SankarAcArya is arguably the most important philosopher in the history of
advaita. The story of Sankara's life is
recounted in traditional works called Sankara-vijayams. SankarAcArya's guru, govinda-bhagavatpAda,
was a disciple of gauDapAda. Just as
SankarAcArya is considered to be an incarnation of Siva, govinda is popularly
regarded as an incarnation of AdiSesha.
It is SankarAcArya's interpretation of the source texts of vedAnta that
lays the foundation for classical advaita. It is also largely because of
Sankara's composition of bhAshyas on the brahmasUtras, upanishads and the bhagavad-gItA, that these three have become
important in all vedAnta literature as the prasthAna-trayI.
The following bhAshyas (commentaries) are his principal compositions:
[1]
In addition to the upanishads in the list above, SankarAcArya also quotes
the kaushItakI, SvetASvatara, mahAnArAyaNa, jAbAla, paingala and a few other
upanishads in his brahmasUtra bhAshya. There are bhAshyas on SvetASvatara,
kaushItakI and nRsimhatApanI upanishads, the attribution of which is
doubtful.
Sankara is also said to have written texts in other Indian philosophical
traditions. There are texts on yoga, like the yogasUtra bhAshya
vivaraNa and a commentary on the adhyAtma paTala of the Apastamba
dharmasUtras, [2] and commentaries on the
vishNu sahasranAma and lalitA triSati. A sAm.khya work called
jayamangalA and a nyAya work called sthirasiddhi are also
attributed to him.
A large number of advaita treatises, called prakaraNa
granthas, [3]are also usually
attributed to Sankara. There is doubt within modern critical scholarship,
regarding the authorship of these works. It is possible that works of later
advaitins have been assumed to be those of Sankara himself, as his successors
in the various maThas have also come to be called SankarAcAryas. However, the
living advaita tradition itself views the prakaraNa granthas as
Sankara's own compositions. These works are often used to teach beginners.
The important ones are:
Other such compositions include svAtmanirupaNam,
tattvabodha, ekaSlokI, yogatArAvalI,
svarUpAnusandhAnam, Atmapancakam and prapancasAra. A
few stotrams (hymns) are also attributed to
Sankara. These range from the famous bhaja govindam hymn to the
dakshiNAmUrti stotram. There is a large number of sub-commentaries to
Sankara's works, called TIkAs, TippaNis, vArttikas and
dIpikAs, which will be noticed in the section on post-Sankaran
advaitins.
Last updated on May 5, 1999.
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