eenth century. It
represents Sankara as giving orders to two of his disciples to preach
the Visishtadwaitee and the Dwaitee doctrines, which are directly
opposed to his own doctrine. The book under consideration says that
Sankara went to conquer Mandanamisra in debate, followed by
Sureswaracharya, though Mandanamisra assumed the latter name at the time
of initiation. It is unnecessary for us here to point out all the
blunders and absurdities of this book. It will be sufficient to say
that in our opinion it was not written by Anandagiri, and that it was
the introduction of an unknown author who does not appear to have been
even tolerably well acquainted with the history of the Adwaitee
doctrine. Vidyaranya's (otherwise Sayanachary, the great commentator of
the Vedas) Sankara Vijaya is decidedly the most reliable source of
information as regards the main features of Sankara's biography. Its
authorship has been universally accepted, and the information contained
therein was derived by its author, as may be seen from his own
statements, from certain old biographies of Sankara existing at the time
of its composition. Taking into consideration the author's vast
knowledge and information, and the opportunities he had for collecting
materials for his work when he was the head of the Sringeri Matham,
there is every reason to believe that he had embodied in his work the
most reliable information he could obtain. Mr. Wilson, however, says
that the book in question is "much too poetical and legendary" to be
acknowledged as a great authority. We admit that the style is highly
poetical, but we deny that the work is legendary. Mr. Wilson is not
justified in characterizing it as such on account of its description of
some of the wonderful phenomena shown by Sankara. Probably the learned
Orientalist would not be inclined to consider the Biblical account of
Christ in the same light. It is not the peculiar privilege of
Christianity to have a miracle-worker for its first propagator. In the
following observations we shall take such facts as are required from
this work.

It is generally believed that a person named Govinda Yogi was Sankara's
Guru, but it is not generally known that this Yogi was in fact
Patanjali--the great author of the Mahabhashya and the Yoga Sutras--
under a new name. A tradition current in Southern India represents him
as one of the Chelas of Patanjali; but it is very doubtful if this
tradition has anything