PHILOSOPHER

Adi Shankara

788 - 820

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Adi Shankara (8th c. CE), also called Adi Shankaracharya (Sanskrit: आदि शङ्कर, आदि शङ्कराचार्य, romanized: Ādi Śaṅkara, Ādi Śaṅkarācārya, lit. 'First Shankaracharya', pronounced [aːd̪i ɕɐŋkɐraːt͡ɕaːrjɐ]), was an Indian Vedic scholar, philosopher and teacher (acharya) of Advaita Vedanta. Reliable information on Shankara's actual life is scant, and his true impact lies in his "iconic representation of Hindu religion and culture," despite the fact that most Hindus do not adhere to Advaita Vedanta. Tradition also portrays him as the one who reconciled the various sects (Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism) with the introduction of the Pañcāyatana form of worship, the simultaneous worship of five deities – Ganesha, Surya, Vishnu, Shiva and Devi, arguing that all deities were but different forms of the one Brahman, the invisible Supreme Being. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Adi Shankara is the 168th most popular philosopher (down from 151st in 2019), the 44th most popular biography from India (down from 30th in 2019) and the 7th most popular Indian Philosopher.

Adi Shankara was a Hindu philosopher and theologian who founded the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy. He was born in Kaladi, Kerala, India.

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Among PHILOSOPHERS

Among philosophers, Adi Shankara ranks 168 out of 1,267. Before him are Oswald Spengler, Paul Ricœur, Herbert Marcuse, Athanasius Kircher, Melissus of Samos, and Ferdinand Tönnies. After him are Ernst Cassirer, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Xun Kuang, Jakob Böhme, Thomas Reid, and Mikhail Bakhtin.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 788, Adi Shankara ranks 1. After him are Abd al-Rahman II, Methodios I of Constantinople, Abu Tammam, Ziyadat Allah I of Ifriqiya, and Boniface II, Margrave of Tuscany. Among people deceased in 820, Adi Shankara ranks 2. Before him is Al-Shafi‘i. After him are Leo V the Armenian, Emperor Xianzong of Tang, and Theodore Abu Qurrah.

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In India

Among people born in India, Adi Shankara ranks 44 out of 1,861. Before him are Ramaswamy Venkataraman (1910), Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952), Chandragupta Maurya (-340), Valmiki (-80), Buddhaghosa (401), and Subhas Chandra Bose (1897). After him are Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895), Aryabhata (476), Sathya Sai Baba (1926), Jaggi Vasudev (1957), Raja Ravi Varma (1848), and Aishwarya Rai (1973).

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Among PHILOSOPHERS In India

Among philosophers born in India, Adi Shankara ranks 7. Before him are Rajneesh (1931), Swami Vivekananda (1863), Ramakrishna (1836), Nagarjuna (150), Padmasambhava (717), and Buddhaghosa (401). After him are Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895), Ram Mohan Roy (1772), Kabir (1440), Paramahansa Yogananda (1893), Aśvaghoṣa (80), and Sri Aurobindo (1872).

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