The Fundamentalist Turn: Revisiting the Brahmasūtras in Late Advaita Vedānta

Abstract

Abstract Like their medieval and early modern predecessors, the Sanskrit intellectuals who wrote on Advaita Vedānta during and after the eighteenth century had a rich and complex relation with the foundational text of the Vedānta tradition—the Brahmasūtras. In this article, I discuss the renewed attention late Advaitins pay to this work as an exemplary text of the Advaita tradition. I examine their use of new categories of interpretation pertaining to the ‘intention’ and ’wording’ of the sūtras, and discuss how some Advaitins sought to establish them as teaching the doctrine of pure non-dualism without the intervention of Śaṅkara’s commentary.