ly in his bhasya on the _Brahma-sutras_
but also in his commentaries on the Upani@sads. Logic with him
had a subordinate place, as its main value for us was the aid
which it lent to consistent interpretations of the purport of the
Upani@sad texts, and to persuading the mind to accept the uncontradicted
testimony of the Upani@sads as the absolute truth.
His disciples followed him in all, and moreover showed in great
detail that the Brahman philosophy was never contradicted
either in perceptual experience or in rational thought, and that
all the realistic categories which Nyaya and other systems
had put forth were self-contradictory and erroneous. They also
supplemented his philosophy by constructing a Vedanta epistemology,
and by rethinking elaborately the relation of the maya,
the Brahman, and the world of appearance and other relevant
topics. Many problems of great philosophical interest which

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had been left out or slightly touched by S'a@nkara were discussed
fully by his followers. But it should always be remembered that
philosophical reasonings and criticisms are always to be taken
as but aids for convincing our intellect and strengthening our
faith in the truth revealed in the Upani@sads. The true work of
logic is to adapt the mind to accept them. Logic used for upsetting
the instructions of the Upani@sads is logic gone astray. Many
lives of S'a@nkaracarya were written in Sanskrit such as the
_S'a@nkaradigvijaya_, _S'a@nkara-vijaya-vilasa_, _S'a@nkara-jaya_,
etc. It is regarded as almost certain that he was born between 700
and 800 A.D. in the Malabar country in the Deccan. His father S'ivaguru
was a Yajurvedi Brahmin of the Taittiriya branch. Many miracles
are related of S'a@nkara, and he is believed to have been the
incarnation of S'iva. He turned ascetic in his eighth year and
became the disciple of Govinda, a renowned sage then residing in
a mountain cell on the banks of the Narbuda. He then came over
to Benares and thence went to Badarikas'rama. It is said that
he wrote his illustrious bha@sya on the _Brahma-sutra_ in his twelfth
year. Later on he also wrote his commentaries on ten Upani@sads.
He returned to Benares, and from this time forth he decided to
travel all over India in order to defeat the adherents of other
schools of thought in open debate. It is said that he first went to
meet Kumarila, but Kumarila was then at the point of death, and
he advised him to meet Kumarila's disciple. He defeated