Advaita Vedanta

===Mahayana influences===
The influence of [[Mahayana|Mahayana Buddhism]] on Advaita Vedānta has been significant.{{sfn|Whaling|1979|pp=1–42}}{{sfn|Grimes|1998|pp=684–686}} Sharma points out that the early commentators on the Brahma Sutras were all [[Philosophical realism|realists]], or [[Pantheism|pantheist]] realists. He states that they were influenced by Buddhism, particularly during the 5th-6th centuries CE when Buddhist thought developing in the [[Yogacara]] school.{{sfn|Sharma, B.N.|2000|p=60–63}}

Von Glasenap states that there was a mutual influence between Vedanta and Buddhism.<ref group=note name=helmithglasenapp2>Helmuth Von Glasenapp (1995), Vedanta & Buddhism: A comparative study, Buddhist Publication Society, pages 2-3, '''Quote:''' "Vedanta and Buddhism have lived side by side for such a long time that obviously they must have influenced each other. The strong predilection of the Indian mind for a doctrine of universal unity has led the representatives of Mahayana to conceive Samsara and Nirvana as two aspects of the same and single true reality; for [[Nagarjuna]] the '''empirical world is a mere appearance''', as all dharmas, manifest in it, are perishable and conditioned by other dharmas, without having any independent existence of their own. Only the indefinable "Voidness" (''Sunyata'') to be grasped in meditation, and realized in Nirvana, has '''true reality''' [in Buddhism]".</ref> Dasgupta and Mohanta suggest that Buddhism and Shankara's Advaita Vedānta represent "different phases of development of the same non-dualistic metaphysics from the Upanishadic period to the time of Sankara."{{sfn|Dasgupta|Mohanta|1998|p=362}}{{refn|group=note|This development did not end with Advaita Vedanta, but continued in Tantrism and various schools of Shaivism. Non-dual [[Kashmir Shaivism]], for example, was influenced by, and took over doctrines from, several orthodox and heterodox Indian religious and philosophical traditions.{{sfn|Muller-Ortega|2010|p=25}} These include Vedanta, Samkhya, Patanjali Yoga and Nyayas, and various Buddhist schools, including Yogacara and Madhyamika,{{sfn|Muller-Ortega|2010|p=25}} but also Tantra and the Nath-tradition.{{sfn|Muller-Ortega|2010|p=26}}}}

The influence of Buddhist doctrines on [[Gauḍapāda]] has been a vexed question.{{sfn|Potter|1981|p=105}}{{sfn|Comans|2000|p=2}} Modern scholarship generally accepts that Gauḍapāda was influenced by Buddhism, at least in terms of using Buddhist terminology to explain his ideas, but adds that Gauḍapāda was a Vedantin and not a Buddhist.{{sfn|Potter|1981|p=105}}

Adi Shankara, states Natalia Isaeva, incorporated "into his own system a Buddhist notion of ''[[Maya (illusion)|maya]]'' which had not been minutely elaborated in the Upanishads".{{sfn|Isaeva|1993|p=172}} According to Mudgal, Shankara's Advaita and the Buddhist Madhyamaka view of ultimate reality are compatible because they are both transcendental, indescribable, non-dual and only arrived at through a ''[[via negativa]]'' ([[neti neti]]). Mudgal concludes therefore that "the difference between [[Shunyata|Sunyavada]] (Mahayana) philosophy of Buddhism and [[Advaita]] philosophy of Hinduism may be a matter of emphasis, not of kind.{{sfn|Mudgal|1975|p=4}} Similarly, there are many points of contact between Buddhism's [[Vijnanavada]] and Shankara's Advaita.{{sfn|Isaeva|1993|p=174}} According to S.N. Dasgupta,
{{blockquote|Shankara and his followers borrowed much of their dialectic form of criticism from the Buddhists. His [[Brahman]] was very much like the [[Śūnyatā|sunya]] of Nagarjuna [...] The debts of Shankara to the [[Svasaṃvedana|self-luminosity]]{{refn|group=note|name=self-luminous}} of the Vijnanavada Buddhism can hardly be overestimated. There seems to be much truth in the accusations against Shankara by [[Vijnanabhiksu|Vijnana Bhiksu]] and others that he was a hidden Buddhist himself. I am led to think that Shankara's philosophy is largely a compound of [[Yogacara|Vijnanavada]] and [[Madhyamaka|Sunyavada]] Buddhism with the Upanisad notion of the permanence of self superadded.{{sfn|Dasgupta|1997|page=494}}}}