Bādarāyaṇa

Bādarāyaṇa is the sage to whom tradition attributes the Brahma Sūtras, the 555 aphorisms that systematise the teaching of the Upaniṣads and form, with the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā, the threefold foundation of Vedānta. Nothing is known of his life; the Sūtras themselves probably date from somewhere between the second century BCE and the second century CE, and may have been compiled over time. He is named in the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras of Jaimini and named himself within the Brahma Sūtras, where his view is often given as the final one after the views of other teachers.

Indian tradition, especially in Advaita, frequently identifies Bādarāyaṇa with Vyāsa (Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana), the legendary compiler of the Vedas and author of the The Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas. Historians regard the identification as a way of tying the systematic philosophy of Vedānta to the most authoritative name in Indian tradition. Madhva’s followers believe Vyāsa-Bādarāyaṇa still lives at Badrīnāth in the Himālaya.

The Brahma Sūtras’ opening — athāto brahma-jijñāsā, “Now, therefore, the inquiry into Brahman” — and their second sūtra — Brahman is “that from which the origin, sustenance and dissolution of this world proceed” — set the agenda for fifteen centuries of Vedānta.