India · c. 6th c. CE – today
Advaita Vedānta
Brahman, pure consciousness, is the only reality; the self is Brahman, and the world of many things is an appearance produced by ignorance (avidyā).
If the self is Brahman, why do we experience a world of many things?
Vedānta (‘the end of the Veda’) schools interpreted the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gītā and the Brahma Sūtra. Gauḍapāda and Śaṅkara read them as teaching strict non-duality, in sharp debate with Buddhists and with Mīmāṃsakas, whose ritual-first view Śaṅkara rejected.
Only what never changes and is never negated is ultimately real; objects come and go, but the awareness to which they appear is never absent. As a rope in dim light is mistaken for a snake, Brahman is mistaken for the world and the self for a limited person; knowledge removes the error, as seeing the rope removes the snake.
- Brahman alone is real; the world is appearance.
- The individual self is not different from Brahman.
- Liberation comes from knowledge, not ritual action.
It became the best-known Indian philosophy, shaping Hindu monastic orders and, through Vivekananda and others, modern global ideas of Hindu spirituality.
Thinkers
c. 6th c. CEGauḍapādaEarliest known Advaita teacher, by tradition Śaṅkara’s teacher’s teacherc. 700–750 (older scholarship: 788–820)ŚaṅkaraAdvaita master whose commentaries defined non-dual VedāntaKey texts
Where it came from
Grew out ofVedic & Upanishadic thoughtŚaṅkara read the Upanishadic identity of ātman and Brahman in the strictest sense: there is only one reality.Borrowed from
MadhyamakaGauḍapāda’s doctrine of non-origination echoes Madhyamaka arguments, which is why rival Vedāntins called Advaitins ‘crypto-Buddhists’.Reacted against
MīmāṃsāŚaṅkara rejected Mīmāṃsā’s view that ritual action leads to the highest good: only knowledge of Brahman liberates.
What it led to
Opposed byTheistic Vedānta (Viśiṣṭādvaita & Dvaita)Rāmānuja’s Śrībhāṣya attacks Advaita’s doctrine of ignorance (avidyā) in a famous series of objections, insisting that the world and souls are real.Carried on by
Neo-Vedānta & modern Indian thoughtVivekananda presented Śaṅkara’s non-duality as the philosophical core of a universal religion and an ethic of service.