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 Advaitin's world, will
be able to attest to what apowerful 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 one's fears,
disappointments, anxieties, losses, frustrations, and limitations
is lifted off one's shoulders and one realizes one's true nature as
unending consciousness and joy. In that moment when one realizes
that there is no other," one's 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).
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