Sankara

/sung"keuhr euh/, n.

Shankara.

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▪ Indian philosopher

also spelled  Shaṅkara , also called  Saṅkarācārya 

born 700?, Kālaḍi village?, India

died 750?, Kedārnāth

      philosopher and theologian, most renowned exponent of the Advaita Vedānta school of philosophy, from whose doctrines the main currents of modern Indian thought are derived. He wrote commentaries on the Brahma-sūtra and the principal Upaniṣads, affirming his belief in one eternal unchanging reality (Brahman) and the illusion of plurality and differentiation.

      There are at least 11 works that profess to be biographies of Śaṅkara. All of them were composed several centuries later than the time of Śaṅkara and are filled with legendary stories and incredible anecdotes, some of which are mutually conflicting. Today there are no materials with which to reconstruct his life with certainty. His date of birth is naturally a controversial problem. It has been customary to assign him the birth and death dates 788–820. But the dates 700–750, grounded in 20th-century scholarship, are more acceptable.

      According to one tradition, Śaṅkara was born into a pious Nambūdiri Brahman family in a quiet village called Kālaḍi on the Cūrṇā (or Pūrṇā, Periyār) River, Kerala, southern India. He is said to have lost his father, Śivaguru, early in his life. He renounced the world and became a sannyāsin (ascetic) against his mother's will. He studied under Govinda, who was a pupil of Gauḍapāda. Nothing certain is known about Govinda, but Gauḍapāda is notable as the author of an important Vedānta work, Māṇḍūkya-kārikā, in which the influence of Mahāyāna Buddhism—a form of Buddhism aiming at the salvation of all beings and tending toward nondualistic or monistic thought—is evident and even extreme, especially in its last chapter.

      A tradition says that Śiva (Shiva), one of the principal gods in Hinduism, was Śaṅkara's family deity and that he was, by birth, a Śākta, or worshipper of Śakti, the consort of Śiva and female personification of divine energy. Later he came to be regarded as a worshipper of Śiva or even an incarnation of Śiva himself. His doctrine, however, is far removed from Śaivism and Śāktism. It is ascertained from his works that he had some faith in, or was favourable to, Vaiṣṇavisṃ, the worship of the god Vishnu. It is highly possible that he was familiar with Yoga (one of the classical systems of Indian philosophy, as well as a technique to achieve salvation). One study has suggested that in the beginning he was an adherent of Yoga and later became an Advaitin (Nondualist).

      Biographers narrate that Śaṅkara first went to Kāśī (Vārānasi), a city celebrated for learning and spirituality, and then travelled all over India, holding discussions with philosophers of different creeds. His heated debate with Maṇḍana Miśra, a philosopher of the Mīmāṃsā (Investigation) school, whose wife served as an umpire, is perhaps the most interesting episode in his biography and may reflect a historical fact; that is, keen conflict between Śaṅkara, who regarded the knowledge of Brahman as the only means to final release, and followers of the Mīmāṃsā school, which emphasized the performance of ordained duty and the Vedic rituals.

      Śaṅkara was active in a politically chaotic age. He would not teach his doctrine to city dwellers. The power of Buddhism was still strong in the cities, though already declining, and Jainism, a nontheistic ascetic faith, prevailed among the merchants and manufacturers. Popular Hinduism occupied the minds of ordinary people, while city dwellers pursued ease and pleasure. There were also epicureans in cities. It was difficult for Śaṅkara to communicate Vedānta philosophy to these people. Consequently, Śaṅkara propagated his teachings chiefly to sannyāsins and intellectuals in the villages, and he gradually won the respect of Brahmans and feudal lords. He enthusiastically endeavoured to restore the orthodox Brahmanical tradition without paying attention to the bhakti (devotional) movement, which had made a deep impression on ordinary Hindus in his age.

      It is very likely that Śaṅkara had many pupils, but only four are known (from their writings): Padmapāda, Sureśvara, Toṭaka (or Troṭaka), and Hastāmalaka. Śaṅkara is said to have founded four monasteries, at Śṛṅgeri (south), Purī (east), Dvāraka (west), and Badarīnātha (north), probably following the Buddhist monastery (vihāra) system. Their foundation was one of the most significant factors in the development of his teachings into the leading philosophy of India.

      More than 300 works—commentative, expository, and poetical—written in the Sanskrit language, are attributed to him. Most of them, however, cannot be regarded as authentic. His masterpiece is the Brahma-sūtra-bhāṣya, the commentary on the Brahma-sūtra, which is a fundamental text of the Vedānta school. The commentaries on the principal Upaniṣads that are attributed to Śaṅkara are certainly all genuine, with the possible exception of the commentary on the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad. The commentary on the Māṇḍūkya-kārikā was also composed by Śaṅkara himself. It is very probable that he is the author of the Yoga-sūtra-bhāṣya-vivaraṇa, the exposition of Vyāsa's commentary on the Yoga-sūtra, a fundamental text of the Yoga school. The Upadeśasāhasrī, which is a good introduction to Śaṅkara's philosophy, is the only non-commentative work that is certainly authentic.

      Śaṅkara's style of writing is lucid and profound. Penetrating insight and analytical skill characterize his works. His approach to truth is psychological and religious rather than logical; for that reason, he is perhaps best considered to be a prominent religious teacher rather than a philosopher in the 20th-century sense. His works reveal that he was not only versed in the orthodox Brahmanical traditions but also was well acquainted with Mahāyāna Buddhism. He is often criticized as a “Buddhist in disguise” by his opponents because of the similarity between his doctrine and Buddhism. Despite this criticism, it should be noted that he made full use of his knowledge of Buddhism to attack Buddhist doctrines severely or to transmute them into his own Vedāntic nondualism, and he tried with great effort to “vedanticize” the Vedānta philosophy, which had been made extremely Buddhistic by his predecessors. The basic structure of his philosophy is more akin to Sāṅkya, a philosophic system of nontheistic dualism, and the Yoga school than to Buddhism. It is said that Śaṅkara died at Kedārnātha in the Himalayas. The Advaita Vedānta school founded by him has always been preeminent in the learned circles of India.

Sengaku Mayeda

Additional Reading

Among the biographies of Śaṅkara written in Sanskrit, Vidyāraṇya, Śankaradigvijaya (14th century) in verse, is best known, though legendary. T.M.P. Mahadevan, Homage to S'ankara (1959), gives a short account of Śaṅkara's life based upon the traditions. S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, vol. 2 (1958), contains a brief but fairly critical biography and a detailed account of his works and philosophy.

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