The Thousand Teachings of Shankara

The Thousand Teachings is the one work which almost all scholars agree was written by the original Shankaracharya, and which is not a commentary on something else.

A number of texts that have been attributed to Shankara in the past are now believed to have been written by followers. And the majority of his own writings are commentaries on the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras and Bhagavad Gita. In the Thousand Teachings Shankara quotes these texts but the overall presentation is his own.

Shankara's principal concerns are always to distinguish the Real from the apparent; to establish the identity of the Self and the Real; to understand and correct the way that juxtaposition of the Real and the apparent leads to false identification and human suffering; and to understand how right knowledge can occur. On these perennial questions, the experience of many enquirers has been that Shankara and those contemporary exponents who do not depart from his core principles, remain the most insightful and reliable of all guides.

The Thousand Teachings is here freshly translated by A J Alston PhD, a Sanskrit scholar who also complied the six-volume Shankara Source Book, and lifelong member of Shanti Sadan. This version is intended particularly for those who wish to study Shankara's teachings in pursuit of the goal of inner illumination.

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