And he managed to cram several lifetimes into those years. Bhagwatpada Sri Adi Sankaracharya is one of the greatest philosopher to have been born in this land called Bharata!
He wrote commentaries on important philosophical texts, he composed poetry that even today, stuns us with its beauty as well as its content. He rejuvenated Sanatana Dharma. He liberated the people from the rigid shackles of Karmakanda.
He recognised and respected the cultural ethos that binds together this large, diverse country and he established four Peethas in four different corners of the country to nurture it. He traversed across the length and breadth of India on foot, preaching the timeless beauty of Advaita.
As Swami Chinmayanand rightly says, ‘Sankara is not an individual. Sankara is an institution. No one person has ever achieved so much, for so many, in so short a time’.
And yet, how many of us know or have read what he has written? There are more statues of Teresa of Kolkata in India than that of Adi Shankara. The communists in Kerala did not want the Kochi airport to be named after Adi Shankara, even though it is located in the outskirts of Sankara’s ancestral village, Kaladi! This is how India treats one of her greatest sons, just because he is a Hindu philosopher! #adishankaracharya #incredibleindia #chinmayamission #chinmayavibhooti #adishankara #shefsays
