Rubai Saha
Volume-XI, Issue-III, April 2023
Volume-XI, Issue-III, April 2023 | ||
Published Online: 30.04.2023 | Page No: 128-136 | |||
The Philosophical Basis of Practical Vedanta: A Critical Study of the relationship between Practical Veda̅nta and Advaita Veda̅nta Rubai Saha, Asst. Professor, Department of Philosophy, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India | |
Veda̅nta is one of the nine schools of Indian philosophical thought which lay allegiance to the Veda-s. The Veda-s is considered to be the sourcebook of Indian culture and civilization. Kṛṣņadvaipa̅yana Vedavya̅sa has composed Brahmasu̅tra which is the principal text on the Veda̅nta philosophy. The Brahmasu̅tra, also known as Śa̅ri̅rakasu̅tra deals with the knowledge of Jiva̅tma̅, the embodied self and Brahmaṇ, the Supreme Self. This principal text has been commented upon by nine commentators, each giving rise to a school of Veda̅ntic thought. A̅ca̅rya Śaṁkara was the expounder of Advaita Veda̅nta (the theory of monism). It is the doctrine which preaches oneness. It advocates that there is only one reality which is Brahman. The world (jagat) which is present before us is unreal and ji̅va (the embodied self) is identical with Brahman (brahmasatya jaganmithya̅, ji̅vo brahmaiva na̅’paraḥ). Swami Vivekananda, a monk of late 19th century had delivered a series of lectures in England in 1896 where he had tried to portray that the knowledge of Veda̅nta has a practical aspect too. He emphasized that the philosophy of Veda̅nta can and must be translated into action by people in their daily routine for the benefit of humanity. When Advaita Veda̅nta proclaims that the ji̅va (individual self) is no other than Brahman itself, it necessarily entails that each living being is potentially divine. In the ladder of evolution, man ranks highest among all living beings but there is no qualitative difference between a sage and a dacoit or a man and an animal. There is difference only in the degree of manifestation between one self and another. The paper has tried to show the relationship between Advaita Veda̅nta and Practical Veda̅nta, a term coined by Vivekananda himself. | |
Keywords: Advaita Vedānta, Practical Vedanta, ji̅va, i̅śvara, Brahma. |