The lineage

The Śaṅkara Paramparā

Advaita is a living intellectual tradition. It is not a single book and not a single person. Tattvasethu begins with seven Ācāryas who mark the first architecture of the bridge — from method, to the mechanics of error, to the later models that keep the teaching from going vague.

1. Ādi Śaṅkarācārya — the method: what does not change. Full essay: The Method of Unchanging Awareness.
2. Padmapāda — the first expansion; Pañcapādikā and the mechanics of misunderstanding. Full essay: The Mechanics of Natural Error.
3. Sureśvara — rigor on ignorance, knowledge, and liberation; Naiṣkarmyasiddhi. Full essay: Rigorous Negation and the Limits of Action.
4. Totakācārya — sincerity that becomes clarity; Totakāṣṭakam. Full essay: Devotion as a Condition of Knowledge.
5. Hastāmalaka — direct realization; Hastāmalakīyam. Full essay: Direct Realization and the Self-Luminous Witness.
6. Vācaspati Miśra — organizer of the Bhāmatī approach. Treated in the dialectics essay with Prakāśātman.
7. Prakāśātman — the Vivaraṇa lens; appearance and reality.

Opening notes remain on the launch series. The seven Ācāryas now have studies in the library or on /debates. Terms are collected in the glossary.