Vedanta

Vedanta (Vedānta, वेदान्त, pronounced as //vé: dα:n tə//) means the anta or culmination or essence of the Vedas. It is a principal branch of Hindu philosophy. As per some, it is a form of Jnana Yoga (one of the four basic yoga practices in Hinduism; the others are: Raja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga), a form of yoga which involves an individual seeking "the path of intellectual analysis or the discrimination of truth and reality." As per others, Vedanta encompasses all the four yogas. The sage Badarayana is supposed to be the proponent of this philosophy and author of the Brahma Sutras based on the Upanishads. In late ninteenth and early twentieth centuries, Vedanta was propounded voraciously in the West by Vivekananda. He was followed by many other Indian sages in due course, including Yogananda, and others who came to North America to preach Vedanta and make it popular in the West.

The concept of Brahman - the Supreme Spirit or the eternal, self existant, immanent and transcedent Supreme and Ultimate Reality which is the divine ground of all Being - is central to Vedanta. The concept of God or Ishvara is also there, and the Vedantic sub-schools differ mainly in how they identify God with Brahman.

Mimamsa is one of the three major divisions of Hindu theistic philosophy. It is further divided into Purva Mimamsa, also simply called Mimamsa, which deals with explainations of the fire-sacrifices of the Vedic mantras and Brahmanas, and Uttara Mimamsa, also called as Vedanta, which explicates the esoteric teachings of the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. The school of Vedanta is further divided into six main sub-schools.

Sub-schools of Vedanta

Advaita Vedanta — this is the most influential of all, and many philosopers—both Indian and Western—have been influenced by it. It was propounded by Adi Sankara, a great Hindu reformer. According to this, Brahman is the only ultimate reality and the world is an illusion. An illusionary power of Brahman called Māyā causes this complication. When a person tries to know Brahman through his mind, due to the influence of Maya, Brahman becomes God (Ishvara). Ignorance is the cause of all suffering in the world and only upon true knowlegde of Brahman can liberation be attained. Upon liberation, there is no difference between the individual soul jīvātman (see Atman) and Brahman. See Advaita Vedanta.
Vishishtadvaita — it was propounded by Ramanuja and says that the jivatman is a part of Brahman, and hence is similar, but not identical. It also propounds Bhakti or devotional form of worship of God visualized as Vishnu. Maya is seen as the creative power of God. See Vishishtadvaita.
Dvaita — it was propounded by Madhva and in some ways is similar to Christianity. It identifies God with Brahman completely, and in turn with Vishnu or his incarnation Krishna. It regards individual soul as separate from Brahman and also advocated Bhakti. There is no concept of Maya. See Dvaita.
Dvaitādvaita — by Nimbarka. According to this, Brahman - jiva relation maybe regarded as dvaita from one point of view and advaita from another.
Shuddhadvaita — by Vallabha. This system also encouraged Bhakti as the only means of liberation to go to Goloka (lit., the world of cows). The world is said to be the sport (Leela) of Krishna, who is Sat+Chit+Ananda.
Achintya Bhedābheda — by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. A Bhakti cult for Krishna, this doctrine is followed by the world famous ISKCON movement.

Except Sankara, who also propounded the Smārta denomination, all other acharyas are strongly Vaishnavite. The epistemology of Advaita, Vishishtadvaita and Mimamsa (ie, purva-) is common.

Roots of Vedanta

All forms of Vedanta are drawn primarily from the Upanishads, a set of philosophical and instructive Vedic scriptures which deal mainly with forms of meditation. "The Upanishads are commentaries on the Vedas, their putative end and essence, and thus known as Vedānta = 'End of the Veda'. They are considered the fundamental essence of all the Vedas and although they form the backbone of Vedanta, portions of Vedantic thought are also derived from some of the earlier Aranyakas.

Indian pre-Shankara Buddhist writer Bhavya in the Madhyamakahrdaya Karika describes the Vedanta philosophy as "Bhedabheda". The three branches of Vedanta best known in the West are Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita. Each of these Vedantic divisions was founded by Shri Adishankara, Shri Ramanuja and Shri Madhvacharya, respectively. Also of note, historically, in order for a guru to be considered an acharya or great teacher of a philosophical school of Vedanta, he was required to write commentaries on three important texts in Vedanta, the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutras. Accordingly, Adi Sankara, Ramanuja and Shri Madhvacharya have written commentaries on all three canonical texts. The three schools they conceived are the most prevalent, however, proponents of other Vedantic schools continue to write and develop their ideas as well, although their works are not widely known outside of India.

Swami Chinmayananda, of the Chinmaya Mission has been a great modern day exponent of the Advaita non-dualistic tradition of the Vedanta. More information on related text and literature are available at (http://www.chinmayamission.org/html/swami_chinmayananda.php3).

Transition from Vedic to Vedantic religion

While the traditional Vedic 'karma kanda', or ritualistic components of religion, continued to be practiced through the Brahmins as meditative and propitiatory rites to guide society to self-knowledge, more jnana- or knowledge-centered understandings began to emerge. These were mystical streams of Vedic religion that focused on meditation, self-discipline and spiritual connectivity rather than on rituals.

Etymologically, veda means "knowledge" and anta means "end", so the literal meaning of the term "Vedānta" is "the end of knowledge" or "the ultimate knowledge" or "matter appended to the Veda". In earlier writings, Sanskrit 'Vedānta' simply referred to the Upanishads, the most speculative and philosophical of the Vedic texts. However, in the medieval period of Hinduism, the word Vedanta came to mean the school of philosophy that interpreted the Upanishads. Traditional Vedanta considered scriptural evidence, or shabda pramana, as the most authentic means of knowledge, while perception, or pratyakssa, and logical inference, or anumana, were considered to be subordinate (but valid).

Formalization

The systematization of Vedantic ideas into one coherent treatise was undertaken by Badarayana in the Vedanta Sutra, or Brahma Sutra. The cryptic aphorisms of the Vedanta Sutras are open to a variety of interpretations, resulting in the formation of numerous Vedanta schools, each interpreting the texts in its own way and producing its own sub-commentaries claiming to be faithful to the original. Consistent throughout Vedanta, however, is the exhortation that ritual be eschewed in favor of the individual's quest for truth through meditation governed by a loving morality, secure in the knowledge that infinite bliss awaits the seeker. Near all existing sects of Hinduism are directly or indirectly influenced by the thought systems developed by Vedantic thinkers. Hinduism to a great extent owes its survival to the formation of the coherent and logically advanced systems of Vedanta.

Vedanta and science

Advaita Vedanta has influenced modern scientists. Erwin Schrödinger claimed to have been inspired by Vedanta in his discovery of quantum theory. According to his biographer Walter Moore: "The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of separable interacting material particles. During the next few years, Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on superimposed, inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One.". Additionally, Fritjof Capra's book The Tao of Physics is one among several that pursues this viewpoint as it investigates the relationship between modern, particularly quantum, physics and the core philosophies of various Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Unfortunately, such writings by western authors often run the risk of oversimplifying and ignoring important differences between Eastern religions. For instance, pre-modern Vedantins argued for the existence of an eternal self, or atman, while Buddhists have denied this possibility. However, in recent times, the availability of an increasing number of accurate translations of Vedantic works, commentaries by Western scientists like Schrödinger and Capra, and easier access to original texts have made it possible for modern students of Vedanta and Physics to overcome the semantic gap arising due to cultural differences and approach their study in a more informed manner.

Major Vedantic Gurus

Pre-modern Vedantins:

Modern Vedantins:

External links

Additional References

For non-western sources a good starting point is Modern Physics and Vedanta by Swami Jitatmananda, a monk of the Ramakrishna Order. In the preceding title Amaury de Reincourt's The Eye of Shiva (New York, William Morrow & Co. 1981), is often cited along with The Dancing Wu Li Masters, by Gary Zukav; The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics by Milic Capek; Mysticism and the New Physics, Michael Talbot; The Cosmic Code, Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature, by Heinz R Pagels; Philosophical Aspects of Modern Science, by C.E.M. Joad; The Holographic Paradigm; David Bohm's Causality and Chance in Modern Physics; Huston Smith's Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition. More scholarly treatments include Theology After Vedanta, by Francis X. Clooney, Sankara and Indian Philosophy, by Natalia Isayeva, A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy, by Hajime Nakamura, and volume III of Karl Potter and Sibajiban Bhattacharya's Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies.