Yajnavalkya

Yajnavalkya was a Hindu Vedic sage who lived around the eighth or seventh century BCE and appears prominently in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and the Taittiriya Upanishad, making him one of the earliest philosophers named in recorded history. He is credited as the author of the Yajnavalkya Smriti, a foundational dharma text organized into sections covering personal conduct, legal and judicial procedure, and atonement, which later Hindu legal commentators came to regard as more authoritative than the earlier Manusmriti. Colonial-era British courts in India drew on the Yajnavalkya Smriti, together with its later commentaries, as the basis of what they termed Hindu Law, applied in Indian courts for personal-status matters such as inheritance and marriage. Beyond his legal text, he is also remembered as a philosopher who propounded the neti neti, not this not this, method of describing the ultimate self, and he is credited with coining the term Advaita, non-duality, ideas that shaped the later Hindu tradition of renunciation.