Shankara: Scholar, Teacher & Redeemer

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Adi sankara then...Siva Sankara now....

 

ANARCHY prevailed throughout India in the matter of religion and

philosophy. Sect after sect, such as the Charvakas, Lokayatikas,

Kapalikas, Saktas, Sankhyas, Bauddhas, and Madhyamikas sprang up. The

number of religions rose to as high as seventy-two. There were

frequent fights amongst these. Confusion reigned supreme and there

was no peace anywhere.

 

It was during such a time that Paramashiva at the request of the

devas and the great rishis agreed to descend to earth as the

universal teacher and redeem mankind.

 

Jagadguru Shri Adi Shankara-chaya was born in Kaladi in the present

day state of Kerala. His life of but 32 summers on this earth has

been recounted in the numerous Shankaravijayas. He deeply impressed

his contemporaries, followers and opponents alike. The most amazing

is the very life of the Acharya and his meteoric career. An expert in

the four Vedas in his eighth year, a profound scholar and a master of

all Shastras in his twelfth year, he propounded in his sixteenth year

all those incomparable commentaries on the Brahmasutra, on the

Upanishads and on the Bhagvad Gita.

 

He swept like a tornado through the length and breadth of the country

uprooting many deep-rooted heresies, restoring the Vedic religion to

its pristine purity, and propagating the message of non-dualism

through the monasteries which he founded among the snow-clad summits

of the Himalayas in the north, Dvaraka by the sea in the west,

Jagannatha on the eastern shore, and at Sringeri in the south.

 

He finally settled down at Kanchipuram where he founded the Kamakoti

Pitha over which he himself presided. At this Sarvajna Pitha,

Shankara attained mukti in his thirty-second year by merging himself

in the presence of Kamakshi, the Brahmavidya Swarupini of the

Upanishads. Shankara came to fulfil the spiritual vacuum in India

during a particular period in history. He unified the different sects

and grouped all the gods and goddesses under six main streams of

importance - Vaishnava (worship of Vishnu), Shaiva (worship of

Shiva,) Shakta (worship of the goddess

 

Shakti), Saura (worship of Surya, the sun god), Ganapatya (worship of

Ganesha) and Kaumara (worship of Kumara or Karttikeya). He taught

that all these six paths of prayer are not mutually in conflict but

are for the choice of the worshipper striving to reach god. It is for

this reason that Shankara is also called the Shanmatha-sthapana

Acharya (the teacher who established the six-fold system of worship).

 

According to Shankara, the Brahman alone exists; all else is Maya or

illusion. This has been summed up in the crisp aphorism Brahma Satyam

Jagat Mithya. The individual soul is not different from the cosmic

soul. Men are bound by endless cycles of birth and death due to

ignorance. Ignorance is the root cause of all problems. Knowledge

eradicates and delivers one from bondage. Just as the illusion of a

snake is superimposed on the rope, this world and this body are

superimposed on the Brahman or the supreme self. If you get knowledge

of the rope, the illusion of the snake will vanish. Even so, if you

get knowledge of Brahman, the illusion of the body and the world will

vanish.

 

On the concept of moksha, there is a slight difference between

Shankara's Advaita on the one hand, and the Visishtadvaitin and the

Dvaitin on the other. While Visishtadvaita postulates that the

individual soul when liberated becomes a kind of limb of the

Parabrahman (anga anga bhava), Dvaita holds that the liberated

individual soul becomes a dasa or servant waiting on and enjoying the

beatitude of the Parabrahman.

 

The Advaita Vedanta view is that on realisation, there is a merger of

the individual soul in the universal soul, like that of the air in a

pot merging with the air outside when the pot is broken. However, as

Shankara's commentary on the Brahma Sutra makes clear this merger

does not have the effect of endowing the liberated soul with any

power of creation: the work of creation and managing the universe is

the exclusive privilege of Ishvara.

 

Shankara's scholarly erudition has won the admiration of all the

philosophical schools of the world. Shankara was an intellectual

genius, a profound philosopher, a matchless preacher, a gifted poet

and a great religious reformer. By dispelling the darkness of

ignorance, the great Acharya showed humankind the path to pure

knowledge that liberates one from death. Let us redeem ourselves with

this true knowledge.

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