Adi Shankara

Adi Shankara was a Vedic scholar-monk who wrote commentaries on the Brahma sutras, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita, teaching Advaita Vedanta — the liberating knowledge that individual self and Brahman are one. Until the 10th century he was overshadowed by his contemporary Maṇḍana Miśra, with no mention in concurrent sources until the 11th. The legendary Shankara emerged in the 14th century when Sringeri monasteries, backed by Vijayanagara emperors, shifted allegiance to Brahmanical orthodoxy and needed a founder-hero: hagiographies cast him as a ruler-renunciate who traveled India defeat…