Gaudapada

Pre-Shankara Advaita master; author of the Mandukya Karika; traditionally the guru of Shankara’s guru, Govindapada.

Overview

Gaudapada stands just before Shankara in the Advaita lineage — Shankara’s guru Govindapada is traditionally said to have been Gaudapada’s disciple. His major surviving work, the Mandukya Karika, is a verse commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad and one of the earliest articulations of rigorous non-dualism, including the famous doctrine of ajativada — that nothing has ever been born.

Swami Sarvapriyananda cites Gaudapada at the end of Ep 5 for the line deva esha svabhava ayam — “this is the very nature of the shining one” — as Gaudapada’s final answer to the question “why does Brahman appear as the universe?” After rejecting every proposed cause (karma, play, even maya itself), Gaudapada lands on nature: it is the nature of the deva, the self-shining reality, to shine forth in this way. The question dissolves rather than being answered.

Related

• mandukya-karika — his text
• shankaracharya — who comes after him in the Advaita line
• advaita-vedanta — the tradition he helped formalize
• upanishads — Mandukya being the one he comments on

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 5 [75:57]: Gaudapada in Mandukya Karika considers the standard answers to “why does Brahman appear as the universe?” and rejects them all, landing on deva esha svabhava ayam — it is the very nature of the shining one.