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Padmapāda

Padmapāda

750 CE

c. 8th c. CE (direct disciple of Śaṅkara), disputed

Padmapāda (traditionally the disciple originally named Sanandana) was among Śaṅkara's foremost pupils. His Pañcapādikā, a commentary on the first portion of Śaṅkara's Brahma-sūtra-bhāṣya, became the seed of the Vivaraṇa school of post-Śaṅkara Advaita (so named from Prakāśātman's later Pañcapādikā-vivaraṇa), one of the two great interpretive lineages alongside Sureśvara's Vārttika line and Vācaspati's Bhāmatī line. Hagiography surrounds his name (the 'lotus-feet' story), but his philosophical role as a founder of the Vivaraṇa tradition is well attested. His dates are placed in the 8th century.

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Padmapāda’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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