“सैवाहम् न च दृश्य वस्तु ।

ब्रह्म सत्य जगत् मिथ्या।

   – Jagadguru Adi Shakaracharya

Meaning: ‘I am pure consciousness and not this perishable body. ‘Truth’ is the only imperishable element. The apparent world is ‘false’.

First of all let’s bow down to the pioneer of the ‘Adwait Vedant’ – Kulguru shri Adi Shakaracharya-ji on ‘Adi Shankaracharya Jayanti’. This day has an extreme importance in the history of India, because this is the day when Kulguru Adi Shakaracharya had taken birth on this earth with a great objective!

‘What does it mean by Adwait Vedant’? The word ‘Kulguru’ refers to? Why birth anniversary of Shri Adi Shakaracharya is so important in India? All these questions must be popping up in your mind till now.

Let’s first know about the birth of Adi Shankaracharya. Actually, there is a debate over his birth year. Some scholars say it was in 509 BCE and the other group of scholars advocates it as 788CE. Indian government consider 788CE. The birth anniversary of Shankaracharya is observed on ‘Vaishakha Sud Pancham’ which falls in the month between April and May. His teachings and philosophy influenced Hinduism when ‘Hindu’ culture was on decline. He became instrumental in the revival of ‘Hinduism’.

Adi Sharkaracharya chose to take ‘Samadhi’ at very early age of only 32 years. His birth-place was Kaladi (Today’s Kerala) where as death-place was Kedarnath. In this short span of his life he accomplished huge things and brough great changes. It is believed that he was the Avtar of ‘Lord Shiva’ himself. He was so brilliant that he could master all Vedas and Vedanta at the tender age of 5 years! He decided to take ‘Sanyasa’ at the age of 8 years! When he shared his idea to his mother, obviously like every mother, she disapproved his wish to take renunciation as a choice of his life. He then one day, while near river was caught by a crocodile and his mother was screaming, that time he asked her mother a choice that if she is ready for allowing him to take up ‘Sanyasa’ , that crocodile would leave him otherwise he shall not. Surprisingly, as soon as his mother agreed, crocodile left him free. This happened due to the divine powers that Shakaracharya had possessed.

After taking up renunciation as his choice, he focused on ‘Adwait Vedant’. Ved + Ant = Vedant. Vedant means the refind form of Vedas. The ultimate gist of philosophies of vedas are in ‘Vedanta’. Now, Adwait Vedant is the concept of non-dualistic nature of the fact. This concept is derived from Upnishads. Dwait means dual. Adwait means non-dual. When we are awake, we have dual thought processes. Wherein, a deep sleep everything is non-dual. As per Advaita, the world is an illusion. All actions and emotions including Happiness-Sorrow, Anger-Calmness, True – False et al  are just false impressions. Fundamentally, the soul and God are one; when the soul releases itself from this illusion; it merges with Brahmn, the Universal Consciousness.

According to ‘Dwait Vedant’,  if one practices ‘Bhakti’ and ‘Good deeds’, one shall get ‘Moksha’. Whereas, ‘Adwait Vedanta’ focuses on ‘Knowledge’. If you have a lot of knowledge, you get what to do and what not. And source of knowledge is reading and analysis. This leads to good deeds and which ultimately shows path to ‘Moksha’.

Adi shakaracharya wanted to establish something substantial which can help the coming generations to follow the same knowledge or at least have encounter of the knowledge of ‘Adwait Vedanta’.  For that, he reformed Vedanta, Brahma-sutra, Bhagvad-gita etc and presented in the simplified words to help people for generations and generations. He establishes four ‘Matha’ in the all four direction of our country. He established four major mathas in different regions of India – Badrinath, Dwarka, Puri, Sringeri. This establishment was done based on all four Vedas.

1. Govardhana Matha, Odisha – Rig Veda – East direction: It is located in in Odisha. It is in coastal city Puri and associated with the Lord Jagannath temple.
2. Sharada Peetham, Karnataka – Yajurveda – South Direction: It is situated on the banks of the Tunga River in Chikkamagalur district in Karnataka. Town of Sringeri is the site of the first Matha in India and one of the famous matha in India.
3. Daraka Pitha, Gujarat – Sama Veda – West Direction: Dwaraka Matha is also called as Saradha Matha is situated in the ancient coastal city of Dwaraka in Gujarat. It is associated with the divine temple of Dwarkadheesh.
4. Jyotir Math, Uttarakhand – Atharva Veda – North Direction: Jyotir Math or Jyotir Pitha is located in a city with same name Jyotirmath in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand.

Adi Shankaracharya has been a great contributor in the development of the concept of ‘Sanatan Dharma’ which is the true essence of Hinduism. He had established four Shankaracharya monasteries in the four corners of India to spread the Indian Sanatan tradition throughout the country. His accomplishment in holy texts and intense labour has shown the correct path to many generations till now. Indians and the world today, have a great faith in philosophies of Vedas which is because of the divine mission with which Shri Adi Shankaracharya came to the earth. These reasons are enough to regard Adi Shanakracharya as the Jagadguru (Guru of the universe).