{"id":19458,"date":"2024-01-18T03:30:31","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T22:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=19458"},"modified":"2025-04-05T17:40:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T12:10:53","slug":"shankaracharyas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/shankaracharyas\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are Shankaracharyas?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Shankaracharyas<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Shankaracharya, literally \u2018teacher of the way of Shankara\u2019, is a\u00a0religious title used by the\u00a0heads of the four Hindu maths (monasteries) that were\u00a0established by the eighth-century Hindu saint\u00a0Adi Shankara.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Adi Shankara established these maths\u00a0to impart knowledge. These maths consist of religious shrines, temples, libraries, and residences.<\/li>\n<li>These maths are\u00a0located in Dwarka (Gujarat), Joshimath (Uttarakhand), Puri (Odisha), and Sringeri (Karnataka).\n<ul>\n<li>Each math, called peetha or pitha in Sanskrit, was\u00a0tasked with serving as the\u00a0custodian of one Veda each and keeping alive Vedic literature.<\/li>\n<li>Govardhan Math\u00a0in Puri is the custodian of the\u00a0Rig Veda, while the\u00a0Dwarka Sharada Peetham in Gujarat is responsible\u00a0for the Sam Veda.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0Sringeri Sharada Peetham in Karnataka is responsible\u00a0for the Yajur Veda, and\u00a0Jyotir Math in Uttarakhand&#8217;s Joshimath\u00a0for the Atharva Veda.<\/li>\n<li>Vijayanagara kingdom was the\u00a0first to patronise the Sringeri math in the 14th century CE.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0Shankaracharyas also oversee the Dashanami Sampradaya, an\u00a0order of renunciates (those who have renounced the secular way of life).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Who was Adi Shankaracharya?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Adi Shankaracharya, or Shankara, as he was known, was an\u00a0ancient Indian philosopher and theologian who\u00a0lived in the\u00a0early 8th century CE.<\/li>\n<li>Birth: He was born in Kalady, a village in\u00a0present-day Kerala.<\/li>\n<li>Revered as an avatar of Lord Shiva, it is believed that he\u00a0mastered the Vedas when he was just 16.<\/li>\n<li>Philosophical Contributions:\n<ul>\n<li>At a very young age, Shankara started criss-crossing the length and breadth of India to\u00a0spread his commentaries on the Brahama Sutras, Upanishads, and the\u00a0Bhagavad Gita\u00a0amid a rise in Jainism and Buddhism.<\/li>\n<li>He is best known for his role in the development and\u00a0propagation of Advaita Vedanta, a\u00a0non-dualistic school of Hindu philosophy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The fundamental philosophy of Advaita Vedanta lies in the\u00a0unity of atma (soul), or individual consciousness, and brahma or the ultimate reality.<\/li>\n<li>According to this philosophy of non-duality,\u00a0God and humans are not two and the\u00a0material world is an &#8220;illusion&#8221;.\n<ul>\n<li>His most important work is his\u00a0efforts to synthesize the six sub-sects, known as\u00a0\u2018Shanmata.\u2019 \u2018Shanmata\u2019, which literally translates to \u2018six religions,\u2019 is the worship of six supreme deities.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>He also\u00a0founded \u2018Dashanami Sampradaya,\u2019 which talks about leading a monastic life.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>While Shankaracharya was a\u00a0firm believer in ancient Hinduism, he\u00a0condemned the \u2018Mimamsa school of Hinduism\u2019, which was purely\u00a0based on ritual practices.<\/li>\n<li>Four Mathas: He established four prominent monastic centers in India, each associated with one of the cardinal directions: Sringeri in the south, Dwarka in the west, Puri in the east, and Badrinath in the north.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Death: Adi Shankaracharya is believed to have\u00a0attained Samadhi (a state of deep meditation or realization)\u00a0at the young age of 32 in Kedarnath in the Himalayas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What are Upanishads?<\/h3>\n<p>The Upani\u1e63ads are ancient texts from India that were composed orally in Sanskrit between about 700 B.C.E. and 300 B.C.E. There are thirteen major Upani\u1e63ads, many of which were likely composed by multiple authors and are comprised of a variety of styles. As part of a larger group of texts, known as the Vedas, the Upani\u1e63ads were composed in a ritual context, yet they mark the beginning of a reasoned enquiry into a number of perennial philosophical questions concerning the nature of being, the nature of the self, the foundation of life, what happens to the self at the time of death, the good life, and ways of interacting with others.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-history\/shankaracharyas-adi-shankara-ram-temple-9110633\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Who are the shankaracharyas \u2014 and who was Adi Shankara?<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shankaracharya is a religious title used by the heads of the four Hindu maths (monasteries) that were established by the eighth-century Hindu saint Adi Shankara.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":19459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}