[Advaita-l] Shankara, smarta and shanmata

[Michael Shepherd]

friends,

Please could you tell me more about Shankara, smarta and shanmata ?

Did Adi Shankara encourage the six aspects of worship simply by writing
hymns etc to each deity, or are there recorded statements by him about
smarta and shanmata ?

The references to this I have found so far lack chapter and verse !

And I suspect that this is important in relation to certain writings being
'written off' as not Advaita Vedanta !

Michael