[Advaita-l] oldest text considering everyone as oneself

[Lakshminarayana]

Namaste,


> The position of all the Advaita Vedanta school (as
> with the other Vedanta
> schools) is not based on a historical approach.


But there must be an unbroken tradition of guru and
shishya in a particular vedAntic school. Sankara
himself talks about the importance of tradition
(sAmpradAya) in bhagavad gIta bhAshya. Otherwise you
can have possibilities like a new AchArya coming up
after 100 years and giving a completely new
interpretation to the upanishads and having a
legitimate claim to being a vedAntin.

So it still makes sense to ask the following question
-  
When exactly did this unbroken succession of guru and
shishya (of the advaita-vedAnta school) start? If it
is at any particular point of time, we face with the
same problem of not having an unbroken sAmpradAya.
This issue can be easily resolved by making Ishwara as
the first guru, as most vedAntic schools do it.
Because Ishwara doesn't need any teacher and any
tradition starting from Ishwara can claim to have the
maximum legitimacy.

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