Mandana Mishra (IAST: Maṇḍana Miśra; c. 8th century CE) was a Hindu philosopher who wrote on the Mīmāṃsā and Advaita systems of thought.
He was a follower of the Karma Mimamsa school of philosophy and a staunch defender of the holistic sphota doctrine of language.
Thus the literal meaning of the word Brahmasiddhi is "realization of Brahman”,[3] referring to the "sure knowledge of ultimate reality.
"[3] It introdcued the conmcept of anirvacaniyatva, the "inexpressibility of Maya-Avidya as existent or non-existent as identical or different from Brahman," a comon notion in Advaita which did not derive from Shankara.
According to Richard E. King, Although it is common to find Western scholars and Hindus arguing that Sankaracarya was the most influential and important figure in the history of Hindu intellectual thought, this does not seem to be justified by the historical evidence.
According to the Advaita Vedanta tradition, Maṇḍana Miśhra along with Hastamalaka, Padmapāda, and Totakacharya was one of the four main disciples of Sankara and was the first head of Sringeri Mutt, one of the four mathas that Shankara later established.
[12] A strong tradition in Hinduism states that he started life as a Mīmāmsaka, became a sannyāsin and an Advaitin after Maṇḍana Miśhra and his wife Ubhaya Bharati were defeated by Shankara in a debate and was given the yogapatta or monastic name "Sureshwara".
[14] According to Sharma, Hiriyanna and Kuppuswami Sastra have pointed out that Sureśvara and Maṇḍana Miśra had different views on various doctrinal points:[15] R. Balasubramanian disagrees with the arguments of Kuppuswami Sastri and others, arguing that there is no conclusive evidence available to prove that Maṇḍana, the author of the Brahmasiddhi, is different from Sureśvara, the author of the Naiṣkarmyasiddhi and the Vārtikas.