Advaita Vedānta is the oldest extant tradition of Vedānta, and one of the six orthodox (āstika) Hindu philosophies (). Its history may be traced back to the start of the Common Era, but takes clear shape in the 6th-7th century CE, with the seminal works of Gaudapada, Maṇḍana Miśra, and Shankara, who is considered by tradition and Orientalist Indologists to be the most prominent exponent of the Advaita Vedānta, though the historical fame and cultural influence of Shankara grew only centuries later, particularly during the era of the Muslim invasions and consequent reign of the Indian subcontinent. The living Advaita Vedānta tradition in medieval times was influenced by, and incorporated elements from, the yogic tradition and texts like the Yoga Vasistha and the Bhagavata Purana. In the 19th century, due to the interplay between western views and Indian nationalism, Advaita came to be regarded as the paradigmatic example of Hindu spirituality, despite the numerical dominance of theistic Bkakti-oriented religiosity. In modern times, its views appear in various Neo-Vedānta movements.

Historiography The historiography of Advaita Vedanta is coloured by Orientalist notions, while modern formulations of Advaita Vedānta, which developed as a reaction to western Orientalism and Perennialism have "become a dominant force in Indian intellectual thought."

In the Orientalist view, the medieval Muslim period was a time of stagnation and cultural degeneration, in which the original purity of the Upanisadic teachings, systematized by philosophers like Shankara, was lost. In this view, "the genuine achievements of Indian civilization" were recovered during the British colonial rule of India, due to the efforts of western Indologists, who viewed Advaita Vedanta as the authentic philosophy of the Upanishads, and Shankara as its greatest exponent.See also Devdutt Pattanaik (August 30, 2020), Who is a Hindu? - What they don't tell you about Advaita , Mumbai Mirror. While this view has been criticised by postcolonial studies and critiques of Orientalism, "in some corners of the academy, the Orientalists' understanding of premodern Indian history has so far escaped thorough reexamination." According to Michael S. Allen and Anand Venkatkrishnan, "scholars have yet to provide even a rudimentary, let alone comprehensive account of the history of Advaita Vedānta in the centuries leading up to the colonial period."

Early Vedanta The Upanishads form the basic texts, of which Vedānta gives an interpretation. The Upanishads do not contain "a rigorous philosophical inquiry identifying the doctrines and formulating the supporting arguments". This philosophical inquiry was performed by the darsanas, the various philosophical schools.

The Brahma Sutras of Bādarāyana, also called the Vedānta Sutra, were compiled in its present form around 400–450 AD, but "the great part of the Sutra must have been in existence much earlier than that". Estimates of the date of Bādarāyana's lifetime differ between 200 BC and 200 AD. The Brahma Sutra is a critical study of the teachings of the Upanishads, possibly "written from a Bhedābheda Vedāntic viewpoint." It was and is a guide-book for the great teachers of the Vedantic systems. Bādarāyana was not the first person to systematise the teachings of the Upanishads. He refers to seven Vedantic teachers before him:

Early Advaita Vedānta Of the Vedānta-school before the composition of the Brahma Sutras (400–450 CE), wrote Nakamura in 1950, almost nothing is known. The two Advaita writings predating Maṇḍana Miśra and Shankara that were known to scholars such as Nakamura in the first half of 20th-century, were the Vākyapadīya, written by Bhartṛhari (second half 5th century,) and the Māndūkya-kārikā written by Gauḍapāda (7th century). Later scholarship added the Sannyasa Upanishads to the earliest known corpus.

According to Nakamura, "there must have been an enormous number of other writings turned out in this period [between the Brahma Sutras and Shankara], but unfortunately all of them have been scattered or lost and have not come down to us today". In his commentaries, Shankara mentions 99 different predecessors of his Sampradaya. In the beginning of his commentary on the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Shankara salutes the teachers of the Brahmavidya Sampradaya. Pre-Shankara doctrines and sayings can be traced in the works of the later schools, which does give insight into the development of early Vedānta philosophy.

The names of various important early Vedānta thinkers have been listed in the Siddhitraya by Yamunācārya (c.1050), the Vedārthasamgraha by Rāmānuja (c.1050–1157), and the Yatīndramatadīpikā by Śrīnivāsa-dāsa. Combined, at least fourteen thinkers are known to have existed between the composition of the Brahman Sutras and Shankara's lifetime, namely Bhartŗhari (c.450–500), Upavarsa (c.450–500), Bodhāyana (c.500), Tanka (Brahmānandin) (c.500–550), Dravida (c.550), Bhartŗprapañca (c.550), Śabarasvāmin (c.550), Bhartŗmitra (c.550–600), Śrivatsānka (c.600), Sundarapāndya (c.600), Brahmadatta (c.600–700), Gaudapada (c.640–690), Govinda (c.670–720), Mandanamiśra (c.670–750).

Sannyasa Upanishads Scholarship after 1950 suggests that almost all Sannyasa Upanishads, which belong to the minor Upanishads and are of a later date than the major Upanishads, namely the first centuries CE, and some of which are of a sectarian nature, have a strong Advaita Vedānta outlook.Stephen H Phillips (1995), Classical Indian Metaphysics, Columbia University Press, , p. 332 with note 68Antonio Rigopoulos (1998), Dattatreya: The Immortal Guru, Yogin, and Avatara, State University of New York Press, , pp. 62–63 The Advaita Vedānta views in these ancient texts may be, states Patrick Olivelle, because major Hindu monasteries of this period (early medieval period, starting mid 6th century) belonged to the Advaita Vedānta tradition, preserving only Advaita views, and recasting other texts into Advaita texts.

Bhartṛhari Bhartṛhari (Devanagari: ; also romanised as Bhartrihari; fl. c. 5th century CE) is a Sanskrit writer to whom are normally ascribed two influential Sanskrit texts: the Vākyapadīya, on Sanskrit grammar and philosophy of language, a foundational text in the Indian grammatical tradition, explaining numerous theories on the word and on the sentence, including theories which came to be known under the name of Sphoṭa; in this work Bhartrhari also discussed logical problems such as the liar paradox and a paradox of unnameability or unsignifiability which has become known as Bhartrhari's paradox, and the Śatakatraya, a work of Sanskrit poetry, comprising three collections of about 100 stanzas each; it may or may not be by the same author who composed the two mentioned grammatical works.

Gauḍapāda and

Gauḍapāda (6th century) was the teacher of Govinda Bhagavatpada and the grandteacher of Shankara. Gauḍapāda uses the concepts of Ajātivāda and Maya to establish "that from the level of ultimate truth the world is a cosmic illusion," and "suggests that the whole of our waking experience is exactly the same as an illusory and insubstantial dream." In contrast, Adi Shankara insists upon a distinction between waking experience and dreams.

Mandukya Karika Gauḍapāda wrote or compiled the , also known as the or the . The is a commentary in verse form on the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad, one of the shortest Upanishads consisting of just 13 prose sentences. Of the ancient literature related to Advaita Vedānta, the oldest surviving complete text is the Māṇḍukya Kārikā. Many other texts with the same type of teachings and which were older than Māṇḍukya Kārikā existed and this is unquestionable because other scholars and their views are cited by Gauḍapāda, Shankara and Anandagiri, according to Hajime Nakamura. Gauḍapāda relied particularly on the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad, as well as the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads.

Gaudapada took over the Yogachara teaching of vijñapti-mātra, "representation-only," which states that the empirical reality that we experience is a fabrication of the mind, experienced by consciousness-an-sich, and the four-cornered negation, which negates any positive predicates of 'the Absolute'. Gaudapada "wove [both doctrines] into the philosophy of Mandukaya Upanisad, which was further developed by Shankara". In this view, According to Bhattacharya, Asparsayoga also has Buddhist origins.

The Māṇḍūkya Upanishad was considered to be a Śruti before the era of Adi Shankara, but not treated as particularly important. In later post-Shankara period its value became far more important, and regarded as expressing the essence of the Upanishad philosophy. The entire Karika became a key text for the Advaita school in this later era.

Shri Gauḍapādacharya Math

According to tradition, around 740 CE Gauḍapāda founded Shri Gauḍapādacharya Math, also known as . It is located in Kavale, Ponda, Goa, and is the oldest matha of the South Indian Saraswat Brahmins.

Early medieval period - Maṇḍana Miśra and Adi Shankara While today Shankara is regarded as the greatest exponent of Advaita Vedanta, until the 10th century his older contemporary Maṇḍana Miśra was the most prominent Advaitin. Shankara gained more attention in the 10th century, due to the writings of Vachaspati Misra (800–900 CE), a student of Maṇḍana Miśra, but it was not until the 14th century that Shankara was promoted as a folk-hero who disseminated Advaita Vedanta throughout India.

Historical context

Maṇḍana Miśra and Shankara lived in the time of the so-called "Late classical Hinduism", which lasted from 650 to 1100. This era was one of political instability that followed Gupta dynasty and King Harsha of the 7thcentury.John Koller (2012), Shankara in Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Editors: Chad Meister, Paul Copan), Routledge, , pp. 99–108 It was a time of social and cultural change as the ideas of Buddhism, Jainism, and various traditions within Hinduism were competing for members.TMP Mahadevan (1968), Shankaracharya, National Book Trust, pp. 283–285, Frank Whaling (1979), Sankara and Buddhism , Journal of Indian Philosophy, Vol.7, No.1, pp. 1–42 Buddhism in particular influenced India's spiritual traditions in the first 700 years of the 1st millennium AD.Karl Potter (1998), Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Advaita Vedānta up to Śaṃkara and his pupils, Motilal Banarsidass, , pp. 1–21, 103–119 Shankara and his contemporaries made a significant contribution in understanding Buddhism and the ancient Vedic traditions; they then incorporated the extant ideas, particularly reforming the Vedānta tradition of Hinduism, making it India's most important tradition for more than a thousand years.

Maṇḍana Miśra

Maṇḍana Miśra was an older contemporary of Shankara. Maṇḍana Miśra was a Mimamsa scholar and a follower of Kumarila, but also wrote a seminal text on Advaita that has survived into the modern era, the Brahma-siddhi. His influence was such that some regard the Brahma-siddhi to have "set forth a non-Shankaran brand of Advaita," and for a couple of centuries he seems to have been regarded as "the most important representative of the Advaita position." The "theory of error" set forth in this work became the normative Advaita Vedānta theory of error. According to Maṇḍana Miśra, errors are opportunities because they "lead to truth", and full correct knowledge requires that not only should one understand the truth but also examine and understand errors as well as what is not truth.

Maṇḍana Miśra's influence is reflected in a tradition which tells Maṇḍana Miśra and his wife were defeated by Shankara in a debate, after which he became a follower of Shankara. Yet, his attitude toward Shankara was that of a "self-confident rival teacher of Advaita," and the legend may have intended to incorporate Maṇḍana Miśra into Shankara's fold.

Adi Shankara