Shankara was indeed pre-eminently the fittest genius who could have undertaken this self-appointed task as the sole guardian angel of the rishi culture. An exquisite thinker, a brilliant intellect, a personality scintillating with the vision of Truth, a heart throbbing with industrious faith and ardent desire to serve the nation, sweetly emotional and relentlessly logical – in Shankara the Upanishads discovered the fittest general.

He brought into his work his literary dexterity, both in prose and poetry, and in his hands, under the heat of his fervent ideals, the great Sanskrit language became almost plastic; he could mould it into any shape and into any form. From vigorous prose heavily laden with irresistible arguments to flowing rivulets of lilting tuneful songs of love and beauty, there was no technique that Shankar did not take up, and whatever literary form he took up, he proved himself to be a master in it. From masculine prose to soft feminine songs, from marching militant verses to dancing songful words, be he in the halls of the Upanishads commentaries or in the temple of Brahmasutra expositions, in the amphitheatre of his Bhagavad Gita discourses, or in the open flowery fields of his devotional songs, his was a pen that danced to the rhythm of his heart and to the swing of his thoughts.

Reproduced from ‘Unto Research, Chinmaya International Foundation’, Chinmaya Birth Centenary Celebration MANANAM series.