Śaṅkaranandana is cited by both Kashmiri Shaiva authors like Abhinavagupta[4] and by Tibetan Buddhist authors and translators.[3] Vincent Eltschinger states that he was "the main interlocutor of the SaivaPratyabhijña school and as one of the most influential thinkers among the early generations of Tibetan philosophers."[2] His influence on Kashmir Shaiva thinkers was such that Abhinavagupta even calls Śaṅkaranandana his "guru" in Mālinīvijayavārttika and speaks of Śaṅkaranandana's enlightenment in another text (the interpretation of this is disputed however).[2][3] This led some modern scholars to speculate whether Śaṅkaranandana was a Shaiva at some point who later converted to Buddhism. This thesis has not been proven however. Tāranātha’sHistory does state that he was a non-Buddhist brahmin who converted after seeing Manjusri in a dream. Whatever the case, all of Śaṅkaranandana's extant works are of a Buddhist persuasion.[2][3]
Like other thinkers in his tradition, Śaṅkaranandana defended the idealistic Yogacara theory of "consciousness only" or Vijñānavāda through the logical refutation of any external objects of cognition.[2] Thus, according to Eltschinger, for Śaṅkaranandana "realistic or pluralistic accounts of reality rely on latent tendencies and are ultimately erroneous". For Śaṅkaranandana, the ultimate view is the non-dual view (advaya-darsana) in which a Buddha perceives only non-dual consciousness free of subject-object distinctions and of all transformations of thought produced by latent tendencies.[5]
Work
Śaṅkaranandana wrote at least 17 works on logic and epistemology.[3] Four of his works have survived in Tibetan translation, and others have survived in Sanskrit manuscripts, most incomplete or fragmentary.[6]
According to Eltschinger his magnum opus was most likely the Prajñālaṅkāra (“Ornament of Wisdom”), which was "a systematic exposition of the Yogācāra Buddhist doctrine of mind-only (vijñaptimātratā)."[3]
Among his other writings are four commentaries on Dharmakīrti's texts, including the Pramāṇavārttikaṭīkā, which comments on Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇavārttikasvavṛtti.[3]
One of his surviving texts, the Īśvarāpākaraṇa-saṅkṣepa (Summary of a refutation of Īśvarā), a refutation of the Hindu concept of a creator deity, has been translated by into German in Helmut Krasser's habilitation study.[7][8]
^ abcdefgh"Śaṅkaranandana" (Eltschinger) in Silk, Jonathan A (editor in chief). Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume II: Lives.
^Franco, Elo; Ratié, Isabelle (2016). Around Abhinavagupta: Aspects of the Intellectual History of Kashmir from the Ninth to the Eleventh Century, p. 282. LIT Verlag Münster
^Eltschinger, Vincent. 2008. Śaṅkaranandana’s Sarvajñasiddhi: A Preliminary Report. Mémoires de La Commission Orientaliste 1. Roma: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente.
^Eltschinger, V. 2008. “Śaṅkaranandana's Sarvajñasiddhi. A preliminary report”, in Sferra, F. (ed.), Manuscripta Buddhica I: Sanskrit Texts from Giuseppe Tucci's Collection, part 1. (Serie Orientale Roma 104.) Rome: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, 115–56.
^Krasser, Helmut (2002) Sankaranandanas Isvarapakaranasanksepa: Texte. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
^Eltschinger, Vincent. 2006. “Les Œuvres de Śaṅkaranandana: Nouvelles Ressources Manuscrites, Chronologie Relative et Identité Confessionnelle.” Annali Dell’Università Degli Studi Di Napoli “L’Orientale” 66 (1–4): 83–122.