Title: Introduction to Special Issue: New Directions in the Study of Advaita Vedānta
Abstract: It seems hardly necessary to make a case for the historical significance of Advaita Veda ¯nta, at least in modern times.From Orientalist scholars and Christian missionaries to nationalist reformers and New Age Gurus, Advaita Veda ¯nta dominated a variety of discourses in nineteenth-and twentieth-century India.For some, it played the role of a universalist, nonsectarian philosophy that defined the spiritual core of a nascent nation.For others, it was an amoral, unworldly monism that reflected the prepolitical, unchanging character of a subject people.For still others, it represented a nondualist alternative to inherited modes of Western thought; at turns mystical and thoroughly rational, it could attract comparative philosophers and spiritual seekers alike.Not only is Advaita Veda ¯nta one of the most influential schools of Indian philosophy, it is also one of the most studied.Karl Potter's online Bibliography of Indian Philosophies lists more than nineteen hundred publications on Advaita Veda ¯nta, far more than on any other school; over four hundred and fifty books and articles have appeared in the last twenty years alone. 1Whether or not its disproportionate impact on the field is justified, one might be forgiven for concluding that Advaita Veda ¯nta has in fact been over-studied.