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identify the two and regard the Advaita as alien to the Upanisads. So he emphasizes now and again the fact that his teaching is not negative or nihilistic. How far this contention can be maintained, we shall see later. He does not expressly mention this phase of Buddhism except in one place and there he dismisses it summarily; but there is no doubt that he throughout tries to steer clear of these two doctrines opposed to his own, but yet so similar to it, viz. the Brahma-pariņāma-vāda of some Vedantins and the sūnya-vāda of the Madhyamikas.
Besides the bhāṣya on the Vedanta-sutra, Šaṁkara wrote commentaries on the principal Upanisads and the Bhagavadgita. Those especially on the Byhadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanisads treat of several points that are not dealt with in detail in the Sutra-bhāṣya and are of immense value in the comprehension and appreciation of the doctrine of Advaita. In addition to them, we have his Upadesa-sahasri, which, though somewhat terse, gives a splendid account of his views. Samkara's doctrine was defended and amplified in matters of detail by various thinkers after him, and this has given rise to some diversity of opinion among his followers. Two of the schools resulting from such divergences of view are in particular well known--the Vivarana school which goes back to the Pañca-padika, the fragment of a commentary on Samkara's Sutra-bhāṣya by his own pupil Padmapada, and the slightly later Bhamati school represented by Vacaspati (A.D. 841). The Pañca-padika was commented upon by Prakāśātman (A.D. 1000) in his Vivarana, from which the first school takes its name. The Vivarana has a gloss known as Tattva-dipana by Akhaṇḍānanda, and its teaching has also been most lucidly summarized by Vidyaranya (A.D. 1350) in his Vivarana-prameya-samgraha. The Bhamati has been explained by Amalananda (A.D. 1250) in his Kalpa-taru, which in its turn has been annotated by Appaya Dikṣita (A.D. 1600) in the Parimala. There are also various other commentaries of greater or less value on the Sutra-bhāṣya, such as the Brahma-vidyabharaṇa of Advaitananda (A.D. 1450). Of the numerous hand-books written to I VS. II. ii. 31.
