Shankara (also known as Shankaracharya) is the greatest of the poet-philosophers of India. In his brief 32 years of life, his enormous literary output included commentaries on the Vedanta Sutras, the principal Upanishads and on the Gita., the Vivekachudamani, plus many minor works, poems and hymns.

Says Swami Vivekananda, "In Sankaracharya we (see)tremendous intellectual power, throwing the scorching light of reason upon everything. (He) revived Vedanta Philosophy and made it a rationalistic philosophy... he worked out, rationalized, and placed before men the wonderful coherent system of Vedanta.'