Dear Alakendu Das,

As you know, each of the maṭhas started by Śaṅkarācārya has a long line of adhipatis up to the present. Each adhipati also has the title Śaṅkarācārya. So there have been many Śaṅkarācāryas after Ādi Śaṅkarācārya. The idea, then, is that the majority of the more than 400 works attributed to Śaṅkarācārya are actually by later Śaṅkarācāryas, not by Ādi Śaṅkarācārya, even though they are usually taken to be by Ādi Śaṅkarācārya.

A clear example of this is the Saundarya-laharī, which has long been attributed to Śaṅkarācārya, meaning Ādi Śaṅkarācārya. V. Raghavan found a manuscript of this work whose colophon stated that it is by Śaṅkarācārya, the adhipati of the Sarasvatī-pīṭha at Śrīvidyānagara, i.e., a later Śaṅkarācārya. (See footnote 24 in The Saundaryalaharī or Flood of Beauty, edited and translated by W. Norman Brown, Harvard University Press, 1958, pp. 29-30.)

There are also known cases where a work written by someone else has somehow, over the years, gotten attributed to Śaṅkarācārya. An example of this is the Prabodha-sudhākara. V. Raghavan showed of the basis of manuscript colophons, etc., that it was actually written by Daivajña Sūrya Paṇḍita. (See his article, "The Nṛsimha Campū of Daivajña Sūrya Paṇḍita and the Nṛsimhavijñāpana of Śrī Nṛsimhāśramin," Adyar Library Bulletin, vol. 1, 1937, p. 44.)

Best regards,

David Reigle

Colorado, U.S.A.