 Śaṅkara was an exegete, philosopher, and teacher. His primary commitment was to establish his philosophy of nondual brahman as the subject matter of the Upaniṣads, and to systematize Advaita exegesis by harmonizing the diverse and potentially contradictory passages between Upaniṣadic texts. One must note however, that Śaṅkara does not attempt to prove nonduality solely through independent reasoning. Such an endeavor is not possible in his opinion because nonduality is not subject to logical proofs (see Murty 1959 on the role of reason for Śaṅkara). He accepts nonduality based on the Upaniṣad’s authority alone. Nonetheless, he was an original philosopher who constructed novel arguments to make sense of the Upaniṣads, defend his positions, and critique his philosophical adversaries. Śaṅkara also shaped a pedagogical method to approach texts as a means of knowledge. At the same time, he left several open questions and ambiguities in his writing, in part due to the different source texts of his commentaries and the voluminous amount of his work. This has led to different interpretations and several intra-Advaitin philosophical disputes in the post-Śaṅkara tradition (see Potter 2012).