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XXX Gandapada-Karika against all tradition to make Gaudapăda, who was after all a human being (even though a great Yogin ), the author of a Sruti work. (4) The Kärikäs are undoubtedly Gaudapāda's and Sankaracärya rightly refers to Gaudapāda merely as one who knows the Vedānta tradition ( वेदान्तार्थसंप्रदायविद्). (3) It is admitted that sometimes the Karikās are regarded as Sruti by some writers, but that simply would prove that the word Śruti' is loosely used in a broad sense, and nothing more. It is unnecessary to pursue this topic further, for nothing can upset the traditional view of the Upanişads being without any known human author, and so Gaudapada could not be regarded as the author of the Mäņdukyopanişad proper. (6) If the Kārikas which are introduced with the words अत्रैते श्लोका भवन्ति are regarded as forming part of the Upanişad, it would mean that Gaudapāda lived at least some centuries earlier than the time when the Māndukya was written, so as to be famous enough to have his work quoted in it! The Māņdūkya is generally regarded as one of the old Upanişads, while according to the above theory, it would have to be assigned to the 7th or the 8th century at the earliest! In order to obviate this difficulty attempts are made to show that Gaudapāda may have lived in the first century B. C. or even earlier, but that would not solve the basic absurdity of a human work being quoted in an Upanişad ! . . (7) The expression अत्रैते श्लोका भवन्ति with which the Karikas are distributed among the Mantras of the Mandukya, no doubt suggests that the Karikas existed before the Upanişad; similar expressions occur in the other old Upanişads (and Brāhmaṇas) also. Thus in the Taittiriyopanişad, we have the expression ac तदप्येष श्लोक: used as many as eight times. In all these cases, we have a prose passage stating a particular topic and then comes the emphatic dignified तदप्येष श्लोक:, introducing verses corroborating what has been stated before or the श्लोक has the sense of a संग्रहश्लोक. In the Chāndogya also, we have तदेष श्लोको or तदेष श्लोको भवति used seven times in a similar context. The Chandogya uses अत्रैते श्लोका भवन्ति in one place and ushers as many as fifteen verses there, but there is reason to doubt whether these are genuine or interpolations. (In later
