BĀDARĀYAṆA, reputed author of the Vedānta Sūtra (Brahma Sūtra), the source text for all subsequent philosophical Vedānta. No biographical information is available; the name may be a convenient surrogate for the process of redaction that eventuated in the present text. Indeed, a recent tradition identifies Bādarāyaṇa with Vyāsa, the eponymous "compiler" of much late Vedic and epic material, including the Mahābhārata.

The name Bādarāyaṇa occurs in the Mīmāmṣā Sūtra (1.5) of Jaimini, there referring to a ṛṣi to whose opinion on an important point Jaimini seems to defer. If the Vedānta Sūtra is indeed Bādarāyaṇa's, then he also refers to himself in the context of other teachers whose disputations evidently...