Shankara – Jesus – Muhammad
The world still bleeds from the legacy of Jesus and Muhammad. Nations rise and fall under banners of faith, wars are waged in the name of God, and billions live under the shadow of dogma. Christianity, fractured into countless sects, still preaches exclusivity: only through Christ can one be saved. Islam, equally uncompromising, still demands submission to the Qur’an and its Prophet. Their heirs continue to fight battles both literal and cultural, convinced that truth must be enforced rather than discovered.
And yet, in the quiet recesses of Indian philosophy lies a voice that never demanded obedience, never drew a sword, never claimed monopoly over salvation. Shankara, in his brief thirty-two years, offered humanity a vision so profound that even modern science has begun to catch glimpses of its contours. Advaita Vedānta declares that the self and the absolute are one, that no man, no prophet, no revelation has a monopoly on truth. Liberation is not purchased with blood, nor granted by belonging to a chosen tribe, but attained through knowledge—through the relentless pursuit of reason, through self-realization.
This is precisely why Shankara has been ignored by the machinery of history. His philosophy cannot be turned into a war-cry, cannot be chained to an empire, cannot be wielded as a weapon. There is no holy war in Advaita, no crusade, no inquisition, no fatwa. The only battle is internal: the struggle to see through illusion, to pierce the veil of ignorance. It is too noble for politics, too rational for mobs, too humane for tyrants. And because of that, it lost the competition for mass obedience.
But perhaps what was once a weakness may yet become humanity’s last hope. In an age where nuclear weapons, religious terrorism, and sectarian hatred threaten our survival, the world no longer needs more dogma. It needs a philosophy that can embrace diversity without violence, that can sustain universality without conquest, that can offer meaning without demanding blind faith. Advaita Vedānta is not just India’s treasure; it is the world’s forgotten inheritance.
The irony is sharp. The West celebrates reason in science and technology, yet clings to faith in religion. The Islamic world insists on obedience, yet cries out against oppression. Both cling to prophets who claimed exclusivity, whose legacies are bound up with war. Meanwhile, the Advaita vision, which insists that truth is not the property of any one man, any one nation, or any one book, lies waiting to be rediscovered.
The counter-attack from the Advaita perspective is devastating: Christianity and Islam may have conquered history, but they did so at the price of reason and compassion. Shankara may have lost history, but he preserved both. The true measure of a philosophy is not how many lands it conquers, but how deeply it illuminates the human condition. By that measure, Jesus and Muhammad fall short, and Shankara stands supreme.
The time has come to turn the tables. To stop mistaking global reach for truth, numbers for wisdom, violence for authenticity. The world does not need more saviors. It needs thinkers. It needs those who can unite, not divide; liberate, not enslave; reason, not command. In this, Shankara’s Advaita Vedānta is not just superior—it is necessary.
History has crowned prophets of blood. Philosophy will yet crown the sage of reason.
No Responses