01The boy from Kalady
His father Shivaguru died when he was small, and his mother Aryamba raised him. The Shankara Digvijaya tells how a crocodile seized the boy in the river and would not let go until his mother allowed him to take sannyasa. He walked north to the banks of the Narmada and took diksha from Govinda Bhagavatpada, the disciple of Gaudapada. Before he was twenty he had written the bhashyas on the Brahma Sutras, the principal Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita that every later school of Vedanta has had to answer.
02Debate and the four mathas
He travelled the length of the land in debate. The best-known katha is his shastrartha with the Mimamsaka Mandana Mishra, with Mandana's wife Ubhaya Bharati as judge; Mandana became his disciple Sureshvara. Shankara set up the Amnaya Mathas: Sringeri in the south, Dwarka in the west, Govardhan at Puri in the east and Jyotirmath near Badrinath in the north, each tied to one Veda. His disciples Padmapada, Sureshvara, Hastamalaka and Totaka headed them. The Dashanami order of sannyasis traces itself to him, and the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham also counts him as its first acharya.
03Hymns and the end at Kedarnath
Alongside the dense bhashyas come hymns sung in homes to this day: Bhaja Govindam, the Shivananda Lahari, the Kanakadhara Stotram and the Saundarya Lahari, all handed down under his name. He gave the Smarta household the worship of five deities together (panchayatana puja). Most accounts say he left the body at Kedarnath at thirty-two, and a samadhi shrine stands behind the temple; the Kanchi tradition places his last days at Kanchipuram.
