Sri Sankaracharya

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Sri Sankaracharya is a great son of India, a towering personality who has ruled the minds of many all the world over from the time of his advent. His message, the Advaita, is the only system that appeals to thinking humanity as has been declared by Swami Vivekananda. The great Swami has also said that every Advaitavadin in the world owes allegiance to Sri Sankara. His message is of abiding interest as it is based on the real nature of man. Kerala has the credit of being the birth place of the Master.

A satisfactory biography of Sri Sankara is a great need. But the materials for undertaking such a task are scanty. The Sankaravijayas and other Sanskrit poems that profess to deal with the life of Sankara have so much of the miraculous and the legendary that the critical mind cannot accept them. In the biographical sketch given in the present book, an attempt has been made to sift some facts and study them in the light of relevant words of the Master himself. Free use has been made of the valuable testimony of the direct disciples of Sri Sankara scattered in their writings. The narrative, however, is bound to be extremely fragmentary on account of the limitations and imperfections of the sources.

It is indeed gratifying that in the present day confusion of ideas, a life of the great Master of thought and spirituality, Sri Sankaracharya, is being published. It is a timely contribution for, in this creative period in the history of India, it is necessary that India should think of her great creators and builders to throw light on the path. To-day Indian life is being influenced by the thought waves and currents of the West and one should remember that the growth of life is not possible by discontinuity with the past.

Sankara was a great builder of Indian society - with the thought and inspiration of the Upanishads and the thoughtful India still lives with the strain of his thought and inspiration. He is still to-day the invisible inspirer of thought and spirituality.