Vedanta, the philosophy of Hinduism.

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Vedanta is a term we hear a lot but many of us confuse it with the Vedas.

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The Vedas are books, the oldest books on Hinduism and its practices. Vedanta is a philosophy that tries to explain human existence.

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There are six schools of philosophy in traditional Hinduism Vedanta is one of the prominent ones.

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Vedanta is based on three primary sources, the Upanishads, the Bhagwad Gita and the Brahma Sutras.

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Vedanta is derived from Veda and Antha which means end or conclusion. Thus Vedanta means the end of the Vedas or the conclusion of the Vedas. Vedanta may be said to be the essence of the teachings from the Vedas.

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Vedanta mostly concerns itself with Ontology that is the study of existence, Soteriology which is the study of religion, spirituality and the path to salvation. Vedanta also involves a lot of epistemology, which is the study of philosophical knowledge.

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There are many different schools of Vedanta but three schools are prominent.

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Advaita, the philosophy of non dualism as popularized by Adi Shankara.

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Dvaita which is the school that believes in dualism. This was propagated by Madhvacharya. Sometimes people call it “Dualistic Non Dualism” or Dvaita Advaita which is very confusing. But we will discuss that in another blog.

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The third prominent school is Vishista Advaita or qualified Non dualism. The main acharya in this school was Ramanuja Acharya.

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There are other schools also which have gained prominence. Modern developments are Neo Vedanta and the Swaminarayan Samprada.

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What are these schools and how they integrate into modern Hindu thoughts we will look at them in later blogs.

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Namaste until the next time. 🙏

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