Sankaracharya and an Untouchable: An exposition of Manisha Panchakam
Swami Ranganathananda
An encounter between a saint and an untouchable provides the background to the Manisha Panchakam, a set of five verses by Shankaracharya. Swami Ranganathananda extracts a radical social message from this encounter. This book thus not only educates the reader about the true import of Vedanta, but can also help mitigate our social problems.
Renunciation is the background of all religious thought wherever it be, and you will always find that as this idea of renunciation lessens, the more will the senses creep into the field of religion, and spirituality will decrease in the same ratio.
-Swami Vivekananda