A History of Sanskrit Literature c11.102

c11.102

The esteem in which the *Kārikā* was held is indicated by the fact that its parts are reckoned as four Upanishads. There is much probability in the assumption that its author is identical with Gauḍapāda, the teacher of Govinda, whose pupil was the great Vedāntist commentator, ÇAṄKARA (800 A.D.). The point of view of the latter is the same essentially as that of the author of the *Kārikā*, and many of the thoughts and figures which begin to appear in the earlier work are in common use in Çan̄kara's commentaries. Çan̄kara may, in fact, be said to have reduced the doctrines of Gauḍapāda to a system, as did Plato those of Parmenides. Indeed, the two leading ideas which pervade the Indian poem, viz., that there is no duality (*advaita*) and no becoming (*ajāti*), are, as Professor Deussen points out, identical with those of the Greek philosopher.