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Anantanand Rambachan is a professor of religion at St. Olaf College.
Rambachan completed his undergraduate studies at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad. He received his M.A. (Distinction) and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Leeds, in the United Kingdom, where he researched "classical Advaita epistemology and, in particular, the significance of the śruti as a source of valid knowledge (pramāṇa) in Śaṅkara."[ citation needed ]
Since 1985 Rambachan has been teaching in the Department of Religion at St. Olaf College, Minnesota, USA, where he "continued my research and writing on Advaita, the Hindu tradition in a global context, Hindu ethics, Hinduism and contemporary issues and interreligious dialogue." Starting 2013, Professor Rambachan was Forum Humanum Visiting Professor at the Academy for World Religions at Hamburg University, Germany until 2017. [1] [2]
Rambachan is a Professor of Religion at St. Olaf College, Minnesota, USA. [3] He has been teaching at St. Olaf since 1985. [4] Rambachan is a Hindu and was the first non-Christian chair of the Religion Department at this Lutheran college. He is a member of the Theological Education Steering Committee of the American Academy of Religion, the Advisory Council of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Society, University of Victoria, BC, Canada, an advisor to Harvard University's Pluralism Project, Chair of the Board for the MN Multifaith Network, and is a member with Consultation on Population and Ethics, a non-governmental organization, affiliated with the United Nations. [4]
Rambachan is very involved with interreligious dialogue and more specifically, Hindu-Christian dialogue. He continues to participate in interreligious activities, both nationally and internationally. He is an active member and participant in the dialogue program of the World Council of Churches and participated in the last four General Assemblies.[ citation needed ]
From 2013 to 2017, Rambachan published articles as an author on the Huffington Post, covering topics related to Hinduism. [5] From 2017 on, he moved his writings to the blog portion of his website. [6]
He has traveled and lectured in Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Mauritius, South Africa, Kenya, India, Trinidad, Brazil, The Vatican, Japan, Italy, Spain, Canada and the United Kingdom. A series of 25 lectures was broadcast internationally by the BBC. Rambachan also led the first White House celebration of the Hindu Festival of Diwali in 2003. He continues to return to Trinidad on a yearly basis and was awarded the Chaconia Gold Medal, [7] Trinidad and Tobago's second highest national honor for public service.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, natively Radhakrishnayya, was an Indian philosopher and statesman. He served as the second president of India from 1962 to 1967. He was also the first vice president of India from 1952 to 1962. He was the second ambassador of India to the Soviet Union from 1949 to 1952. He was also the fourth vice-chancellor of Banaras Hindu University from 1939 to 1948 and the second vice-chancellor of Andhra University from 1931 to 1936.
Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world; and is credited with raising interfaith awareness, and bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion. Vivekananda became a popular figure after the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago, where he began his famous speech with the words, "Sisters and brothers of America...," before introducing Hinduism to Americans. He was so impactful at the Parliament that an American newspaper described him as: “an orator by divine right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at the Parliament”. After great success at the Parliament, in the subsequent years, Vivekananda delivered hundreds of lectures across the United States, England and Europe, disseminating the core tenets of Hindu philosophy, and founded the Vedanta Society of New York and the Vedanta Society of San Francisco, both of which became the foundations for Vedanta Societies in the West.
Adi Shankara, also called Adi Shankaracharya, was an 8th-century Indian Vedic scholar and teacher (acharya). His works present a harmonizing reading of the sastras, with liberating knowledge of the self at its core, synthesizing the Advaita Vedanta teachings of his time.
Vedanta, also known as Uttara Mīmāṃsā, is a Hindu philosophical tradition that is considered one of the six orthodox (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. The word "Vedanta" means "end of the Vedas", and encompasses the ideas and philosophies present in the Upanishads, with a focus on knowledge and liberation. Vedanta developed into many sub-traditions, all of which base their ideas on the authority of a common group of texts called the Prasthānatrayī, translated as "the three sources": the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita.
Advaita Vedanta is a Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience, and the oldest extant tradition of the orthodox Hindu school Vedānta. The term Advaita refers to the idea that Brahman alone is ultimately real, while the transient phenomenal world is an illusory appearance (maya) of Brahman. In this view, (jiv)Ātman, the experiencing self, and Ātman-Brahman, the highest Self and Absolute Reality, is non-different. The jivatman or individual self is a mere reflection or limitation of singular Ātman in a multitude of apparent individual bodies.
Shruti in Sanskrit means "that which is heard" and refers to the body of most authoritative, ancient religious texts comprising the central canon of Hinduism. Manusmriti states: Śrutistu vedo vijñeyaḥ meaning, "Know that Vedas are Śruti". Thus, it includes the four Vedas including its four types of embedded texts—the Samhitas, the Upanishads, the Brahmanas and the Aranyakas.
Shabda, is the Sanskrit word for "speech sound". In Sanskrit grammar, the term refers to an utterance in the sense of linguistic performance.
The term subitism points to sudden awakening, the idea that insight into Buddha-nature, or the nature of mind, is "sudden," c.q. "in one glance," "uncovered all together," or "together, completely, simultaneously," in contrast to "successively or being uncovered one after the other." It may be posited as opposite to gradualism, the original Buddhist approach which says that following the dharma can be achieved only step by step, through an arduous practice.
Rajiv Malhotra is an Indian-born American Hindu nationalist ideologue, author and founder of Infinity Foundation, which focuses on Indic studies, and also funds projects such as Columbia University's project to translate the Tibetan Buddhist Tengyur.
In Hinduism, Brahman connotes the highest universal principle, the ultimate reality in the universe. In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists. It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth, consciousness and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes. Brahman as a metaphysical concept refers to the single binding unity behind diversity in all that exists in the universe.
Pravrajika Vrajaprana is a sannyasini or pravrajika at the Vedanta Society of Southern California, affiliated with the Ramakrishna Order. She resides at Sarada Convent in Santa Barbara, CA. and a writer on Vedanta, the history and growth of the Vedanta Societies
The Theological Method of Samkara is Richard De Smet's doctoral dissertation, defended at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, in 1953, with Fr Renatus Arnou, SJ as director. The dissertation, which rapidly became well-known, remains unpublished. The dissertation proposed that Sankara was not so much a pure philosopher, but rather a srutivadin or theologian, an exegete or hermeneutician of the scriptures. It also proposed that the doctrine of indirect signification (lakṣaṇā) plays a central role in Sankara's theological method. However, in the dissertation itself, De Smet does not arrive clearly at his later rejection of the classical illusionist (mayavadin) monistic interpretation of Sankara in favour of a non-dualist 'realist' one.
Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu monk from India. His teachings and philosophy are a reinterpretation and synthesis of various strands of Hindu thought, most notably classical yoga and (Advaita) Vedanta, with western esotericism and Universalism. He blended religion with nationalism, and applied this reinterpretation to various aspect's of education, faith, character building as well as social issues pertaining to India. His influence extended also to the west, and he was instrumental in introducing Yoga to the west.
Neo-Vedanta, also called Hindu modernism, neo-Hinduism, Global Hinduism and Hindu Universalism, are terms to characterize interpretations of Hinduism that developed in the 19th century. The term "Neo-Vedanta" was coined by German Indologist Paul Hacker, in a pejorative way, to distinguish modern developments from "traditional" Advaita Vedanta.
Jainism and Hinduism are two ancient Indian religions. There are some similarities and differences between the two religions. Temples, gods, rituals, fasts and other religious components of Jainism are different from those of Hinduism.
In Advaita Vedanta and Jnana Yoga Nididhyasana is profound and repeated meditation on the mahavakyas, great Upanishadic statements such as "That art Thou", to realize the identity of Atman and Brahman. It is the fourth step in the training of a sisya (disciple), consisting of preparatory practices, listening to the teachings as contained in the sruti, reflection on the teachings, and nididhyasana.
In Hinduism, Śāstra pramāṇam refers to the authority of the scriptures with regard to puruṣārtha, the objects of human pursuit, namely dharma, artha, kāma (pleasure) and mokṣa (liberation). Together with smṛti, ācāra, and ātmatuṣṭi, it provides pramana and sources of dharma, as expressed in Classical Hindu law, philosophy, rituals and customs.
Paul Hacker was a German Indologist, who coined the term Neo-Vedanta in a pejorative way, to distinguish modern developments from "traditional" Advaita Vedanta.
Advaita Vedānta is the oldest extant tradition of Vedānta, and one of the six orthodox (āstika) Hindu philosophies. Its history may be traced back to the start of the Common Era, but takes clear shape in the 6th-7th century CE, with the seminal works of Gaudapada, Maṇḍana Miśra, and Shankara, who is considered by tradition and Orientalist Indologists to be the most prominent exponent of the Advaita Vedānta, though the historical fame and cultural influence of Shankara grew only centuries later, particularly during the era of the Muslim invasions and consequent reign of the Indian subcontinent. The living Advaita Vedānta tradition in medieval times was influenced by, and incorporated elements from, the yogic tradition and texts like the Yoga Vasistha and the Bhagavata Purana. In the 19th century, due to the interplay between western views and Indian nationalism, Advaita came to be regarded as the paradigmatic example of Hindu spirituality, despite the numerical dominance of theistic Bkakti-oriented religiosity. In modern times, its views appear in various Neo-Vedānta movements.
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