Concept
3 readings
Brahman
Concept · 3 readings
Brahman is ultimate reality in the selected Upanishadic and Vedānta arguments. They disagree about whether its unity includes real difference, and about how it can be known.
All readings
3 readings · Title A–Z
Guided course · Module 7 · Lesson 37
Self and ultimate reality: two Vedānta accounts
Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja read the same scriptural words about self and brahman in different ways, and give different accounts of unity, difference and the knowledge that liberates.
Guided course · Module 3 · Lesson 6
What could it mean to know the self?
Maitreyī asks what wealth can promise, and the answer she hears turns to knowing the knower. What does this Upanishadic account of the self explain, and what does it leave hard to understand?
Guided course · Module 3 · Lesson 11
What gives a sacred text authority?
Mīmāṃsā defends the authority of the Veda’s injunctions; Vedānta asks what its words teach about brahman. Accepting scriptural authority still leaves meaning, knowledge and action to be argued about.