
Veda means "knowledge" and anta "the end", so the literal meaning is "the end of knowledge" or the "ultimate knowledge." It is a branch of Hinduism. It is a system of Jnana Yoga that attempts to guide the individual to enlightenment. It is drawn from the Upanishads, considered the fundamental essence of all the Vedas, and some of the earlier Aranyakas. The three branches of Vedanta best known in the West are Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita. Other than Adi_Sankara, Ramanuja and Shri_Madhvacharya, the founders of each of the three main Vedantic divisions, important pre-modern Vedantins include Bhaskara, Vallabha, Caitanya, Nimbarka, Baladeva Vidyabhusana, Vacaspati Misra, Suresvara, and Vijnanabhiksu. In the modern period, Advaita Vedantins include Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Swami Sivananda and Ramana Maharshi. Proponents of other Vedantic schools continue to write and develop their ideas as well, although their works are not widely known outside of India. Historically, in order for a guru to be considered an acharya or great teacher of a philosophical school of Vedanta, he was required to write commentaries on three important texts in Vedanta, the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutras. Accordingly, Adi Sankara, Ramanuja and Shri_Madhvacharya have written commentaries on all three canonical texts. ==Transition from Vedic to Vedantic religion== While the traditional Vedic 'karma kanda', or ritualistic components of religion, continued to be practiced through the Brahmins as meditative and propitiatory rites to guide society to self-knowledge, more jnana- or knowledge-centered understandings began to emerge. The latter were mystical streams of Vedic religion that focused on meditation, self-discipline and spiritual connectivity rather than on rituals. In earlier writings, the Sanskrit word Vedanta simply referred to the Upanisads, the most speculative and philosophical of the Vedic texts. In the medieval period, the word Vedanta came to mean the school of philosophy that interpreted the Upanisads. Traditional Vedanta considered scriptural evidence, or sabdapramana, as the most authentic means of knowledge, while perception, or pratyaksa, and logical inference, or anumana, were considered to be subordinate. ==Formalization== The systematization of Vedantic ideas into one coherent treatise was undertaken by Badarayana in the Vedanta Sutra, or Vedanta Sutra. The cryptic aphorisms of the Vedanta Sutras are open to a variety of interpretations, resulting in the formation of numerous Vedanta schools, each interpreting the texts in its own way and producing its own sub-commentaries claiming to be faithful to the original. Consistent throughout Vedanta, however, is the exhortation that ritual be eschewed in favor of the individual's quest for truth through meditation governed by a loving morality, secure in the knowledge that infinite bliss awaits the seeker. Near all existing sects of Hinduism are directly or indirectly influenced by the thought systems developed by Vedantic thinkers. Hinduism to a great extent owes its survival to the formation of the coherent and logically advanced systems of Vedanta. ==Vedanta and science== Advaita Vedanta has influenced modern scientists. Erwin Schrödinger claimed to have been inspired by Vedanta in his discovery of quantum theory. According to his biographer Walter Moore: "The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of separable interacting material particles. During the next few years, Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on superimposed, inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One.". Additionally, Fritjof Capra's book The Tao of Physics is one among several that pursues this viewpoint as it investigates the relationship between modern, particularly quantum, physics and the core philosophies of various Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Unfortunately, such writings by western authors often run the risk of oversimplifying and ignoring important differences between Eastern religions. For instance, pre-modern Vedantins argued for the existence of an eternal self, or atman, while Buddhists have denied this possibility. But as more and more translations of Vedantic works become available, modern students of the many schools of Vedanta are able make up their own minds regarding the claims of authors like Schrödinger and Capra. ==See also== * Pantheism * Panentheism * Monism == External links == *[http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/vedsutra.htm Brahma sutras (Vedanta sutras) online] *[http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/ Advaita Vedanta homepage] *[http://www.vedanta.org/ Vedanta Society of Southern California] *[http://www.sfvedanta.org/ Vedanta Society of Northern California] *[http://www.vedanta-newyork.org/articles/vedanta_influence_2.htm Vedanta's influence ] *[http://freespace.virgin.net/dennis.waite/advaita From the Unreal to the Real] *[http://www.geocities.com/neovedanta/ NeoVedanta] *[http://www.vedanta.org/reading/monthly/articles/2000/8.vedanta_in_america.html "Vedanta in America"] *[http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2001/5-6/47_science_tesla.shtml Nikola Tesla and Swami Vivekananda] *Mahavakyas == Additional References == For non-western sources a good starting point is "Modern Physics and Vedanta" by Swami Jitatmananda , a monk of the Ramakrishna Order. In the preceding title Amaury de Reincourt's "the Eye of Shiva" (New York, William Morrow & Co. 1981), is often cited along with The Dancing Wu Li Masters, by Gary Zukav; The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics by Milic Capek; Mysticism and the New Physics, Michael Talbot; The Cosmic Code, Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature, by Heinz R Pagels; Philosophical Aspects of Modern Science, by C.E.M. Joad; The Holographic Paradigm; David Bohm's Causality and Chance in Modern Physics; Huston Smith's Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition. More scholarly treatments include Theology After Vedanta, by Francis X. Clooney, Sankara and Indian Philosophy, by Natalia Isayeva, A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy, by Hajime Nakamura, and volume III of Karl Potter and Sibajiban Bhattacharyya's Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies. Hindu philosophical concepts Philosophy
The page says,"Advaita (ad- not, dwaita- two; meaning non-duality)" Is it not supposed to read "Advaita (a- not, dwaita- two; meaning non-duality)"? : Correct. Changed User:Chancemill 12:38, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC) == Schrodinger, etc. == That stuff about Vedanta and modern science is a bunch of orientalist hooey--it is irrelevant, and should be removed from the article completely. == Response to "Schrodinger, etc." == No it's not. A simple Google search turns up several links to confirm the fact that Schrodinger was a Vedantist. Here's one of them: http://www.physicsdaily.com/physics/Erwin_Schrodinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (August 12, 1887 – January 4, 1961) was an Austrian physicist famous for his contributions to quantum mechanics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1933. He proposed the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, and he had a life-long interest in Vedanta. == Like the new format == I like the new subsections that have been created in the article. The earlier version wasn't organized very well. It's good to see how well the page has evolved since I turned the "Cleanup" flag on a few weeks ago. == Re-Response to Schrodinger, etc. == Just because Schrodinger believed he was a follower of Vedanta is not an indication that he was a Vedantin. Many other western thinkers (e.g. Schopenhauer, Deussen) have thought of themselves as Vedantins, but their teachings are far from those of pre-modern Vedantins. The members of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo believed that they were following the Buddha's teachings. They were the ones who were responsible for a nerve gas attack in a Tokyo subway station. Should we mention them in the entry on Buddhism?
Vedanta is one of the world's most ancient religious philosophies and one of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India, Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the divinity of the soul, and the harmony of religions. Vedanta is the philosophical foundation of Hinduism; but while Hinduism includes aspects of Indian culture, Vedanta is universal in its application and is equally relevant to all countries, all cultures, and all religious backgrounds. A closer look at the word "Vedanta" is revealing: "Vedanta" is a combination of two words: "Veda" which means "knowledge" and "anta" which means "the end of" or "the goal of." In this context the goal of knowledge isn't intellectual—the limited knowledge we acquire by reading books. "Knowledge" here means the knowledge of God as well as the knowledge of our own divine nature. Vedanta, then, is the search for Self-knowledge as well as the search for God. What do we mean when we say God? According to Vedanta, God is infinite existence, infinite consciousness, and infinite bliss. The term for this impersonal, transcendent reality is Brahman, the divine ground of being. Yet Vedanta also maintains that God can be personal as well, assuming human form in every age. Most importantly, God dwells within our own hearts as the divine Self or Atman. The Atman is never born nor will it ever die. Neither stained by our failings nor affected by the fluctuations of the body or mind, the Atman is not subject to our grief or despair or disease or ignorance. Pure, perfect, free from limitations, the Atman, Vedanta declares, is one with Brahman. The greatest temple of God lies within the human heart. Vedanta further asserts that the goal of human life is to realize and manifest our divinity. Not only is this possible, it is inevitable. Our real nature is divine; God-realization is our birthright. Sooner or later, we will all manifest our divinity—either in this or in future lives—for the greatest truth of our existence is our own divine nature. Finally, Vedanta affirms that all religions teach the same basic truths about God, the world, and our relationship to one another. Thousands of years ago the Rig Veda declared: "Truth is one, sages call it by various names." The world's religions offer varying approaches to God, each one true and valid, each religion offering the world a unique and irreplaceable path to God-realization. The conflicting messages we find among religions are due more to doctrine and dogma than to the reality of spiritual experience. While dissimilarities exist in the external observances of the world religions, the internals bear remarkable similarities.
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Vedanta:
Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedanta_philosophy
Vedanta_Society
Vedanta_Sutra
Vedanta_Sutra
Vedanta_Sutras
Vedanta_sutras
Vedanta
Veda means "knowledge" and anta "the end", so the literal meaning is "the end of knowledge" or the "ultimate knowledge." It is a branch of Hinduism. It is a system of Jnana Yoga that attempts to guide the individual to enlightenment. It is drawn from the Upanishads, considered the fundamental essence of all the Vedas, and some of the earlier Aranyakas. The three branches of Vedanta best known in the West are Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita. Other than Adi_Sankara, Ramanuja and Shri_Madhvacharya, the founders of each of the three main Vedantic divisions, important pre-modern Vedantins include Bhaskara, Vallabha, Caitanya, Nimbarka, Baladeva Vidyabhusana, Vacaspati Misra, Suresvara, and Vijnanabhiksu. In the modern period, Advaita Vedantins include Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Swami Sivananda and Ramana Maharshi. Proponents of other Vedantic schools continue to write and develop their ideas as well, although their works are not widely known outside of India. Historically, in order for a guru to be considered an acharya or great teacher of a philosophical school of Vedanta, he was required to write commentaries on three important texts in Vedanta, the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutras. Accordingly, Adi Sankara, Ramanuja and Shri_Madhvacharya have written commentaries on all three canonical texts. ==Transition from Vedic to Vedantic religion== While the traditional Vedic 'karma kanda', or ritualistic components of religion, continued to be practiced through the Brahmins as meditative and propitiatory rites to guide society to self-knowledge, more jnana- or knowledge-centered understandings began to emerge. The latter were mystical streams of Vedic religion that focused on meditation, self-discipline and spiritual connectivity rather than on rituals. In earlier writings, the Sanskrit word Vedanta simply referred to the Upanisads, the most speculative and philosophical of the Vedic texts. In the medieval period, the word Vedanta came to mean the school of philosophy that interpreted the Upanisads. Traditional Vedanta considered scriptural evidence, or sabdapramana, as the most authentic means of knowledge, while perception, or pratyaksa, and logical inference, or anumana, were considered to be subordinate. ==Formalization== The systematization of Vedantic ideas into one coherent treatise was undertaken by Badarayana in the Vedanta Sutra, or Vedanta Sutra. The cryptic aphorisms of the Vedanta Sutras are open to a variety of interpretations, resulting in the formation of numerous Vedanta schools, each interpreting the texts in its own way and producing its own sub-commentaries claiming to be faithful to the original. Consistent throughout Vedanta, however, is the exhortation that ritual be eschewed in favor of the individual's quest for truth through meditation governed by a loving morality, secure in the knowledge that infinite bliss awaits the seeker. Near all existing sects of Hinduism are directly or indirectly influenced by the thought systems developed by Vedantic thinkers. Hinduism to a great extent owes its survival to the formation of the coherent and logically advanced systems of Vedanta. ==Vedanta and science== Advaita Vedanta has influenced modern scientists. Erwin Schrödinger claimed to have been inspired by Vedanta in his discovery of quantum theory. According to his biographer Walter Moore: "The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of separable interacting material particles. During the next few years, Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on superimposed, inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One.". Additionally, Fritjof Capra's book The Tao of Physics is one among several that pursues this viewpoint as it investigates the relationship between modern, particularly quantum, physics and the core philosophies of various Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Unfortunately, such writings by western authors often run the risk of oversimplifying and ignoring important differences between Eastern religions. For instance, pre-modern Vedantins argued for the existence of an eternal self, or atman, while Buddhists have denied this possibility. But as more and more translations of Vedantic works become available, modern students of the many schools of Vedanta are able make up their own minds regarding the claims of authors like Schrödinger and Capra. ==See also== * Pantheism * Panentheism * Monism == External links == *[http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/vedsutra.htm Brahma sutras (Vedanta sutras) online] *[http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/ Advaita Vedanta homepage] *[http://www.vedanta.org/ Vedanta Society of Southern California] *[http://www.sfvedanta.org/ Vedanta Society of Northern California] *[http://www.vedanta-newyork.org/articles/vedanta_influence_2.htm Vedanta's influence ] *[http://freespace.virgin.net/dennis.waite/advaita From the Unreal to the Real] *[http://www.geocities.com/neovedanta/ NeoVedanta] *[http://www.vedanta.org/reading/monthly/articles/2000/8.vedanta_in_america.html "Vedanta in America"] *[http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2001/5-6/47_science_tesla.shtml Nikola Tesla and Swami Vivekananda] *Mahavakyas == Additional References == For non-western sources a good starting point is "Modern Physics and Vedanta" by Swami Jitatmananda , a monk of the Ramakrishna Order. In the preceding title Amaury de Reincourt's "the Eye of Shiva" (New York, William Morrow & Co. 1981), is often cited along with The Dancing Wu Li Masters, by Gary Zukav; The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics by Milic Capek; Mysticism and the New Physics, Michael Talbot; The Cosmic Code, Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature, by Heinz R Pagels; Philosophical Aspects of Modern Science, by C.E.M. Joad; The Holographic Paradigm; David Bohm's Causality and Chance in Modern Physics; Huston Smith's Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition. More scholarly treatments include Theology After Vedanta, by Francis X. Clooney, Sankara and Indian Philosophy, by Natalia Isayeva, A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy, by Hajime Nakamura, and volume III of Karl Potter and Sibajiban Bhattacharyya's Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies. Hindu philosophical concepts Philosophy
Vedanta
The page says,"Advaita (ad- not, dwaita- two; meaning non-duality)" Is it not supposed to read "Advaita (a- not, dwaita- two; meaning non-duality)"? : Correct. Changed User:Chancemill 12:38, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC) == Schrodinger, etc. == That stuff about Vedanta and modern science is a bunch of orientalist hooey--it is irrelevant, and should be removed from the article completely. == Response to "Schrodinger, etc." == No it's not. A simple Google search turns up several links to confirm the fact that Schrodinger was a Vedantist. Here's one of them: http://www.physicsdaily.com/physics/Erwin_Schrodinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (August 12, 1887 – January 4, 1961) was an Austrian physicist famous for his contributions to quantum mechanics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1933. He proposed the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, and he had a life-long interest in Vedanta. == Like the new format == I like the new subsections that have been created in the article. The earlier version wasn't organized very well. It's good to see how well the page has evolved since I turned the "Cleanup" flag on a few weeks ago. == Re-Response to Schrodinger, etc. == Just because Schrodinger believed he was a follower of Vedanta is not an indication that he was a Vedantin. Many other western thinkers (e.g. Schopenhauer, Deussen) have thought of themselves as Vedantins, but their teachings are far from those of pre-modern Vedantins. The members of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo believed that they were following the Buddha's teachings. They were the ones who were responsible for a nerve gas attack in a Tokyo subway station. Should we mention them in the entry on Buddhism?
Vedanta
Vedanta is one of the world's most ancient religious philosophies and one of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India, Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the divinity of the soul, and the harmony of religions. Vedanta is the philosophical foundation of Hinduism; but while Hinduism includes aspects of Indian culture, Vedanta is universal in its application and is equally relevant to all countries, all cultures, and all religious backgrounds. A closer look at the word "Vedanta" is revealing: "Vedanta" is a combination of two words: "Veda" which means "knowledge" and "anta" which means "the end of" or "the goal of." In this context the goal of knowledge isn't intellectual—the limited knowledge we acquire by reading books. "Knowledge" here means the knowledge of God as well as the knowledge of our own divine nature. Vedanta, then, is the search for Self-knowledge as well as the search for God. What do we mean when we say God? According to Vedanta, God is infinite existence, infinite consciousness, and infinite bliss. The term for this impersonal, transcendent reality is Brahman, the divine ground of being. Yet Vedanta also maintains that God can be personal as well, assuming human form in every age. Most importantly, God dwells within our own hearts as the divine Self or Atman. The Atman is never born nor will it ever die. Neither stained by our failings nor affected by the fluctuations of the body or mind, the Atman is not subject to our grief or despair or disease or ignorance. Pure, perfect, free from limitations, the Atman, Vedanta declares, is one with Brahman. The greatest temple of God lies within the human heart. Vedanta further asserts that the goal of human life is to realize and manifest our divinity. Not only is this possible, it is inevitable. Our real nature is divine; God-realization is our birthright. Sooner or later, we will all manifest our divinity—either in this or in future lives—for the greatest truth of our existence is our own divine nature. Finally, Vedanta affirms that all religions teach the same basic truths about God, the world, and our relationship to one another. Thousands of years ago the Rig Veda declared: "Truth is one, sages call it by various names." The world's religions offer varying approaches to God, each one true and valid, each religion offering the world a unique and irreplaceable path to God-realization. The conflicting messages we find among religions are due more to doctrine and dogma than to the reality of spiritual experience. While dissimilarities exist in the external observances of the world religions, the internals bear remarkable similarities.
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
V
Words begining with Vedanta:
Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedanta_philosophy
Vedanta_Society
Vedanta_Sutra
Vedanta_Sutra
Vedanta_Sutras
Vedanta_sutras
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