ajAti vAda

A list of post-Sankaran authors in advaita will have to include both sannyAsins and
householders. Moreover, some householder authors took the vows of sannyAsa at a later
stage in their lives, which means that some authors are known by more than one name
(e.g. janArdana - Anandagiri). A general rule of thumb is that an author whose last name
is miSra, or a variant of upAdhyAya, or dIkshita is a householder, while the names of
sannyAsins are indicated by daSanAmI suffixes. However, there are some early
sannyAsin authors whose daSanAmI suffixes are not known, such as jnAnaghana
(grand-disciple of sureSvara, and author of tattvaSuddhi), his disciple, jnAnottama (the
author of vidyASrI), vimuktAtman, citsukha, sukhaprakASa, amalAnanda and others. In
these cases, that they were sannyAsins is known by the terms muni, yati, yogi etc. used
by later commentators. The sannyAsin authors were generally associated with the four
maThas established by Sankara and the other maThas established later. Thus,
jnAnaghana and jnAnottama are found on the succession list of the Sringeri maTha, and
Anandagiri is found on the list of the Dvaraka maTha. Meanwhile,the householder
scholars formed the communities in which the sannyAsins were born, and from which
the maThAdhipatis were chosen.
The name of vAcaspati miSra (9th century CE) stands out among the early post-
Sankaran authors in the advaita tradition. His commentary, named bhAmatI [1], on
SankarAcArya's brahmasUtra bhAshya, is celebrated, and has given birth to a subtradition
within advaita, called the bhAmatI school. Many commentaries to bhAmatI
have been written in the course of the centuries. vAcaspati miSra is said to have written
a commentary named tattva samIkshA to maNDana miSra's brahmasiddhi, which is now
unfortunately lost to us. He is also well-known as a scholar who wrote authoritative
treatises in various Indian philosophical traditions, including nyAya-vaiSeshika
(nyAyasUcInibandha and tAtparyaTIkA), yoga (tattvavaiSAradI), mImAm.sA
(nyAyakaNikA) and sAm.khya (tattvakaumudI), in addition to advaita vedAnta. His
erudition made him famous as a sarvatantra-svatantra, a title of high respect in India.
The next important author from the 10th century CE is prakASAtman, who wrote the
vivaraNa [2] to padmapAda's pancapAdikA. This work has also received a long line of
commentaries from later authors, and lends its name to the other important sub-tradition
in advaita vedAnta, namely the vivaraNa school. prakASAtman also wrote the
SabdanirNaya and the nyAyamuktAvalI, a commentary on the brahmasUtras.
sarvajnAtman, the author of samkshepa-SArIraka, pancaprakriyA and pramANalakshaNa
[3] is another notable 10th century author. sarvajnAtman salutes his guru
deveSvara in his works. The name deveSvara is usually seen as a synonym of
sureSvara, Sankara's disciple, and on this basis, sarvajnAtman is sometimes identified
with nityabodhaghana. However, in the pramANa-lakshaNa, sarvajnAtman mentions
the name of deveSvara's guru as devAnanda, whose guru was SreshThAnanda. Hence,
there is some confusion over whether sarvAjnAtman was a direct disciple of sureSvara
or not.
sarvajnAtman was probably a younger contemporary of vimuktAtman, the author of
ishTasiddhi. [4] One author named jnAnottama, who lived in the 12th century CE, wrote
the candrikA on sureSvara's naishkarmyasiddhi, and a vivaraNa to the vimuktAtman's