Yajnavalkya

[Vidyasankar]

>Shankaracharya of Shringeri and the guru of Swami Vidyaranya.  That would
>make him early 14th century I believe.  In the mangalacharana of
>the Panchadashi, Swami Vidyaranya says:
>
>namaH shrishaMkarAnandagurupAdAmbujanmane |
>
>However Swami Vidyaranyas' predecessor on the Shringeri pitha was Swami
>Bharati Tirth so perhaps paramaguru is meant instead?

The Atma-purANa is a very well-known work in the Advaita tradition. It is
not really a purANa, in the generally popular sense of the term, as it is
a synopsis of the upanishadic teachings, primarily based on bRhadAraNyaka.
The oral tradition is that Swami Sankarananda was a guru of Swami
Vidyaranya. Swami Bharati Tirtha was not a direct guru of Swami
Vidyaranya, as both of them were co-disciples under the same gurus.

Swami Sankarananda's name is not on the Sringeri list as a Sankaracharya,
so I presume that it is mostly an inference on the editor's part - "as he
was Vidyaranya's guru, he must have been so". However, the Sankaracharya
of a pITha can have multiple gurus, so that is not a problem.

The interesting thing is that through Sankarananda's guru's name,
AnandAtman, we can build up a fairly coherent network of guru-zishya
lineages for many important pre-Vidyaranya authors, e.g. amalAnanda,
citsukha, sukhaprakASa, Anandagiri, anubhUtisvarUpa, AnandapUrNa
vidyAsAgara, to name those who come to mind immediately. I have some
details in the page on post-Sankaran advaitins in our website.

Vidyasankar