Concept

Vedanta

Also known as: Vedānta, Uttara Mīmāṃsā, the end of the Vedas

One of the six classical philosophical schools (*darśanas*) of [[hinduism]] — the principal Hindu philosophical-theological tradition for most of the second millennium CE and into the present. The Sanskrit word *vedānta* literally means *the end of the Vedas*, referring to the [[the-upanishads|Upaniṣads]] — the philosophical conclusion of the Vedic corpus, which Vedānta takes as its primary scriptural source. The other foundational texts of the school are the *Brahma Sūtras* of Bādarāyaṇa (c. 200 BCE – 400 CE; condense the Upanishadic teaching into aphorisms) and the *Bhagavad Gītā* — together called the ***prasthāna trayī***, the *triple foundation*. Across the major sub-schools — *Advaita* (non-duality, [[adi-shankara|Śaṅkara]]); *Viśiṣṭādvaita* (qualified non-duality, Rāmānuja); *Dvaita* (duality, Madhva); *Acintya-Bheda-Abheda* (inconceivable difference-and-non-difference, Caitanya); and others — Vedānta has been the principal philosophical-theological grammar of Indian thought.

The word [[the-upanishads|Vedānta]] literally means the end (anta) of the Vedas. It refers in the first instance to the [[the-upanishads|Upaniṣads]] — the philosophical-contemplative texts that come at the end of each Vedic corpus and that articulate, often in dialogue form, the metaphysical and contemplative core of the tradition. Vedānta as a school of thought takes the Upaniṣads as its primary scripture and develops their teaching systematically.

The triple foundation (prasthāna trayī)

Three texts together form the canonical scriptural basis of all [[the-upanishads|Vedānta]] sub-schools:

The [[the-upanishads|Upaniṣads]] — the principal source, especially the older ones (Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Aitareya, Taittirīya, Kauṣītaki, Kena, Kaṭha, Īśā, Praśna, Muṇḍaka, Māṇḍūkya, Śvetāśvatara).
The Brahma Sūtras of Bādarāyaṇa (c. 200 BCE – 400 CE) — about 555 short aphorisms condensing and systematizing the Upanishadic teaching. The text is so terse as to be nearly unreadable without commentary; the commentary tradition is therefore where [[the-upanishads|Vedānta]] has actually been developed.
The Bhagavad Gītā — taken by [[the-upanishads|Vedānta]] tradition as a teaching of the same essential truth in narrative-poetic form.

Each of the major [[the-upanishads|Vedānta]] teachers wrote commentaries on all three texts; the three commentaries together constitute the systematic statement of any given Vedānta sub-school’s position.

The major sub-schools

Vedānta is internally varied. The principal divisions:

Advaita (non-dual Vedānta) — articulated definitively by [[adi-shankara|Śaṅkara]] (c. 700 CE). The fundamental claim: brahman (the absolute) and ātman (the self) are not two but one; the apparent multiplicity of the world is māyā, a kind of cosmic appearance that is real at one level and illusory at another. Liberation (mokṣa) is the recognition of one’s [[eating-the-landscape|identity]] with brahman.
Viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified non-dualism) — articulated by Rāmānuja (c. 1017–1137 CE). The fundamental claim: there is one absolute brahman, but selves and the world are real distinctions within brahman — like body to soul. Liberation is participation in brahman, not [[eating-the-landscape|identity]]. Theistic; Viṣṇu/Nārāyaṇa is the personal form of brahman.
Dvaita (dualism) — articulated by Madhva (1238–1317). Selves and brahman are distinct realities; liberation is union with God in love but not [[eating-the-landscape|identity]]. Strongly theistic.
Acintya-Bheda-Abheda (inconceivable difference-and-non-difference) — articulated within the Bengali Vaiṣṇava tradition of Caitanya (1486–1534). The relation between brahman, the self, and the world is simultaneously one of difference and non-difference, in a way that exceeds rational reconstruction.
Other sub-schools — Śuddhādvaita of Vallabha (1479–1531); Dvaitādvaita of Nimbārka (12th c.); the various sub-schools of medieval and modern Vedānta.

The relations among these schools have been extensively debated for a thousand years. [[0mn1one|The platform]]‘s posture: each is a genuine articulation of the contemplative ground; the choice between them often reflects a temperamental and devotional difference rather than a settled metaphysical fact.

Contemporary reception

In the 19th and 20th centuries, [[advaita-vedanta|Advaita Vedānta]] in particular became one of the most widely-known articulations of Hindu thought in the West, partly through the work of Swāmī Vivekānanda (1863–1902, who introduced Vedānta to American audiences at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions), partly through the work of [[ramana-maharshi|Ramana Maharshi]] (1879–1950, whose silent transmission and self-inquiry teaching reached substantial Western audiences), partly through Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy (1945, which offered a synthesis grounded heavily in Advaita), and partly through the various Neo-Vedānta movements of the 20th c. Contemporary teachers in the broader Vedānta tradition continue this transmission.

A note for honesty. Neo-Vedānta is a contested category; some scholars (Brian Hatcher, Anantanand Rambachan) have argued that the modern presentation of Advaita as the singular essence of Hindu thought obscures the genuinely diverse Vedānta tradition and the broader Hindu landscape. [[0mn1one|The platform]] takes seriously the depth of Advaita while engaging Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, and the other schools as equally legitimate developments.

Sources

Eliot Deutsch & J.A.B. van Buitenen (eds.). A Source Book of [[advaita-vedanta|Advaita Vedanta]]. University of Hawaii Press, 1971. Source class: anthology.
Anantanand Rambachan. The Advaita Worldview: God, World, and Humanity. SUNY, 2006. Source class: book / contemporary articulation.
John Grimes. The Vivekacudamani of Sankaracarya Bhagavatpada. Ashgate, 2004. Source class: primary text + commentary.
Julius J. Lipner. The Face of Truth: A Study of Meaning and Metaphysics in the Vedāntic Theology of Rāmānuja. SUNY, 1986. Source class: book / scholarly study.
Andrew O. Fort. Jīvanmukti in Transformation: Embodied Liberation in Advaita and Neo-Vedanta. SUNY, 1998. Source class: book / scholarly study.
Michael Comans. The Method of Early [[advaita-vedanta|Advaita Vedanta]]. Motilal Banarsidass, 2000. Source class: book / scholarly study.

Lenses still to grow

Bādarāyaṇa and the Brahma Sūtras as a text in their own right.
Rāmānuja as a figure deserving full treatment; the Viśiṣṭādvaita synthesis is currently underrepresented here.
Madhva and Dvaita Vedānta.
The Bengali Vaiṣṇava tradition and Caitanya’s acintya-bheda-abheda.
Māyā as a concept deserving its own entry.
Brahman and ātman as concepts deserving their own entries.
The Neo-Vedānta debate — what is gained and what is lost in the modern presentation of Advaita as the central or essential Hindu tradition.

What links here, and how

Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.

Spiritual

subset of

Adi Shankara the most consequential articulator of *Advaita* (non-dual) Vedānta; the figure whose commentaries shaped the subsequent Vedānta tradition
Advaita Vedanta the non-dualist sub-school within the broader Vedānta tradition; one of three classical sub-schools alongside Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita
Krishna the principal divine speaker of the Bhagavad Gita; the central figure of the Vaishnava devotional traditions; one of the most widely worshipped figures in the Hindu world
Ramana Maharshi 20th-century South Indian sage in the Advaita Vedānta tradition; the principal silent-presence transmitter of Advaita to a global audience

part of

Bhagavad Gita one of the *prasthāna trayī* — the three foundational scriptures of Vedānta — alongside the Upanishads and the Brahma Sūtras
The Upanishads the *Vedānta* — *the end of the Vedas* — is named for these texts; one of the *prasthāna trayī* (with the Brahma Sūtras and the Bhagavad Gītā)

parallels

Sri Aurobindo his work draws extensively on Vedānta but extends and modifies it through an evolutionary frame; placed alongside the classical Vedānta sub-schools, his synthesis is a 20th-century development of the tradition

Cultural