him the last piece of Amla fruit she had at home. Sankara, sensing the abject poverty of the lady, composed a hymn (kanakadhArA stavam) to SrI, the goddess of wealth, right at her doorstep. As a result, a shower of golden Amlas rewarded the lady for her piety. On another occasion, Sankara is said to have re-routed the course of the pUrNA river, so that his old mother would not have to walk a long distance to the river for her daily ablutions.
sam.nyAsa
Sankara was filled with the spirit of renunciation early in his life. Getting married and settling to the life of a householder was never part of his goal in life, though his mother was anxious to see him as a gRhastha. Once when he was swimming in the river, a crocodile caught hold of his leg. Sankara sensed that he was destined to die at that moment, and decided to directly enter the fourth ASrama of sam.nyAsa right then. This kind of renunciation is called Apat sam.nyAsa. The crocodile released him when he thus mentally decided to renounce the world, and Sankara decided to regularize his decision by going to an accomplished guru. To comfort his anxious mother, he promised that he would return at the moment of her death, to conduct her funeral rites, notwithstanding the fact that he would be a sannyAsI then.
Sankara then traveled far and wide in search of a worthy guru who would initiate him and regularize his vow of sam.nyAsa, till he came to the banks of the river narmadA in central India. Here was the ASrama of govinda bhagavatpAda, the disciple of gauDapAda, the famous author of the mANDUkya kArikAs. Sankara was accepted as a disciple by govinda, who initiated him into the paramahamsa order of sam.nyAsa, the highest kind of renunciation. Seeing the intellectual acumen of his disciple, govinda commanded Sankara to expound the philosophy of vedAnta through commentaries on the principal upanishads, the brahmasUtras and the gItA. Sankara took leave of his guru and traveled to various holy places in India, composing his commentaries in the meantime. At this time he was barely a teenager. He attracted many disciples around him, prominent among whom was sanandana, who was later to be called padmapAda. In this period, Sankara wrote commentaries on bAdarAyaNa’s brahmasUtras, the various upanishads and the bhagavad gItA. These commentaries, called bhAshyas, stand at the pinnacle of Indian philosophical writing, and have triggered a long tradition of sub-commentaries known as vArttikas, TIkAs and TippaNis. He also commented upon the adhyAtma-paTala of the Apastamba sUtras, and on vyAsa’s bhAshya to patanjali’s yogasUtras. In addition to these commentarial texts, Sankara wrote independent treatises called prakaraNa granthas, including the upadeSasAhasrI, Atmabodha, etc.
In addition to writing his own commentaries, Sankara sought out leaders of other schools, in order to engage them in debate. As per the accepted philosophical tradition in India, such debates helped to establish a new philosopher, and also to win disciples and converts from other schools. It was also traditional for the loser in the debate to become a disciple of the winner. Thus Sankara debated with Buddhist philosophers, with followers of sAm.khya and with pUrva mImAm.sakas, the followers of vedic ritualism, and proved more than capable in defeating all his opponents in debate. Sankara then sought out kumArila bhaTTa, the foremost proponent of the pUrva mImAm.sA in his age, but bhaTTa was on his deathbed and directed Sankara to viSvarUpa, his disciple. viSvarUpa is sometimes identified with maNDana miSra.
Sankara’s debate with viSvarUpa was unique. The referee at the debate was viSvarUpa’s wife, bhAratI, who was herself very well-learned, and regarded as an incarnation of Goddess sarasvatI. At stake was a whole way of life. The agreement was that if viSvarUpa won, Sankara would consent to marriage and the life of a householder, whereas if Sankara won, viSvarUpa would renounce all his wealth and possessions and become a sannyAsI disciple of Sankara. The debate is said to have lasted for whole weeks, till in the end, viSvarUpa had to concede defeat and become a sannyAsI. bhAratI was a fair judge, but before declaring Sankara as the winner, she challenged Sankara with questions about kAmaSAstra, which he knew nothing about. Sankara therefore requested some time, during which, using the subtle yogic process called parakAya-praveSa, he entered the body of a dying king and experienced the art of love with the queens. Returning to viSvarUpa’s home, he answered all of bhAratI’s questions, after which viSvarUpa was ordained as a sannyAsI by the name of sureSvara. He was to become the most celebrated disciple of Sankara, writing vArttikas to Sankara’s bhAshyas on the yajurveda upanishads, in addition to his own independent texts on various subjects.
Establishment of maThas
Sankara continued to travel with his disciples all over the land, all the while composing philosophical treatises and engaging opponents in debate. It is said that none of his opponents could ever match his intellectual prowess and the debates always ended with Sankara’s victory. No doubt this is true, given the unrivaled respect and popularity that Sankara’s philosophical system enjoys to this day. In the course of his travels, Sankara stayed for a long time at the site of the old ASrama of the Rshis vibhAndaka and RshyaSRnga, in the place known as SRngagiri (Sringeri). Some texts mention that Sankara stayed at Sringeri for twelve years. A hermitage grew around him here, which soon developed into a famous maTha (monastery). sureSvara, the disciple whom he had won after long debate, was installed as the head of this new ASrama. Similar maThas were established in the pilgrim centers of Puri, Dvaraka and Joshimath near Badrinath, and padmapAda, hastAmalaka and troTaka were placed in charge of them. These are known as the AmnAya maThas, and they continue to function today. Their heads have also come to be known as SankarAcAryas, in honor of their founder, and revered as jagadgurus, or teachers of the world. Sankara also organized the community of ekadaNDI monks into the sampradAya of daSanAmI sannyAsins, and affiliated them with the four maThas that he established.
Meanwhile, Sankara heard that his mother was dying, and decided to visit her. Remembering his promise to her, he performed her funeral rites. His ritualistic relatives would not permit him to do the rites himself, as he was a sannyAsI, but Sankara overrode their objections, and built a pyre himself and cremated his mother in her own backyard. After this, he resumed his travels, visiting many holy places, reviving pUjAs at temples that had fallen into neglect, establishing SrI yantras at devI temples as in Kancipuram, and composing many devotional hymns.
Ascension of the sarvajnapITha
In the course of his travels, Sankara reached Kashmir. Here was a temple dedicated to SAradA (sarasvatI), the goddess of learning, which housed the sarvajnapITha, the Throne of Omniscience. It was a tradition for philosophers to visit the place and engage in debate. The victorious one would be allowed to ascend the sarvajnapITha. It is said that no philosopher from the southern region had ever ascended the pITha, till Sankara visited Kashmir and defeated all the others there. He then ascended the sarvajnapITha with the blessings of Goddess SAradA. (A few centuries later, rAmAnuja, the teacher of viSishTAdvaita, would visit the same sarvajnapITha in search of the baudhAyana vRtti. However, a variant tradition places the sarvajnapITha in the south Indian city of Kancipuram.)
Sankara was reaching the age of 32 now. He had expounded the vedAnta philosophy through his writings; he had attracted many intelligent disciples to him, who could carry on the vedAntic tradition; and he had established monastic centers for them in the form of maThas. His had been a short, but eventful life. He retired to the Himalayas and disappeared inside a cave near Kedarnath. This cave is traditionally pointed out as the site of his samAdhi. Other variant traditions place Sankara’s last days at Karavirpitham or at Mahur in Maharashtra, Trichur in Kerala or Kancipuram in Tamil Nadu. It is a measure of SankarAcArya’s widespread fame that such conflicting traditions have arisen around his name.
True to the traditions of sam.nyAsA, Sankara was a peripatetic monk, who traveled the length and breadth of the country in his short lifetime. His fame spread so far and wide, that various legends are recounted about him from different parts of India. The true sannyAsI that he was, he lived completely untouched by the fabric of society. So much so that even the location of kAlaDi, his birth-place, remained generally unknown for a long time. The credit of identifying this village in Kerala goes to one of his 19th-century successors at Sringeri, SrI saccidAnanda SivAbhinava nRsimha bhAratI. Similarly, the credit of renovating Sankara’s samAdhi-sthala near Kedarnath, goes to SrI abhinava saccidAnanda tIrtha, his 20th-century successor at Dvaraka.