Manuscript of Shankara's Aitareya Upanishad Commentary

What it is

This is a page from a dated manuscript, written in Devanagari script, containing Adi Shankara's commentary on the Aitareya Upanishad. The manuscript was found in a Jain temple manuscript storehouse (bhandara) in Varanasi and later acquired by European collectors in the 19th century. It is now kept in the Cambridge University Sanskrit manuscript collection.

Why it matters

Shankara wrote his commentary around 800 CE, but this copy was made centuries later, showing how his texts were preserved and spread through hand-copying by later scribes and scholars. The marks and marginal notes on the page are reader's aids and corrections added over time, revealing how later generations studied and used his work.

Look closer

• What do the marginal notes and markings tell us about how this text was read and studied?
• Why might a Jain temple have kept and preserved a Hindu philosophical text?
• What does the long chain of copying, from Shankara's time to this manuscript, tell us about how ideas survive across centuries?