Maṇḍana Miśra

Maṇḍana Miśra was an important philosopher who worked in the Mīmāṃsā tradition and on Vedānta; his Brahmasiddhi is a significant and somewhat independent statement of non-dualism that differs in places from Śaṅkara's. In the popular Śaṅkara hagiography he is the great ritualist debated and defeated by Śaṅkara at Māhiṣmatī, with his learned wife Ubhaya Bhāratī as judge, after which he renounced and became Śaṅkara's disciple Sureśvara. Scholars are divided on whether Maṇḍana Miśra and Sureśvara are in fact the same person — their works show doctrinal differences — so this identification should be treated as traditional and contested. His dates are placed in the 8th century, roughly contemporary with Śaṅkara.