17 Facts About Brahma Sutras

1.

Brahma Sutras is a Sanskrit text, attributed to the sage Badarayana or sage Vyasa, estimated to have been completed in its surviving form in approx.

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2.

Brahma Sutras is one of three most important texts in Vedanta along with the Principal Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.

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3.

Several commentaries on the Brahma Sutras are lost to history or yet to be found; of the surviving ones, the most well studied commentaries on the Brahma Sutras include the bhashya by Adi Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhvacharya, Bhaskara and many others.

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4.

Brahma Sutras text is dated to centuries that followed Buddha and Mahavira, because it mentions and critiques the ideas of Buddhism and Jainism in Chapter 2.

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5.

Nakamura states that the original version of Brahma Sutras is likely very ancient and its inception coincides with the Kalpa Sutras period.

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6.

Brahma Sutras explains the mention of different philosophies and their criticism in the Brahma Sutra as refutations of general ideas, which are eternal.

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7.

Brahma Sutras consist of 555 aphorisms or sutras, in four chapters, with each chapter divided into four parts.

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8.

Each Adhikarana of Brahma Sutras has varying numbers of sutras, and most sections of the text are structured to address the following:.

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9.

Sutras of the Brahma Sutras are aphorisms, which Paul Deussen states to be "threads stretched out in weaving to form the basis of the web", and intelligible "when the woof is added" with a commentary.

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10.

Second chapter of the Brahma Sutras Sutra has been variously interpreted by various monist, theistic and other sub-schools of Vedanta.

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11.

Third Brahma Sutras chapter focuses on the nature of spiritual knowledge and epistemic paths to it.

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12.

Third pada, states George Thibaut, opens a new section and theme in chapter 3 of the Brahma Sutras, asserting that meditation is central to the Vedic texts, and summarizing the Vedic theories, from different Shakha, on "how the individual soul is enabled by meditation on Brahman to obtain final release".

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13.

The last chapter of the Brahma Sutras discusses the need and fruits of self-knowledge, the state of freedom and liberation.

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14.

Brahma Sutras has been translated into German by Paul Deussen, and in English by George Thibaut.

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15.

Vinayak Sakaram Ghate of Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute has done a comparative analysis of the Brahma Sutra commentaries of Nimbarka, Ramanuja, Vallabha, Adi Shankara and Madhvacharya in detail and has written the conclusion that Nimbarka's and Ramanuja's balanced commentaries give the closest meaning of the Brahma Sutras taking into account of both kinds of Sutras, those which speak of oneness and those which speak of difference.

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16.

Many commentaries on the fundamental scripture of Vedanta, the Brahma Sutras, were written by the founders or leading scholars of the various sects of Hinduism, and they are transmitted to this day as documents indispensable in the respective sectarian traditions.

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17.

Vedanta contained in the Upanishads, then formulated in the 'Brahma Sutras, and finally commented and explained by Shankara, is an invaluable key for discovering the deepest meaning of all the religious doctrines and for realizing that the Sanatana Dharma secretly penetrates all the forms of traditional spirituality.

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