Sankara, the eighth-century Indian philosopher, is generally regarded as the greatest thinker in the long history of Indian philosophy as well as in the metaphysical tradition known as Vedanta. Advaita Vedanta, the school or system founded by him, stresses the Advaita or nondualist approach to the problem of existence and ultimate reality, and has been the main current of thought in India for hundreds of years. Most of Sankara's works are commentaries on other classics of Indian thought, like Upanisads, the Bhagavadgita, and the Brahmasutra. The Upadesasahasri, or " A Thousand Teachings, "here critically edited and translated into English, is, however, the only independent and non-commentary work that can safely be attributed to him; the other independent writings traditionally ascribed to him are all probably spurious.
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Sengaku Mayeda, Ph. D. (Univ. of Pennsylvania) and D. Litt. (Univ. of Tokyo), is Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo, Executive Director of the Eastern institute founded by the Late Dr. Hajime Nakamura. Among his English publications, there are Sankara's Upadesasahasri (1973), Critically Edited with Introduction and Indices and A Thousand Teachings: The Upadesasahasri of Sankara (1979), Translated with Introduction and Notes; they are the original versions of the present publication for which he was conferred a Japan Academy Award in 1988. He also authored Vedanta Philosophy (1980), An Introduction to Indian Philosophy (2000), and other books and articles in Japanese. He edited Japanese Studies in Indian Philosophy (1989). The Way to Liberation: Indological Studies in Japan, vol. 1 (2000), and A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy by Hajime Nakamura Part Two (2004).
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