The philosopher already met throughout this site's Tirtha chapter — founder of the Char Dham and the chief systematizer of Advaita Vedanta, non-dual philosophy.
८वीं शताब्दी · 8th century CE
Born in Kaladi, Kerala, and, tradition holds, a renunciate by the age of eight, Shankaracharya traveled the length of the subcontinent on foot, debating rival schools of philosophy and, in several stories, converting even his opponents into disciples.
He established four mathas at the four directions of the subcontinent, in Puri, Dwarka, Sringeri, and Jyotirmath near Badrinath, and wrote commentaries on the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and Brahma Sutras that remain the reference texts for Advaita Vedanta today, alongside devotional hymns like the Bhaja Govindam still sung across the tradition.