Shankara Jayanti is celebrated today – 26 April 2012
Shankara Jayanti is the birth anniversary of Jagad Guru Adi Shankaracharya. It falls on the pachami or the fifth day of the bright fortnight of Vaisakha month. Adi Shankaracharya was also known as Sankara Bhagvadpadacharya . He is revered as the greatest philosopher saint of India. He mastered all the hindu scriptures and consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vendanta. Advaita is non dualism – meaning only the Atman or the Supreme Soul exists and the individual souls are not separate from the Supreme Soul but one with it. The Individual Souls are like the reflections of the Moon in the various ponds and water bodies. But there is only one Moon in the skies.
The key source texts for Vedanta are the Upanishads, the Bhagwad Gita and the Brahma Sutras. Adi Shankara consolidated the principles of Advaita Vedanta and the first historical proponent of Advaita Vendata was his Guru – Govinda Bhagavatpadacarya. Adi Shankara explained the concepts of Atman or Soul, Paramatman or the Divine/Supreme Soul, vairagya or renunciation or moksha or salvation. He wrote commentaries or bhasyams on all Vedas and the Bhagwad Geeta. He travelled all over India on foot and in each town he had philosophical discussions with learned masters and always won the debates. His writings are considered supreme and popular even today for this reason.
Adi Shankara was born in the 8th century AD at Kaladi in Kerala to a Namboodhri Brahmin couple. The parents were childless for a long time and undertook fasts and prayed at the Vadukunathan temple. Lord Shiva appeared to them in a dream and blessed them. It is believed that Adi Shankara was a minor incarnation of Lord Shiva himself. His father died when Shankara was young and his mother took care of him. Shankara was brilliant and excelled in the traditional vaidika learning. After his sacred thread ceremony was performed, Shankara used to beg for alms as was the tradition. Once he called out for alms at the home of a poor woman. This woman was very loving at heart and devoted to God but had nothing to give. There was no food in her home. When she saw Shankara standing at her doorway seeking alms, the effluence from his face attracted her and she was heartbroken that she had no food to give him. She hunted in the shelves of her hut to see if she could get anything. She found a dry amla fruit and offered it to him with tears in her eyes. Seeing her goodness and distress, Shankara invoked Goddess Lakshmi and sang the Kanaka Dhara Stotram – an invocation to the Goddess of Wealth to rain down gold. Sure enough, there was a rain of gold amlas which fell into the woman’s house, shattering the roof and filling her life with riches and blessings.
Adi Shankara respected and loved his mother very much. She was already old when she gave birth to him and as he grew, he watched her daily struggle walking to the river for bathing. So he sang an invocation and the river Purna changed its course and began flowing near his home. When he took sanyas and left home, he gave word to his mother that he would be by her side at her death. He fulfilled his word to her in a miraculous way. After many years, he was suddenly aware of her impending death and rushed to be with her in her last moments. After her death, he sought help from the villagers for her final rites. None helped him as he was a sanyasi who had come back home to his dying mother. In the thunderstorm and rain, he performed the final rites of his mother by putting her dead body on a bed of plantain stems(which are water filled and never burn) and invoked fire from the skies. Lo and behold, the plantain stems caught fire and burned brightly. The entire village fell at his feet and sought pardon.
Adi Shankara reunited the fragmented Hinduism and established the four mutts or monastries in India – in Sringeri, Puri, Dwarka and Badrinath for the establishment, spread and revival of the Advaita Vedanta. He established the Shanmata tradition of worship. Adi Shankara Jayanti is regarded as Philosopher’s day. Worship is offered to him today, throughout India in various monasteries and his teachings and hymns are discussed and sung. It is a great occasion to study Advaita Vedanta and his works.
