Professor S Kuppuswami Sastri accepts Hiriyanna's position
and reinforces it by an elaborate examination of the problem in
section 2 of his Introduction.
It seems to us that the problem of identity cannot be so easily disposed of and admits of fuller investigation. The doctrinal differences, whatever they are, cannot unfailingly point to difference in personalities. All are agreed that Mandanamisra is at the end of a long line of pre-Sankara Advaita writers who represented the orthodox school of Advaita of the day. Sankara gave a new orientation to the same by freeing it from the shackles of its so-called friends the Mimamsakas and developing it in its purer and nobler aspect to subserve the dictum bliss is obtainable through knowledge alone. If it is conceded that the views of Mandana, in the works in which the author is referred to as Mandana, represent his views as an Advaitin of the pre- Sankara school which is largely an Advaita-cum-Mimamsa type the views of Mandana in the works in which the author is referred to as Suresvara should necessarily be slightly different as he has had the benefit of a thorough conversion at the hands of his guru Sankaracarya. After all, the doctrinal differences between Mandana and Suresvara are not so formidable and incompatible as not to be explained by the natural process of evolution of pre-sankarite, Sankarite and post-Sankarite ideals. Tradition has been unanimous that the Mimamsaka Mandana was converted by argument and reason to take to the order of sannyasin when he assumed the name of Suresvara. Such doctrinal differences as are characteristic of Sankara, form the special feature of the Naiskarmyasiddhi and no more'
Besides, Brahmasiddhi and Sambandhavartika an uncontested work of Suresvara, present certain common features which are compatible only if the authors of both are identical. A statement of parallel passages from the Brahma-Siddhi and the Sambandha vartika is attached to this Foreword.
Again in the earliest development of post-Sankara Advaita both its supporters and opponents depend on Mandanamisra’s exposition of Advaita as a standard exposition of Advaita. This is possible only on the assumption that the doctrinal differences between the Brahmasiddhi and the Sambandhavartika are not
१ Even more far-reaching doctrinal differences are clearly discernible in the works of one and the same author. An undoubted master of Advaita as the Sankara- bhagavatpadacharya condemns the sphotavada in unmistakable terms in his Brahma- sutra-Bhasya whilst he has accepted the same in what is presumably his earlier work, in his Bhasya on the Mandukyopanisad, when he says oidhanabhidheyayorekatvepi abhidhanapradhanyena nirdesah krtah, etc, p. 9 of Vol. V of Sankara’s works, st Vani Vilas Edition.
Compare also Sankara's Bhasya on the Kenopanisad on I-4 and Anandagiri's commentary thereon Sri Ramanujacarya quotes in his Sri Bhasya only Mandana as the Advaita proto type. Vacaspati's interpretation of the Sutra-Bhasya is based on the doctrines laid down by Mandana in his Brahmasiddhi.
