According to the Indologist and Asian Religions scholar John Koller, there is considerable controversy regarding the dates of Shankara – widely regarded as one of India's greatest thinkers, and 'the best recent scholarship argues that he was born in 700 and died in 750 CE'. 750 CE: Late 20th-century and early 21st-century scholarship tends to place Adi Shankara's life of 32 years in the first half of the 8th century. Bhandarkar believed he was born in 680 CE.

6th century CE: Telang placed him in this century.44–12 BCE: the commentator Anandagiri believed he was born at Chidambaram in 44 BCE and died in 12 BCE.According to the Kanchi matha tradition, it is 'Abhinava Shankara' that western scholarship recognizes as the Advaita scholar Adi Shankara, while the monastery continues to recognize its 509 BCE chronology. The chronology stated in Kanchi matha texts recognizes five major Shankaras: Adi, Kripa, Ujjvala, Muka and Abhinava. The successive heads of the Kanchi and all other major Hindu Advaita tradition monasteries have been called Shankaracharya leading to some confusion, discrepancies and scholarly disputes. According to their records, these monasteries were founded in Kali 2593 (509 BCE) by a person named Adi Shankara. 509–477 BCE: This dating, is based on records of the heads of the Shankara's cardinal institutions Maṭhas at Dvaraka Pitha, the Govardhana matha and Badri and the Kanchi Peetham.Several different dates have been proposed for Shankara:

Aadhi sankarar jeeva samadhi