Adi Shankara 788 – 820
Adi Shankara was an Indian philosopher and theologian who consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta, the school of non-dualism. Working in a brief but extraordinarily productive life, he composed commentaries on the principal Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutras, and he founded monastic centers in the four corners of the Indian subcontinent. His central teaching is that Brahman, the ultimate reality, is identical with atman, the inmost self, and that the apparent diversity of the world is the work of ignorance. Shankara's influence on later Hindu thought is comparable to that of Aquinas on Christian thought in the West.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Indian
- Era
- Medieval
- Movements
- Vedanta, Indian Philosophy
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Adi Shankara:
“Brahman alone is real; the world is illusory; the individual self is non-different from Brahman.”
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Attributed to Adi Shankara:
“There is no liberation for one who is attached to the body, the senses, or the objects of the senses.”
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Attributed to Adi Shankara:
“Knowledge of the Self is the only means to liberation.”
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Attributed to Adi Shankara:
“The mind alone is the cause of bondage and liberation for human beings.”
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Attributed to Adi Shankara:
“Pleasure and pain are mere ideas, transient and unreal; renounce them.”