GAUḌAPᾹDA, Indian philosopher, was the reputed para-ma-guru ("teacher's teacher") of Śaṅkara. Information about Gauḍapāda is scant and has been subject to scholarly controversy. In what is now regarded as a fantastic thesis, Max von Walleser professed in his Der ältere Vedanta: Geschichte, Kritik und Lehre (Heidelberg, 1910) that Gauḍapāda never existed at all. However, both V. Bhattacharya (1943) and T. M. P. Mahadevan (1969) have argued convincingly that Gauḍapāda was a real person, the author of what is called Ᾱgama Śāstra or Gauḍapādīyakārikā, or simply Māṇḍūkyakārikā.

The name Gauḍa indicates that he must have come from Gauḍadesá ("Gauḍa country"), or Bengal. On the authority of the Śārīrakamīmāṃsābhāṣya-vārttika of Bāla-kṛṣṇananda Sarasvatī (seventeenth century CE...