Śaṅkara and the authorship of Śvetāśvataropaniṣad-Bhāṣya

Abstract

The Śvetāśvatara-Upaniṣad-Bhāṣya (ŚvUBh) is traditionally regarded as the genuine work of Śaṅkara. At the outset, it should be noted which works are considered ‘genuine’ in this article, and why. The first is Brahmasūtra-Bhāṣya (BSBh), which is considered the standard for determining Śaṅkara’s authorship. Padmapāda mentions Śaṅkara’s name at the beginning of his Pañcapādikā both as the author of BSBh and as his teacher. Sureśvara claims in his Naiṣkarmyasiddhi 4.74 and 4.76 that he served Śaṅkara’s lotus feet (as his direct disciple); he composed a commentary on the Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad-Bhāṣya (BĀUBh) in which he mentions Śaṅkara as his teacher (Sureśvara ad BĀUBh 6,5.25). Käthe Marschner (1933) provides evidence of significant agreement between BĀUBh and BSBh. Sureśvara also composed a commentary on the Taittirīyopaniṣad-Bhāṣya (TaittUBh). Thus, it is quite safe to consider BSBh, BĀUBh, and TaittUBh as the works of an author named Śaṅkara. Sengaku Mayeda analysed Upadeśasāhasrī (Upad) (1965b), Bhagavadgītā-Bhāṣya (BhGBh) (1965a), Kenopaniṣad-Bhāṣya (KeUBh) (1968) and Gauḍapādīyakārikā-Bhāṣya (GKBh) (1967–68) according to a methodology devised by Paul Hacker (1950), and concluded that these works should also be regarded as the genuine works of Śaṅkara. Therefore, when the phrase ‘genuine works of Śaṅkara’ is used, the aforementioned works will be considered, especially BSBh, BĀUBh, TaittUBh, and Upad for practical reasons.

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