Recently I published my research on the date of Adi Shankara as a book in print and also as an eBook on kindle.
The purpose of the book was to find out the birth year of Adi Shankaracharya for which I collected all the olden texts and those written by scholars of recent times to pick out the date features of Adi Shankara. Fortunately, most of the authors including Cithsukhacharya, a contemporary of Adi Shankara were unanimous in stating his birth in Nandana year, Vaishakha month, Shukla Pancami and Punarvasu on a Sunday noon. I checked the Nandana years between 500 BCE to 500 CE and found just one year coming up with all these details together. That was 11th April, 148 BCE.
Initially, I presented the existing version supported by the Mutts and showed why they are wrong. In most cases, the year was not Nandana at all. For example, the presently believed year of 509 BCE was not a Nandana year.
Then I go on to show the chronogram used. Paramacharya depended on the chronogram to arrive at the year 509 BCE whereas, the chronogram with an exchange of two numbers give 148 BCE. Instead of 2953, the texts have given the number 2593 kali years. 2953 gives 148 BCE where 2593 gives 509 BCE (when deducted from the base year of Kali 3102 BCE). The actual base year of Kali Yuga was 3101 BCE which many scholars disregarded. And many of them treated Yudhishthira Shaka as different from Kali Yuga.
The chronogram for his Mukti time also is slightly misread. This book offers the correct chronogram and the dates of other Shankara Mutts. A Chola King was the contemporary of Adi Shankara who made him re-design Kanchi as it is today. Cross references from the life of this Chola king and Tamil Sangam texts are provided to establish that Adi Shankara indeed was born in 148 BCE.
The contemporary king in Magadha at his time is revealed in this book with proper evidences. The names of places and kings used by Shankara in his commentaries are also satisfactorily explained in this book.
This book can be obtained from me for the cost of Rs.75 (shipping cost is Rs. 42)
Write to jayasreebooks@gmail.com to get the print copy. The list of all my books is given HERE
The Kindle edition of this book is available here: Kindle edition
