Context: Recently, the Prime Minister has unveiled a 12-foot statue of Adi Shankaracharya at Kedarnath (Uttarakhand).

Adi Shankaracharya (788-820 AD)

• Adi Shankaracharya was an Indian philosopher and theologian whose works had a strong impact on the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta.
• He founded mathas, which are believed to have helped in the historical development, revival and propagation of his philosophy.
• The story recounted today has been reconstructed from multiple Shankaravijayas (Conquests of Shankara) written over the centuries.

Birth and death

• He is said to have been born in Kaladi village on the bank of the Periyar, the largest river in Kerala.
• He is believed to have attained samadhi at Kedarnath; however, Kanchi and Thrissur are also talked about as places where Adi Shankara spent his last days.

His literary works

• Adi Shankara is generally identified as the author of 116 works.
• Among them the celebrated commentaries (bhashyas) on 10 Upanishads, the Brahmasutra and the Gita, and poetic works including Vivekachudamani, Maneesha Panchakam, and Saundaryalahiri.
• He composed the Kanakadhara Stotram, following which there was a rain of golden amlas, which brought prosperity to the household.
• It has also been claimed that Adi Shankara composed texts like Shankarasmrithi, which seeks to establish the social supremacy of Nambuthiri Brahmins.
• His great standing is derived from his commentaries of the prasthanatrayi (Upanishads, Brahmasutra and Gita), where he explains his understanding of Advaita Vedanta.

His philosophy: Advaita Vedanta

• Advaita Vedanta articulates a philosophical position of radical nondualism, a revisionary worldview which it derives from the ancient Upanishadic texts.
• According to this, the Upanishads reveal a fundamental principle of nonduality termed ‘brahman’, which is the reality of all things.
• Advaitins understand brahman as transcending individuality and empirical plurality.
• They seek to establish that the essential core of one’s self (atman) is brahman. It is pure non-intentional consciousness.
• It is one without a second, nondual, infinite existence, and numerically identical with brahman.
• This effort entails tying a metaphysics of brahman to a philosophy of consciousness.

Note: There are six major schools of Vedic philosophy—Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mima?sa and Vedanta, and five major heterodox (sramanic) schools—Jain, Buddhist, Ajivika, Ajñana, and Charvaka.

Shankara’s contested legacy

• Custodians of the caste system cite from Shankara’s commentaries to justify the unequal and unjust social order.
• It is argued that the Advaita Vedanta borrowed the categories of Buddhist thinkers and called him the Prachhanna Buddha (Buddha in disguise).
• Sri Narayana Guru offered a radical reading of Advaita Vedanta to dismantle the theory and praxis of caste.

His political appropriation

• His works transcends the political boundaries of his time.
• The mathas are believed to have established in Sringeri, Dwaraka, Puri, and Joshimath for the spread of Advaita Vedanta.
• They are seen as custodians of Hinduism, and Shankara’s digvijaya (conquest) often interpreted as a near nationalistic project where faith, philosophy and geography are yoked together to imagine a Hindu India.