Vedic Landscapeekaṃ sad viprā bahudhā vadanti
kāṇḍa VI

The Readings

The same prasthāna-trayī, read as difference, as qualified identity, and as identity.

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Vedānta's Three Readings

before this →One Veda, Six Readings

Vedānta reads one canon — the prasthāna-trayī: the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad Gītā, and the Brahma Sūtra. Its three great ācāryas read that canon three ways, and the difference is not small.

How do the self and Brahman relate?

Śaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva

The whole disagreement turns on one question: are the individual self and Brahman finally identical, inseparable but distinct, or eternally different? Each answer has its own mahāvākya emphasis and its own account of liberation.

the disciplineThese are not three steps but three readings. The tradition keeps them side by side, teaching each in its own sampradāya — another face of bahudhā vadanti.
ADVAITAidentity — Brahman alone, the many is māyā
VIŚIṢṬĀDVAITAqualified identity — one with body and parts
DVAITAdifference — God, soul, and world are eternally distinct

The center, held in three hands

This is where satyam jñānam anantam brahma does its work: all three accept the center. They disagree about the relation between the center and the one who reads it. That is the whole of the argument.

And it is why the landscape keeps the center inside the frame. The moment one reading becomes the frame, the other two become errors instead of ways.

introduces →advaitaviśiṣṭādvaitadvaitaprasthāna-trayīmahāvākya
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