[Advaita-l] Advaita and Vedanta

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

This is a topic that has been mentioned on this list many a time. Look
for details in the archives.

advaita (not-two) is an adjective that qualifies the noun vedAnta. By
itself, advaita does not mean anything more than big, blue, fat, thin,
etc. vedAnta is one of the 6 classical vedic darSana-s or
philosophical systems (the others being nyAya, vaiSeShika, sA.nkhya,
yoga and pUrva-mImAMsa).

advaita vedAnta was the first sub-school of vedAnta to be sytematized
(through a corpus of literature written by gauDapAda, Adi Sa.nkara,
etc). Other vedAntic schools include viSiShtadvaita vedAnta, dvaita
vedAnta (also called tattvavAda), dvaitAdvaita vedAnta and
shuddhAdvaita vedAnta.

dhanyavAdaH
Ramesh

On 01/12/05, murali mohan <murali_mohan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>   The two terms Advaita and Vedanta seems to be used interchangeably - do they mean the same thing? As I understand Vedanta means end of Vedas and is the crux of the teachings in Vedas such as tatwamasi etc. Advaita is basically non-duality. Did Advaita as a philosophy exist before Adi Shankara? Or is it nothing but Vedanta in a different form?
>   - Murali
>