ABSTRACT
For nearly a hundred years now, the exact time of Shankaracharya has been a point of dispute among scholars, and the range of difference of opinion as to the year of his birth has varied from 44 BC to AD 788. Shankar's own disciples Sureshwar and Anand Giri quote Dharma-kirti, who lived between 640 and 660, because Itsing mentions him as a recent celebrity. There exists the record of a man who had personally studied under Shankar Acharya and who caused this fact to be stated in a stone inscription carved in his life-time, in a certain year between ad 878 and 887. A copper-plate shown at Sringeri, ascribing a pre-christian antiquity to Shankar Acharya has been similarly rejected by scholars as a modern fabrication, on epigraphic, linguistic and historical grounds. This date is supported by the Jagat-guru Paramparastotra, still read at the Sringeri Math, which says that Shankar was born in Kaliyuga era 3889-710 Shalivahan Shaka ad 788.
