Vedānta

Vedānta (“the end of the Veda”) is the family of Hindu philosophical schools that interpret the Upaniṣads — the final, philosophical portion of the Vedic literature — together with the The Bhagavad Gītā and the Brahma Sūtras, to understand Brahman, the ultimate reality, its relation to the individual self (ātman) and the world, and the path to liberation (Mokṣa). Also called Uttara Mīmāṃsā, “the later inquiry”, in contrast to the ritual hermeneutics of Mīmāṃsā, it became the dominant form of Hindu philosophy from the second millennium CE onward, and is what most people today mean when they speak of “Hindu philosophy”. Its schools agree that Brahman is the source and ground of everything, and that knowing or loving Brahman frees the self from rebirth. They disagree, sometimes bitterly, about one question: how exactly is the self related to Brahman? Are they identical (Advaita, “non-dual”), one but internally differentiated (Viśiṣṭādvaita, “qualified non-dual”), eternally distinct (Dvaita, “dual”), or both different and non-different (Bhedābheda)? The answers range from the austere monism of Ādi Śaṅkara, for whom the world of many things is an appearance, to the passionate devotional theism of Rāmānuja, Madhva and Caitanya, for whom God is a person to be loved.

The meaning of “Vedānta”

Veda-anta means “end of the Veda” in two senses. Literally, the Upaniṣads stand at the end of each Vedic collection, after the hymns, ritual manuals and forest texts. Philosophically, they were taken as the Veda’s culmination, its final purpose: what the Veda is ultimately about. The Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad already distinguishes “lower knowledge” — the Vedas, grammar, ritual, astronomy — from “higher knowledge, by which the imperishable is grasped” (1.1.4–5). Vedānta is the systematic pursuit of that higher knowledge.

The three sources

Every Vedānta school bases itself on the prasthāna-traya, “the three points of departure”:

1. The Upaniṣads (śruti-prasthāna, revealed scripture) — especially the principal ones: Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Kauṣītaki, Kena, Kaṭha, Īśā, Śvetāśvatara, Muṇḍaka, Praśna and Māṇḍūkya.
2. The Bhagavad Gītā (smṛti-prasthāna, remembered tradition) — Kṛṣṇa’s teaching to Arjuna.
3. The Brahma Sūtras (nyāya-prasthāna, the reasoned systematisation) — the aphorisms of Bādarāyaṇa (c. 2nd century BCE–2nd century CE) that organise the Upaniṣads’ teaching and refute rival schools.

To found a school of Vedānta, a teacher had to write commentaries (bhāṣyas) on all three — and above all on the Brahma Sūtras, whose terse aphorisms can be read in startlingly different ways. The commentary on the first four sūtras, beginning with “Now, therefore, the inquiry into Brahman” (athāto brahma-jijñāsā), usually contains the whole of a school’s philosophy in miniature.

Common ground

For all their disagreements, Vedāntins share a great deal:

• Brahman (from bṛh, “to grow, expand”) is the ultimate reality, defined in the second Brahma Sūtra as “that from which the origin, sustenance and dissolution of this world proceed”. The Taittirīya Upaniṣad describes it as “reality, knowledge, infinity” (satyaṃ jñānam anantaṃ brahma), and later tradition as saccidānanda — being, consciousness, bliss.
• Scripture (śruti) is the decisive means of knowing Brahman, which is beyond perception and inference; reason serves scripture.
• The individual self (jīva) is conscious and eternal, and is caught in Saṃsāra through ignorance (avidyā) and Karma.
• Liberation is the highest goal, achieved through knowledge or devotion (or both), usually with the help of a teacher and of grace.
• Rival schools are wrong: the Brahma Sūtras’ second chapter refutes Sāṃkhya (unconscious nature cannot produce an ordered world), Vaiśeṣika atomism, the Buddhists and the Jains.

The schools

Before Śaṅkara

Vedānta existed long before its most famous exponent. The Brahma Sūtras mention earlier teachers — Āśmarathya, Auḍulomi, Kāśakṛtsna — who held different views of the self’s relation to Brahman. Some form of bhedābheda (“difference-and-non-difference”) seems to have been the earliest systematic view: Brahman really transforms itself into the world and the selves, which are thus both different from and the same as it, as waves from the sea. Bhartṛprapañca and later Bhāskara (8th–9th century) held such views. The Māṇḍūkya Kārikā of Gauḍapāda (c. 6th century) taught a radical non-dualism: nothing has ever really been born (ajātivāda).

Advaita: non-dualism

Advaita Vedānta, systematised by Ādi Śaṅkara (c. 700–750), holds that Brahman alone is real — pure, undifferentiated consciousness, “one without a second”. The self is identical with Brahman: tat tvam asi, “that thou art”. The world of distinct things and the individual selves are an appearance (vivarta) produced by ignorance, as a snake appears in a rope in dim light. That appearance — Māyā — is neither real nor unreal but “indescribable”. Liberation is not an achievement but a realisation: the removal of ignorance by knowledge, which reveals that one was always Brahman. A personal God (Īśvara) exists only at the level of appearance. Advaita became the most famous Indian philosophy in the West and the dominant intellectual school in India.

Viśiṣṭādvaita: qualified non-dualism

Viśiṣṭādvaita, systematised by Rāmānuja (1017–1137), holds that Brahman is one — but a one that includes real differences. Brahman is the personal God Viṣṇu–Nārāyaṇa, possessed of infinite auspicious qualities. Selves (cit) and matter (acit) are real and eternal, and are related to God as the body to its soul: inseparable, dependent, controlled by him, existing for his sake. The world is a real transformation of God’s body. Liberation comes through devotion (bhakti) and self-surrender (prapatti) to God’s grace; the liberated self does not merge into God but enjoys his presence forever. Rāmānuja’s critique of Advaita — above all, the “seven untenabilities” of māyā — is one of the great polemics of Indian philosophy.

Dvaita: dualism

Dvaita, founded by Madhva (1238–1317), rejects identity altogether. There are five eternal differences: between God and souls, God and matter, soul and soul, soul and matter, and matter and matter. Viṣṇu alone is independent (svatantra); everything else depends on him. Souls are innately and eternally graded; some are destined for liberation, some for eternal rebirth, some for eternal darkness — a doctrine unique in Indian thought. Liberation is by God’s grace, won through devotion and knowledge.

Later schools

Several later schools mediate between these positions, mostly within devotional Vaiṣṇavism:

• Dvaitādvaita of Nimbārka (12th–13th century?) — God (Kṛṣṇa with Rādhā) and souls are both different and non-different.
• Śuddhādvaita, “pure non-dualism”, of Vallabha (1479–1531) — the world is a real manifestation of Kṛṣṇa, not illusion; the path is loving grace (puṣṭi), the root of the Puṣṭimārga tradition.
• Acintya-bhedābheda, “inconceivable difference-in-identity”, of Caitanya (1486–1534) — the theology of Bengali Vaiṣṇavism and, later, of ISKCON.
• Śaiva Siddhānta and Śiva-Advaita developed parallel Vedāntas centred on Śiva.

The great debates

Vedāntins argued among themselves with the techniques of Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā. The central disputes include:

• Is the world real? Advaita says it is an appearance; the theistic schools that it is God’s real creation or body. See the Śaṅkara vs. Rāmānuja debate.
• Whose is ignorance? If ignorance hides Brahman, it cannot belong to Brahman (pure knowledge), nor to the individual self (which, for Advaita, is itself a product of ignorance) — Rāmānuja’s dilemma. Advaitins answered with various theories: ignorance belongs to the individual (the Bhāmatī school of Vācaspati Miśra), or to Brahman as its locus and object (the Vivaraṇa school).
• Is Brahman with or without qualities? Advaita: nirguṇa, without qualities — “not this, not this” (neti neti). The theists: saguṇa, with infinite good qualities; scripture’s negations deny only bad qualities.
• Knowledge or devotion? Śaṅkara: knowledge alone liberates; action and devotion prepare the mind. Rāmānuja and Madhva: knowledge matures into devotion, and only God’s grace frees.
• Does liberation erase the self? For Advaita, individuality dissolves; for the theistic schools, the self eternally loves and serves God.

Vedānta in modern times

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Vedānta — especially Advaita — became the intellectual banner of the Hindu renaissance. Rammohun Roy read the Upaniṣads as rational monotheism; Swami Vivekananda presented “Practical Vedānta” at the Chicago Parliament of Religions (1893) as a universal religion of the divinity of every soul, and founded Vedanta Societies in the West; Sri Aurobindo developed an evolutionary “integral” Vedānta; Ramana Maharshi taught a direct path of self-inquiry; Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan presented Vedānta as the culmination of Indian philosophy. In the West, Vedānta influenced Emerson and Thoreau, Schopenhauer, Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy, Christopher Isherwood, and physicists like Erwin Schrödinger, who wrote: “Atman = Brahman (the personal self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world.”

Vedānta in conversation

The whole family argument fits in one question — is the self identical with God, a part of God, or eternally other than God? — and in the devotee’s retort to the non-dualist: “I want to taste sugar, not become sugar.”