Other Vedāntas

Every school of Vedānta begins from the same three books — the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gītā and the Brahmasūtra, the prasthānatrayī — and every one asks the same question: how is the individual self, and this world, related to Brahman? Shankara said “identical,” Madhva said “eternally different,” and Ramanuja said “one whole, with real distinctions inside it” (see Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita). But there was always a fourth answer, perhaps the oldest of all: both. The self and the world are different from Brahman and not different. This page follows that answer through its many forms.

Each section below gives a school’s teaching as its own followers would put it. School views Where they criticised each other, the box at the end gives the arguments.

The oldest answer: Bhedābheda

Bhedābheda भेदाभेद means “difference-and-non-difference.” Its classic image is the sea and its waves. A wave is not something other than the sea — it is the sea, rising. Yet a wave is not the whole sea, and you can point to this wave and not that one. The world and souls, says Bhedābheda, stand to Brahman the same way: one in substance, real in their distinctness.

Many historians think this was the common position of Vedānta before Shankara. The Brahmasūtra itself seems to weigh such views when it calls the soul a “part” of Brahman:

The earliest named teacher, Bhartṛprapañca, lived before Shankara; his works are lost, and we know him mainly through Shankara’s and Sureśvara’s criticisms of him in their commentaries on the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. The first whole Bhedābheda commentary to survive is the Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya of Bhāskara (perhaps 8th–9th century), who argued against Shankara directly. For Bhāskara, Brahman really transforms itself into the world, as clay becomes pots; the difference between the soul and Brahman is real, but due to limiting conditions (upādhi) such as the body and mind, which fall away at liberation. Knowledge alone does not free us, he said: it must be joined to the faithful performance of Vedic duty. Later, Yādavaprakāśa, Ramanuja’s first teacher, taught another form of Bhedābheda — and Ramanuja’s own system grew partly out of arguing with it.

Nimbārka: Dvaitādvaita

Nimbārka, a Telugu Brahmin who settled near Vrindavan, gave Bhedābheda a devotional heart. His dates are much debated: his followers place him very early, while scholars have proposed anything from the 7th to the 13th century. His short Vedānta-pārijāta-saurabha on the Brahmasūtra and his ten-verse Daśaślokī teach Dvaitādvaita, “duality-and-non-duality.”

For Nimbārka, souls and matter are really different from Brahman, since they are limited and dependent, and really non-different, since they have no existence apart from him — as the sun’s rays are both other than the sun and nothing but the sun’s own light. Neither side is an illusion or a mere viewpoint; both are true at once. Brahman is Krishna, and with him is Rādhā, his beloved and power. Nimbārka’s tradition was among the first to make the worship of Rādhā and Krishna together its centre. Liberation comes through surrender (prapatti) and the grace that follows. The Nimbārka Sampradāya survives today, with its principal seat at Salemabad in Rajasthan and many temples in the Braj country.

Vallabha: Śuddhādvaita and the path of grace

Vallabhācārya (1479–1531), born to a Telugu family, taught a non-dualism so complete that he called it Śuddhādvaita, “pure non-dualism” — pure because Brahman is not mixed with, or obscured by, any māyā. His main works are the Aṇubhāṣya on the Brahmasūtra and the Tattvārthadīpa-nibandha, and he added the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as a fourth authority beside the classic three.

Vallabha agreed with Shankara that Brahman alone is real — and drew the opposite conclusion about the world. Since nothing exists but Brahman, the world must be Brahman itself, really manifested, not an appearance on it. Brahman becomes the world without being changed, as gold becomes bracelets and earrings and remains gold (avikṛta-pariṇāma, “unaltered transformation”). Souls come forth from him “like sparks from a blazing fire” — an image straight from the Upanishads:

What, then, binds us? Vallabha distinguished the world (jagat), which is God’s real self-expression, from saṃsāra, the web of “I” and “mine” that the soul spins out of ignorance. Only the second is false. You do not need to escape the world; you need to stop owning it.

The way out is Puṣṭimārga, “the path of nourishment” — that is, of grace. God’s grace is not earned by ritual or knowledge; it is freely given, and the devotee’s response is loving service (sevā) of Krishna as a child, a friend, a beloved. Its mantra of refuge is śrī kṛṣṇaḥ śaraṇaṃ mama, “Śrī Krishna is my refuge.” The tradition’s great image is Shrinathji, Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan, worshipped at Nathdwara in Rajasthan, where the image was brought from Braj in the 17th century. There, in the manner of a royal household, Krishna is woken, fed, dressed and put to rest through eight daily “viewings” (darśanas). Vallabha’s son Viṭṭhalanātha organised this worship, and the tradition of the eight poets (aṣṭachāp) — the blind poet Sūrdās above all — filled it with song. Puṣṭimārga is especially strong today among Gujarati and Rajasthani merchant communities, in India and abroad. Community practice

Caitanya: inconceivable difference-in-non-difference

Śrī Caitanya (1486–1534) of Navadvīpa in Bengal wrote almost nothing: tradition credits him with only eight verses, the Śikṣāṣṭaka. What he left was a way of life — ecstatic love of Krishna, expressed above all in saṅkīrtana, the congregational singing of God’s names in the streets. His followers saw him as Krishna himself, come in the mood of Rādhā to taste her love. His most quoted verse sets out the attitude of the singer:

The theology was built by his disciples, the six Gosvāmīs of Vrindavan: Rūpa, Sanātana, Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa, Raghunātha Dāsa, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa and Jīva. Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu treated devotion as the highest rasa, the aesthetic relish of classical poetics, and mapped its moods. Jīva Gosvāmī, Rūpa’s nephew, systematised the philosophy in his six Sandarbhas. He called it Acintya-bhedābheda, “inconceivable difference-in-non-difference.”

The word that matters is inconceivable. The souls and the world are God’s energies (śaktis), and an energy is both one with its source and different from it — as sunlight is the sun, yet is not the sun. How both can be true together, Jīva says, logic cannot finally explain: it is grasped through scripture and revealed in love. For Gauḍīyas the source of all is not an impersonal Absolute but Krishna, “the Lord himself”:

Gauḍīya Vaishnavism’s great biography is Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and its formal Brahmasūtra commentary came only in the 18th century, with Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa’s Govinda-bhāṣya (see The Sutras). Modern movement In 1966, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in New York, carrying the Gauḍīya tradition worldwide. Its chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra and its Ratha Yātrā chariot processions are familiar in Kuala Lumpur and many Malaysian towns. ISKCON is one modern branch of the Gauḍīya family; there are others, in Bengal and Vrindavan, with their own lineages.

Shaiva Vedāntas

Vedānta was never only Vaishnava. Śrīkaṇṭha (perhaps 12th century) wrote a Brahmasūtra commentary reading Brahman as Shiva, the Lord with his power (Śakti), of whom souls and world are the body — a Śaiva Viśiṣṭādvaita very close to Ramanuja’s, with Shiva in Nārāyaṇa’s place. In the 16th century the great Sanskrit scholar of the Tamil country, Appayya Dīkṣita (traditionally 1520–1593) championed it in his commentary, the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā. Appayya is a fascinating figure: he also wrote important Advaita works, and many think he saw Śaiva Viśiṣṭādvaita as a step towards Advaita rather than its rival.

The Vīraśaivas or Liṅgāyats of Karnataka trace themselves to Basava (12th century), whose movement rejected caste, temple ritual and Brahmin priesthood, and gave every devotee a personal liṅga (iṣṭaliṅga) worn on the body. Its poet-saints, Basava and Akka Mahādevī among them, sang vacanas, short Kannada poems of fierce devotion. Later teachers set out a Vedānta of their own — Śakti-viśiṣṭādvaita, Shiva qualified by his Śakti — in Śrīpati’s Śrīkara-bhāṣya on the Brahmasūtra. Whether Liṅgāyats are Hindus at all is today a live debate within the community itself, and should be left to them. Community debate (For the very different, Āgama-based Shaiva theology of the Tamil country, see Shaiva Siddhānta.)

The schools at a glance

Tap each tile:

• 1भेदाभेदBhedābhedaBhāskara: one and different, as sea and waves. Brahman really becomes the world.
• 2द्वैताद्वैतDvaitādvaitaNimbārka: both difference and non-difference are fully real. Rādhā and Krishna.
• 3शुद्धाद्वैतŚuddhādvaitaVallabha: pure non-dualism, no māyā; the world is Krishna’s real self-expression.
• 4अचिन्त्यAcintya-bhedābhedaCaitanya and Jīva Gosvāmī: souls are Krishna’s energies, one and different, inconceivably.
• 5शिवŚaiva ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚrīkaṇṭha and Appayya Dīkṣita: Shiva with Śakti, the world as his body.
• 6लिङ्गŚakti-viśiṣṭādvaitaVīraśaiva: Shiva qualified by Śakti; the worn liṅga; the vacanas.

Three images, compared

Philosophers in India argued with pictures as much as with syllogisms. Each picture shows something — and hides something. Seeker’s synthesis

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Sources & further reading

• Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, vols. 3–5 (Cambridge University Press, 1940–1955).
• Roma Bose (trans.), Vedānta-pārijāta-saurabha of Nimbārka and Vedānta-kaustubha of Śrīnivāsa (Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1940–43).
• Andrew J. Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History (Columbia University Press, 2010) — on Bhedābheda and Vijñānabhikṣu.
• Richard Barz, The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhācārya (Thomson Press, 1976).
• Edwin F. Bryant and Maria L. Ekstrand (eds.), The Hare Krishna Movement: The Postcharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant (Columbia University Press, 2004).
• Ravi M. Gupta, The Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta of Jīva Gosvāmī (Routledge, 2007).
• Edward C. Dimock Jr. and Tony K. Stewart (trans.), Caitanya Caritāmṛta of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja (Harvard Oriental Series, 1999).
• A. K. Ramanujan, Speaking of Śiva (Penguin, 1973) — translations of the Vīraśaiva vacanas.
• Patrick Olivelle (trans.), Upaniṣads (Oxford World’s Classics, 1996).