The Fundamentals of Vedanta

Vedanta is one of the six orthodox philosophical schools of the Hindu tradition orthodox because they profess to accept the authority of the ancient Vedas as revelation. Vedanta is the school that attempts to discover in the final portions of the Vedic texts known as the Upanishads a consistent religious and philosophical way of seeing reality tattva-darshana). The school of Vedanta is really a family of schools all of its members sharing the belief that there is a single consistent way of seeing presented in the Upanishads but whose hermeneutic efforts often have led to radically different conclusions. Within this family of Vedantic schools the spectrum ranges from the absolute monism or more correctly the non-dualism of the Advaita sub-school to the quasi-dualistic theism of the Dvaita sub-school. Fundamentals of Vedanta Part One is a translation with a detailed introduction and notes of two short Sanskrit texts the Vedanta-sara (Essence of Vedanta) of Sadananda and the Prameya-ratnavali (Necklace of Turht-Jewels) of Baladeva from opposite ends of the Vedantic spectrum that have been used in India for centuries to introduce beginning students to the fundamental ideas of Vedanta. Generations of Indian students received their first exposure to Vedantic ideas from one or both of these texts and thus they form an excellent starting point for modern readers who are interested in knowing more about the rich intellectual and religious world of Vedanta. From the Introduction: ``Anyone who has walked either actually or sympathetically some distance down the path of Advaita Vedanta far enough at least to get a glimpse of the Advaitins world will be able to attest to what a powerful vision of reality it is and to what a relief and joy the transforming experience of Brahman must be. As part of that experience the burden of ones fears disappointments anxieties losses frustrations and limitations is lifted off ones shoulders and one realizes ones true nature as unending consciousness and joy. In that moment when one realizes that there is no ``other ones fear vanishes for it is the ``other that one feared and even when the other is a source of joy as the ``other often is that joy is always conditioned by fear the fear of loss. The joy of Brahman is unlimited and unconditioned by fear. Neal Delmonico received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in South Asian Languages and Civilizations in 1990. He has published numerous articles on Caitanya Vaishnavism and has done several translations from Sanskrit and Bengali into English. Dr. Delmonico taught for six years in the Religious Studies Program at Iowa State University and most recently (2001) was a visiting assistant professor in Philosophy and Religious Studies at Truman State University. He is currently working on a series of translations and commentaries on some of the fundamental texts of Indic religion and philosophy like the ones presented here and collaborating on an online Sanskrit text repository called the Gaudiya Grantha Mandira (www.granthamandira.org).