Totakacharya

Totakacharya (IAST Toṭakācārya) (c. 8th century CE) was a disciple of Ādi Śaṅkara, the Advaita philosopher. He was made the first Jagadguru (head) of the Jyotirmaṭha Pīthaṃ, the northern maṭha founded by Ādi Śaṅkara near Badrinath. He founded a maṭha by name Vadakke Matham in Thrissur, Kerala.

The Mādhavīya Śaṅkaravijayam states that when Ādi Śaṅkara was at Śṛṅgeri, he met a boy named Giri. Ādi Śaṅkara accepted the boy as his disciple. Giri was a hard-working and loyal servant of his Guru, Ādi Śaṅkara, though he did not appear bright to the other disciples. One day, Giri was washing his Guru's clothes, when Ādi Śaṅkara sat down to begin a lesson on Advaita Vedānta. He however did not start the lesson saying he was waiting for Giri to come back from his chores and singing lessons. At this, Padmapada pointed to a wall and said that it would be the same if Ādi Śaṅkara taught to this dumb object as he taught to Giri. Now, Ādi Śaṅkara wanted to reward Giri for his loyalty and devotion. Thus he mentally granted Giri the complete knowledge of all the śāstras (sciences). The enlightened Giri composed extempore the Toṭākāṣṭakam, a Sanskrit poem in the toṭaka metre, in praise of the Guru Ādi Śaṅkara. Thus the dumb disciple Giri became Toṭākācārya.

The Toṭākāṣṭakam was composed by Giri in praise of his Guru Ādiśaṅkara. Literally, it means a rhyme of eight (Sanskrit: aṣṭa) verses (ślokas) composed by Toṭaka. The poem's meter is anapestic tetrameter, with four feet of unstressed-unstressed-stressed syllables (laghu-laghu-guru characters) per line, and four lines per stanza.

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