Some of the earliest memories I have are of my mother reciting the Bhaj Govindam Stotra composed by Adi Shankaracharya, “Angam galitam mundam palitam darshan vinanam jatam tundam vriddho yadi grihitva dandam tadapi na munchati asha pindam. Bhaj Govindam Bhaj Govindam Govindam Bhaj Moorhmate!” Decades later I had the good fortune of listening to MS Subbulakshmi conclude one of her recitals with an electrifying rendering of the same bhajan. Now in the eighth decade of my life the verses have acquired a special poignancy. But I digress.
Pavan Varma has inter-woven personal memoir, evocative travelogue and anecdotage with meticulously researched intellectual history to introduce the readers to one of the most fascinating Indians who ever lived. Shankaracharya had renounced the world in adolescence and travelled on foot from Kerala to Kedarnath engaging on his way some of the sharpest minds in philosophical debate converting them to the way of Advaita Vedanta that he propounded.
More than 1,300 years after Shankaracharya, another young mendicant undertook a foot march traversing the length of this country almost following in his predecessor’s footsteps. Vivekananda too proclaimed himself to be a Vedantin. It has never been easy to separate legend and lore, myth and metaphor from verifiable fact. It is almost impossible to pierce the web of maya and reach the man who considered the world to be an illusion.
Before he died at the age of 32, Shankaracharya went on to establish four monasteries in four corners of India to unite the people dwelling here with a unique emotional strand. It would be grossly unfair to label Adi Shankaracharya as a dazzling ‘Hindu’ sectarian-debater who dramatically vanquished opponents belonging to different creeds. His legacy has to be revisited by all Indians as well as non-Indians to recognise his ‘greatness’, to use a cliché.
Varma has produced a delightfully readable book that not only provides a biographical sketch but also sketches in broad bold strokes the context. He has succeeded admirably in catching the flavour of metaphysical debates and has been scrupulously fair to those who contested Shankaracharya’s concepts. In fact, this lucidly written volume can serve as an excellent introduction to Indian Philosophy from Vedic times through the period of Upanishads through teachings of the Buddha and Mahavir to Shankaracharya. It is amazing how particle physicists researching at the cutting edge have found correspondences with what the prescient teacher had proposed about the nature of cosmic reality.
But one does wish that the anthology section had included Sanskrit shlokas in Devnagari script. Transliterated Roman isn’t very easy on the eyes and fails to capture the musical cadences of the words. Pavan possesses a unique poetic sensibility, wears his scholarship lightly and blends this with his love for history to shed interesting light on a multifaceted personality who definitely deserves to be demythologised—particularly in these fraught times.