Attributed to Shankara, Almost Certainly by Convention Rather Than Authorship

Tradition attributes the Vivekachudamani to Adi Shankara, the eighth century philosopher credited with systematizing Advaita Vedanta, but Shankara's name was attached to an unusually large body of texts across Indian intellectual history, some genuinely his and many others composed later by followers writing within his school and, by a common convention of the period, attaching his authoritative name rather than claiming original authorship for themselves.

Potter's Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies volume on early Advaita Vedanta treats the Vivekachudamani's attribution to Shankara as uncertain rather than settled, noting stylistic and doctrinal features that lead many modern scholars to place its actual composition somewhat later than Shankara's own lifetime, even while acknowledging the text clearly stands within the tradition his school established. Whatever the precise authorship, the work has functioned for many centuries as a core teaching text of the Advaita lineage, and its uncertain attribution has done little to diminish its standing within that tradition, since Indian textual convention has historically placed less weight on verified individual authorship than on a text's demonstrated fidelity to an established teaching line.