Under attack from a deadly crocodile, the 12-year-old boy decided the time was ripe to wrest a favour from his distraught mother. Amazingly fearless yet dutiful, scholarly yet humble, young Shankara packed several lifetimes into his 32 brilliant years. He travelled and toiled, suffered joys and sorrows, and eventually perfected a philosophical system that, more than a thousand years later, still instructs and guides seekers of the ultimate Truth.