witSee also: WIT, wit' and wit.

EnglishPronunciationEtymology 1

NounSynonymsDerived termsTranslations

See alsoEtymology 2

VerbUsage notesConjugationDerived termsTranslations

Etymology 3PronunciationPreposition

Anagrams

AfrikaansEtymologyPronunciationAdjective

BalineseNoun

Contents

DutchPronunciationEtymology 1

AdjectiveUsage notesInflectionSynonymsAntonymsDerived termsRelated terms

NounDerived termsDescendants

VerbSee also

Etymology 2Noun

Related terms

Anagrams

GothicRomanization

JavaneseNoun

Louisiana Creole FrenchEtymologyNumeral

Mauritian CreoleEtymologyNumeral

Middle DutchEtymologyAdjective

InflectionAlternative formsDescendants

Further reading

Middle EnglishAlternative formsEtymologyPronunciationPronoun

See alsoReferences

North FrisianEtymologyPronunciationAdjective

Old EnglishAlternative formsEtymologyPronunciationPronoun

Old FrenchNumeral

Old High GermanEtymologyAdjective

Descendants

Old SaxonEtymologyPronoun

Declension

Tok PisinEtymologyNoun

enPR: wĭt, IPA(key): /wɪt/Audio (US) (file)

Rhymes: -ɪtHomophone: whit (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

From Middle English wit, from Old English witt (“understanding, intellect, sense, knowledge, consciousness,conscience” ), from Proto-Germanic *witją (“knowledge, reason” ), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see, know” ).Cognate with Dutch weet, German Witz, Danish vid, Swedish vett, Norwegian Bokmål vett, Gothic 𐌿𐌽𐍅𐌹𐍄𐌹 (unwiti,“ignorance” ), Latin videō (“see” ), Russian ви́деть (vídetʹ ). Compare wise.

wit (countable and uncountable, plural wits)

1. (now usually in the plural, plural only) Sanity.

He's gone completely out of his wits.

2. (obsolete usually in the plural) The senses.3. Intellectual ability; faculty of thinking, reasoning.

Where she has gone to is beyond the wit of man to say.

4. The ability to think quickly; mental cleverness, especially under short time constraints.

My father had a quick wit and a steady hand.

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Noun

5. Intelligence; common sense.

The opportunity was right in front of you, and you didn't even have the wit to take it!

1460-1500, The Towneley Playsː

I give the wit, I give the strength, of all thou seest, of breadth and length; thou shalt bewonder-wise, mirth and joy to have at will, all thy liking to fulfill, and dwell in paradise.

1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 23[1] (http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/sonnets/sonnet_view.php?Sonnet=23):

O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

6. Humour, especially when clever or quick.

The best man's speech was hilarious, full of wit and charm.

1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:

The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, andfrom that time forward she became her old self again; […] . Our table in the dining-roombecame again the abode of scintillating wit and caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his oldstandard, and the demand for seats in the vicinity rose to an animated competition.

1996 February 4, “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield”, in The Simpsons, season 7,episode 14, written by Jennifer Crittenden:

Evelyn Peters: "Don't worry, Marge. Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisiveobservation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing".

1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 37:

...the cemetery—which people of shattering wit like Sampson never tired of calling ‘the deadcentre of town’...

7. A person who tells funny anecdotes or jokes; someone witty.

Your friend is quite a wit, isn't he?

1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: Printed [by R. Bradock] forM[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, OCLC 316392309 (http://worldcat.org/oclc/316392309), Act III,scene iv (https://archive.org/stream/poetasterorarrai00jons_0#page/n62/mode/1up):

Tuc[ca]. […] Can thy Author doe it impudently enough? / Hiſt[rio]. O, I warrant you, Captaine:and ſpitefully inough too; he ha's one of the moſt ouerflowing villanous wits, in Rome. He willſlander any man that breathes; If he diſguſt him. / Tucca. I'le know the poor, egregious, nittyRaſcall; and he haue ſuch commendable Qualities, I'le cheriſh him: […]

(intellectual ability): See also Thesaurus:intelligence

Terms derived from wit

afterwitbrevity is the soul of witcollect one's wits

wittyforewit

Synonyms

Derived terms

mind; sanity

Armenian: խելք (hy) (xelkʿ )Catalan: ment (ca) f, enteniment (ca) mCzech: rozum (cs) mGalician: mentalidade (gl) fGeorgian: ჭკუა (č̣ḳua ), გონება (goneba )Italian: senno (it)

Latvian: prāts (lv) m, saprāts mNorwegian: vett (no) nOccitan: esperit m, sen (oc) m, èime (oc) m,ment (oc) fPortuguese: mentalidade, sanidadeRussian: ра́зум (ru) m (rázum )Spanish: mentalidad, cordura (es) f

intellectual ability

Armenian: խելք (hy) (xelkʿ )

Arabic: وعي (ar), إدراك (ar)

German: Verstand (de) m, Intellekt (de) mItalian: ingegno vivace, arguzia (it)

Norwegian: forstand (no) m, intellekt n

Portuguese: intelectual (pt), intelecto (pt)

Russian: ум (ru) m (um )Spanish: intelectualidad (es), intelecto (es) m

Ability to think quickly

Czech: vtip (cs) m, důvtip mFinnish: sukkeluus (fi), nokkeluus (fi), sutkausGeorgian: გონებამახვილობა (gonebamaxviloba )German: Auffassungsgabe (de) fItalian: arguzia (it), genio (it), acutezza (it) fKorean: 눈치 (ko) (nunchi )

Latvian: atjautība fPortuguese: agudeza (pt), agudez (pt)

Romanian: schepsis (ro) nRussian: ум (ru) m (um )Spanish: agudeza (es), inteligencia (es), ingenio (es),mentalidad, gracia (es), listeza (es) fTurkish: nükte (tr)

intelligence — see intelligence

Spoken humour, particularly that thought of quickly

Czech: vtip (cs) m, humor (cs) mFrench: mot d'esprit (fr) mGerman: Witz (de) mGreek:

Ancient: ἀστεϊσμός m (asteïsmós )

Italian: senso umoristico, motto di spirito m,spirito (it) m, prontezza di spirito, brio (it) mLatvian: asprātība f

Maori: ngutu atamaiNorwegian: vidd nPortuguese: humorístico (pt) m, humor (pt),engraçado (pt) mRussian: остроу́мие (ru) n (ostroúmije )Spanish: humor (es) m, gracia (es) f,mordacidad (es) f, chiste (es) espontáneo m

A person who tells funny anecdotes or jokes

Catalan: divertit (ca)

Esperanto: sprituloFrench: petit malin (fr) mGerman: Witzbold (de) m

Latvian: asprātis mMaori: nahoRussian: остря́к (ru) m (ostrják )Spanish: imaginativo (es) m, divertido (es) m ,hilaro m, hilara (es) f

fuckwitgather one's witshave one’s wits about oneinwit

mother wit

native witnitwitscare out of one’s witswitcraftwitful

witlesswitlingwitterwittolwitticism

Translations

Italian: ilare (it), battuta (it) f, facezia (it) f,spiritosaggine f, freddura (it) f

(type of humor):

acidbitingcuttinglambent

From Middle English witen, from Old English witan, from Proto-Germanic *witaną, from Proto-Indo-European*weyd- (“see, know” ). Cognate with Icelandic vita, Dutch weten, German wissen, Swedish veta, and Latin videō (“Isee” ). Compare guide.

wit (see below for this verb’s conjugation)

1. 2. (transitive, intransitive, chiefly archaic) Know, be aware of (constructed with of when used

intransitively).

You committed terrible actions — to wit, murder and theft — and should be punished accordingly.They are meddling in matters that men should not wit of.

1611, King James Version, Exodus 2:3–4:

And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed itwith slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river'sbrink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

1849, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, St. Luke the Painter, lines 5–8

but soon having wistHow sky-breadth and field-silence and this dayAre symbols also in some deeper way,She looked through these to God and was God’s priest.

As a preterite-present verb, the third-person singular indicative form is not wits but wot; the pluralindicative forms conform to the infinitive: we wit, ye wit, they wit.To wit is now defective because it can only be used in the infinitive.

Infinitive to wit

Imperative wit

Present participle witting

Past participle wist

Present indicative Past indicative

First-person singular I wot I wist

Second-person singular thou wost, wot(test) (archaic) thou wist(est) (archaic)

Third-person singular he/she/it wot he/she/it wist

See also

Etymology 2

Verb

Usage notes

Conjugation

First-person plural we wit(e) we wist

Second-person plural ye wit(e) (archaic) ye wist (archaic)

Third-person plural they wit(e) they wist

bewitto witunwittingwitness

Know, be aware of

Dutch: weten (nl)

Esperanto: scii (eo)

French: savoir (fr), connaître (fr)

German: wissen (de)

Latvian: zināt (lv), nojaustOccitan: saber (oc)

Russian: знать (ru) (znatʹ ), ве́дать (ru) (védatʹ )

From with.

(Southern American English) (before consonants) IPA(key): /wɪt/, (before yod) /wɪtʃ/

wit

1. (Southern US) Pronunciation spelling of with.

Tiw, Twi, twi-

From Dutch wit, from Middle Dutch wit, from Old Dutch *wit, from Proto-Germanic *hwittaz.

IPA(key): /vət/

wit (attributive witte, comparative witter, superlative witste)

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 3

Pronunciation

Preposition

Anagrams

Afrikaans

Etymology

Pronunciation

Adjective

1. white

wit

1. tree

Wénten wit poh akéh ring Nagara.

There are many mango trees in Nagara.

IPA(key): /ʋɪt/audio (file)

Hyphenation: witRhymes: -ɪt

From Middle Dutch wit, from Old Dutch *wit, from Proto-Germanic *hwittaz. The geminate is unexpected as theusual Proto-Germanic form is *hwītaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweytos (“shine; bright” ). The geminate issometimes explained as being the result of Kluge's law, thus from a pre-Germanic *kweyd-nos.

wit (comparative witter, superlative witst)

1. white

De wand is wit.

The (inner) wall is white.

2. (chiefly Surinam) having a white skin colour, light-skinned (see usage note)3. (Surinam) having a relatively light skin colour4. legal5. pure, untainted6. (archaic) clear-lighted, not dark at all

De lang gewenste dag verscheen, heel klaar en wit.

The long-wished-for day appeared, very clear and white.

Balinese

Noun

Dutch

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Adjective

Usage notes

Recently, wit has come to be used in continental Dutch by some (associated with social justice movements) to refer toa specific skin colour, i.e. to light-skinned people of apparent mostly European descent. Traditionally, the adjectiveblank has been used there for this purpose, and this usage is by far the most widespread in the Netherlands andBelgium.

Inflection of wit

positive comparative superlative

predicative/adverbial wit witterhet witst

het witste

indefinite

m./f. sing. witte wittere witste

n. sing. wit witter witste

plural witte wittere witste

definite witte wittere witste

partitive wits witters —

blank

zwart

witwassen

wijting

wit n (plural witten, diminutive witje n)

1. (uncountable) white (color)

Wit is alle kleuren ineens.

White is all colors at once.

2. (archaic) (short for doelwit (“goal, target, the white in a bullseye” ))

Myn wit is Adam en zyn afkomst te bederven. (in Lucifer, by Vondel)

My goal is to corrupt Adam and his origin.

Inflection

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Noun

(layout · text)

3. (slang) cocaine

2011, Esther Schenk, Straatwaarde, Luitingh-Sijthoff B.V., →ISBN.

Op de Baan verschijnen dealers die gekookte coke aanbieden. Dat is het ei van Columbus.Nu hoef ik niet meer met mijn wit eerst naar huis om het te gaan koken.

(please add an English translation of this quote)

2014, Helen Vreeswijk, Overdosis, Unieboek | Het Spectrum, →ISBN.

‘Je bestelde ook een halfje wit’, hield De Main hem voor. ‘Wat is dat dan?’

Heb je een halfje wit?

Do you have a dose of cocaine? (The phrase halfje wit normally means "half a loaf of whitebread".)

eiwit

Afrikaans: wit

wit

1. first-, second- and third-person singular present indicative of witten2. imperative of witten

Colors in Dutch · kleuren

wit grijs zwart

rood; karmijnrood oranje; bruin geel; roomwit

groengeel/limoengroen groen

blauwgroen/cyaan;groenblauw/petrolblauw azuurblauw blauw

violet; indigo magenta; paars roze

From Middle Dutch wit. Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *witją (“knowledge, reason” ), from Proto-Indo-European*weyd- (“see, know” ). Related to weten (“to know” ), wis (“knowledge” ) and wijs (“wise” ). Cognate with English wit,German Witz.

wit n (plural witten, diminutive witje n)

1. (archaic) ability to think and reason

Derived terms

Descendants

Verb

See also

Etymology 2

Noun

2. (archaic) knowledge

wittig, wittigen, wittiger, verwittigen

Twi

wit

1. Romanization of 𐍅𐌹𐍄

wit

1. tree

Akèh wit pelem ing Semarang.

There are many mango trees in Semarang.

From French huit.

wit

1. eight

From French huit.

Related terms

Anagrams

Gothic

Romanization

Javanese

Noun

Louisiana Creole French

Etymology

Numeral

Mauritian CreoleMauritian Creole cardinal

numbers < 7 8 9 >

Cardinal : wit Ordinal : witiem

Etymology

Numeral

wit

1. eight

From Old Dutch *wit, from Proto-Germanic *hwittaz. The long-vowel variant wijt is from Old Dutch wīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz.

wit

1. white2. clean3. pale (of skin)

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

wijt

Dutch: witLimburgish: wiet

“wit (http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?wdb=VMNW&actie=article&id=ID93003)”, in VroegmiddelnederlandsWoordenboek, 2000

Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929), “wit (I) (http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?wdb=MNW&actie=article&id=74028)”,in Middelniederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page I

wyt, witt

from Old English wit (“we two” ), from Proto-Germanic *wet.

Middle Dutch

Etymology

Adjective

Inflection

Alternative forms

Descendants

Further reading

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

IPA(key): /wit/

wit (accusative unk, genitive unker, possessive determiner unker)

1. (Early Middle English) First-person dual pronoun: we twain, the two of us.

we (first-person plural pronoun)

“wit (pron.) (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED52982)” in MEDOnline, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 11 May 2018.

From Old Frisian hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz. Compare West Frisian wyt.

IPA(key): /vɪt/

wit

1. (Sylt) white

ƿit (wynn spelling)

From Proto-Germanic *wet, from Proto-Indo-European *wed-, a suffixed form of *wey- (see wē). Cognate with NorthFrisian wat, Old Norse vit, Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐍄 (wit ), and Lithuanian vèdu.

IPA(key): /wit/

Pronunciation

Pronoun

See also

References

North Frisian

Etymology

Pronunciation

Adjective

Old English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Pronunciation

wit (personal)

1. we two; nominative dual of iċ

wit

1. eight

From Proto-Germanic *wīdaz, whence also Old Saxon wīt, Old English wīd and Old Norse víðr.

wīt

1. wide

Middle High German: wīt

Central Franconian: weckGerman: weitLuxembourgish: wäit

Yiddish: ווַײט (vayt )

From Proto-Germanic *wet. Accusative from Proto-Germanic *unk, dative from *unkiz.

wit

1. we two

Old Saxon personal pronouns

Personal pronouns

Pronoun

Old French

Numeral

Old High German

Etymology

Adjective

Descendants

Old Saxon

Etymology

Pronoun

Declension

Singular 1. 2. 3. m 3. f 3. n

Nominative ik thū hē siuit

Accusative mī, me, mik thī, thik ina sia

Dative mī thī imu iru it

Genitive mīn thīn is ira is

Dual 1. 2. - - -

Nominative wit git - - -

Accusativeunk ink - - -

Dative

Genitive unkero - - -

Plural 1. 2. 3. m 3. f 3. n

Nominative wī, we gī, gesia sia siu

Accusative ūs, unsikeu, iu, iuu

Dative ūs im

Genitive ūser euwar, iuwer, iuwar,iuwero, iuwera

iro

From English wheat.

wit

1. wheat

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Tok Pisin

Etymology

Noun

Vedas

The Vedas (/ˈveɪdəz, ˈviː-/;[1] Sanskrit: वेद veda,"knowledge") are a large body of religious texts originatingin ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the textsconstitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and theoldest scriptures of Hinduism.[2][3] Hindus consider theVedas to be apauruṣeya, which means "not of a man,superhuman"[4] and "impersonal, authorless".[5][6][7]

Vedas are also called śruti ("what is heard") literature,[8]

distinguishing them from other religious texts, which arecalled smṛti ("what is remembered"). The Veda, fororthodox Indian theologians, are considered revelationsseen by ancient sages after intense meditation, and textsthat have been more carefully preserved since ancienttimes.[9][10] In the Hindu Epic the Mahabharata, thecreation of Vedas is credited to Brahma.[11] The Vedichymns themselves assert that they were skillfully createdby Rishis (sages), after inspired creativity, just as acarpenter builds a chariot.[10][note 1]

According to tradition, Vyasa is the compiler of the Vedas,who arranged the four kinds of mantras into four Samhitas(Collections).[13][14] There are four Vedas: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and theAtharvaveda.[15][16] Each Veda has been subclassified into four major text types – the Samhitas (mantrasand benedictions), the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), theBrahmanas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (texts discussingmeditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge).[15][17][18] Some scholars add a fifth category – theUpasanas (worship).[19][20]

The various Indian philosophies and denominations have taken differing positions on the Vedas. Schoolsof India philosophy which cite the Vedas as their scriptural authority are classified as "orthodox"(āstika).[note 2] Other śramaṇa traditions, such as Lokayata, Carvaka, Ajivika, Buddhism and Jainism,which did not regard the Vedas as authorities, are referred to as "heterodox" or "non-orthodox" (nāstika)schools.[22][23] Despite their differences, just like the texts of the śramaṇa traditions, the layers of texts inthe Vedas discuss similar ideas and concepts.[22]

Etymology and usageChronology

Ancient universities

The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts ofHinduism. Above: A page from theAtharvaveda.

Contents

Categories of Vedic textsVedic Sanskrit corpusShruti literature

Vedic schools or recensionsFour Vedas

RigvedaSamavedaYajurvedaAtharvavedaEmbedded Vedic texts

BrahmanasAranyakas and Upanishads

Post-Vedic literatureVedangaParisistaUpaveda"Fifth" and other VedasPuranas

Western IndologySee alsoNotesReferencesBibliographyFurther readingExternal links

The Sanskrit word véda "knowledge, wisdom" is derived from the root vid- "to know". This isreconstructed as being derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *u̯eid-, meaning "see" or "know",[24]

cognate to Greek (ϝ)εἶδος "aspect", "form". This is not to be confused is the homonymous 1st and 3rdperson singular perfect tense véda, cognate to Greek (ϝ)οἶδα (w)oida "I know". Root cognates are Greekἰδέα, English wit, etc., Latin videō "I see", German wissen "to know" etc.[25]

The Sanskrit term veda as a common noun means "knowledge".[26] The term in some contexts, such ashymn 10.93.11 of the Rigveda, means "obtaining or finding wealth, property",[27] while in some others itmeans "a bunch of grass together" as in a broom or for ritual fire.[28]

Vedas are called Maṛai or Vaymoli in parts of South India. Marai literally means "hidden, a secret,mystery". But the Tamil Naan Marai mentioned in Tholkappiam isn't Sanskrit Vedas.[29][30] In someparts of south India (e.g. the Iyengar communities), the word veda is used in the Tamil writings of theAlvar saints. Such writings include the Divya Prabandham (aka Tiruvaymoli).[31]

Etymology and usage

The Vedas are among the oldest sacred texts.[32][33] The Samhitas date to roughly 1700–1100 BCE,[34]

and the "circum-Vedic" texts, as well as the redaction of the Samhitas, date to c. 1000–500 BCE,resulting in a Vedic period, spanning the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BCE, or the Late Bronze Ageand the Iron Age.[35] The Vedic period reaches its peak only after the composition of the mantra texts,with the establishment of the various shakhas all over Northern India which annotated the mantrasamhitas with Brahmana discussions of their meaning, and reaches its end in the age of Buddha andPanini and the rise of the Mahajanapadas (archaeologically, Northern Black Polished Ware). MichaelWitzel gives a time span of c. 1500 to c. 500–400 BCE. Witzel makes special reference to the NearEastern Mitanni material of the 14th century BCE, the only epigraphic record of Indo-Aryancontemporary to the Rigvedic period. He gives 150 BCE (Patañjali) as a terminus ante quem for all VedicSanskrit literature, and 1200 BCE (the early Iron Age) as terminus post quem for the Atharvaveda.[36]

Transmission of texts in the Vedic period was by oral tradition, preserved with precision with the help ofelaborate mnemonic techniques. A literary tradition is traceable in post-Vedic times, after the rise ofBuddhism in the Maurya period,[note 3] perhaps earliest in the Kanva recension of the Yajurveda aboutthe 1st century BCE; however oral tradition of transmission remained active. Witzel suggests thepossibility of written Vedic texts towards the end of 1st millennium BCE.[38] Some scholars such as JackGoody state that "the Vedas are not the product of an oral society", basing this view by comparinginconsistencies in the transmitted versions of literature from various oral societies such as the Greek,Serbia and other cultures, then noting that the Vedic literature is too consistent and vast to have beencomposed and transmitted orally across generations, without being written down.[39] However, addsGoody, the Vedic texts likely involved both a written and oral tradition, calling it a "parallel products of aliterate society".[37][39]

Due to the ephemeral nature of the manuscript material (birch bark or palm leaves), survivingmanuscripts rarely surpass an age of a few hundred years.[40] The Sampurnanand Sanskrit University hasa Rigveda manuscript from the 14th century;[41] however, there are a number of older Veda manuscriptsin Nepal that are dated from the 11th century onwards.[42]

The Vedas, Vedic rituals and its ancillary sciences called the Vedangas, were part of the curriculum atancient universities such as at Taxila, Nalanda and Vikramashila.[43][44][45][46]

The term "Vedic texts" is used in two distinct meanings:

1. Texts composed in Vedic Sanskrit during the Vedic period (Iron Age India)2. Any text considered as "connected to the Vedas" or a "corollary of the Vedas"[47]

The corpus of Vedic Sanskrit texts includes:

Chronology

Ancient universities

Categories of Vedic texts

Vedic Sanskrit corpus

The Samhitas (Sanskrit saṃhitā,"collection"), are collections of metric texts("mantras"). There are four "Vedic"Samhitas: the Rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda, and Atharva-Veda, most of which areavailable in several recensions (śākhā). Insome contexts, the term Veda is used torefer to these Samhitas. This is the oldestlayer of Vedic texts, apart from the Rigvedichymns, which were probably essentiallycomplete by 1200 BCE, dating to c. the 12thto 10th centuries BCE. The complete corpusof Vedic mantras as collected in Bloomfield'sVedic Concordance (1907) consists of some89,000 padas (metrical feet), of which72,000 occur in the four Samhitas.[48]

The Brahmanas are prose texts thatcomment and explain the solemn rituals aswell as expound on their meaning and manyconnected themes. Each of the Brahmanasis associated with one of the Samhitas or its recensions.[49][50] The Brahmanas may eitherform separate texts or can be partly integrated into the text of the Samhitas. They may alsoinclude the Aranyakas and Upanishads.The Aranyakas, "wilderness texts" or "forest treaties", were composed by people whomeditated in the woods as recluses and are the third part of the Vedas. The texts containdiscussions and interpretations of ceremonies, from ritualistic to symbolic meta-ritualisticpoints of view.[51] It is frequently read in secondary literature.Older Mukhya Upanishads (Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chandogya, Kaṭha, Kena, Aitareya, andothers).[52][53]

The Vedas (sruti) are different from Vedic era texts such as Shrauta Sutras and Gryha Sutras, which aresmriti texts. Together, the Vedas and these Sutras form part of the Vedic Sanskrit corpus.[53][54][55]

While production of Brahmanas and Aranyakas ceased with the end of the Vedic period, additionalUpanishads were composed after the end of the Vedic period.[56]

The Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads, among other things, interpret and discuss the Samhitas inphilosophical and metaphorical ways to explore abstract concepts such as the Absolute (Brahman), andthe soul or the self (Atman), introducing Vedanta philosophy, one of the major trends of later Hinduism.In other parts, they show evolution of ideas, such as from actual sacrifice to symbolic sacrifice, and ofspirituality in the Upanishads. This has inspired later Hindu scholars such as Adi Shankara to classifyeach Veda into karma-kanda (कम� ख�ड, action/ritual-related sections) and jnana-kanda (�ान ख�ड,knowledge/spirituality-related sections).[19][57]

The texts considered "Vedic" in the sense of "corollaries of the Vedas" is less clearly defined, and mayinclude numerous post-Vedic texts such as the later Upanishads and the Sutra literature. Texts notconsidered to be shruti are known as smriti (Sanskrit: smṛti; "the remembered"), or texts of rememberedtraditions. This indigenous system of categorization was adopted by Max Müller and, while it is subjectto some debate, it is still widely used. As Axel Michaels explains:[52]

Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari

Shruti literature

These classifications are often not tenable for linguistic and formal reasons: There is notonly one collection at any one time, but rather several handed down in separate Vedicschools; Upanişads ... are sometimes not to be distinguished from Āraṇyakas...; Brāhmaṇascontain older strata of language attributed to the Saṃhitās; there are various dialects andlocally prominent traditions of the Vedic schools. Nevertheless, it is advisable to stick to thedivision adopted by Max Müller because it follows the Indian tradition, conveys thehistorical sequence fairly accurately, and underlies the current editions, translations, andmonographs on Vedic literature."[52]

The Upanishads are largely philosophical works, some in dialogue form. They are the foundation ofHindu philosophical thought and its diverse traditions.[58][59] Of the Vedic corpus, they alone are widelyknown, and the central ideas of the Upanishads are at the spiritual core of Hindus.[58][60]

The four Vedas were transmitted in various śākhās (branches, schools).[61][62] Each school likelyrepresented an ancient community of a particular area, or kingdom.[62] Each school followed its owncanon. Multiple recensions are known for each of the Vedas.[61] Thus, states Witzel as well as Renou, inthe 2nd millennium BCE, there was likely no canon of one broadly accepted Vedic texts, no Vedic“Scripture”, but only a canon of various texts accepted by each school. Some of these texts havesurvived, most lost or yet to be found. Rigveda that survives in modern times, for example, is in only oneextremely well preserved school of Śåkalya, from a region called Videha, in modern north Bihar, south ofNepal.[63] The Vedic canon in its entirety consists of texts from all the various Vedic schools takentogether.[62]

Each of the four Vedas were shared by the numerous schools, but revised, interpolated and adaptedlocally, in and after the Vedic period, giving rise to various recensions of the text. Some texts wererevised into the modern era, raising significant debate on parts of the text which are believed to havebeen corrupted at a later date.[64][65] The Vedas each have an Index or Anukramani, the principal work ofthis kind being the general Index or Sarvānukramaṇī.[66][67]

Prodigious energy was expended by ancient Indian culture in ensuring that these texts were transmittedfrom generation to generation with inordinate fidelity.[68] For example, memorization of the sacred Vedasincluded up to eleven forms of recitation of the same text. The texts were subsequently "proof-read" bycomparing the different recited versions. Forms of recitation included the jaṭā-pāṭha (literally "meshrecitation") in which every two adjacent words in the text were first recited in their original order, thenrepeated in the reverse order, and finally repeated in the original order.[69] That these methods have beeneffective, is attested to by the preservation of the most ancient Indian religious text, the Rigveda, asredacted into a single text during the Brahmana period, without any variant readings within thatschool.[69]

The Vedas were likely written down for the first time around 500 BCE.[70] However, all printed editionsof the Vedas that survive in the modern times are likely the version existing in about the 16th centuryAD.[71]

The canonical division of the Vedas is fourfold (turīya) viz.,[72]

Vedic schools or recensions

Four Vedas

1. Rigveda (RV)2. Yajurveda (YV, with the main division TS vs. VS)3. Samaveda (SV)4. Atharvaveda (AV)

Of these, the first three were the principal original division, also called "trayī vidyā"; that is, "the triplescience" of reciting hymns (Rigveda), performing sacrifices (Yajurveda), and chanting songs(Samaveda).[73][74] The Rigveda is the oldest work, which Witzel states are probably from the period of1900 to 1100 BCE. Witzel, also notes that it is the Vedic period itself, where incipient lists divide theVedic texts into three (trayī) or four branches: Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva.[62]

Each Veda has been subclassified into four major text types – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions),the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies such as newborn baby's rites of passage, coming of age,marriages, retirement and cremation, sacrifices and symbolic sacrifices), the Brahmanas (commentarieson rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (text discussing meditation, philosophy andspiritual knowledge).[15][17][18] The Upasanas (short ritual worship-related sections) are considered bysome scholars[19][20] as the fifth part. Witzel notes that the rituals, rites and ceremonies described in theseancient texts reconstruct to a large degree the Indo-European marriage rituals observed in a regionspanning the Indian subcontinent, Persia and the European area, and some greater details are found in theVedic era texts such as the Grhya Sūtras.[75]

Only one version of the Rigveda is known to have survived into the modern era.[63] Several differentversions of the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda are known, and many different versions of the YajurVeda have been found in different parts of South Asia.[76]

The Rigveda Samhita is the oldest extantIndic text.[78] It is a collection of 1,028 VedicSanskrit hymns and 10,600 verses in all,organized into ten books (Sanskrit:mandalas).[79] The hymns are dedicated toRigvedic deities.[80]

The books were composed by poets fromdifferent priestly groups over a period ofseveral centuries from roughly the secondhalf of the 2nd millennium BCE (the earlyVedic period), starting with the Punjab(Sapta Sindhu) region of the northwestIndian subcontinent.[81] The Rigveda isstructured based on clear principles – theVeda begins with a small book addressed toAgni, Indra, Soma and other gods, all arranged according to decreasing total number of hymns in eachdeity collection; for each deity series, the hymns progress from longer to shorter ones, but the number ofhymns per book increases. Finally, the meter too is systematically arranged from jagati and tristubh toanustubh and gayatri as the text progresses.[62] In terms of substance, the nature of hymns shift from

Rigveda

Nasadiya Sukta (Hymn of non-Eternity):

Who really knows? Who can here proclaim it? Whence, whence this creation sprang? Gods came later, after the creation of this universe.

Who then knows whence it has arisen? Whether God's will created it, or whether He wasmute; Only He who is its overseer in highest heaven knows,

He only knows, or perhaps He does not know.

—Rig Veda 10.129.6–7[77]

praise of deities in early books to Nasadiya Sukta with questions such as, "what is the origin of theuniverse?, do even gods know the answer?",[77] the virtue of Dāna (charity) in society,[82] and othermetaphysical issues in its hymns.[83]

There are similarities between the mythology, rituals and linguistics in Rigveda and those found inancient central Asia, Iranian and Hindukush (Afghanistan) regions.[84]

The Samaveda Samhita[85] consists of 1549 stanzas, taken almost entirely (except for 75 mantras) fromthe Rigveda.[52][86] The Samaveda samhita has two major parts. The first part includes four melodycollections (gāna, गान) and the second part three verse “books” (ārcika, आिच�क).[86] A melody in thesong books corresponds to a verse in the arcika books. Just as in the Rigveda, the early sections ofSamaveda typically begin with hymns to Agni and Indra but shift to the abstract. Their meters shift alsoin a descending order. The songs in the later sections of the Samaveda have the least deviation from thehymns derived from the Rigveda.[86]

In the Samaveda, some of the Rigvedic verses are repeated.[87] Including repetitions, there are a total of1875 verses numbered in the Samaveda recension translated by Griffith.[88] Two major recensions havesurvived, the Kauthuma/Ranayaniya and the Jaiminiya. Its purpose was liturgical, and they were therepertoire of the udgātṛ or "singer" priests.[89]

The Yajurveda Samhita consists of prose mantras.[90] It is a compilation of ritual offering formulas thatwere said by a priest while an individual performed ritual actions such as those before the yajna fire.[90]

The earliest and most ancient layer of Yajurveda samhita includesabout 1,875 verses, that are distinct yet borrow and build uponthe foundation of verses in Rigveda.[91] Unlike the Samavedawhich is almost entirely based on Rigveda mantras and structuredas songs, the Yajurveda samhitas are in prose and linguistically,they are different from earlier Vedic texts.[92] The Yajur Veda hasbeen the primary source of information about sacrifices duringVedic times and associated rituals.[93]

There are two major groups of texts in this Veda: the "Black"(Krishna) and the "White" (Shukla). The term "black" implies "the un-arranged, motley collection" ofverses in Yajurveda, in contrast to the "white" (well arranged) Yajurveda.[94] The White Yajurvedaseparates the Samhita from its Brahmana (the Shatapatha Brahmana), the Black Yajurveda interspersesthe Samhita with Brahmana commentary. Of the Black Yajurveda, texts from four major schools havesurvived (Maitrayani, Katha, Kapisthala-Katha, Taittiriya), while of the White Yajurveda, two (Kanvaand Madhyandina).[95][96] The youngest layer of Yajurveda text is not related to rituals nor sacrifice, itincludes the largest collection of primary Upanishads, influential to various schools of Hinduphilosophy.[97][98]

Samaveda

Yajurveda

A page from the Taittiriya Samhita, alayer of text within the Yajurveda

Atharvaveda

The Artharvaveda Samhita is the text 'belonging to the Atharvan and Angirasa poets. It has about 760hymns, and about 160 of the hymns are in common with the Rigveda.[99] Most of the verses are metrical,but some sections are in prose.[99] Two different versions of the text – the Paippalāda and the Śaunakīya– have survived into the modern times.[99][100] The Atharvaveda was not considered as a Veda in theVedic era, and was accepted as a Veda in late 1st millennium BCE.[101][102] It was compiled last,[103]

probably around 900 BCE, although some of its material may go back to the time of the Rigveda,[104] orearlier.[99]

The Atharvaveda is sometimes called the "Veda of magical formulas",[105] an epithet declared to beincorrect by other scholars.[106] The Samhita layer of the text likely represents a developing 2ndmillennium BCE tradition of magico-religious rites to address superstitious anxiety, spells to removemaladies believed to be caused by demons, and herbs- and nature-derived potions as medicine.[107][108]

The text, states Kenneth Zysk, is one of oldest surviving record of the evolutionary practices in religiousmedicine and reveals the "earliest forms of folk healing of Indo-European antiquity".[109] Many books ofthe Atharvaveda Samhita are dedicated to rituals without magic, such as to philosophical speculationsand to theosophy.[106]

The Atharva veda has been a primary source for information about Vedic culture, the customs andbeliefs, the aspirations and frustrations of everyday Vedic life, as well as those associated with kings andgovernance. The text also includes hymns dealing with the two major rituals of passage – marriage andcremation. The Atharva Veda also dedicates significant portion of the text asking the meaning of aritual.[110]

The Brahmanas are commentaries, explanation of proper methods and meaning of Vedic Samhita ritualsin the four Vedas.[111] They also incorporate myths, legends and in some cases philosophy.[111][50] Eachregional Vedic shakha (school) has its own operating manual-like Brahmana text, most of which have

Embedded Vedic texts

Manuscripts of the Vedas are in the Sanskrit language, but in many regional scripts in addition to theDevanagari. Top: Grantha script (Tamil Nadu), Below: Malayalam script (Kerala).

Brahmanas

been lost.[112] A total of 19 Brahmana texts have survived into modern times: two associated with theRigveda, six with the Yajurveda, ten with the Samaveda and one with the Atharvaveda. The oldest datedto about 900 BCE, while the youngest Brahmanas (such as the Shatapatha Brahmana), were complete byabout 700 BCE.[113][114] According to Jan Gonda, the final codification of the Brahmanas took place inpre-Buddhist times (ca. 600 BCE).[115]

The substance of the Brahmana text varies with each Veda. For example, the first chapter of theChandogya Brahmana, one of the oldest Brahmanas, includes eight ritual suktas (hymns) for theceremony of marriage and rituals at the birth of a child.[116][117] The first hymn is a recitation thataccompanies offering a Yajna oblation to Agni (fire) on the occasion of a marriage, and the hymn praysfor prosperity of the couple getting married.[116][118] The second hymn wishes for their long life, kindrelatives, and a numerous progeny.[116] The third hymn is a mutual marriage pledge, between the brideand groom, by which the two bind themselves to each other. The sixth through last hymns of the firstchapter in Chandogya Brahmana are ritual celebrations on the birth of a child and wishes for health,wealth, and prosperity with a profusion of cows and artha.[116] However, these verses are incompleteexpositions, and their complete context emerges only with the Samhita layer of text.[119]

The Aranyakas layer of the Vedas include rituals, discussion of symbolic meta-rituals, as well asphilosophical speculations.[20][51]

Aranyakas, however, neither are homogeneous in content nor in structure.[51] They are a medley ofinstructions and ideas, and some include chapters of Upanishads within them. Two theories have beenproposed on the origin of the word Aranyakas. One theory holds that these texts were meant to be studiedin a forest, while the other holds that the name came from these being the manuals of allegoricalinterpretation of sacrifices, for those in Vanaprastha (retired, forest-dwelling) stage of their life,according to the historic age-based Ashrama system of human life.[120]

The Upanishads reflect the last composed layer of texts in the Vedas. They are commonly referred to asVedānta, variously interpreted to mean either the "last chapters, parts of the Vedas" or "the object, thehighest purpose of the Veda".[121] The concepts of Brahman (Ultimate Reality) and Ātman (Soul, Self)are central ideas in all the Upanishads,[122][123] and "Know your Ātman" their thematic focus.[123][124]

The Upanishads are the foundation of Hindu philosophical thought and its diverse traditions.[58][125] Ofthe Vedic corpus, they alone are widely known, and the central ideas of the Upanishads have influencedthe diverse traditions of Hinduism.[58][126]

Aranyakas are sometimes identified as karma-kanda (ritualistic section), while the Upanishads areidentified as jnana-kanda (spirituality section).[19][127] In an alternate classification, the early part ofVedas are called Samhitas and the commentary are called the Brahmanas which together are identified asthe ceremonial karma-kanda, while Aranyakas and Upanishads are referred to as the jnana-kanda.[128]

Aranyakas and Upanishads

Post-Vedic literature

Vedanga

The Vedangas developed towards the end of the vedic period, around or after the middle of the 1stmillennium BCE. These auxiliary fields of Vedic studies emerged because the language of the Vedas,composed centuries earlier, became too archaic to the people of that time.[129] The Vedangas weresciences that focused on helping understand and interpret the Vedas that had been composed manycenturies earlier.[129]

The six subjects of Vedanga are phonetics (Śikṣā), poetic meter (Chandas), grammar (Vyākaraṇa),etymology and linguistics (Nirukta), rituals and rites of passage (Kalpa), time keeping and astronomy(Jyotiṣa).[130][131][132]

Vedangas developed as ancillary studies for the Vedas, but its insights into meters, structure of sound andlanguage, grammar, linguistic analysis and other subjects influenced post-Vedic studies, arts, culture andvarious schools of Hindu philosophy.[133][134][135] The Kalpa Vedanga studies, for example, gave rise tothe Dharma-sutras, which later expanded into Dharma-shastras.[129][136]

Pariśiṣṭa "supplement, appendix" is the term applied to various ancillary works of Vedic literature,dealing mainly with details of ritual and elaborations of the texts logically and chronologically prior tothem: the Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Sutras. Naturally classified with the Veda to which eachpertains, Parisista works exist for each of the four Vedas. However, only the literature associated with theAtharvaveda is extensive.

The Āśvalāyana Gṛhya Pariśiṣṭa is a very late text associated with the Rigveda canon.The Gobhila Gṛhya Pariśiṣṭa is a short metrical text of two chapters, with 113 and 95 versesrespectively.The Kātiya Pariśiṣṭas, ascribed to Kātyāyana, consist of 18 works enumerated self-referentially in the fifth of the series (the Caraṇavyūha) and the Kātyāyana Śrauta SūtraPariśiṣṭa.The Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda has 3 parisistas The Āpastamba Hautra Pariśiṣṭa, which is also foundas the second praśna of the Satyasāḍha Śrauta Sūtra', the Vārāha Śrauta Sūtra PariśiṣṭaFor the Atharvaveda, there are 79 works, collected as 72 distinctly named parisistas.[137]

The term upaveda ("applied knowledge") is used in traditional literature to designate the subjects ofcertain technical works.[138][139] Lists of what subjects are included in this class differ among sources.The Charanavyuha mentions four Upavedas:[140]

Archery (Dhanurveda), associated with the YajurvedaArchitecture (Sthapatyaveda), associated with the RigVeda.Music and sacred dance (Gāndharvaveda), associated with the SamavedaMedicine (Āyurveda), associated with the Atharvaveda.[141][142]

Parisista

Upaveda

"Fifth" and other Vedas

Some post-Vedic texts, including the Mahabharata, the Natyasastra[143] and certain Puranas, refer tothemselves as the "fifth Veda".[144] The earliest reference to such a "fifth Veda" is found in theChandogya Upanishad in hymn 7.1.2.[145]

Let drama and dance (Nātya, ना�य) be the fifth vedic scripture. Combined with an epicstory, tending to virtue, wealth, joy and spiritual freedom, it must contain the significance ofevery scripture, and forward every art. Thus, from all the Vedas, Brahma framed the NātyaVeda. From the Rig Veda he drew forth the words, from the Sama Veda the melody, from theYajur Veda gesture, and from the Atharva Veda the sentiment.

— First chapter of Nātyaśāstra, Abhinaya Darpana [146][147]

"Divya Prabandha", for example Tiruvaymoli, is a term for canonical Tamil texts considered asVernacular Veda by some South Indian Hindus.[30][31]

Other texts such as the Bhagavad Gita or the Vedanta Sutras are considered shruti or "Vedic" by someHindu denominations but not universally within Hinduism. The Bhakti movement, and GaudiyaVaishnavism in particular extended the term veda to include the Sanskrit Epics and Vaishnavitedevotional texts such as the Pancaratra.[148]

The Puranas is a vast genre of encyclopedic Indian literature about a wide range of topics particularlymyths, legends and other traditional lore.[149] Several of these texts are named after major Hindu deitiessuch as Vishnu, Shiva and Devi.[150][151] There are 18 Maha Puranas (Great Puranas) and 18 UpaPuranas (Minor Puranas), with over 400,000 verses.[149]

The Puranas have been influential in the Hindu culture.[152][153] They are considered Vaidika (congruentwith Vedic literature).[154] The Bhagavata Purana has been among the most celebrated and popular text inthe Puranic genre, and is of non-dualistic tenor.[155][156] The Puranic literature wove with the Bhaktimovement in India, and both Dvaita and Advaita scholars have commented on the underlying Vedantathemes in the Maha Puranas.[157]

The study of Sanskrit in the West began in the 17th century. In the early 19th century, ArthurSchopenhauer drew attention to Vedic texts, specifically the Upanishads. The importance of VedicSanskrit for Indo-European studies was also recognized in the early 19th century. English translations ofthe Samhitas were published in the later 19th century, in the Sacred Books of the East series edited byMüller between 1879 and 1910.[158] Ralph T. H. Griffith also presented English translations of the fourSamhitas, published 1889 to 1899.

Voltaire regarded Vedas to be exceptional, he remarked that:

The Veda was the most precious gift for which the West had ever been indebted to theEast.[159][160]

Puranas

Western Indology

Rigveda manuscripts were selected for inscription in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in2007.[161]

Hindu philosophyHistorical Vedic religionPyramid TextsShakhaVedic chant

1. "As a skilled craftsman makes a car, a singer I, Mighty One! this hymn for thee havefashioned. If thou, O Agni, God, accept it gladly, may we obtain thereby the heavenlyWaters". – Rigveda 5.2.11, Translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith[12]

2. Elisa Freschi (2012): The Vedas are not deontic authorities in absolute sense and may bedisobeyed, but are recognized as a deontological epistemic authority by a Hindu orthodoxschool;[21] (Note: This differentiation between epistemic and deontic authority is true for allIndian religions)

3. The early Buddhist texts are also generally believed to be of oral tradition, with the first PaliCanon written many centuries after the death of the Buddha.[37]

1. "Veda" (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/veda). Random House Webster's UnabridgedDictionary.

2. see e.g. Radhakrishnan & Moore 1957, p. 3; Witzel, Michael, "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in:Flood 2003, p. 68; MacDonell 2004, pp. 29–39; Sanskrit literature (2003) in Philip'sEncyclopedia. Accessed 2007-08-09

3. Sanujit Ghose (2011). "Religious Developments in Ancient India (http://www.ancient.eu.com/article/230/)" in Ancient History Encyclopedia.

4. Vaman Shivaram Apte, The Practical Sanskrit–English Dictionary (http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/~tjun/sktdic/), see apauruSeya

5. D Sharma, Classical Indian Philosophy: A Reader, Columbia University Press, pp. 196–1976. Jan Westerhoff (2009), Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction, Oxford

University Press, ISBN 978-0195384963, p. 2907. Warren Lee Todd (2013), The Ethics of Śaṅkara and Śāntideva: A Selfless Response to an

Illusory World, ISBN 978-1409466819, p. 1288. Apte 1965, p. 8879. Sheldon Pollock (2011), Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia

(Editor: Federico Squarcini), Anthem, ISBN 978-0857284303, pp. 41–5810. Hartmut Scharfe (2002), Handbook of Oriental Studies, Brill Academic, ISBN 978-

9004125568, pp. 13–1411. Seer of the Fifth Veda: Krṣ̥ṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa in the Mahābhārata (https://books.google.

com/books?id=8XO3Im3OMi8C&pg=PA86&dq=brahma+created+vedas&hl=en&sa=X&ei=W_MZUt71GMXJrAecvoCoCg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false) Bruce M.Sullivan, Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 85–86

See also

Notes

References

12. "The Rig Veda/Mandala 5/Hymn 2" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_5/Hymn_2).

13. Holdrege, Barbara A. (2012). Veda and Torah: Transcending the Textuality of Scripture.SUNY Press. pp. 249, 250. ISBN 9781438406954.

14. Dalal, Roshen (15 April 2014). The Vedas: An Introduction to Hinduism's Sacred Texts (https://books.google.com/?id=UCEoAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT16&dq=vyasa+veda+samhita#v=onepage&q=vyasa%20veda%20samhita&f=false). Penguin UK. ISBN 9788184757637.

15. Gavin Flood (1996), An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521438780, pp. 35–39

16. Bloomfield, M. The Atharvaveda and the Gopatha-Brahmana, (Grundriss der Indo-ArischenPhilologie und Altertumskunde II.1.b.) Strassburg 1899; Gonda, J. A history of Indianliterature: I.1 Vedic literature (Samhitas and Brahmanas); I.2 The Ritual Sutras. Wiesbaden1975, 1977

17. A Bhattacharya (2006), Hindu Dharma: Introduction to Scriptures and Theology, ISBN 978-0595384556, pp. 8–14; George M. Williams (2003), Handbook of Hindu Mythology, OxfordUniversity Press, ISBN 978-0195332612, p. 285

18. Jan Gonda (1975), Vedic Literature: (Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas), Otto Harrassowitz Verlag,ISBN 978-3447016032

19. A Bhattacharya (2006), Hindu Dharma: Introduction to Scriptures and Theology, ISBN 978-0595384556, pp. 8–14

20. Barbara A. Holdrege (1995), Veda and Torah: Transcending the Textuality of Scripture,State University of New York Press, ISBN 978-0791416402, pp. 351–357

21. Elisa Freschi (2012), Duty, Language and Exegesis in Prabhakara Mimamsa, Brill,ISBN 978-9004222601, p. 62

22. Flood 1996, p. 8223. "astika" (http://www.britannica.com/topic/astika) and "nastika" (http://www.britannica.com/to

pic/nastika). Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 20 Apr. 201624. Monier-Williams 2006, p. 1015; Apte 1965, p. 85625. see e.g. Pokorny's 1959 Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch s.v. u̯(e)id-²; Rix'

Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, u̯eid̯-.26. Monier-Williams, Monier (1899). A Sanskrit-English dictionary : etymologically and

philologically arranged with special reference to cognate Indo-European languages (http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MWScan/2014/web/index.php). Oxford: ClarendonPress., p. 1015 (http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/1000/mw__1048.html)

27. Monier-Williams, Monier (1899). A Sanskrit-English dictionary : etymologically andphilologically arranged with special reference to cognate Indo-European languages (http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MWScan/2014/web/index.php). Oxford: ClarendonPress., p. 1017 (2nd Column) (http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/1000/mw__1050.html)

28. Monier-Williams, Monier (1899). A Sanskrit-English dictionary : etymologically andphilologically arranged with special reference to cognate Indo-European languages (http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MWScan/2014/web/index.php). Oxford: ClarendonPress., p. 1017 (3rd Column) (http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/1000/mw__1050.html)

29. Vasudha Narayanan (1994), The Vernacular Veda: Revelation, Recitation, and Ritual,University of South Carolina Press, ISBN 978-0872499652, p. 194

30. John Carman (1989), The Tamil Veda: Pillan's Interpretation of the Tiruvaymoli, University ofChicago Press, ISBN 978-0226093055, pp. 259–261

31. Vasudha Narayanan (1994), The Vernacular Veda: Revelation, Recitation, and Ritual,University of South Carolina Press, ISBN 978-0872499652, pp. 43, 117–119

32. Sagarika Dutt (2006). India in a Globalized World (https://books.google.com/books?id=I4zaCQAAQBAJ). Manchester University Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-84779-607-3.

33. Gabriel J. Gomes (2012). Discovering World Religions (https://books.google.com/books?id=NpnZgzMKiS8C). iUniverse. p. 54. ISBN 978-1-4697-1037-2.

34. Lucas F. Johnston, Whitney Bauman (2014). Science and Religion: One Planet, ManyPossibilities. Routledge. p. 179.

35. Gavin Flood sums up mainstream estimates, according to which the Rigveda was compiledfrom as early as 1500 BCE over a period of several centuries. Flood 1996, p. 37

36. Witzel, Michael, "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in: Flood 2003, p. 6837. Donald S. Lopez Jr. (1995). "Authority and Orality in the Mahāyāna" (https://deepblue.lib.um

ich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43799/1/11076_1995_Article_1568527952598800.pdf) (PDF).Numen. 42 (1): 21–47. doi:10.1163/1568527952598800 (https://doi.org/10.1163%2F1568527952598800). hdl:2027.42/43799 (https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42%2F43799).JSTOR 3270278 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3270278).

38. Witzel, Michael, "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in: Flood 2003, p. 69; For oral composition andoral transmission for "many hundreds of years" before being written down, see: Avari 2007,p. 76.

39. Jack Goody (1987). The Interface Between the Written and the Oral (https://books.google.com/books?id=TepXQMN6lfUC). Cambridge University Press. pp. 110–121. ISBN 978-0-521-33794-6.

40. Brodd, Jeffrey (2003), World Religions, Winona, MN: Saint Mary's Press, ISBN 978-0-88489-725-5

41. Jamison, Stephanie W.; Brereton, Joel P. (2014). The Rigveda (https://books.google.com/books?id=fgzVAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18). vol. 1. Oxford University Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-19-972078-1.

42. "Cultural Heritage of Nepal" (https://web.archive.org/web/20140918022828/http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/about_ngmpp_e.html). Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project.University of Hamburg. Archived from the original (http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/about_ngmpp_e.html) on 18 September 2014. Retrieved 4 November 2014.

43. Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Jr., Donald S. (2013). The Princeton dictionary of Buddhism.Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400848058. Entry on "Nālandā".

44. Frazier, Jessica, ed. (2011). The Continuum companion to Hindu studies. London:Continuum. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-8264-9966-0.

45. Walton, Linda (2015). "Educational institutions" in The Cambridge World History Vol. 5.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-521-19074-9.

46. Sukumar Dutt (1988) [First published in 1962]. Buddhist Monks And Monasteries of India:Their History And Contribution To Indian Culture. George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London.ISBN 81-208-0498-8. pp. 332–333

47. according to ISKCON, Hindu Sacred Texts (http://hinduism.iskcon.com/tradition/1105.htm),"Hindus themselves often use the term to describe anything connected to the Vedas andtheir corollaries (e.g. Vedic culture)".

48. 37,575 are Rigvedic. Of the remaining, 34,857 appear in the other three Samhitas, and16,405 are known only from Brahmanas, Upanishads or Sutras

49. Klaus Klostermaier (1994), A Survey of Hinduism, Second Edition, State University of NewYork Press, ISBN 978-0791421093, pp. 67–69

50. Brahmana (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/77126/Brahmana) EncyclopædiaBritannica (2013)

51. Jan Gonda (1975), Vedic Literature: (Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas), Otto Harrassowitz Verlag,ISBN 978-3447016032, pp. 424–426

52. Michaels 2004, p. 51.

53. Witzel, Michael, "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in: Flood 2003, p. 69.54. For a table of all Vedic texts see Witzel, Michael, "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in: Flood 2003,

pp. 100–101.55. The Vedic Sanskrit corpus is incorporated in A Vedic Word Concordance (Vaidika-

Padānukrama-Koṣa) prepared from 1930 under Vishva Bandhu, and published in fivevolumes in 1935–1965. Its scope extends to about 400 texts, including the entire VedicSanskrit corpus besides some "sub-Vedic" texts. Volume I: Samhitas, Volume II: Brahmanasand Aranyakas, Volume III: Upanishads, Volume IV: Vedangas; A revised edition, extendingto about 1800 pages, was published in 1973–1976.

56. Flood 2003, pp. 100–10157. Edward Roer (Translator), Shankara's Introduction (https://books.google.com/books?id=3uw

DAAAAMAAJ) at Google Books to Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad at pp. 1–5; Quote: "TheVedas are divided in two parts, the first is the karma-kanda, the ceremonial part, also(called) purva-kanda, and treats on ceremonies; the second part is the jnana kanda, thepart which contains knowledge, also named uttara-kanda or posterior part, and unfolds theknowledge of Brahma or the universal soul."

58. Wendy Doniger (1990), Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism, 1st Edition, University ofChicago Press, ISBN 978-0226618470, pp. 2–3; Quote: "The Upanishads supply the basisof later Hindu philosophy; they alone of the Vedic corpus are widely known and quoted bymost well-educated Hindus, and their central ideas have also become a part of the spiritualarsenal of rank-and-file Hindus."

59. Wiman Dissanayake (1993), Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice (Editors: Thomas P.Kasulis et al.), State University of New York Press, ISBN 978-0791410806, p. 39; Quote:"The Upanishads form the foundations of Hindu philosophical thought and the central themeof the Upanishads is the identity of Atman and Brahman, or the inner self and the cosmicself."; Michael McDowell and Nathan Brown (2009), World Religions, Penguin, ISBN 978-1592578467, pp. 208–210

60. Patrick Olivelle (2014), The Early Upanisads, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195352429, p. 3; Quote: "Even though theoretically the whole of vedic corpus is acceptedas revealed truth [shruti], in reality it is the Upanishads that have continued to influence thelife and thought of the various religious traditions that we have come to call Hindu.Upanishads are the scriptures par excellence of Hinduism".

61. Flood 1996, p. 39.62. Witzel, M., "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and Political

Milieu (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/canon.pdf)", Harvard University, in Witzel1997, pp. 261–264

63. Jamison and Witzel (1992), Vedic Hinduism (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/vedica.pdf), Harvard University, p. 6

64. J. Muir (1868), Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and History of the People of India –their religion and institutions (https://books.google.com/books?id=HRYAAAAAYAAJ) atGoogle Books, 2nd Edition, p. 12

65. Albert Friedrich Weber, Indische Studien, herausg. von (https://books.google.com/books?id=Bi8JAAAAQAAJ) at Google Books, Vol. 10, pp. 1–9 with footnotes (in German); For atranslation, Original Sanskrit Texts (https://books.google.com/books?id=HRYAAAAAYAAJ)at Google Books, p. 14

66. For an example, see Sarvānukramaṇī Vivaraṇa (http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/medren/3178027) Univ of Pennsylvania rare texts collection

67. R̥gveda-sarvānukramaṇī Śaunakakrt̥āʼnuvākānukramaṇī ca, Maharṣi-Kātyayāna-viracitā,OCLC 11549595 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11549595)

68. (Staal 1986)

69. (Filliozat 2004, p. 139)70. Avari 2007, pp. 69–7071. Michael Witzel, "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in: Flood 2003, p. 69, Quote: "... almost all printed

editions depend on the late manuscripts that are hardly older than 500 years"72. Radhakrishnan & Moore 1957, p. 3; Witzel, Michael, "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in: Flood

2003, p. 6873. Witzel, M., "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and Political

Milieu (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/canon.pdf)" in Witzel 1997, pp. 257–34874. MacDonell 2004, pp. 29–3975. Jamison and Witzel (1992), Vedic Hinduism (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/vedi

ca.pdf), Harvard University, p. 2176. Witzel, M., "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and Political

Milieu (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/canon.pdf)" in Witzel 1997, p. 28677.

Original Sanskrit: Rigveda 10.129 (https://sa.wikisource.org/wiki/ऋ�वेद:_सू�तं_१०.१२९)Wikisource;Translation 1: Max Müller (1859). A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (https://archive.org/stream/historyofancient00mluoft#page/564/mode/2up). Williams and Norgate,London. pp. 559–565.Translation 2: Kenneth Kramer (1986). World Scriptures: An Introduction to ComparativeReligions. Paulist Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-8091-2781-8.Translation 3: David Christian (2011). Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History.University of California Press. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0-520-95067-2.

78. see e.g. Avari 2007, p. 77.79. For 1,028 hymns and 10,600 verses and division into ten mandalas, see: Avari 2007, p. 77.80. For characterization of content and mentions of deities including Agni, Indra, Varuna, Soma,

Surya, etc. see: Avari 2007, p. 77.81. see e.g. Avari 2007, p. 77 Max Müller gave 1700–1100 BCE, Michael Witzel gives 1450–

1350 BCE as terminus ad quem.82. Original text translated in English: The Rig Veda, Mandala 10, Hymn 117, Ralph T.H. Griffith

(Translator); C Chatterjee (1995), Values in the Indian Ethos: An Overview (http://jhv.sagepub.com/content/1/1/3.short), Journal of Human Values, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 3–12

83. For example, Hymn 1.164.34, "What is the ultimate limit of the earth?", "What is the center of theuniverse?", "What is the semen of the cosmic horse?", "What is the ultimate sourceof human speech?" Hymn 1.164.34, "Who gave blood, soul, spirit to the earth?", "How could theunstructured universe give origin to this structured world?" Hymn 1.164.5, "Where does the sun hide in the night?", "Where do gods live?" Hymn 1.164.6, "What, where is the unborn support for the born universe?"; Hymn 1.164.20 (a hymn that is widely cited in the Upanishads as the parable of the Bodyand the Soul): "Two birds with fair wings, inseparable companions; Have found refuge in thesame sheltering tree. One incessantly eats from the fig tree; the other, not eating, just lookson."; Sources: (a) Antonio de Nicholas (2003), Meditations Through the Rig Veda: Four-Dimensional Man, ISBN 978-0595269259, pp. 64–69; Jan Gonda, A History of Indian Literature: Veda and Upanishads, Volume 1, Part 1, OttoHarrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 978-3447016032, pp. 134–135; Rigveda Book 1, Hymn 164 Wikisource

84. Michael Witzel, The Rigvedic religious system and its central Asian and Hindukushantecedents (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~rnoyer/courses/51/Witzel2002.pdf), in The Vedas– Texts, Language and Ritual, Editors: Griffiths and Houben (2004), Brill Academic,ISBN 978-9069801490, pp. 581–627

85. (from sāman, the term for a melody applied to a metrical hymn or a song of praise, Apte1965, p. 981.

86. Witzel, M., "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and PoliticalMilieu (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/canon.pdf)" in Witzel 1997, pp. 269–270

87. M Bloomfield, Rig-veda Repetitions (https://books.google.com/books?id=DigYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA402), p. 402, at Google Books, pp. 402–464

88. For 1875 total verses, see the numbering given in Ralph T. H. Griffith. Griffith's introductionmentions the recension history for his text. Repetitions may be found by consulting thecross-index in Griffith pp. 491–499.

89. Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus (2011), Sound and Communication: An Aesthetic CulturalHistory of Sanskrit Hinduism, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3110181593, p. 381

90. Michael Witzel (2003), "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism(Editor: Gavin Flood), Blackwell, ISBN 0-631215352, pp. 76–77

91. Antonio de Nicholas (2003), Meditations Through the Rig Veda: Four-Dimensional Man,ISBN 978-0595269259, pp. 273–274

92. Witzel, M., "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and PoliticalMilieu (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/canon.pdf)" in Witzel 1997, pp. 270–271

93. Witzel, M., "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and PoliticalMilieu (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/canon.pdf)" in Witzel 1997, pp. 272–274

94. Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120814684, pp. 217–219

95. Michaels 2004, p. 52 Table 396. CL Prabhakar (1972), The Recensions of the Sukla Yajurveda, Archív Orientální, Volume

40, Issue 1, pp. 347–35397. Paul Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads (https://archive.org/stream/philosophyofu

pan00deus#page/22/mode/2up), Motilal Banarsidass (2011 Edition), ISBN 978-8120816206, p. 23

98. Patrick Olivelle (1998), Upaniṣhads, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-282292-6, pp. 1–17

99. Michaels 2004, p. 56.100. Frits Staal (2009), Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights, Penguin,

ISBN 978-0143099864, pp. 136–137101. Frits Staal (2009), Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights, Penguin,

ISBN 978-0143099864, p. 135102. Alex Wayman (1997), Untying the Knots in Buddhism, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-

8120813212, pp. 52–53103. "The latest of the four Vedas, the Atharva-Veda, is, as we have seen, largely composed of

magical texts and charms, but here and there we find cosmological hymns which anticipatethe Upanishads, – hymns to Skambha, the 'Support', who is seen as the first principle whichis both the material and efficient cause of the universe, to Prāna, the 'Breath of Life', to Vāc,the 'Word', and so on." Zaehner 1966, p. vii.

104. Flood 1996, p. 37.105. Laurie Patton (2004), Veda and Upanishad, in The Hindu World (Editors: Sushil Mittal and

Gene Thursby), Routledge, ISBN 0-415215277, p. 38

106. Jan Gonda (1975), Vedic Literature: Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas, Vol 1, Fasc. 1, OttoHarrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 978-3447016032, pp. 277–280, Quote: "It would be incorrect todescribe the Atharvaveda Samhita as a collection of magical formulas".

107. Kenneth Zysk (2012), Understanding Mantras (Editor: Harvey Alper), Motilal Banarsidass,ISBN 978-8120807464, pp. 123–129

108. On magic spells and charms, such as those to gain better health: Atharva Veda 2.32Bhaishagykni, Charm to secure perfect health (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe42/av064.htm) Maurice Bloomfield (Translator), Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 42, Oxford UniversityPress; see also chapters 3.11, 3.31, 4.10, 5.30, 19.26; On finding a good husband: Atharva Veda 4.2.36 Strijaratani (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe42/av102.htm) Maurice Bloomfield (Translator), Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 42,Oxford University Press; Atharvaveda dedicates over 30 chapters to love relationships,sexuality and for conceiving a child, see e.g. chapters 1.14, 2.30, 3.25, 6.60, 6.78, 6.82,6.130–6.132; On peaceful social and family relationships: Atharva Veda 6.3.30 (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe42/av153.htm) Maurice Bloomfield (Translator), Sacred Books ofthe East, Vol. 42, Oxford University Press;

109. Kenneth Zysk (1993), Religious Medicine: The History and Evolution of Indian Medicine,Routledge, ISBN 978-1560000761, pp. x–xii

110. Witzel, M., "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and PoliticalMilieu (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/canon.pdf)" in Witzel 1997, pp. 275–276

111. Klaus Klostermaier (1994), A Survey of Hinduism, Second Edition, State University of NewYork Press, ISBN 978-0791421093, pp. 67–69

112. Moriz Winternitz (2010), A History of Indian Literature, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass,ISBN 978-8120802643, pp. 175–176

113. Michael Witzel, "Tracing the Vedic dialects" in Dialectes dans les litteratures Indo-Aryennesed. Caillat, Paris, 1989, 97–265.

114. Biswas et al (1989), Cosmic Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521343541, pp. 42–43

115. Klaus Klostermaier (1994), A Survey of Hinduism, Second Edition, State University of NewYork Press, ISBN 978-0791421093, p. 67

116. Max Müller, Chandogya Upanishad (https://archive.org/stream/upanishads01ml#page/n93/mode/2up), The Upanishads, Part I, Oxford University Press, p. lxxxvii with footnote 2

117. Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120814684, p. 63

118. The Development of the Female Mind in India (https://books.google.com/books?id=sqqgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA27), p. 27, at Google Books, The Calcutta Review, Volume 60, p. 27

119. Jan Gonda (1975), Vedic Literature: (Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas), Otto Harrassowitz Verlag,ISBN 978-3447016032, pp. 319–322, 368–383 with footnotes

120. AB Keith (2007), The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads, MotilalBanarsidass, ISBN 978-8120806443, pp. 489–490

121. Max Müller, The Upanishads (https://archive.org/stream/upanishads01ml#page/n93/mode/2up), Part 1, Oxford University Press, p. lxxxvi footnote 1

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125. Wiman Dissanayake (1993), Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice (Editors: Thomas P.Kasulis et al), State University of New York Press, ISBN 978-0791410806, p. 39; Quote:"The Upanishads form the foundations of Hindu philosophical thought and the central themeof the Upanishads is the identity of Atman and Brahman, or the inner self and the cosmicself."; Michael McDowell and Nathan Brown (2009), World Religions, Penguin, ISBN 978-1592578467, pp. 208–210

126. Patrick Olivelle (2014), The Early Upanisads, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195352429, p. 3; Quote: "Even though theoretically the whole of vedic corpus is acceptedas revealed truth [shruti], in reality it is the Upanishads that have continued to influence thelife and thought of the various religious traditions that we have come to call Hindu.Upanishads are the scriptures par excellence of Hinduism".

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161. "Rig Veda in UNESCO Memory of the World Register" (http://hinduism.about.com/od/scripturesepics/a/rigveda.htm).

Bibliography

5. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-81-208-0426-5.Filliozat, Pierre-Sylvain (2004), "Ancient Sanskrit Mathematics: An Oral Tradition and aWritten Literature" (http://www.springerlink.com/content/x0000788497q4858/), in Chemla,Karine; Cohen, Robert S.; Renn, Jürgen; et al. (eds.), History of Science, History of Text(Boston Series in the Philosophy of Science), Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands,ISBN 9781402023200Flood, Gavin (1996), An Introduction to Hinduism (https://archive.org/details/introductiontohi0000floo), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-43878-0Flood, Gavin, ed. (2003), The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, Malden, Massachusetts:Blackwell, ISBN 978-1-4051-3251-0Holdrege, Barbara A. (1995). Veda and Torah. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-1639-6.MacDonell, Arthur Anthony (1900), A History of Sanskrit Literature (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_History_of_Sanskrit_Literature), New York: D. Appleton and Co, OCLC 713426994(https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/713426994) (full text online (http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009657393))Mahadevan, T.M.P (1952), Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan; Ardeshir Ruttonji Wadia; DhirendraMohan Datta (eds.), History of Philosophy, Eastern and Western, George Allen & Unwin,OCLC 929704391 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/929704391)Michaels, Axel (2004), Hinduism: Past and Present, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-08953-9Monier-Williams, Monier, ed. (1851), Dictionary, English and Sanskrit (http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MWEScan/2013/web/index.php), London: Honourable East-IndiaCompany, OCLC 5333096 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5333096) (reprinted 2006 asISBN 1-881338-58-4)Muir, John (1861). Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and Progress of the Religion andInstitutions of India (https://books.google.com/?id=_VCXTBk-PtoC). Williams and Norgate.Müller, Max (1891). Chips from a German Workshop (https://books.google.com/?id=J8Zo_rtoWAEC). New York: C. Scribner's sons..Patrick Olivelle (1999). Dharmasutras: The Law Codes of Ancient India (https://books.google.com/books?id=gnVxqvPg9a0C). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-283882-7.Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Moore, Charles A., eds. (1957), A Sourcebook in IndianPhilosophy (https://archive.org/details/sourcebookinindi00radh) (12th Princeton Paperbacked.), Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-01958-1Staal, Frits (1986), The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science, Mededelingender Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie von Wetenschappen, North Holland PublishingCompanySmith, Brian K. (1992), "Canonical Authority and Social Classification: Veda and 'Varṇa' inAncient Indian Texts", History of Religions, 32 (2): 103–125, doi:10.1086/463320 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F463320), JSTOR 1062753 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1062753)Sullivan, B. M. (Summer 1994), "The Religious Authority of the Mahabharata: Vyasa andBrahma in the Hindu Scriptural Tradition", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 62(1): 377–401, doi:10.1093/jaarel/LXII.2.377 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fjaarel%2FLXII.2.377)Annette Wilke; Oliver Moebus (2011). Sound and Communication: An Aesthetic CulturalHistory of Sanskrit Hinduism (https://books.google.com/books?id=KZCMe67IGPkC). Walterde Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-018159-3.Witzel, Michael (ed.) (1997), Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts: New Approaches to theStudy of the Vedas, Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora; vol. 2, Cambridge: HarvardUniversity PressZaehner, R. C. (1966), Hindu Scriptures, Everyman's Library, London: J. M. Dent

Overviews

J. Gonda, Vedic Literature: Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas, A History of Indian literature. Vol. 1,Veda and Upanishads, Wiesnaden: Harrassowitz (1975), ISBN 978-3-447-01603-2.J.A. Santucci, An Outline of Vedic Literature, Scholars Press for the American Academy ofReligion, (1976).S. Shrava, A Comprehensive History of Vedic Literature – Brahmana and Aranyaka Works,Pranava Prakashan (1977).

Concordances

M. Bloomfield, A Vedic Concordance (1907)Vishva Bandhu, Bhim Dev, S. Bhaskaran Nair (eds.), Vaidika-Padānukrama-Koṣa: A VedicWord-Concordance, Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute, Hoshiarpur, 1963–1965,revised edition 1973–1976.

Conference proceedings

Griffiths, Arlo and Houben, Jan E.M. (eds.), The Vedas : texts, language & ritual:proceedings of the Third International Vedic Workshop, Leiden 2002, Groningen OrientalStudies 20, Groningen : Forsten, (2004), ISBN 90-6980-149-3.

Sketch of the Historical Grammar of the Rig and Atharva Vedas (https://www.jstor.org/stable/592303), Edward Vernon Arnold, Journal of the American Oriental SocietyOn the History and the Present State of Vedic Tradition in Nepal (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/Veda.in.Nepal.pdf), Michael WitzelGRETIL etexts (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/gretil.htm#Veda)A Vedic Concordance (https://archive.org/stream/vedicconcordance00bloouoft#page/n7/mode/2up), Maurice Bloomfield, Harvard University (an alphabetic index to every line, everystanza of the Vedas published before 1906)An Enlarged Electronic Version of Bloomfield's A Vedic Concordance (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/VedicConcordance/ReadmeEng.html), Harvard UniversityThe Vedas at sacred-texts.com (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/index.htm#vedas)

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VedantaVedanta (/vɪˈdɑːntə/; Sanskrit: वेदा�त, IAST: Vedānta) or Uttara Mīmāṃsā is the most prominent ofthe six (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. Literally meaning "end of the Vedas", Vedanta reflects ideasthat emerged from the speculations and philosophies contained in the Upanishads, specifically,knowledge and liberation. Vedanta contains many sub-traditions, ranging from dualism to non-dualism,all of which developed on the basis of a common textual connection called the Prasthanatrayi: theUpanishads, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita.

All Vedanta schools, in their deliberations, concern themselves but differ in their views regardingontology, soteriology and epistemology.

Some of the better known sub-traditions of Vedanta include:

1. Advaita Darshana - established by Shankaracharya (788-820 CE)2. Vishishtadvaita Darshana - established by Ramanujacharya (1017-1137 CE)3. Dvaita Darshana - established by Madhvacharya (1238-1317 CE)4. Bhedabhed (or Dvaitadvait) Darshana - established by Nimbarkacharya5. Shuddhadvait Darshana - established by Vallabhacharya (1479-1531 CE)6. Achintyabhedabhed Darshana - established by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1534 CE)7. Akshar-Purushottam Darshana - established by Swaminarayan (1781-1830 CE)

Etymology and nomenclaturePrasthanatrayi, the Three SourcesHistory

Before the Brahma SutrasBrahma SutrasBetween the Brahma Sutras and Adi ShankaraGaudapada, Adi Shankara and Advaita VedantaRamanuja and Vishishtadvaita VedantaMadhva and DvaitaSwaminarayan and Akshar-Purushottam Darshan

Overview of the schools of VedantaSchools propounding Non-dualismSchool propounding Dualism - DvaitaSchools propounding Bhedabheda

Vedanta philosophyCommon featuresMetaphysics

Contents

Epistemology

InfluenceHindu traditionsNeo-VedantaInfluence on Western thinkers

ReceptionSimilarities with Spinoza's philosophySee alsoNotesReferencesSources

Published sourcesWeb-sources

Further readingExternal links

The word Vedanta literally means the end of the Vedas and originally referred to the Upanishads.[1]

Vedanta was concerned with the jñānakāṇḍa or Vedic knowledge part called the Upanishads.[2] Thedenotation of Vedanta subsequently widened to include the various philosophical traditions based on tothe Prasthanatrayi.[3]

The Upanishads may be regarded as the end of Vedas in different senses:[4]

1. These were the last literary products of the Vedic period.2. These mark the culmination of Vedic thought.3. These were taught and debated last, in the Brahmacharya (student) stage.[5]

Vedanta is one of the six orthodox (āstika) schools of Indian philosophy.[6] It is also called UttaraMīmāṃsā, the 'latter enquiry' or 'higher enquiry'; and is often contrasted with Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, the'former enquiry' or 'primary enquiry'. Pūrva Mīmāṃsā deals with the karmakāṇḍa or rituals part (theSamhita and Brahmanas) in the Vedas.[7][8][note 1]

The Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras constitute the basis of Vedanta. All schoolsof Vedanta propound their philosophy by interpreting these texts, collectively called the Prasthanatrayi,literally, three sources.[10]

1. The Upanishads,[note 2] or Śruti prasthāna; considered the Sruti, the “heard” (and repeated)foundation of Vedanta.

2. The Brahma Sutras, or Nyaya prasthana / Yukti prasthana; considered the reason-basedfoundation of Vedanta.

3. The Bhagavad Gita, or Smriti prasthāna; considered the Smriti (remembered tradition)foundation of Vedanta.

Etymology and nomenclature

Prasthanatrayi, the Three Sources

The Brahma Sutras attempted to synthesize the teachings of the Upanishads. The diversity in theteaching of the Upanishads necessitated the systematization of these teachings. This was likely done inmany ways in ancient India, but the only surviving version of this synthesis is the Brahma Sutras ofBadarayana.[12]

All major Vedantic teachers, including Shankara, Bhaskara, Ramanuja, Nimbarka, Vallabha, Madhva,and Swami Bhadreshdas have composed commentaries not only on the Upanishads and Brahma Sutras,but also on the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita, due to its syncretism of Samkhya, Yoga, andUpanishadic thought, has played a major role in Vedantic thought.[13]

The Upanishads present an associative philosophical inquiry in the form of identifying various doctrinesand then presenting arguments for or against them. They form the basic texts and Vedanta interprets themthrough rigorous philosophical exegesis.[14] Varying interpretations of the Upanishads and theirsynthesis, the Brahma Sutras, led to the development of different schools of Vedanta over time of whichthree,[15] four,[16] five[17] or six[18][note 3] are prominent.[note 4]

1. Bhedabheda, as early as the 7th century CE,[20] or even the 4th century CE.[21] Somescholars are inclined to consider it as a "tradition" rather than a school of Vedanta.[20]

Upadhika, founded by Bhaskara in the 9th Century CE[17]

Svabhavikabhedabheda or Dvaitādvaita, founded by Nimbarka[17] in the 7th century CEAchintya Bheda Abheda, founded by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534 CE)[22]

2. Advaita, many scholars of which most prominent are Gaudapada (~500 CE)[23] and AdiShankaracharya (8th century CE)[24]

3. Vishishtadvaita, prominent scholars are Nathamuni, Yāmuna and Ramanuja (1017–1137CE)

4. Dvaita, founded by Madhvacharya (1199–1278 CE)5. Suddhadvaita, founded by Vallabha[17] (1479–1531 CE)6. Akshar-Pushottam Darshan founded by Swaminarayan Bhagwan (1781-1840) and

Established by Shastriji Maharaj[25]

The history of Vedanta is divided into two periods: one prior to the composition of the Brahma Sutrasand the other encompassing the schools that developed after the Brahma Sutras were written.

Little is known[26] of schools of Vedanta existing before the composition of the Brahma Sutras (400–450BCE).[21][note 5] It is clear that Badarayana, the writer of Brahma Sutras, was not the first person tosystematize the teachings of the Upanishads, as he quotes six Vedantic teachers before him –Ashmarathya, Badari, Audulomi, Kashakrtsna, Karsnajini and Atreya.[28] References to other earlyVedanta teachers – Brahmadatta, Sundara, Pandaya, Tanka and Dravidacharya – are found in secondaryliterature of later periods.[29] The works of these ancient teachers have not survived, but based on thequotes attributed to them in later literature, Sharma postulates that Ashmarathya and Audulomi wereBhedabheda scholars, Kashakrtsna and Brahmadatta were Advaita scholars, while Tanka andDravidacharya were either Advaita or Vishistadvaita scholars.[30]

History

Before the Brahma Sutras

Badarayana summarized and interpreted teachings of the Upanishads in the Brahma Sutras, also calledthe Vedanta Sutra,[31][note 6] possibly "written from a Bhedābheda Vedāntic viewpoint."[32] Badarayanasummarized the teachings of the classical Upanishads[33][34][note 7] and refuted the rival philosophicalschools in ancient India.[21] The Brahma Sutras laid the basis for the development of Vedantaphilosophy.[36]

Though attributed to Badarayana, the Brahma Sutras were likely composed by multiple authors over thecourse of hundreds of years.[21] The estimates on when the Brahma Sutras were complete vary,[37][38]

with Nicholson in his 2013 review stating, that they were most likely compiled in the present formaround 400–450 BCE.[39] Isaeva suggests they were complete and in current form by 200 CE,[40] whileNakamura states that "the great part of the Sutra must have been in existence much earlier than that."[38]

The book is composed of four chapters, each divided into four quarters or sections.[12] These sutrasattempt to synthesize the diverse teachings of the Upanishads. However, the cryptic nature of aphorismsof the Brahma Sutras have required exegetical commentaries.[41] These commentaries have resulted inthe formation of numerous Vedanta schools, each interpreting the texts in its own way and producing itsown commentary.[42]

Little with specificity is known of the period between the Brahma Sutras (5th century CE) and AdiShankara (8th century CE).[26][24] Only two writings of this period have survived: the Vākyapadīya,written by Bhartṛhari (second half 5th century[43]), and the Kārikā written by Gaudapada (early 6th[24] or7th century CE).[26]

Shankara mentions 99 different predecessors of his school in his commentaries.[44] A number ofimportant early Vedanta thinkers have been listed in the Siddhitraya by Yamunācārya (c. 1050), theVedārthasamgraha by Rāmānuja (c. 1050–1157), and the Yatīndramatadīpikā by Śrīnivāsa Dāsa.[26] Atleast fourteen thinkers are known to have existed between the composition of the Brahma Sutras andShankara's lifetime.[26][note 8]

A noted scholar of this period was Bhartriprapancha. Bhartriprapancha maintained that the Brahman isone and there is unity, but that this unity has varieties. Scholars see Bhartriprapancha as an earlyphilosopher in the line who teach the tenet of Bhedabheda.[45]

Gaudapada (c. 6th century CE),[46] was the teacher or a more distant predecessor of Govindapada,[47] theteacher of Adi Shankara. Shankara is widely considered as the founder of Advaita Vedanta.[16]

Gaudapada's treatise, the Kārikā—also known as the Māṇḍukya Kārikā or the Āgama Śāstra[48]—is theearliest surviving complete text on Advaita Vedanta.[note 9]

Gaudapada's Kārikā relied on the Mandukya, Brihadaranyaka and Chhandogya Upanishads.[52] In theKārikā, Advaita (non-dualism) is established on rational grounds (upapatti) independent of scripturalrevelation; its arguments are devoid of all religious, mystical or scholastic elements. Scholars are divided

Brahma Sutras

Between the Brahma Sutras and Adi Shankara

Gaudapada, Adi Shankara and Advaita Vedanta

on a possible influence of Buddhism on Gaudapada's philosophy.[note 10] The fact that Shankara, inaddition to the Brahma Sutras, the principal Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita, wrote an independentcommentary on the Kārikā proves its importance in Vedāntic literature.[53]

Adi Shankara (788–820), elaborated on Gaudapada's work and more ancient scholarship to write detailedcommentaries on the Prasthanatrayi and the Kārikā. The Mandukya Upanishad and the Kārikā have beendescribed by Shankara as containing "the epitome of the substance of the import of Vedanta".[53] It wasShankara who integrated Gaudapada work with the ancient Brahma Sutras, "and give it a locusclassicus" alongside the realistic strain of the Brahma Sutras.[54][note 11] His interpretation, includingworks ascribed to him, has become the normative interpretation of Advaita Vedanta.[55][note 12]

A noted contemporary of Shankara was Maṇḍana Miśra, who regarded Mimamsa and Vedanta asforming a single system and advocated their combination known as Karma-jnana-samuchchaya-vada.[58][note 13] The treatise on the differences between the Vedanta school and the Mimamsa school wasa contribution of Adi Shankara. Advaita Vedanta rejects rituals in favor of renunciation, for example.[59]

Rāmānuja (1017–1137 CE) was the most influential philosopher in the Vishishtadvaita tradition. As thephilosophical architect of Vishishtadvaita, he taught qualified non-dualism.[60] Ramanuja's teacher,Yadava Prakasha, followed the Advaita monastic tradition. Tradition has it that Ramanuja disagreed withYadava and Advaita Vedanta, and instead followed Nathamuni and Yāmuna. Ramanuja reconciled thePrasthanatrayi with the theism and philosophy of the Vaishnava Alvars poet-saints.[61] Ramanuja wrotea number of influential texts, such as a bhasya on the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, all inSanskrit.[62]

Ramanuja presented the epistemological and soteriological importance of bhakti, or the devotion to apersonal God (Vishnu in Ramanuja's case) as a means to spiritual liberation. His theories assert that thereexists a plurality and distinction between Atman (souls) and Brahman (metaphysical, ultimate reality),while he also affirmed that there is unity of all souls and that the individual soul has the potential torealize identity with the Brahman.[63] Vishishtadvaiata provides the philosophical basis of SriVaishnavism.[64]

Ramanuja was influential in integrating Bhakti, the devotional worship, into Vedanta premises.[65]

Dvaita Vedanta was propounded by Madhvacharya (1238–1317 CE).[note 14] He presented the oppositeinterpretation of Shankara in his Dvaita, or dualistic system.[68] In contrast to Shankara's non-dualismand Ramanuja's qualified non-dualism, he championed unqualified dualism. Madhva wrotecommentaries on the chief Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutra.[69]

Madhva started his Vedic studies at age seven, joined an Advaita Vedanta monastery in Dwarka(Gujarat),[70] studied under guru Achyutrapreksha,[71] frequently disagreed with him, left the Advaitamonastery, and founded Dvaita.[72] Madhva and his followers Jayatirtha and Vyasatirtha, were critical ofall competing Hindu philosophies, Jainism and Buddhism,[73] but particularly intense in their criticism ofAdvaita Vedanta and Adi Shankara.[74]

Ramanuja and Vishishtadvaita Vedanta

Madhva and Dvaita

Dvaita Vedanta is theistic and it identifies Brahman with Narayana, or more specifically Vishnu, in amanner similar to Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta. But it is more explicitly pluralistic.[75] Madhva'semphasis for difference between soul and Brahman was so pronounced that he taught there weredifferences (1) between material things; (2) between material things and souls; (3) between materialthings and God; (4) between souls; and (5) between souls and God.[76] He also advocated for a differencein degrees in the possession of knowledge. He also advocated for differences in the enjoyment of blisseven in the case of liberated souls, a doctrine found in no other system of Indian philosophy. [75]

The Akshar-Purushottam Darshan was revealed by Swaminarayan (1781-1830). His followers believedhim to be the manifest form of Parabrahman Purushottam. His sermons, many of which were compiledduring his lifetime as the Vachanamrut, thus serve as a direct revelation of Akshar-PurushottamDarshan.[77]:32–34 Although Swaminarayan did not author a commentary on the Prasthantrayi, by theinstructions, blessings and guidance of Pramukh Swami Maharaj, Bhadreshdas Swami composed theSwaminarayan-Bhashya, a five-volume comprehensive commentary on all three sacred texts of thePrasthāntrayi, i.e. the Brahmasutras, the ten principal Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita, based on theteachings of Swaminarayan and the successive gurus. With the blessings of Mahant Swami Maharaj,Bhadreshdas Swami also authored a vāda-grantha entitled Swaminarayan-Siddhanta-Sudha. These textssubstantiate Swaminarayan's Akshar-Purushottam Darshan from a scholarly perspective.[77]:19–21

The primary sources of Akshar-Purushottam Darshan are the Vachanamrut, which is a compilation of 273oral discourses delivered by Swaminarayan that were documented by his senior followers during hislifetime; the Vedaras, a comprehensive letter written to his monastic followers explicating his doctrineand providing moral instructions; and the Swamini Vato, a collection of oral commentaries delivered byGunatitanand Swami, who was Swaminarayan's senior disciple and his successor as guru in the lineageof the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Sanstha (BAPS).[77]:13[78] Other sources clarifying Akshar-Purushottam Darshan include Bhagatji Maharaj (1829-1897), Shastriji Maharaj (1865-1951), YogijiMaharaj (1892-1971), Pramukh Swami Maharaj (1921-2016) and Mahant Swami Maharaj (1933- )whoin order are successors to Gunatitanand Swami as Guru in the BAPS Swaminarayan tradition.[77]:17

Spiritual seekers believe that they can achieve moksha, or freedom from the cycle of birth and death, bybecoming aksharrup (or brahmarup), that is, by attaining qualities similar to Akshar (or Aksharbrahman)and worshiping Purushottam (or Parabrahman; the supreme living entity; God).[77]:275 The enlightenedguru is always manifest on earth and is a form of Aksharbrahman, which is an eternal entity above theinfluence of maya, or worldly attachments and imperfections.[79] By associating with and understandingthat Aksharbrahman guru, alternatively referred to as the Satpurush, Ekantik Bhakta or Ekantik Sant,spiritual seekers can transcend the influences of maya and attain spiritual perfection.[80]

Swaminarayan and Akshar-Purushottam Darshan

Overview of the schools of Vedanta

Schools propounding Non-dualism

Advaita school

Advaita Vedanta (IAST Advaita Vedānta; Sanskrit: अ�ैत वेदा�त) espouses non-dualism and monism. Brahman is held to be the sole unchanging metaphysicalreality and identical to the individual Atman.[81] The physical world, on the otherhand, is always-changing empirical Maya.[82][note 15] The absolute and infiniteAtman-Brahman is realized by a process of negating everything relative, finite,empirical and changing.[83]

The school accepts no duality, no limited individual souls (Atman / Jivatman),and no separate unlimited cosmic soul. All souls and their existence across spaceand time are considered to be the same oneness. [84] Spiritual liberation inAdvaita is the full comprehension and realization of oneness, that one'sunchanging Atman (soul) is the same as the Atman in everyone else, as well as being identical toBrahman.[85]

Vishishtadvaita asserts that Jivatman (human souls) and Brahman (as Vishnu)are different, a difference that is never transcended.[86] With this qualification,Ramanuja also affirmed monism by saying that there is unity of all souls andthat the individual soul has the potential to realize identity with theBrahman.[63] Vishishtadvaita, like Advaita, is a non-dualistic school ofVedanta in a qualified way, and both begin by assuming that all souls can hopefor and achieve the state of blissful liberation.[87] On the relation between theBrahman and the world of matter (Prakriti), Vishishtadvaita states both aretwo different absolutes, both metaphysically true and real, neither is false orillusive, and that saguna Brahman with attributes is also real.[88] Ramanujastates that God, like man, has both soul and body, and the world of matter isthe glory of God's body.[89] The path to Brahman (Vishnu), according toRamanuja, is devotion to godliness and constant remembrance of the beauty and love of the personal god(bhakti of saguna Brahman).[90]

Shuddhadvaita (pure non-dualism) states that the entire universe is real and issubtly Brahman only in the form of Krishna.[91] Vallabhacharya, thepropounder of this philosophy, agreed with Advaita Vedanta's ontology, butemphasized that prakriti (empirical world, body) is not separate from theBrahman, but just another manifestation of the latter.[91] Everything,everyone, everywhere—soul and body, living and non-living, jiva and matter—is the eternal Krishna.[92] The way to Krishna, in this school, is bhakti.Vallabha opposed renunciation of monistic sannyasa as ineffective andadvocates the path of devotion (bhakti) rather than knowledge (jnana). Thegoal of bhakti is to turn away from ego, self-centered-ness and deception, andto turn towards the eternal Krishna in everything continually offeringfreedom from samsara.[91]

Shankaracharya

Vishishtadvaita

Ramanujacharyadepicted withVaishnava Tilaka andVishnu statue.

Vallabhacharya

Shuddhādvaita

Revealed by Swaminarayan (1781-1830) through his sermons, many ofwhich were compiled during his lifetime as the Vachanamrut, serve as adirect revelation of Akshar-Purushottam Darshan.[77] Swaminarayan'sphilosophy centres around the existence of five eternal realities, as stated intwo of his sermons documented in the Vachanamrut, Gadhada 1.7 andGadhada 3.10: “Puruṣottama Bhagavān, Akṣarabrahman, māyā, īśvara andjīva – these five entities are eternal."[93] One of the key distinguishingfactors from other schools of Vedanta is the inclusion of ‘Akshar’ (alsoknown as Brahman and Aksharbrahman) as a specific metaphysical entity. Itis thus ontologically distinct from Purushottam (also known asParabrahman). Bhadreshdas Swami composed the Swaminarayan-Bhashya,a five-volume comprehensive commentary on all three sacred texts of thePrasthāntrayi (Brahmasutras, the ten principal Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita) based on theteachings of Swaminarayan and the successive gurus.

This school is based on the premise of dualism. Atman (soul) and Brahman (as Vishnu) are understood astwo completely different entities.[94] Brahman is the creator of the universe, perfect in knowledge,perfect in knowing, perfect in its power, and distinct from souls, distinct from matter.[95] [note 16] InDvaita Vedanta, an individual soul must feel attraction, love, attachment and complete devotionalsurrender to Vishnu for salvation, and it is only His grace that leads to redemption and salvation.[98]

Madhva believed that some souls are eternally doomed and damned, a view not found in Advaita andVishishtadvaita Vedanta.[99] While the Vishishtadvaita Vedanta asserted "qualitative monism andquantitative pluralism of souls", Madhva asserted both "qualitative and quantitative pluralism ofsouls".[100]

Bhedābheda means "difference and non–difference" and is more a tradition than a school of Vedanta. Theschools of this tradition emphasize that the individual self (Jīvatman) is both different and not differentfrom Brahman.[20] Notable figures in this school are Bhartriprapancha, Bhāskara (8th–9th century),Ramanuja's teacher Yādavaprakāśa, Nimbārka (7th century) who founded the Dvaitadvaita school,Caitanya (1486–1534) who founded the Achintya Bheda Abheda school and Vijñānabhikṣu (16thcentury).[101] [note 17]

Bhaskara, in postulating Upadhika, considers both identity and difference to be equally real. As thecausal principle, Brahman is considered non-dual and formless pure being and intelligence.[102] Thesame Brahman, manifest as events, becomes the world of plurality. Jīva is Brahman limited by the mind.Matter and its limitations are considered real, not a manifestation of ignorance. Bhaskara advocatedbhakti as dhyana (meditation) directed toward the transcendental Brahman. He refuted the idea of Mayaand denied the possibility of liberation in bodily existence.[103]

Swaminarayan

Akshar-Purushottam Darshan

School propounding Dualism - Dvaita

Schools propounding Bhedabheda

Upadhika

Dvaitādvaita

Nimbārka propounded Dvaitādvaita, based upon Bhedābheda as was taughtby Bhāskara. Brahman (God), souls (chit) and matter or the universe (achit)are considered as three equally real and co-eternal realities. Brahman is thecontroller (niyanta), the soul is the enjoyer (bhokta), and the materialuniverse is the object enjoyed (bhogya). The Brahman is Krishna, theultimate cause who is omniscient, omnipotent, all-pervading Being. He isthe efficient cause of the universe because, as Lord of Karma and internalruler of souls, He brings about creation so that the souls can reap theconsequences of their karma. God is considered to be the material cause ofthe universe because creation was a manifestation of His powers of soul(chit) and matter (achit); creation is a transformation (parinama) of God'spowers. He can be realized only through a constant effort to merge oneselfwith His nature through meditation and devotion. [104]

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was the prime exponent of Achintya-Bheda-Abheda.[105] In Sanskrit achintya means 'inconceivable'.[106] Achintya-Bheda-Abheda represents the philosophy of "inconceivable difference innon-difference",[107] in relation to the non-dual reality of Brahman-Atmanwhich it calls (Krishna), svayam bhagavan.[108] The notion of"inconceivability" (acintyatva) is used to reconcile apparently contradictorynotions in Upanishadic teachings. This school asserts that Krishna isBhagavan of the bhakti yogins, the Brahman of the jnana yogins, and has adivine potency that is inconceivable. He is all-pervading and thus in allparts of the universe (non-difference), yet he is inconceivably more(difference). This school is at the foundation of the Gaudiya Vaishnavareligious tradition.[107]

The important approaches followed by the most noted proponents ofdifferent schools of Vedanta are summarized below:

1. To theorize that the soul (Ātman / Jivātman) and the physical universe (Prakriti) are bothidentical with and different from Brahman. This view is held by Bhartriprapancha.[12]

2. To place non-dualistic ideas in the most important place, relegating dualistic ideas to aninterim position. This approach is followed by Shankara.[109]

3. To theorize that non-dualism is qualified by difference. This is Ramanuja's approach.[110]

4. To emphasize dualism, discrediting and offering an alternative explanation of non-dualisticideas. This is from Madhva.[111]

Sivananda gives the following explanation:

Madhva said, "Man is the servant of God," and established his Dvaita philosophy. Ramanujasaid, "Man is a ray or spark of God," and established his Visishtadvaita philosophy. Sankarasaid, "Man is identical with Brahman or the Eternal Soul," and established his KevalaAdvaita philosophy.[19]

Madhvacharya

Nimbarkacharya's icon atUkhra, West Bengal

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

Achintya-Bheda-Abheda

Vedanta philosophy

Despite their differences, all schools of Vedanta share some common features:

1. Brahman exists as the unchanging material cause and instrumental cause of the world.[112]

2. The Upanishads are a reliable source of knowledge (Sruti Śabda in Pramana);[113] Vedantais the pursuit of knowledge into the Brahman and the Ātman.[114]

3. Belief in rebirth and the desirability of release from the cycle of rebirths, (mokṣa).[115]

4. The self (Ātman/Jiva) is the agent of its own acts (karma) and the recipient of theconsequences of these actions.[115]

5. Rejection of Buddhism and Jainism and conclusions of the other Vedic schools (Nyaya,Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, and, to some extent, the Purva Mimamsa.)[115]

Vedanta philosophies discuss three fundamental metaphysical categories and the relations between thethree.[116]

1. Brahman or Ishvara: the ultimate reality[117]

2. Ātman or Jivātman: the individual soul, self[118]

3. Prakriti/Jagat:[17] the empirical world, ever–changing physical universe, body andmatter[119]

Shankara, in formulating Advaita, talks of two conceptions of Brahman: the higher Brahman asundifferentiated Being, and a lower Brahman endowed with qualities as the creator of the universe.[120]

1. Parā or Higher Brahman: the undifferentiated, absolute, infinite, transcendental, supra-relational Brahman beyond all thought and speech is defined as parā Brahman, nirviśeṣaBrahman or nirguṇa Brahman and is the Absolute of metaphysics.

2. Aparā or Lower Brahman: the Brahman with qualities defined as aparā Brahman or saguṇaBrahman. The saguṇa Brahman is endowed with attributes and represents the personalGod of religion.

Ramanuja, in formulating Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, rejects nirguṇa—that the undifferentiated Absolute isinconceivable—and adopts a theistic interpretation of the Upanishads, accepts Brahman as Ishvara, thepersonal God who is the seat of all auspicious attributes, as the One reality. The God of Vishishtadvaita isaccessible to the devotee, yet remains the Absolute, with differentiated attributes.[121]

Madhva, in expounding Dvaita philosophy, maintains that Vishnu is the supreme God, thus identifyingthe Brahman, or absolute reality, of the Upanishads with a personal god, as Ramanuja had done beforehim.[122] Nimbarka, in his dvaitadvata philosophy, accepted the Brahman both as nirguṇa and assaguṇa. Vallabha, in his shuddhadvaita philosophy, not only accepts the triple ontological essence of theBrahman, but also His manifestation as personal God (Ishvara), as matter and as individual souls.[123]

The schools of Vedanta differ in their conception of the relation they see between Ātman / Jivātman andBrahman / Ishvara:[16]

Common features

Metaphysics

Brahman / Ishvara - Conceptions of the Supreme Reality

Relation between Brahman and Jiva / Atman

According to Advaita Vedanta, Ātman is identical with Brahman and there is nodifference.[124]

According to Vishishtadvaita, Jīvātman is different from Ishvara, though eternally connectedwith Him as His mode.[125] The oneness of the Supreme Reality is understood in the senseof an organic unity (vishistaikya). Brahman / Ishvara alone, as organically related to allJīvātman and the material universe is the one Ultimate Reality.[126]

According to Dvaita, the Jīvātman is totally and always different from Brahman /Ishvara.[127]

According to Shuddhadvaita (pure monism), the Jīvātman and Brahman are identical; both,along with the changing empirically-observed universe being Krishna.[91]

Pramāṇa (Sanskrit: �माण) literally means "proof", "that which is themeans of valid knowledge".[128] It refers to epistemology in Indianphilosophies, and encompasses the study of reliable and valid means bywhich human beings gain accurate, true knowledge.[129] The focus ofPramana is the manner in which correct knowledge can be acquired,how one knows or does not know, and to what extent knowledgepertinent about someone or something can be acquired.[130] Ancientand medieval Indian texts identify six[note 18] pramanas as correctmeans of accurate knowledge and truths:[131]

1. Pratyakṣa (perception)2. Anumāṇa (inference)3. Upamāṇa (comparison and analogy)4. Arthāpatti (postulation, derivation from circumstances)5. Anupalabdi (non-perception, negative/cognitive proof)6. Śabda (scriptural testimony/ verbal testimony of past or

present reliable experts).

The different schools of Vedanta have historically disagreed as to whichof the six are epistemologically valid. For example, while Advaita Vedanta accepts all six pramanas,[132]

Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita accept only three pramanas (perception, inference and testimony).[133]

Advaita considers Pratyakṣa (perception) as the most reliable source of knowledge, and Śabda, thescriptural evidence, is considered secondary except for matters related to Brahman, where it is the onlyevidence.[134][note 19] In Vishistadvaita and Dvaita, Śabda, the scriptural testimony, is considered themost authentic means of knowledge instead.[135]

All schools of Vedanta subscribe to the theory of Satkāryavāda,[20] which means that the effect is pre-existent in the cause. But there are two different views on the status of the "effect", that is, the world.Most schools of Vedanta, as well as Samkhya, support Parinamavada, the idea that the world is a realtransformation (parinama) of Brahman.[136] According to Nicholson (2010, p. 27), "the Brahma Sutras

Epistemology

Epistemology in Dvaita andVishishtadvaita Vedanta.Advaita and some otherVedanta schools recognize sixepistemic means.

Pramana

Theories of cause and effect

espouse the realist Parinamavada position, which appears to have been the view most common amongearly Vedantins". In contrast to Badarayana, Adi Shankara and Advaita Vedantists hold a different view,Vivartavada, which says that the effect, the world, is merely an unreal (vivarta) transformation of itscause, Brahman.[note 20]

Vedanta, adopting ideas from other orthodox (āstika) schools, became the most prominent school ofHinduism.[137] Vedanta traditions led to the development of many traditions in Hinduism.[138] SriVaishnavism of south and southeastern India is based on Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta.[139]

Ramananda led to the Vaishnav Bhakti Movement in north, east, central and west India. This movementdraws its philosophical and theistic basis from Vishishtadvaita. A large number of devotionalVaishnavism traditions of east India, north India (particularly the Braj region), west and central India arebased on various sub-schools of Bhedabheda Vedanta.[20] Advaita Vedanta influenced KrishnaVaishnavism in the northeastern state of Assam.[140] The Madhva school of Vaishnavism found in coastalKarnataka is based on Dvaita Vedanta.[74]

Āgamas, the classical literature of Shaivism, though independent in origin, show Vedanta association andpremises.[141] Of the 92 Āgamas, ten are (dvaita) texts, eighteen (bhedabheda), and sixty-four (advaita)texts.[142] While the Bhairava Shastras are monistic, Shiva Shastras are dualistic.[143] Isaeva (1995,pp. 134–135) finds the link between Gaudapada's Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism evident andnatural. Tirumular, the Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta scholar, credited with creating "Vedanta–Siddhanta"(Advaita Vedanta and Shaiva Siddhanta synthesis), stated, "becoming Shiva is the goal of Vedanta andSiddhanta; all other goals are secondary to it and are vain."[144]

Shaktism, or traditions where a goddess is considered identical to Brahman, has similarly flowered froma syncretism of the monist premises of Advaita Vedanta and dualism premises of Samkhya–Yoga schoolof Hindu philosophy, sometimes referred to as Shaktadavaitavada (literally, the path of nondualisticShakti).[145]

Neo-Vedanta, variously called as "Hindu modernism", "neo-Hinduism", and "neo-Advaita", is a term thatdenotes some novel interpretations of Hinduism that developed in the 19th century,[146] presumably as areaction to the colonial British rule.[147] King (2002, pp. 129–135) writes that these notions accorded theHindu nationalists an opportunity to attempt the construction of a nationalist ideology to help unite theHindus to fight colonial oppression. Western orientalists, in their search for its "essence", attempted toformulate a notion of "Hinduism" based on a single interpretation of Vedanta as a unified body ofreligious praxis.[148] This was contra-factual as, historically, Hinduism and Vedanta had always accepteda diversity of traditions. King (1999, pp. 133–136) asserts that the neo-Vedantic theory of "overarchingtolerance and acceptance" was used by the Hindu reformers, together with the ideas of Universalism andPerennialism, to challenge the polemic dogmatism of Judaeo-Christian-Islamic missionaries against theHindus.

Influence

Hindu traditions

Neo-Vedanta

The neo-Vedantins argued that the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy were perspectives on asingle truth, all valid and complementary to each other.[149] Halbfass (2007, p. 307) sees theseinterpretations as incorporating western ideas[150] into traditional systems, especially AdvaitaVedanta.[151] It is the modern form of Advaita Vedanta, states King (1999, p. 135), the neo-Vedantistssubsumed the Buddhist philosophies as part of the Vedanta tradition[note 21] and then argued that all theworld religions are same "non-dualistic position as the philosophia perennis", ignoring the differenceswithin and outside of Hinduism.[153] According to Gier (2000, p. 140), neo-Vedanta is Advaita Vedantawhich accepts universal realism:

Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Aurobindo have been labeled neo-Vedantists (the lattercalled it realistic Advaita), a view of Vedanta that rejects the Advaitins' idea that the world isillusory. As Aurobindo phrased it, philosophers need to move from 'universal illusionism' to'universal realism', in the strict philosophical sense of assuming the world to be fully real.

A major proponent in the popularization of this Universalist and Perennialist interpretation of AdvaitaVedanta was Vivekananda,[154] who played a major role in the revival of Hinduism.[155] He was alsoinstrumental in the spread of Advaita Vedanta to the West via the Vedanta Society, the international armof the Ramakrishna Order.[156]

Nicholson (2010, p. 2) writes that the attempts at integration which came to be known as neo-Vedantawere evident as early as between the 12th and the 16th century−

... certain thinkers began to treat as a single whole the diverse philosophical teachings of theUpanishads, epics, Puranas, and the schools known retrospectively as the "six systems"(saddarsana) of mainstream Hindu philosophy.[note 22]

Matilal criticizes Neo-Hinduism as an oddity developed by West-inspired Western Indologists andattributes it to the flawed Western perception of Hinduism in modern India. In his scathing criticism ofthis school of reasoning, Matilal (2002, pp. 403–404) says:

The so-called 'traditional' outlook is in fact a construction. Indian history shows that thetradition itself was self-conscious and critical of itself, sometimes overtly and sometimescovertly. It was never free from internal tensions due to the inequalities that persisted in ahierarchical society, nor was it without confrontation and challenge throughout its history.Hence Gandhi, Vivekananda and Tagore were not simply 'transplants from Western culture,products arising solely from confrontation with the west.

...It is rather odd that, although the early Indologists' romantic dream of discovering a pure(and probably primitive, according to some) form of Hinduism (or Buddhism as the casemay be) now stands discredited in many quarters; concepts like neo-Hinduism are stillbandied about as substantial ideas or faultless explanation tools by the Western 'analytic'historians as well as the West-inspired historians of India.

Criticism of Neo-Vedanta label

An exchange of ideas has been taking place between the western world and Asia since the late 18thcentury as a result of colonization of parts of Asia by Western powers. This also influenced westernreligiosity. The first translation of Upanishads, published in two parts in 1801 and 1802, significantlyinfluenced Arthur Schopenhauer, who called them the consolation of his life.[161] He drew explicitparallels between his philosophy, as set out in The World as Will and Representation,[162] and that of theVedanta philosophy as described in the work of Sir William Jones.[163] Early translations also appearedin other European languages.[164] Influenced by Śaṅkara's concepts of Brahman (God) and māyā(illusion), Lucian Blaga often used the concepts marele anonim (the Great Anonymous) and cenzuratranscendentă (the transcendental censorship) in his philosophy.[165]

According to Nakamura (1950, p. 3), the Vedanta school has had a historic and central influence onHinduism:

The prevalence of Vedanta thought is found not only in philosophical writings but also invarious forms of (Hindu) literature, such as the epics, lyric poetry, drama and so forth. ...theHindu religious sects, the common faith of the Indian populace, looked to Vedantaphilosophy for the theoretical foundations for their theology. The influence of Vedanta isprominent in the sacred literatures of Hinduism, such as the various Puranas, Samhitas,Agamas and Tantras...[26]

Frithjof Schuon summarizes the influence of Vedanta on Hinduism as follows:

The Vedanta contained in the Upanishads, then formulated in the Brahma Sutra, and finallycommented and explained by Shankara, is an invaluable key for discovering the deepestmeaning of all the religious doctrines and for realizing that the Sanatana Dharma secretlypenetrates all the forms of traditional spirituality.[166]

Flood (1996, pp. 231–232, 238) states,

..the most influential school of theology in India has been Vedanta, exerting enormousinfluence on all religious traditions and becoming the central ideology of the Hindurenaissance in the nineteenth century. It has become the philosophical paradigm of Hinduism"par excellence".

German Sanskritist Theodore Goldstücker was among the early scholars to notice similarities betweenthe religious conceptions of the Vedanta and those of the Dutch Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza,writing that Spinoza's thought was

Influence on Western thinkers

Reception

Similarities with Spinoza's philosophy

... so exact a representation of the ideas of the Vedanta, that we might have suspected itsfounder to have borrowed the fundamental principles of his system from the Hindus, did hisbiography not satisfy us that he was wholly unacquainted with their doctrines [...] comparingthe fundamental ideas of both we should have no difficulty in proving that, had Spinozabeen a Hindu, his system would in all probability mark a last phase of the Vedantaphilosophy.[167]

Max Müller noted the striking similarities between Vedanta and the system of Spinoza, saying,

The Brahman, as conceived in the Upanishads and defined by Sankara, is clearly the same asSpinoza's 'Substantia'."[168]

Helena Blavatsky, a founder of the Theosophical Society, also compared Spinoza's religious thought toVedanta, writing in an unfinished essay,

As to Spinoza's Deity—natura naturans—conceived in his attributes simply and alone; andthe same Deity—as natura naturata or as conceived in the endless series of modifications orcorrelations, the direct outflowing results from the properties of these attributes, it is theVedantic Deity pure and simple.[169]

BadarayanaMonistic idealismList of teachers of VedantaSelf-consciousness (Vedanta)

1. Historically, Vedanta has been called by various names. The early names were theUpanishadic ones (Aupanisada), the doctrine of the end of the Vedas (Vedanta-vada), thedoctrine of Brahman (Brahma-vada), and the doctrine that Brahma is the cause (Brahma-karana-vada).[9]

2. The Upanishads were many in number and developed in the different schools at differenttimes and places, some in the Vedic period and others in the medieval or modern era (thenames of up to 112 Upanishads have been recorded).[11] All major commentators haveconsidered twelve to thirteen oldest of these texts as the Principal Upanishads and as thefoundation of Vedanta.

3. Sivananda also mentions Meykandar and the Shaiva Siddhanta philosophy.[19]

4. Proponents of other Vedantic schools continue to write and develop their ideas as well,although their works are not widely known outside of smaller circles of followers in India.

5. Nicholson (2010, p. 26) considers the Brahma Sutras as a group of sutras composed bymultiple authors over the course of hundreds of years. The precise date is disputed.[27]

Nicholson (2010, p. 26) estimates that the book was composed in its current form between400 and 450 BCE.

See also

Notes

6. The Vedanta–sūtra are known by a variety of names, including (1) Brahma–sūtra, (2)Śārīraka–sutra, (3) Bādarāyaṇa–sūtra and (4) Uttara–mīmāṁsā.

7. Estimates of the date of Bādarāyana's lifetime differ. [35]

8. Bhartŗhari (c. 450–500), Upavarsa (c. 450–500), Bodhāyana (c. 500), Tanka(Brahmānandin) (c. 500–550), Dravida (c. 550), Bhartŗprapañca (c. 550), Śabarasvāmin (c.550), Bhartŗmitra (c. 550–600), Śrivatsānka (c. 600), Sundarapāndya (c. 600), Brahmadatta(c. 600–700), Gaudapada (c. 640–690), Govinda (c. 670–720), Mandanamiśra (c. 670–750).[26]

9. There is ample evidence, however, to suggest that Advaita was a thriving tradition by thestart of the common era or even before that. Shankara mentions 99 different predecessorsof his Sampradaya.[44] Scholarship since 1950 suggests that almost all SannyasaUpanishads have a strong Advaita Vedanta outlook.[49] Six Sannyasa Upanishads – Aruni,Kundika, Kathashruti, Paramahamsa, Jabala and Brahma – were composed before the 3rdCentury CE, likely in the centuries before or after the start of the common era; the AsramaUpanishad is dated to the 3rd Century.[50] The strong Advaita Vedanta views in theseancient Sannyasa Upanishads may be, states Patrick Olivelle, because major Hindumonasteries of this period belonged to the Advaita Vedanta tradition.[51]

10. Scholars like Raju (1972, p. 177), following the lead of earlier scholars like Sengupta,[53]

believe that Gaudapada co-opted the Buddhist doctrine that ultimate reality is pureconsciousness (vijñapti-mātra). Raju (1972, pp. 177–178) states, "Gaudapada wove [bothdoctrines] into a philosophy of the Mandukaya Upanisad, which was further developed byShankara." Nikhilananda (2008, pp. 203–206) states that the whole purpose of Gaudapadawas to present and demonstrate the ultimate reality of Atman, an idea denied by Buddhism.According to Murti (1955, pp. 114–115), Gaudapada's doctrines are unlike Buddhism.Gaudapada's influential text consists of four chapters; Chapter One, Two and Three ofwhich are entirely Vedantin and founded on the Upanishads, with little Buddhist flavor.Chapter Four uses Buddhist terminology and incorporates Buddhist doctrines but Vedantascholars who followed Gaudapada through the 17th century, state both Murti and RichardKing, never referenced nor used Chapter Four, they only quote from the first three.[23] Whilethere is shared terminology, the doctrines of Gaudapada and Buddhism are fundamentallydifferent, states Murti (1955, pp. 114–115)

11. Nicholson (2010, p. 27) writes: "The Brahmasutras themselves espouse the realistParinamavada position, which appears to have been the view most common among earlyVedantins."

12. Shankara synthesized the Advaita–vāda which had previously existed before him,[56] and,in this synthesis, became the restorer & defender of an ancient learning.[57] He was anunequaled commentator,[57] due to whose efforts and contributions,[56] Advaita Vedantaassumed a dominant position within Indian philosophy.[57]

13. According to Mishra, the sutras, beginning with the first sutra of Jaimini and ending with thelast sutra of Badarayana, form one compact shastra.[58]

14. Many sources date him to 1238–1317 period,[66] but some place him over 1199–1278CE.[67]

15. Doniger (1986, p. 119) says "that to say that the universe is an illusion (māyā) is not to saythat it is unreal; it is to say, instead, that it is not what it seems to be, that it is somethingconstantly being made. Maya not only deceives people about the things they think theyknow; more basically, it limits their knowledge."

16. The concept of Brahman in Dvaita Vedanta is so similar to the monotheistic eternal God,that some early colonial–era Indologists such as George Abraham Grierson suggestedMadhva was influenced by early Christians who migrated to India, [96] but later scholarshiphas rejected this theory.[97]

17. According to Nakamura and Dasgupta, the Brahmasutras reflect a Bhedabheda point ofview,[21] the most influential tradition of Vedanta before Shankara. Numerous Indologists,including Surendranath Dasgupta, Paul hacker, Hajime Nakamura, and Mysore Hiriyanna,have described Bhedabheda as the most influential school of Vedanta before Shankara.[21]

18. A few Indian scholars such as Vedvyasa discuss ten, Krtakoti discusses eight, but six ismost widely accepted; see Nicholson (2010, pp. 149–150)

19. Anantanand Rambachan (1991, pp. xii–xiii) states, "According to these [widely representedcontemporary] studies, Shankara only accorded a provisional validity to the knowledgegained by inquiry into the words of the Śruti (Vedas) and did not see the latter as the uniquesource (pramana) of Brahmajnana. The affirmations of the Śruti, it is argued, need to beverified and confirmed by the knowledge gained through direct experience (anubhava) andthe authority of the Śruti, therefore, is only secondary." Sengaku Mayeda (2006, pp. 46–47)concurs, adding Shankara maintained the need for objectivity in the process of gainingknowledge (vastutantra), and considered subjective opinions (purushatantra) andinjunctions in Śruti (codanatantra) as secondary. Mayeda cites Shankara's explicitstatements emphasizing epistemology (pramana–janya) in section 1.18.133 ofUpadesasahasri and section 1.1.4 of Brahmasutra–bhasya.

20. Nicholson (2010, p. 27) writes of Advaita Vedantin position of cause and effect - AlthoughBrahman seems to undergo a transformation, in fact no real change takes place. Themyriad of beings are essentially unreal, as the only real being is Brahman, that ultimatereality which is unborn, unchanging, and entirely without parts.

21. Vivekananda, clarifies Richard King, stated, "I am not a Buddhist, as you have heard, andyet I am"; but thereafter Vivekananda explained that "he cannot accept the Buddhistrejection of a self, but nevertheless honors the Buddha's compassion and attitude towardsothers".[152]

22. The tendency of "a blurring of philosophical distinctions" has also been noted by Burley.[157]

Lorenzen locates the origins of a distinct Hindu identity in the interaction between Muslimsand Hindus,[158] and a process of "mutual self-definition with a contrasting Muslimother",[159] which started well before 1800.[160]

1. Chatterjee & Dutta 1939, pp. 317–318; Flood 1996, p. 231,232,2382. Koller 2013, pp. 100–106; Sharma 1960, p. 211; Hiriyanna 1948, pp. 19,21–25,150–1523. Chatterjee & Dutta 1939, pp. 317–318; Raju 1972, pp. 176–177; Isaeva 1992, p. 35 with

footnote 304. Raju 1972, pp. 176–177.5. Chatterjee & Dutta 1939, pp. 317–318; Scharfe 2002, pp. 58–59,115–120,282–2836. Flood 1996, p. 231,232,238.7. Clooney 2000, pp. 147–158.8. Mohan Lal Sandal 1925, p. 16, Sutra 30.9. King 1995, p. 268 with note 2.

10. Ranganathan; Hiriyanna 1948, pp. 19,21–25,150–152; Grimes 1990, pp. 6–711. Dasgupta 1922, pp. 28.12. Hiriyanna 1948, pp. 19,21–25,150–152.13. Pasricha 2008, p. 95.14. Balasubramanian 2000, p. xxx–xxxiiii; Deutsch & Dalvi 2004, pp. 95–9615. Chatterjee & Dutta 1939, pp. 317–318.16. Raju 1972, p. 177.

References

17. Prem Pahlajrai, Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington, Vedanta: AComparative Analysis of Diverse Schools (http://faculty.washington.edu/prem/Colloquium03–DiffVedantas.pdf)

18. Sivananda 1993, p. 216.19. Sivananda 1993, p. 217.20. Nicholson.21. Nicholson 2010, p. 26.22. Sivananda 1993, p. 248.23. Jagannathan 2011.24. Michael Comans 2000, p. 163.25. Writer, Staff. "World Sanskrit Conference recognizes Bhagwan Swaminarayan's Akshar-

Purushottam Darshan as distinct Vedanta tradition | News India Times" (http://www.newsindiatimes.com/world-sanskrit-conference-recognizes-bhagwan-swaminarayans-akshar-purushottam-darshan-as-distinct-vedanta-tradition/). Retrieved 20 November 2019.

26. Nakamura 1950, p. 3.27. Lochtefeld 2000, p. 746; Nakamura 1949, p. 43628. Balasubramanian 2000, p. xxxiii; Sharma 1996, pp. 124–12529. Nakamura 1950, p. 3; Sharma 1996, pp. 124–12530. Sharma 1996, pp. 124–125.31. Hiriyanna 1948, pp. 19,21–25,151–152; Sharma 1960, pp. 239–241; Nicholson 2010, p. 2632. Andrew J. Nicholson, Bhedabheda Vedanta (https://www.iep.utm.edu/bhed-ved/#H3),

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Vedanta Treatise: The Eternities (http://www.vedantaworld.org/) by Swami ParthasarathyThe System of Vedanta by Paul Deussen. 1912. Reprint 2007.Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition by Huston SmithEncyclopedia of Indian Philosophies and "Vedanta Sutras of Nārāyana Guru" by Karl Potterand Sibajiban BhattachāryaThe Upanishads (https://web.archive.org/web/20070104061813/http://www.sriaurobindoashram.info/Contents.aspx?ParentCategoryName=_StaticContent%2FSriAurobindoAshram%2F-09%20E-Library%2F-01%20Works%20of%20Sri%20Aurobindo%2F-12_The%20Upanishad_Volume-12) by Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1972.Choice Upanishads by Swami ParthasarathyVedanta: A Simple Introduction (http://www.vedanta.com/) by Pravrajika VrajapranaVedanta Hub (http://vedantahub.org) - Resources to help with the Study and Practice ofVedanta

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