introduction

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Since I had proposed that we write up short introductions on this list,
here is mine. Of course, in the larger perspective, for advaitic realization,
our notions of "I" and "mine" are not valid. But this introduction is meant
to serve the purpose of identifying our backgrounds and interests.

My name is S. Vidyasankar, and I am currently doing a PhD in chemical
engineering at Caltech, Pasadena. I did my undergraduate study at IIT, Bombay
before I came to Caltech in 1991. I was interested in learning about
vedAnta from early on, but it picked up momentum in the context of debates
I had with a couple of others on alt.hindu in 1994. Since then, I have set up
a home page for advaita vedAnta from my account at Caltech. The URL is
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~vidya/advaita.

For a little more background, our family has been somewhat closely involved
with the Sringeri math for quite some time now. My father is an ardent disciple
of Swami Abhinava Vidyatirtha, who was Sankaracharya of Sringeri upto 1989.
As for me, I have great respect for the Sringeri Sankaracharyas, but cannot
honestly claim to be a disciple yet, because I think that needs a much greater
level of commitment and involvement than I am able to put in as of now.

I would like feedback on the advaita home page that I am maintaining. I will
be updating the section on post-Sankaran advaitins in the near future (at
the most, within the next two weeks). There are quite a few historical issues
to be resolved before I put a date to a name in the list of post-Sankaran
advaitins. I would greatly appreciate any help that anybody on this list can
provide in this matter, especially wrt sarvajnAtman, Anandagiri and
madhusUdana sarasvatI.

Regards,

S. Vidyasankar