In plain words
O tongue, you who know taste and love what is sweet, I tell you Satya, the wholesome and the supreme: recite the sweet syllables ‘Govinda, Dāmodara, Mādhava’.
Students!
Every one of Bhārata's people is bound to wonder whether Bhārata today is in a state worthy of the name Bhārata. Today we are living out the whole of Bhārata's culture in a state that is merely laughable. The principle of the Gāyatrī mantra is ending in holding one's nose. The way of the sannyāsī has come to a state where he carries more burdens than the householder. And the principle of prāṇāyāma looks shattered to pieces. In a state like this, the doubt is bound to arise: is this Bhārata or not? It is natural for every country to pass through such changes of condition from time to time. It is natural for many changes to come over a country according to place, time and the people of the day. That at a time of such change, to teach this true and eternal principle, Paramahaṃsas or Avatāras take human form in the world and carry out the spreading and teaching of Dharma: this too is the supreme truth.
At a time when the Dharma laid down by the Vedas had declined in the world, Ādi Śaṅkara incarnated, taught the Advaita doctrine laid down by the Vedas, founded a principal pīṭha for Bhārata, and restored this Dharma. That is, at the very time when Kṛṣṇa left this world and took on a formless form, Dharma took on the very form of Adharma. In the year named Nandana, on the fifth day of the dark fortnight of Vaiśākha, a Sunday, at the hour of brahmamuhūrta, in a Kerala village called Kālaḍi, Ādi Śaṅkara took a body, in AD 788.