The date of Sankara

[Elliot M. Stern]

In reply a previous message of mine, Vidyasankar Sundaresan has written:


 "Perhaps I can fill in a little detail here, based on
 personal communication with Kunjunni Raja from three years
 ago. What is behind this 1991 position is the recognition
 that many sections of zaMkara's brahmasUtra bhASya are
 reproduced from earlier works, perhaps the often mentioned
 vRtti(s). In which case, what is apparently a quote from the
 bhASya could turn out to be a quote from earlier author(s),
 and the zaMkara-maNDana question would have to be revisited"....

To the best of my knowledge (I have looked both in bhAskara's
brahmasUtrabhASyam and the available portion of his bhagavadgItAbhASyam),
bhAskaraH neither quotes nor paraphrases the passage from which Kuppuswami
Sastri says maNDanaH wove in two sentences (introduction to brahmasiddhi,
xlvii), and which Allen Thrasher compares side to side in his dissertation
(and on pages 123-124 of his "The dates of MaNDana Mizra and ZaMkara" WKSZ
23(1979) 117-139).

I will grant that there is always the possibility that maNDanaH quoted from
a pre-zaGkara vRttiH, and would gladly give up the conlusion that maNDanaH
knew zaGkara's  work, if someone would only come forward with a convincing
set of arguments. At this point, however, I believe Kuppusvami Sastri's
position still prevails.