India · fl. c. 8th–7th c. BCE (traditional)
Yājñavalkya
Sage who wins the great debate at King Janaka’s court
Known from his dialogues in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, he taught that the self is the unseen seer and inner controller, describable only as ‘not this, not this’ (neti neti).
Life and thought
Yājñavalkya is the dominant voice of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (c. 700 BCE), the oldest of the major Upanishads. Tradition makes him a priest at the Videha court in eastern India, a pupil of Uddālaka and the source of the “White” Yajurveda. The Upaniṣad shows him carrying off a thousand cows as prize at King Janaka’s great debate, and later teaching his wife Maitreyī before leaving home as a renouncer. No dates or independent records survive.
In the debate, questioner after questioner asks what lies behind the world, and he keeps pointing inward. The self (ātman) is “the seer of seeing” and “the inner controller”: it cannot be seen, because it is what does the seeing, so it can only be described by negation—“not this, not this” (neti neti). To Maitreyī he explains that we love husband, wife or wealth for the sake of the self, so it is the self that must be known. These passages became the scriptural core of Vedānta.
Works
Teachers
fl. c. 8th c. BCE (traditional)Uddālaka ĀruṇiThe Upanishadic teacher lists name Yājñavalkya as Uddālaka’s pupil, though they also clash in debate.Shaped
c. 700–750 (older scholarship: 788–820)ŚaṅkaraAdvaita master whose commentaries defined non-dual VedāntaOn the record
The atlas names Yājñavalkya 耶若伏吉耶 and Uddālaka 乌达罗迦·阿鲁尼 in Chinese, and plots both with placeholder years.
Chinese renderings of Sanskrit names are not standardised. Chinese Wikipedia uses 耶若婆佉 for Yājñavalkya, the older Buddhist-style transliteration; 耶若伏吉耶 and 乌达罗迦·阿鲁尼 follow modern Upaniṣad translations, which we could not open to confirm. Neither man has recorded dates: the numbers on the map only place them in the 8th–7th century BCE, as the dates shown in their entries say. The atlas now uses 耶若婆佉, as Chinese Wikipedia does, so the name matches what readers will search for.
Sources: 中文维基百科，“耶若婆佉” · Wikipedia, “Yajnavalkya”
The Upanishadic teacher lists name Yājñavalkya as Uddālaka’s pupil, though they also clash in debate.
Macdonell and Keith’s Vedic Index, cited by Wikipedia, makes Yājñavalkya the pupil of Uddālaka Āruṇi, whom he later defeats at King Janaka’s court. Other traditions name Vaiśampāyana as his teacher in the Yajurveda. Nothing is known of either man’s dates; the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad is dated c. 700 BCE.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Yajnavalkya” (citing Macdonell & Keith, Vedic Index)