Advaita Vedānta Philosophy: An Introduction

Patrick S. O’Donnell
Department of Philosophy
Santa Barbara City College (2014)

Advaita Vedānta is one of the six ‘orthodox’ (from āstika, one who accepts the normative
revelatory status of the Veda) schools (better: darśanas, philosophical viewpoints) of Indic
philosophy that emerged in the early centuries of the Common Era. Advaita (Absolute
Non-Dualism) is perhaps the best known of the sub-schools within Vedānta, which
counts Viśiṣṭādvaita (Qualified Non-Dualism, or Non-Dualism of the Qualified) and
Dvaita (Dualism) among the most important. Advaita Vedānta formally commences
with commentaries on the Brahmasūtras (‘Holy Power Aphorisms’) (c. 300 BCE to 300
CE) of Bādārāyana (also known as Vyāsa, the ‘Arranger’). The main focus is on the
relation between ātman (the soul/Self) and Brahman (the One, Ultimate Reality). In the
Upanisads we find the claim that, in some sense, ātman and Brahman are ‘One,’ a claim
endorsed by Śaṅkara (8th century), the great religious philosopher whose commentaries
(bhāsya) on the Brahmasūtras and the Upaniṣads are taken to represent the crystallization
of Advaita philosophy. Mention should be made of Gaudapāda (late 5th to early 6th
century), Śaṅkara’s parama-guru (i.e., the teacher of Śaṅkara’s master, Govinda) and
author of the Māndūkya-kārikā, passages from which ‘are cited almost verbatim in
Śaṅkara’s Commentary on the Brahma-sūtra’ (Natalia Isayeva). The brilliant grammarian
and philosopher of language, Bhartṛhari (c. 450-510), known largely through his
Vākyapadīya and its sphoṭa theory of language, undoubtedly influenced early Vedānta
philosophy, although his impact is more clearly evidenced in Kashmir Śaivism. Brahman
alone is real (sat), the knowledge of which is an experiential (mystical) realization of a
‘higher’ truth qualitatively different from but in some sense dependent upon (for the
Advaita aspirant) and thus related to, ordinary or conventional truth. From the vantage
point of this higher truth, our perception of and belief in distinct selves and, indeed, any
plurality of phenomena, or any subject/object discrimination, let alone dualism, is
indicative or reflective of fundamental ignorance (avidyā) and entanglement in māyā
(illusion). Until one has attained this higher truth—the goal of jñāna-yoga—it is perfectly
acceptable to rely on the perception and knowledge captured in common sense or
conventional descriptions of the world, as well as the applicable ethical rules, values and
virtues associated with one’s obligations to and understanding of dharma (hence the
acceptance of conventional epistemic criteria and standards as found in classical Indian
pramāna theory). A notable Advaita exponent after Śaṅkara, was the twelfth-century
dialectician (in the manner of the Buddhist Madhyamaka school) Śrīharṣa. Advaita
Vedānta might be described as monistic, but its monism is decidedly different from
modern idealist and realist conceptions (wherein there is one kind of ‘something’ or
stuff), for Brahman is (the ‘One without a second’), in the end, beyond predication,
beyond conceptualization (hence non-rational or suprarational but not irrational),
absolutely indescribable or ‘ineffable.’ It’s perhaps best characterized as a ‘neutral’
monism, or better, after Ram-Prasad, metaphysical non-realism, and an Indic
exemplification of apophatic mysticism.

Brahman is the fundamental metaphysical principle of neutral monism or non-realism

within Advaita Vedānta, and no qualities or attributes can be definitively—in the end as
it were—predicated of Brahman, as it is beyond affective comprehension and cognitive
conceptualization. The jñāna yogi pursues a mystical awareness of that which cannot be
an ‘object’ of knowledge, as Brahman-awareness represents transcendence of the
subject-object distinction. Brahman is Ātman. Realization of Brahman is the supreme good
that brings about freedom from fear and evil. The apprehension of Brahman is
evocatively summarized (or ‘pointed-to’) in the formulaic expression, saccidānanda,
being (sat), consciousness (cit), and bliss (ānanda). If Brahman defies all propositional
description and characterization, if it is beyond all predication, how can one assert, for
example, that ‘Brahman is truth?’ According to Eliot Deutsch, ‘To say “Brahman is truth,”
negates the quality of untruth—and this negation, it is believed, serves pragmatically to
orient the mind towards Brahman. So, much like discussions of Dao in the Daodejing,
talking about and referring to Brahman can serve practical spiritual functions and
purposes so long as we do not mistake such talk and references as providing us with an
ultimately (rather than provisionally or relatively) true account of Brahman qua
Brahman. To borrow a metaphor from Buddhism, these serve as a rafts (or ‘vehicles’ to
get us to the shore on the other side of the lake.

All characterizations of Brahman, in short, ‘are intended in their experiential dimension

to aid those who are searching for Brahman but have not yet realized it.’ This is one
reason why Advaita Vedānta distinguishes between two modes of Brahman: nirguṇa and
saguṇa. Nirguṇa Brahman is what we have been discussing or evoking up to this point,
that transcendent indeterminate state of mystical awareness about which nothing can be
affirmed (hence the via negativa or apophatic tradition of mysticism is germane). To
experientially ‘know’ Brahman is to experience mokṣa, to be liberated from the
beginningless cycles of samsāra, to nullify any further generation of karma. Until such
time as we realize (nirguṇa) Brahman, we are perfectly fit to, indeed, it is imperative that
we focus our spiritual energy and sights on saguṇa Brahman, that is, what we can call

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‘God,’ the deity of theism about which we predicate qualities, attributes, or properties,
e.g., omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence (and not just these attribute).
Saguṇa Brahman is Brahman as understood, imagined or experienced by the yogi or
devotee from her necessarily limited, partial, or relative perspectives, in which all
perception or knowledge and understanding is qualified by ignorance. From this
vantage point (saguṇa) Brahman in the tradition is Lord, Īśvara, the perfectly proper
object of our devotion and spiritual orientation, conducive as it is to accounting for our
differing degrees and stages of spiritual experience and awareness. Until one has the
intuitive spiritual experience of non-duality, that spiritual awareness in which all
distinctions, plurality, and difference are transcended and obliterated, until, that is,
nirvikalpa samādhi, one must acknowledge the conventional implications of and
consequences that follow karmic entanglement in māyā (illusion) and avidyā (ignorance).
The illusion, in other words, is for all practical purposes, real for us. It is said to be an
illusion created by the power (śakti) of Īśvara, the Great Magician who created the world.
Māyā, in turn, has its own power, for it both conceals reality (āvarana-śakti) and
misrepresents or distorts reality (vikṣepa-śakti). The phenomenal world as we know it
(Plato’s ‘Many,’ ‘the ten thousand things’ in classical Chinese worldviews) is neither true
reality (sat), nor false (or unreal, asat, like the hare’s horn, or the square circle), rather, it
has the status of ‘provisional reality’ (mithyā). Another way to say this is that the world
is ‘relatively true’ (vyāvahārika) for us, rather than absolutely true, or the ‘ultimate
reality’ (pāramārthika), relative truth which might be said to exist in a necessary relation
with absolute truth (thus the slogan, ‘It’s all relative,’ is both true and not-true, that is, in
one sense it is indeed true, and yet in another sense it is certainly false). While Īśvara
knows himself as Brahman, we know and relate to Īśvara as a personal God, for ours is
the vantage point of a provisional and relative reality, not (yet) that of ultimate reality.

As Ram-Prasad explains, ‘The dense and intricate metaphysics of Advaita is built on an

extraordinarily sweeping conception of consciousness.’ Indeed, the beginning of religio-
philosophical and psychological inquiry in this school is found in the assumed
consciousness of the individual subject[1]—the jīva—the sheer primitive ontological or
existential presence that is both revealing and concealing: the former, owing to the fact
that it is a ‘taste’ of and testament to the pure(r) and universal form of ‘witness’
consciousness (sākṣin), the latter insofar as the individual’s phenomenal experience of
consciousness amounts to a ‘superimposition’ (adhyāsa) on that which is truly real, a
qualification or limitation of universal consciousness that arises in conjunction with
ignorance. In one of the schools of thought within Advaita, a theory and metaphor of
‘reflection’ (pratibimba-vāda) is used to clarify this peculiar instantiation or embodiment
of reality and appearance, for

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 the jīva is a reflection of Ātman [the Self] on the mirror of avidyā
[ignorance], as such it is not-different from Ātman is essence. Just
as in everyday experience where we know that the face in the mirror
is not really different from the face in front of it, that the face in the
mirror does not have an independent life of its own, and yet we
maintain a distinction between them, so the jīva reflected in “ignorance”
is not really different from its prototype, the Self, and yet it continues
to be a jīva until the mirror itself is removed. The pratibimba, the
reflection, is actually as real as the bimba, the prototype, being in essence
the same thing; the pratibimba is misjudged to be different only because it
appears to be located elsewhere than the bimba. One attains the truth of
non-difference then, the moment one understands that one is a reflection
of Ātman that only appears to be different from it, but is identical with it
in reality. (Eliot Deutsch)

Intriguingly, the ‘mind (or ‘heart-mind’) as mirror metaphor’ (or the reflection of the
person on a body of water) is likewise found in the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi of
Chinese philosophy, as the sage or saint in possession of a quiescent mind is able to
purely reflect the natural order of the cosmos. In chapter 10 of the former work, the
question is posed: ‘In scrubbing and cleansing your profound mirror, are you able to rid
it of all imperfections?’ In both Advaita Vedanta and Daoism it appears, ‘rather than
being restless, anticipating, and desiring, our minds ought to be like a clear and calm
mirror capable of reflecting truth’ (Eliot Deutsch). The true nature of consciousness in
Advaita is universal in scope and thus is not subject to the limiting condition(s) of
individual consciousness as the basis of personal identity or the jīva. Awareness of this
individual self, however, is critical and serves as the starting point and therefore is
emblematic of the possibility of liberation as a locus of reflexive awareness, as it is this
reflexivity which in theory and practice points to the true nature of witness-
consciousness (sākṣin). Ram-Prasad elaborates:

The self is individuated and has its own parametrically determined

region of reflexive occurrence; it is then called the jīva. It is the jīva that
has the “I” sense (ahaṃkāra). The self [as Self] is also the typical reflexivity
shorn of all individuated occurrences; it is then called ātman. Then there
is general consciousness, which is typically reflexive and the singular,
irreducible entity [hence the ‘monist’ characterization]; it is then called
brahman. A proper articulation of the Advaita position must go from

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 highly individuated—personal and subjective—states of awareness
to general features across subjects to the universal consciousness.
(Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad)

The unliberated state is individual consciousness as experienced by the subject in a

phenomenologically dualistic manner, with consciousness reaching out as it were, to
both mental (intrinsic) and physical (extrinsic) objects. The pure state of universal
consciousness, on the other hand, is purged of all ‘otherness,’ it is consciousness as such,
sans determinate and contingent individuation or conditionality. One way to describe
this is to state that it is the selfsame empirical jīva now freed of all conditions or
determination, in its pure or ultimately real state as ‘transcendent’ consciousness (Ātman
or Brahman). The seed-thought or intuitive spark that awakens the thirst for liberation
could be said to commence with the thought or awareness that this transcendental
consciousness is ever-present, veiled or obscured by the individuated consciousness tied
to locus- and object-specific states. Individuation should eventually give way to de-
individuation, being two sides of the same coin. Brahmānubhava, experience of Brahman,
is a ‘context-free’ state of consciousness, making it difficult to intellectually comprehend
how this is in fact an experience of any kind. One must account for the nature of
liberation as a personal quest in a way that accounts for de-individuation as a process
capable of overcoming individual will, which seems to imply that one must not become
‘attached’ to liberation, pursuing this goal in a roundabout or indirect fashion wherein
realization of the true nature of the self is attained as a by-product of spillover effect of
spiritual praxis (the yogas, for example, but especially jñāna yoga), as a necessary yet not
sufficient condition for Brahman-awareness.

Reflection on the scriptural texts of Advaita Vedānta is an integral part of the spiritual
praxis that serves as a necessary condition for the knowledge of Brahman. With
Mīmāmsaka, another āstikadarśana, Advaita views its sacred texts as revelations or
manifestations of the ‘primordial Word,’ eternal and eternally valid with regard to their
statements about liberation (mokṣa). On this account, religious language is understood to
have the capacity to precipitate a spiritual experience or awareness that is itself beyond
all thought and linguistic formulation (in which case śruti, the Vedas as revelatory texts,
and anubhava, the knowledge gained from experience, are inextricably intertwined). The
epistemic theoretical justification for this view is similar if not identical to that found in
Indian poetics or ‘Sanskrit criticism’ (alaṃkāra śāstra), particularly its treatment of the
‘evocative’ character of poetic utterances insofar as they call to (one’s) mind feelings. As
the great Kashmiri Śaiva philosopher Abhinavagupta (c. 950-1015) noted, it is the
poem’s cognitive content that allows our own mental states to be objectively perceived by

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awakening latent memories, impressions or dispositions (saṃskāras). The resulting rasa
experience is said to be self-validating (or –certifying) (svataḥ prāmaṇa, the notion that the
validity of a cognitive episode or knowledge is present in the material that creates the
object and that the awareness of this validity arises spontaneously with that episode or
knowledge itself; for example, in Advaita Vedānta, awareness is said to be self-
validating—and self-illuminating—such that the doubt ‘Am I aware or not?’ cannot
occur). The self-validating character of rasa experience appears to countenance the idea
that, in the end, such experience is a species of self-knowledge, in Abhinavagupta’s
words, ‘a form of self-contemplation.’ Similarly, and in the first place, religious authority
of śruti is understood as independent and self-evident, acting as a fundamental axiom of
this philosophical school. Reflection and meditation on certain formulations in the Vedas
can directly lead to, and are a necessary condition of, the experiential awareness of
Brahman. The apparent paradox that arises with the Advaita understanding of its sacred
texts (or at least certain formulations therein) is well-captured by Ram-Prasad: the
sacred text is part of the world that is not ultimately real and thus the Advaita
conception of liberation must explain why and how ‘the teachings of the sacred
texts…are both necessarily part of primal misunderstanding and indicators of a
liberation that is necessarily beyond that understanding.’

In Advaita Vedānta, ‘a good deal of importance [is attached] to the phenomenology of

dream consciousness [svapna-sthāna] in order to show the continuity of consciousness
and the persistence of self-awareness throughout all states of consciousness:’

According to the Vedānta, the three kośas or sheaths associated

with the dream state of consciousness and that constitute the
“subtle body” (sūkṣma śarīra) of the self are the prānamayakośa,
the sheath of “vitality,” the manomayakośa, the sheath of “mind,”
and the vijñānamayakośa, the sheath of “understanding.” [….] Both
the manomayakośa and the vijñānamayakośa form the antahkarana or
“internal organ,” which is the psychological expression for the
totality of mental functions in waking-dream consciousness, [and,
as such, are subject to a pervasive avidyā (ignorance)]. (Eliot Deutsch)

In addition to the states of consciousness associated with the waking state and the
dream state, there is the third state of consciousness found in ‘deep sleep’ (suṣupti). Only
turīya (lit., ‘the fourth’), the fourth state of consciousness recognized by Vedānta, is
characterized as the ‘transcendental’ or a ‘pure’ state of consciousness. Later in the
tradition, we find not one but two states of consciousness beyond deep sleep: savikalpa

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samādhi and nirvikalpa samādhi, the former still a ‘determinate’ spiritual experience, ‘but
unlike in susupti, the deep-sleep state, the emphasis here is not so much on the absence of
duality as it is on the presence of non-duality.’ This might be described as a liminal state
betwixt and between the jīva and the Ātman, the self poised on the precipice, as it were,
of nirvikalpa samādhi, the awareness of nirguṇa Brahman. As Deutsch explains, the waking
and dreaming states of consciousness correspond to the phenomenal world of gross and
subtle bodies; the states of deep sleep and savikalpa samādhi correspond to saguṇa
(‘qualified’) Brahman, while turīya or transcendental consciousness and nirvikalpa samādhi
correspond to Ultimate Reality or nirguṇa Brahman (recalling the equation ‘Ātman =
Brahman’). Just as the dream state is ‘subrated’ (disvalued, contradicted, and
transcended) by the state of waking consciousness, so too nirguṇa Brahman, as ‘ultimate
reality’ subrates all prior experience, while nothing else is capable of subrating Brahman,
defined as spiritual experience utterly bereft of distinction or determination (nirvikalpa
samādhi), and described as an immediate (hence unmediated) consciousness or
awareness on the order of complete or absolute self-knowledge and self-realization.

Vasubandhu, a Yogācāra (or Vijñānavāda) Buddhist, argued that dreams were evidence
of the possibility of experience without an external world. Śankara, the Advaita
Vedāntin philosopher,

provides a refutation of this argument, based on its inability to

meet the requirements (accepted by Vasubandhu) of the pramāna
theory for knowledge. Vasubandhu’s crucial move in his use of
the analogy of dreaming is to point to the lack of externality in
dreaming when the experience of dreaming otherwise resembles
that of waking. Śankara points out a fallacy in this form of reasoning.
In order to deny externality in dreaming, Vasubandhu borrows the
concept of it from waking in the first place, and so cannot deny it
altogether. [….] Śankara also has a wider argument against any
idealist denial of externality in the account of experience. He points
out that externality is a feature of experience [within the domain of
“provisional reality” in light of nirguna Brahman], and while an idealist
account may reduce every other feature of experience to a mental
construct without losing its claim to be veridical, the same cannot be
said of externality. Reducing the feature of externality to mental
construction results in denying that that feature of experience is
veridical. So experience cannot be entirely veridical in seeming to
be of an external world, if the idealist is correct. But the idealist does

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 want to say that experience is veridical, even if mentally constructed;
in this he differs from a sceptic who denies that experience is veridical.
Śankara’s argument shows that idealism cannot but collapse into
scepticism about the external world. However, Śankara does agree that
dreaming has a role to play: it alerts one to the possibility that this current
experience may be overruled [‘subrated’] by some other type of
consciousness [as we saw above]. [….] It has been observed that dreaming
itself can make sense only in the context of being awake. There must in
general be veridical experience for error to occur; there must be real coins
for there to be counterfeits.

Nothing that is available in our experience, that is to say, no knowledge-

claim which can meet the standards of the pramānas, allows us to claim
that what is currently experienced can never be invalidated. This is the
real lesson of the analogy of dreams. Dreams teach us that even within a
consistent system for the validation of knowledge-claims, nothing in what
is experienced will license the non-invalidable assertion that what is
currently experienced is the sole reality. Consequently, the soteriological
claim, that this world is indeed subsumed by the reality of brahman, cannot
be gainsaid. The system for the validation of claims arising from experience
itself derives its authority from what is experienced. The system of
validation is legitimately applicable so long as that to which it is applied is
the very same experienced world from which the system’s authority is
derived. Since the pramāna theory is understood as being about the world
from which its causal authority is derived, the legitimacy of the theory is
limited to the currently experienced world. If all claims are valid or invalid
because they succeed in or fail the tests of the pramāna theory (the system of
validation), the validity of experiential claims is circumscribed by their being
about the world that is experienced. The reality putatively behind the world
[i.e., nirguna Brahman] would legitimately and coherently be known only
according to standards derived from it—but those standards, the standards
of the liberated self [i.e., Ātman]—are currently unavailable to ordinary
subjects. (Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad)

Ram-Prasad also cogently summarizes the soteriological logic of Advaita Vedānta’s

metaphysical ‘non-realism’ (similar in some respects to, but ultimately distinguished
from, absolute idealism), which has effectively combined two seemingly contradictory
theses: (i) ‘The ultimate state, that of brahman, is not the experiential reality of the world;

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to experience the world is not to be in the state (of experience) of the reality which is
brahman. (ii) But at the same time, experience of the world is not at the time of that
experience, illegitimate/invalid.’ Or, to put it differently, very few people are qualified
by their religious experience to proclaim that ‘all is māyā.’

Finally, it is often assumed, understandably, that the Buddhist doctrine of ‘no-self’

(anattā/anātman) is fundamentally at odds with the Advaita understanding of (nirguṇa)
Brahman, but Miri Albahari[2] has (along with a few others) recently—and
controversially—argued that this may be a mistake, the concept of anattā best
understood rather as indispensable to a cognitive and affective spiritual praxis (by
means of which one ‘disidentifies’ with conditioned existence) and not as a metaphysical
doctrine as such. This would soften if not eliminate the principal metaphysical difference
between Advaita Vedānta and Buddhism while leaving intact differences of practical
emphasis and in spiritual exercises or methods. With my theosophical friends, I’m
inclined to look with favor upon this argument, which would certainly be in accord with
what has sometimes been termed the Buddha’s ‘metaphysical reticence’ as evidenced on
several occasions (cf. the four ‘Inexpressibles’ or avyākrtavastūni). The compatibility of
Advaita Vedānta and Buddhism comes to the fore elsewhere as well: ‘Famously, the
Mādhyamika Nāgārjuna asserts that there is no difference [in the end, we might say]
between unliberated existence and liberation. Śaṅkara says much the same thing…: “In
fact there is no distinction between freedom and bondage. The self is eternally the same.
But the ignorance regarding it is dispelled by the cognition born of the teachings of the
texts. Prior to getting such instruction, it is appropriate to strive for the goal [of
liberation].”’

Notes:
[1] This is strikes me as identical to what Raymond Tallis terms the Existential Intuition
(EI), namely, ‘[That] I am [this: person, life, consciousness, body],’ and to which he
accords a ‘central place…in the creation of the “species being” of humanity.’ The EI is
said to incarnate both logical and existential (or carnal) assumptions that are ‘necessarily
true.’ EI is ‘the “ur-proposition” which underpins the special consciousness of humans,
the propositional awareness they do not share with other creatures.’ The EI has two
fundamental aspects: ‘consciousness of self in the form of bodily self-awareness or
awareness of the behaviorally engaged body; and the sense of the embodied self as an
agent.’ The EI is an assumption that does not have to be ‘proved,’ nor could it be, it is a
subject(ive) truth that is incorrigible. The ‘assumption of the identity is that by whose
identity is assumed.’ We have ‘living proof’ of the EI. Self-awareness or self-
consciousness ‘overarches specific contents of consciousness.’ As earlier with Bishop

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(Joseph) Butler, personal identity here is in the first instance consciousness of personal
identity. Please see Tallis’s I Am: A Philosophical Inquiry into First-Person Being
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004).

[2] Please see Albahari’s article, “Against No-Ātman Theories of Anattā,” Asian
Philosophy, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2002), and her book, Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered
Illusion of Self (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

A Basic Reading Guide (in English):

 Bartley, Christopher. Indian Philosophy A-Z. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
 Chari, V.K. Sanskrit Criticism. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1990.
 Dasgupta, Surendranath. A History of Indian Philosophy, 5 Vols. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1922/New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975.
 Deutsch, Eliot. Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Reconstruction. Honolulu, HI:
University Press of Hawaii, 1971.
 Deutsch, Eliot and J.A.B. van Buitenen, eds. A Sourcebook of Advaita Vedānta.
Honolulu, HI: University Press of Hawaii, 1971.
 Ganeri, Jonardon. Philosophy in Classical India. London: Routledge, 2001.
 Gupta, Bina. Perceiving in Advaita Vedānta: Epistemological Analysis and
Interpretation. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1991.
 Gupta, Bina. The Disinterested Witness: A Fragment of Advaita Vedānta
Phenomenology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998.
 Gupta, Bina. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Perspectives on Reality,
Knowledge, and Freedom. New York: Routledge, 2012.
 Grimes, John. A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1996, new ed.
 Isayeva, Natalia. Shankara and Indian Philosophy. Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 1993.
 Matilal, Bimal Krishna. Perception: An Essay on Classical Indian Theories of
Knowledge. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1986.
 Mohanty, J.N. Classical Indian Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
2000.
 Phillips, Stephen H. Classical Indian Metaphysics. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1997.
 Potter, Karl H., ed. Presuppositions of India’s Philosophies. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1991 (first published in 1963).
 Potter, Karl H., ed. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Vol. III, Advaita Vedānta up
to Śamkara and His Pupils. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981.

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 Rambachan, Anantanand. Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of
Knowledge in Śankara. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1991.
 Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi. Advaita Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Outline of
Indian Non-Realism. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002.
 Rao, Srinivasa. Perceptual Error: The Indian Theories. Honolulu, HI: University of
Hawai‘i Press, 1998.
 Sharma, Arvind. The Philosophy of Religion and Advaita Vedānta: A Comparative
Study of Religion and Reason. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1995.
 Sharma, Arvind, ed. Advaita Vedanta: An Introduction. New Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 2004.
 Smart, Ninian. Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosophy. London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1964.

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