The Vedanta Philosophy

Description

The Vedanta Philosophy It is well-known that the Brahma-sūtras of Badarāyana has been interpreted by different Acāryyas belonging to distinctly different cults, who became founders of sects and great system-builders. Among those, Rāmānuja and Madhva have imposed on them two self-consistent philosophical systems called Viśistādwaita and Dwaita.

The cults of Vişnu well called Bhāgavata or Pañcarātra and those of Śiva, Pāśupata or Maheswara and the followers of those schools sought to prove their orthodoxy by interpreting the Brahma Sūtra in accordance with their own tenets, indicating their claim to be based on, and regularly evolved from, ancient tradition. These movements unlike the earlier ones do not denominate the Supreme Being as Parama Brahman, but are expressly Vaisnava or Śaiva in their tone, Intense devotion or Bhakti to Śiva or Nārāyana characterises these schools, a devotion that expressed itself in all- absorbing love a complete self surrender.

Among the Vaisnava school of interpreters of the Brahma-Sūtra, two other noted Acāryas besides Rāmānuja and Mādhva, are Acāryyas-Nimbarka and Ballava. Nimbarka’s view appears to have been largely influenced by the teachings of Bhaskara who flourished in the first half of the ninth century and who interpreted the Vedanta system from the stand-point of Bhedābheda. This theory was not a new discovery of Bhāskara, but it was held by the ancient teacher Audulomi to which Bādarāyaņa himself refers in his Brahma-Sūtra.