Śaṅkara is the preeminent teacher of Advaita (non-dual) Vedānta. Scholars commonly place him around the early 8th century CE; estimates run from the late 7th century to about 750, and the traditional dates 788 to 820 CE are also widely cited. His commentary on the Brahma Sūtras is the earliest complete commentary to survive, and the one this Atlas carries.
He reads the sūtras as teaching non-duality: Brahman, the sole ultimate reality, is identical with the Self of every being. The world’s apparent difference from Brahman is a misapprehension to be dissolved by knowledge, as a dream’s reality is dissolved on waking. Liberation, on his reading, is not a new achievement produced by action or ritual; it is the Self’s own eternal nature, already true and merely obscured. What frees is direct knowledge of Brahman as one’s own Self.
In his commentary you will meet a relentless dialectician: rival positions are stated at full strength, examined, and answered, sūtra by sūtra. To see how his tradition treats particular ideas, with the passages as evidence, follow any concept in Concepts.