Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas As a Source of Valid Knowledge in Sankara (MONOGRAPH OF THE SOCIETY FOR ASIAN AND COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY)

Sankara's non-dualistic system of Advaita Vedanta has long been recognized as one of the greatest philosophical achievements of the Indian tradition. At the heart of Sankara's system is the articulation of the means by which a human understanding of ultimate reality can be attained. Most scholarship has concluded that for Sankara, full knowledge of ultimate reality can be acquired only through personal experience. Through a careful analysis of the original commentaries, however, Anantanand Rambachan attempts to establish that Sankara regarded the Vedas as the unique and definitive source of valid knowledge of ultimate reality. All other sources of knowledge, including personal experience, are in fact to be understood as subordinate to the revelations of the Vedas .