Philosopher
Gauḍapāda
fl. 450–550 CE
Also known as Gaudapada, Gauḍapādācārya
Early Advaita Vedānta teacher, revered as the teacher of Śaṅkara's teacher, who held that nothing is ever truly born and that the world of plurality is like a dream.
Almost nothing is known of Gauḍapāda’s life; even his name may refer to a region, Gauḍa in Bengal, rather than to a person. His dates are uncertain: Buddhist writers of the sixth to eighth centuries cite his verses, and he himself cites Buddhist views of Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga, so he is usually placed around 500 CE. In the Advaita tradition he is the teacher of Govinda, who taught Śaṅkara, and Śaṅkara treats him with deep reverence.
His metrical commentary on the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, the Māṇḍūkya Kārikā, is the one work all scholars agree is his. It sets out the doctrines of Advaita Vedānta in four chapters, on scripture, on the illusoriness of the world, on non-duality and on the “quenching of the firebrand”. His influence on the later development of Advaita Vedānta was far-reaching.
Key ideas
- Non-origination (ajāti)
- Nothing is ever born and nothing is created. The Self alone is real and eternal; origination is a magical projection upon it, and every theory of creation is to be dismantled.
- The world as appearance
- The world of many things is imagined by the mind, like a city seen in the sky, a dream that vanishes on waking, or a rope mistaken in the dark for a snake. Its apparent plurality is due to māyā.
- Four states of the self
- The syllable OM maps the states of consciousness. Waking, dreaming and deep sleep correspond to its sounds; the fourth, turīya, lies beyond them all, non-dual and without attributes.
- Contactless yoga
- Asparśa yoga, “contactless” contemplation, is the path by which one realises the unborn, non-dual Self, and with it liberation. The knowledge that the individual self and the supreme self are not different is what frees.
- Tradition
- Indian
- Region
- India
- Schools
- Advaita Vedānta
- Branches
- Metaphysics
Influences
Influenced by
Gauḍapādafl. 450–550 CE
Influenced
Influenced by
Gauḍapādafl. 450–550 CE
Influenced
Where these links come from
- Gauḍapāda drew on Nāgārjuna. Source: Devanathan Jagannathan, Gaudapada, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Śaṅkara drew on Gauḍapāda. Source: Neil Dalal, Śaṅkara, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Śāntarakṣita drew on Gauḍapāda. Source: Devanathan Jagannathan, Gaudapada, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- Verses on the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad (Māṇḍūkya Kārikā)
Terms on this page
- ajāti
- Non-origination: Gauḍapāda’s doctrine that nothing is ever truly born, by which he establishes that consciousness is eternal and non-dual.
- māyā
- The creative or magical power by which, in Advaita Vedānta, the one reality appears as a world of many things. Gauḍapāda held that all dualities are projected by māyā and do not really exist.
- turīya
- “The fourth”: the state of consciousness beyond waking, dreaming and deep sleep, which Gauḍapāda describes as non-dual and without attributes.
- asparśa yoga
- Contactless contemplation: in Gauḍapāda’s Māṇḍūkya Kārikā, the path by which the unborn, non-dual self is realised.
Sources
- Devanathan Jagannathan, Gaudapada, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy