Śaṅkara and the Advaita manuals
Māṇḍūkya Kārikā
The first systematic Advaita text: dream, waking and the argument that the world's status is no better than a dream's.
c. 6th century · Gauḍapāda
- When
- c. 6th century
- Behind it
- Gauḍapāda
- Where it sits
- Śaṅkara and the Advaita manuals
Śaṅkara's teacher's teacher. Everything sharp in later Advaita starts here.
The full-length study of this text is still being written. The summary above is complete, and the originals below are the whole thing rather than a description of it.
The text itself
Complete originals, in free copies wherever one exists.
Commentaries worth trusting
Read by teachers within the tradition, not summaries of it.
- Gauḍapāda Kārikā lecture series — Swami Sarvapriyananda The hardest text in the canon, taught slowly, with the dream argument kept honest.
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