Vedānta

What is Vedānta?

Vedānta is one of the six classical schools of Hindu§ philosophy. It is built around three texts: the Upaniṣads§, the Brahma Sūtras, and the Bhagavad Gītā§. The school divides into three sub-schools, advaita, viśiṣṭādvaita, and dvaita, that disagree on the relationship between the individual soul and the absolute. The name itself means the end of the Vedas, pointing to the Upaniṣads as the philosophical culmination of the Vedic corpus.

Three foundational texts

The prasthāna-traya, or triple foundation, of Vedānta consists of three texts. The first is the Upaniṣads§, the philosophical conclusions of the Vedic corpus. The second is the Brahma Sūtras, a terse summary of those conclusions attributed to Bādarāyaṇa and dated roughly to the second century BCE. The third is the Bhagavad Gītā§, the practical-spiritual dialogue from the Mahābhārata. Every major Vedāntic school produces a commentary on all three, and those commentaries are how the schools' precise positions are identified.

The three sub-schools

Advaita (non-dual) Vedānta was systematised by Ādi Śaṅkara§ in the eighth century. Its central claim is that the individual soul (ātman) and the absolute (brahman) are identically the same, compressed into the formula tat tvam asi (that thou art). Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, developed by Rāmānuja in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, holds that soul and absolute are inseparable but distinguishable, like a body and the self inhabiting it. Dvaita Vedānta, from Madhva in the thirteenth century, holds they are eternally distinct. These positions have generated a literature numbering in the millions of words.

Vedānta, Yoga, and Sāṃkhya

Vedānta, Yoga, and Sāṃkhya are three of the six classical āstika (Veda-affirming) schools of Hindu philosophy, and they are often conflated. Vedānta is a philosophical system concerned with the nature of reality and the identity of self and absolute. Yoga, as a darśana (philosophical viewpoint), is the systematic psychology of the Yoga Sūtras§ and concerns the stilling of mental fluctuations; it is a practice-framework more than a metaphysical thesis. Sāṃkhya§ is a rigorous dualism. It holds that puruṣa (pure consciousness) and prakṛti (matter) are eternally distinct, with no unifying absolute. Vedānta explicitly argues against this position, particularly in Śaṅkara's reading of the Brahma Sūtras. Vedānta is also commonly conflated with Buddhism, since both use terms like non-dual and awareness. The difference is metaphysical: Buddhism denies an enduring self (anātman), while advaita Vedānta affirms that the absolute Self (ātman/brahman) is the only real.

The Western inheritance

Almost the entire English-language non-dual tradition traces back to advaita Vedānta. The lineage running through Ramana Maharshi§, Nisargadatta Maharaj§, Jean Klein§, Francis Lucille§, and Rupert Spira§ is a series of refractions of that one tradition. The vocabulary (ātman, brahman, Self, awareness) and the structural moves are all advaitic: inquiry into the experiencer and recognition of unity. Knowing the parent tradition makes these inheritances much easier to read.