Brahman and the World

About thr AuthorPt. Ashokanath Bhattacharya Sastri (1903-48), Vedantatirtha, MA, was a Premchand Roychand Scholar, and an officiating Lecturer in Sanskrit and Bengali, Presidency College, University of Calcutta. He was a cousin of Dr Gaurinatha Sastri and a favourite student of Mahamahopadhyaya Anantakrishna Sastri.About the BookThe Vedanta has been rightly called the Finest Fruit of Indian Thought and the Upanishads as the Finer Flowers. VedAnta grows out of the teachings of the Upanishads and passes into the various systems in the writings of Shankara, Bhaskara, Ramanuja, Madhva and Vallabha, the great founders of Advaita, Bhedabheda, Vishistadvaita, Dvaitadvaita and Shuddhadvaita, respectively. However, there is a perception among Orientalists that while the Upanishads favour the Monistic doctrine, Badarayana's Brahmasutra fundamentally opposes it on some of the most crucial points. The book thus delves deep into the philosophies of both Badarayana and Shankara in enunciating the essential features of Brahman and Its association with the world. It thus discusses topics such as what sort of cause Brahmanis?, and what sort of material causality is to be ascribed to It? It also addresses the conflicting views on the nature of Brahman like that of VivarttavAda and of Ramanuja's Saguna-Brahman. This book proposes to take up the question of Universal Causation to examine thoroughly as how far it is right to regard Brahman as the Universal Cause and how far sutrakara himself lent his support to each of the inter-conflicting schools of Vedanta. This book should, therefore, benefit all who are devoted to the philosophic teachings of Advaita Vedanta and its preceptors.