[Advaita-l] The position of Shankaracharya in the Guru parampara.

[Srikanta Narayanaswami]

narayanam padmabhavam vasistham ,
shakthim cha thath puthra parasaramcha, 
vyasam shukam gouda padam mahantham ,
govinda yogeendra mathasya shishyam, 
sri sankaracharyam atha    padma 
padam cha hastha malakam cha sishyam, 
tam trotakam vaarthika kara manyaan , 
asmad gurun santhatha maanathosmi........'' 
 
The above slokah describes the Guruparampara of advaita siddhanta starting from Narayanam.This clearly says that these are the Gurus for this tradition.We also have,Sadhashivasamarambham...etc which starts with sadhashiva and ends with "asmadacharya" while placing Shankaracharya in the middle as the Guru.
this is only for the study of the advaita vedanta in most of the study classes on Advaita.
 
There is a mutt in the name of Gaudapada in Goa which is said to be the peetha for the gauda saraswath Brahmins.But,his torically e donot know whether it was by Gaudapada and the tradition in that mutt donot discount that Shankaracharya is not a Guru in advaita tradition.
N.Srikanta.