[3] In 1990, Shankar's talam-bending (time cycles of 9 3/4 & 6 3/4 beats) Pancha Nadai Pallavi' album was on the Billboard top ten world music chart for three months becoming the first traditional Indian record to reach those heights.

He also worked on the soundtrack for the 2002 film Queen of the Damned with Jonathan Davis and Richard Gibbs and recorded eight songs of which five were picked for the movie.

[9] His father V. Lakshminarayana was a renowned Carnatic vocalist and violinist and his mother L. Seetalakshmi was a trained singer and played the veena.

In that year, Shankar and his two older brothers formed the Violin Trio which "made history in 20th century Carnatic music" scene.

[12] Shankar gained considerable reputation across India in his early youth as an accompanist and filled in for some of the most eminent names in Carnatic music[13] often performing solo concerts that lasted between two and three hours.

After dinner we'd all get together and have a kind of jam session.”[5] In spite of his early success as a musician, Shankar faced pressure from his family to have a fall back career as an engineer.

[16] He even vowed to break 108 coconuts at the Luz Pillayar Temple in order not to secure admission and was delighted when the results favored him.

[21] He often merged Carnatic & Hindustani styles in his performances[22] and collaborated with jazz musicians to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western music traditions.

He taught McLaughlin ragas, rhythms and ornamentation and in turn learnt about harmony and jazz[3] Shakti received overwhelming critical acclaim.

[16] The concept for the double violin originated in 1978, after producing his album by Zappa Records where Shankar had to overdub a wide range of string instruments as he was unable to find session musicians who could render the Indian ornaments and styles he wanted.

[23] He and Parker spent hours testing various materials and forms and he made sure that both necks were equally strong to avoid a tendency to predominantly play on only one.

[23] Due to the instrument's greater angle, the bowing was different and Shankar incorporated new techniques[10] including playing on both necks simultaneously.

[10] The double violin is capable of replicating a full orchestra's effect, allowing for traditional classical performance as well as versatility in pop and jazz genres.

[23] To date, Shankar has commissioned four different versions of the double violin, with the latest edition crafted by luthier John Jordan and released in 2023.

Although this approach was initially criticized by traditionalists, their music gained immense popularity in India and ultimately spread worldwide during the 1970s.

[29] According to Lee Underwood, a DownBeat music magazine critic, "All three are masterpieces, of which the deeply moving and technically astonishing Handful of Beauty will stand tall in recorded history for decades to come.”[3] In 1978, Shankar was listed fourth among Established Violinists by Downbeat’s Critics Poll, and came in second in the TDWR (“Talent Deserving Wider Recognition”) division.

[16] During this period, Shankar took on the role of playing the electric violin and toured alongside Frank Zappa,[22] succeeding Jean-Luc Ponty in the position.

In 1979, Shankar briefly joined McLaughlin's One Truth Band, which also included Fernando Saunders on bass, Stu Goldberg on keyboards, and Tony Smith on drums, to record the studio album, Electric Dreams.

[32] In 1979, they released 'Touch Me There,' an album that featured Shankar's electric five-string violin and vocals alongside guitarist Phil Palmer and drummer Simon Phillips.

[34] In the 1980s, Shankar released several albums under the ECM label, his first being "Who’s To Know," featuring his double violin and accompanied by Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman on mridangam and Zakir Hussain on tabla.

In 1984, Shankar released his second ECM album, ‘Vision’, accompanied by saxophonist Jan Garbarek and trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg.

Concurrently, Shankar joined SXL, a jazz fusion collective initiated in the same year by composer Bill Laswell.

This ensemble featured a core group of musicians, including Aïyb Dieng, Ronald Shannon Jackson, along with South Korean percussion quartet, SamulNori.

Shankar released several Indian classical albums in the 1990s including Nobody Told Me (1990), Pancha Nadai Pallavi (1990), Soul Searcher (1990) and Raga Aberi (1995).

[5] The album consists of two tracks, the first is the rendition of ragam “Sankarabharanam" on the double violin and vocal  without percussion and the second accompanied by Zakir Hussain on tabla and Vikku Vinayakram on ghatam.