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09 Jan 15
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Vedanta (/vædɑːntə/; Hindustani pronunciation: [ʋeːd̪aːn̪t̪], Devanagari: वेदान्त, Vedānta) or Uttarā Mīmāṃsā is one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy.
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he term veda means "knowledge" and anta means "end", and originally referred to the Upanishads, a collection of foundational texts in Hinduism
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By the 8th century,[citation needed] it came to mean all philosophical traditions concerned with interpreting the three basic texts of Hinduist philosophy, namely the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita
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and was eventually recognized as distinct from the other five astika schools.
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Vedanta is the most prominent and philosophically advanced of the orthodox schools and the term Vedanta may also be used to refer to Indian philosophy more generally
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here are at least ten schools of Vedanta,[2] of which Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, Achintya-Bheda-Abheda and Dvaita are the best known
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In earlier writings, Sanskrit 'Vedānta' simply referred to the Upanishads, the most important and philosophical of the Vedic texts. However, in the medieval period of Hinduism, the word Vedānta came to mean the school of philosophy that interpreted the Upanishads.
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Vedānta is also called Uttarā Mīmāṃsā, or the 'latter enquiry' or 'higher enquiry', and is often paired with Purva Mīmāṃsā, the 'former enquiry' or 'primary enquiry'. Pūrva Mimamsa, usually simply called Mimamsa, deals with explanations of the fire-sacrifices of the Vedic mantras (in the Samhita portion of the Vedas) and Brahmanas, while Vedanta explicates the esoteric teachings of the Āraṇyakas (the "forest scriptures"), and the Upanishads, composed from the 9th century BCE until modern times.
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All sub-schools of the vedanta propound their philosophy by interpreting the Prasthanatrayi, literally, three source
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The Upanishads,
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The Brahma Sutras,
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The Bhagavad Gita, k
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All major Vedantic teachers, like Shankara, Rāmānuja, and Mādhvāchārya, have composed often extensive commentaries not only on the Upanishads and Brahma Sutras, but also on the Gita
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While it is not typically thought of as a purely Vedantic text, with its syncretism of Samkhya, Yoga, and Upanishadic thought, the Bhagavad Gita has played a strong role in Vedantic thought
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During the Vedic period (1500–600 BCE[9]) the Rishis formulated their religio-philosophical and poetical visions, which are further explored in the Upanishads,[10] the jnāna-kānda of the Vedas
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According to Balasubramanian, the Vedantic philosophy is as old as the Vedas,
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The earliest stratum of sutras in the Brahmasutras is concerned with the interpretation of the Upanishads
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Later additions were concerned with the refutation of rival philosophical schools, especially Samkhy
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Gaudapda took over the Buddhist doctrines that ultimate reality is pure consciousness (vijñapti-mātra)[2]
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Gaudapada
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Adi Shankara (788–820), elaborated on Gaudapada's work, and is considered to be the founder of Advaita Vedanta
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Bhedabheda Vedanta schools played an important role in the rise of bhakti, such as Suddhadvaita, founded by Vallabha[31] (1479–1531 CE), Achintya Bheda Abheda, founded by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534)[32] and Vishishtadvaita founded by Shri Ramanuja (1017–1137 CE).
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certain thinkers began to treat as a single whole the diverse philosophical teachings of the Upanishads, epics, Puranas, and the schools known retrospectively as the "six systems" (saddarsana) of mainstream Hindu philosophy.
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Both the Indian and the European thinkers who developed the term "Hinduism" in the 19th century were influenced by these philosophers[33] especially Vijnanabhiksu
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Neo-Vedanta too was inspired by these thinkers
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he schools of Vedānta seek to answer questions about the relation between atman and Brahman, and the relation between Brahman and the world
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The schools of Vedanta are named after the relation they see between atman and Brahman
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According to Advaita Vedanta, there is no difference
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ccording to Dvaita the jīvātman is totally different from Brahman. Even though he is similar to brahman, he is not identical.
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According to Vishishtadvaita, the jīvātman is a part of Brahman, and hence is similar, but not identical.
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Madhva said: "Man is the servant of God," and established his Dvaita philosophy. Ramanuja said: "Man is a ray or spark of God," and established his Visishtadvaita philosophy. Sankara said: "Man is identical with Brahman or the Eternal Soul," and established his Kevala Advaita philosophy
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ven though there are many sub-schools of vedantic philosophy, all these schools share some common features, that can be called the vedantic cor
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Brahman is the supreme cause of the entire universe and is all pervading and eternal
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Actions are subordinate to knowledge or devotion. Actions are useful only for preparing the mind for knowledge or devotion; and once this is achieved, selfish actions and their rewards must be renounced.
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Bondage is subjection to Saṃsāra, the cycle of death and rebirth.
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Liberation is deliverance from this cycle.
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Vedanta rejects ritual in favor of renunciation, which makes Vedanta irreconcileable with Mimamsa
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Upanishads
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Over a period of time, various schools of Vedanta, with different interpretations of the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras arose
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left them open to various interpretations
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- Bhedabheda, as early as the 7th century CE,[49] or even the 4th century[19]
- Svabhavikabhedabheda or Dvaitādvaita, founded by Nimbarka[31] in the 13th century
- Suddhadvaita, founded by Vallabha[31] (1479–1531 CE)
- Achintya Bheda Abheda, founded by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534)[32]
- Advaita Vedanta, founded by Gaudapada and Shri Adi Shankara around 700 CE
- Vishishtadvaita, also a subschool of bhedabheda, founded by Shri Ramanuja (1017–1137 CE)
- Dvaita, founded by Shri Madhvacharya (1199–1278 CE)
- Bhedabheda, as early as the 7th century CE,[49] or even the 4th century[19]
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Bhedabheda (bheda-abheda), which means "difference and non-difference",[49] existed as early as the 7th century CE,
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According to the Bhedābheda Vedānta schools the individual self (jīvātman) is both different and not different from Brahma
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Major names of this school are Bhāskara (8th-9th century),[49] Rāmānuja’s teacher Yādavaprakāśa,[49] Nimbārka (13th century) who founded the Dvaitadvaita school,[49] Vallabha (1479–1531)[49] who founded Shuddhadvaita,[31] Caitanya (1486–1534) who founded the Achintya Bheda Abheda school,[49][50] and Vijñānabhikṣu (16th century)
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Bhakti found a place in later proponents of this school.
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According to this school, the jīvātman is at once the same and yet different from Brahman
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Dvaitādvaita was propounded by Nimbārka (13th century), based upon Bhedābheda, which was taught by Bhāskara.
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The jiva relation may be regarded as dvaita from one point of view and advaita from another. In this school, God is visualized as Krishna
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Shuddhadvaita was propounded by Vallabha (1479–1531 CE). This system also identifies Bhakti as the only means of liberation,
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Founded by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu[50] (1486–1534). Achintya-Bheda-Abheda represents the philosophy of inconceivable one-ness and difference,[52] in relation to the power creation and creator, (Krishna)
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t can be best understood as integration of strict dualist (Dvaita) view of Madhvacharya and qualified monism Vishishtadvaita of Ramanujacharya while rejecting absolute monism Advaita of Adi Sankara.
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Advaita Vedanta (IAST Advaita Vedānta; Sanskrit: अद्वैत वेदान्त [əd̪ʋait̪ə ʋeːd̪ɑːnt̪ə]) was propounded by Adi Shankara (early 8th century CE)
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In the school of Vedānta, Brahman is the only reality, and the world, as it appears, is illusory
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As Brahman is the sole reality, it cannot be said to possess any attributes whatsoever
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An illusory power of Brahman called Māyā causes the world to arise. Ignorance of this reality is the cause of all suffering in the world and only upon true knowledge of Brahman can liberation be attained.
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When a person tries to know Brahman through his mind, due to the influence of Māyā, Brahman appears as God (Ishvara), separate from the world and from the individual. In reality, there is no difference between the individual soul jīvātman (see Atman) and Brahman. Liberation lies in knowing the reality of this non-difference (i.e. a-dvaita, "non-duality"). Thus, the path to liberation is finally only through knowledge (jñāna).[5
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Vishishtadvaita was propounded by Rāmānuja (1017–1137 CE) and says that the jīvātman is a part of Brahman, and hence is similar, but not identical. The main difference from Advaita is that in Visishtadvaita, the Brahman is asserted to have attributes (Saguna brahman), including the individual conscious souls and matter. Brahman, matter and the individual souls are distinct but mutually inseparable entities.
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Māyā is seen as the creative power of God
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Dvaita was propounded by Madhwāchārya (1199–1278 CE). It is also referred to as tatvavādā - The Philosophy of Reality.
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This school also advocates Bhakti as the route to sattvic liberation whereas hatred (Dvesha)-literally 'twoness') and indifference towards the Lord will lead to eternal hell and eternal bondage respectivel
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t regards Brahman, all individual souls (jīvātmans) and matter as eternal and mutually separate entitie
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Liberation is the state of attaining maximum joy or sorrow, which is awarded to individual souls (at the end of their sādhana), based on the souls' inherent and natural disposition towards good or evil.
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the immeasurable power) of Lord Vishnu is seen as the efficient cause of the universe and the primordial matter or prakrti is the material cause. Dvaita also propounds that all action is performed by the Lord energizing every soul from within, awarding the results to the soul but Himself not affected in the least by the results
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Neo-Vedanta is a modern interpretation of Vedanta, with a liberal attitude toward the Veda
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Ramakrsna, Svami Vivekananda, and Aurobindo (I also include M.K. Gandhi) have been labeled "neo-Vedantists," a philosophy that rejects the Advaitins' claim that the world is illusory. Aurobindo, in his The Life Divine, declares that he has moved from Sankara's "universal illusionism" to his own "universal realism
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Gandhi endorsed the Jain concept of Anekantavada,[63] the notion that truth and reality are perceived differently from diverse points of view, and that no single point of view is the complete truth.[64][65] This concept embraces the perspectives of both Vedānta which, according to Jainism, "recognizes substances but not process", and Buddhism, which "recognizes process but not substance". Jainism, on the other hand, pays equal attention to both substance (dravya) and process (paryaya
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Neo-Vedanta developed in the 19th century, in interaction with and response to colonialism
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With the onset of the British Raj, the colonialisation of India by the British, there also started a Hindu renaissance in the 19th century, which profoundly changed the understanding of Hinduism in both India and the wes
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Western orientalist searched for the "essence" of the Indian religions, discerning this in the Vedas,[68] and meanwhile creating the notion of "Hinduism" as a unified body of religious praxis[69] and the popular picture of 'mystical India
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The Brahmo Samaj, who was supported for a while by the Unitarian Church,[71] played an essential role in the introduction and spread of this new understanding of Hinduism.
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edanta came to be regarded as the essence of Hinduism, and Advaita Vedanta came to be regarded as "then paradigmatic example of the mystical nature of the Hindu religion
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A major proponent in the popularisation of this Universalist and Perennialist interpretation of Advaita Vedanta was Vivekananda,[74] who played a major role in the revival of Hinduism,[75] and the spread of Advaita Vedanta to the west via the Ramakrishna Mission.
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It "provided an opportunity for the construction of a nationalist ideology that could unite Hindus in their struggle against colonial oppression
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ue to the colonisation of Asia by the western world, since the late 18th century an exchange of ideas has been taking place between the western world and Asia, which also influenced western religiosit
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In 1785 appeared the first western translation of a Sanskrit-text
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t marked the growing interest in the Indian culture and languages
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The first translation of Upanishads appeared in in two parts in 1801 and 1802,[85] which influenced Arthur Schopenhauer, who called them "the consolation of my life".
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Brian David Josephson, Welsh physicist, and Nobel Prize laureate says:[90]
The Vedanta and the Sankhya hold the key to the laws of the mind and thought process which are co-related to the Quantum Field, i.e. the operation and distribution of particles at atomic and molecular levels.
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Helena Blavatsky, a founder of the Theosophical Society also compared Spinoza's religious thought to Vedant
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, it is the Vedantic Deity pure and simple
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15 Jun 14
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it came to mean all philosophical traditions concerned with interpreting the three basic texts of Hinduist philosophy, namely the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita,
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27 Nov 13
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01 May 13
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By the 8th century, the word came to be used to describe a group of philosophical traditions concerned with the self-realisation by which one understands the ultimate nature of reality (Brahman).
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"the Brahman, as conceived in the Upanishads and defined by Sankara, is clearly the same as Spinoza's 'Substantia
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03 Mar 12
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Vedānta (English pronunciation: /vɪˈdɑːntə/, Hindustani pronunciation: [ʋeːd̪aːn̪t̪], Devanagari: वेदान्त, Vedānta) was originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a morphophonological form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means "the purpose or goal [end] of the Vedas."[1] By the 8th century CE, the word also came to be used to describe a group of philosophical traditions concerned with the self-realisation by which one understands the ultimate nature of reality (Brahman).
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04 Oct 10
Dante-Gabryell Monsonwas originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a sandhied form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means
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21 Apr 09
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21 Mar 09
evgeny yauhenioVedanta (Devanagari: वेदान्त, Vedānta) is a spiritual tradition explained in the Upanishads that is concerned with the self-realisation by which one understands the ultimate nature of reality (Brahman) and teaches the believer's goal is to transcend the limitations of self-identity and realize one's unity with Brahman. Vedanta is not restricted or confined to one book and there is no sole source for Vedantic philosophy.[1] Vedanta is based on two simple propositions:
The goal of Vedanta is a state of self-realisation or cosmic consciousness. Historically and currently, it is assumed that this state can be experienced by anyone (given the proper training and discipline), but it cannot be adequately conveyed in language. -
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