Advaita Vision

www.advaita.org.uk

Page last updated 8 March, 2014

Advaita for the 21st Century

© Dennis Waite

2003 - 2014

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A very short introduction to the Sanskrit language and to the book which provides a slightly longer introduction.

Details of, and extracts from, the book by Dennis Waite.

The following are the sections of the Sanskrit part of the site: -

SECTIONS:-

Sanskrit

The teaching of Advaita derives from the Upanishads, which themselves are a part of the ancient documents (originally passed down by word of mouth) called the Vedas. Secondary writings such as the Bhagavad Gita, contain further discussions. The third principal source are the Brahmasutras, which examine doubts that might arise from the above. Finally, there are numbers of scholarly books dealing with Advaita and there are learned commentaries on all of the above.


One problem which troubles some seekers is that virtually all of these source documents were written in Sanskrit, which seems to be a totally alien language. You do not, however, need to learn the language. What you do need to understand are a few basic words dealing with concepts that are not easily translatable into English. This section of the site provides an introduction, links to resources and a dictionary of all of the terms you are likely to encounter, with more detailed essays on key terms.  

संस्कृत

   a - ahaM

   aham vRRitti - antaryAmin

   antaHsthA - artha

   arthApatti - avyapadeshya

   bAdha - buddhi

   chaitanya - dvitIya

   eka - Ishvara

   jaDa - kANDa

   khaNDana - kUTastha

   lakShaNa - mAtRRikA

   mAyA - nirupAdhika

   nirveda - paramAtman

   paramparA - prameya

   pramiti - pUrvapakSha

   rAga - sAMkhya

   sampradAya - sattvApatti

   satya - shiShya

   smRRiti - svechChA

   tAdAtmya - uttara mImAMsA

   vAchArambhaNa - vibhUti

   vichAra - vivarta

   vivarta vAda - yuta

Dictionary

Definitions of some key terms in Advaita. Commonly encountered concepts such as adhyAsa, jIva, mAyA, satyam and many others are written about in detail by a number of different authors.

List of common abbreviations found for scriptural references (e.g. Ka for Katha Upanishad).

Links to on-line dictionaries, grammar, Sanskrit documents, editors and more.

Information and links relating to ITRANS.