Sri ShankarAcharya and the demon Maniman

Sri Acharya Shankara is very well known as the savior of Vedic Hindu religion who established the philosophy of Non-Dualism or Advaita by intellectually debating and defeating all other non-Vedic schools of philosophy including Buddhism, that were prevalent during his time.

Later on, other Acharyas like Sri Ramanuja and Sri Madhva found problems with Advaita and propounded the VishishtAdvaita and Dvaita or Tattvavada schools of Vedanta.

Dvaita saints and scholars vehemently opposed Advaita and have produced many scholarly works refuting Advaita and VishishtAdviata also.

Sri Madhvacharya, in his work called “Mahabharata taatparya Nirnaya” has mentioned that Shri Shankara in his previous life was a demon called Maniman who got killed by Bhima in the Mahabharata. The same Maniman took birth again as Sri Shankara, a brahmin saint in Kaliyuga and preached the Advaita philosophy that essentially teaches “I am God”, which is considered to be demonic from the dualistic view and therefore goes against the Veda and the Supreme Vedic God Vishnu.

Later, another teacher from the same Dvaita school, Sri Narayana panditacharya, in his book called “Mani Manjari” has made derogatory remarks against Sri Shankara. He reiterates the claim that Sri Shankara is an incarnation of the demon Maniman and has referred to Shankara as “Sankara”, meaning “One who is corrupted” and also says that his mother was a characterless woman.

On July 11th, 2026), in the Udupi Sri Krishna Mata, the most sacred place for the Madhva school, some children gave a presentation on the “Mani Manjari” mentioning Sri Shankara as the demon Maniman in his previous life. This obviously has pained all the many saints and scholars devoted to Sri Shankara’s Advaita tradition and they all strongly objected to this incident.

The current Dvaita saint from the Shiroor Mutt tradition, who is currently in charge of the Udupi Mutt, positively responded to this and he invited the same children again and requested them to apologize for the incident and also eulogized Sri Shankara thereby helping to bring peace and harmony between the followers of the two schools of Vedanta. The Mutt authorities agreed to review and cleanup such texts in the Dvaita tradition by removing such controversial topics.

But this has not gone well with few other Madhva scholars and they have openly condemned Sri Shiroor Mutt Swamiji for having gone against the teachings of Sri Madhwa, and his tradition. They have published videos on the Youtube, arguing in favor of Sri Madhva’s claim that Sri Shankara is indeed an incarnation of the demon Maniman. They have also openly challenged Advaitins and the followers of Sri Shankara to try to answer all their questions. Few Advaitins have tried to counter but the Dvaita scholars have retorted back providing more evidence from Sri Shankara's works like 'Soundarya lahari' and "Prapancha saara", which apparently appears to be Tamasic or demonic. 

This kind of internal quarrels between the followers of Sri Madhwa and Sri Shankara is not good for the Hindu society, especially in the light of Hindu hatred and in particular Brahmin hatred that is very much prevalent in the recent times. Many Abrahamic religions may also take advantage of this situation to further breakup the Hindu society and convert innocent Hindus.

So, with the sole intention to save Hindu unity and protect Sanatana Dharma, and with all humility and devotion to Vedic God, Parabrahan, Devatas, Rishis and the Acharyas, I will try to answer the questions posed by Dvaitins in my upcoming few blogs.

Namaste

Suresh