The Brahma Sutra admits two main commentaries, one by Shankara and one other by Ramanuja.
Question: What are the difference between these two commentaries?
asked Feb 17, 2015 at 15:40
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3The difference between the two commentaries is that they interpret the text from different philosophical perspectives. Are you asking for the philosophical difference between Advaita and Visistadvaita? That's discussed in Sai's answer here: hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/4056/36– Keshav Srinivasan ♦Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 15:56
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7What is the difference? The difference is akin to Ramanujacharya saying the Ocean is the whole and the waves are its parts, while Shankaracharya saying that the waves and the Ocean are all just salty water, therefore their essence is One. The sectarians put the focus on the differences and therefore waste their time arguing and analyzing. The wise put the focus on the similarities, and thus they attain the Goal by practising and realizing. What is the similarity? The similarity is this - Renounce all ego, desires, sense pleasures, etc. The rest will unravel by itself :) !! All the best sir– SaiCommented Feb 17, 2015 at 17:06
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Possible duplicate of Differences between Advaita & Vishishtadvaita– Pandya ♦Commented Sep 12, 2016 at 16:38
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@Pandya: your post was asked 4 months ago, whereas mine, more than 1 year ago, so which one is the duplicate... Anyway your post and the answers there are very interesting :)– Sebastien PalcouxCommented Oct 3, 2016 at 13:21
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@SebastienPalcoux From Which question is the duplicate?: "Usually a recent question will be closed as a duplicate of an older question. But this isn't an absolute rule. The general rule is to keep the question with the best collection of answers, and close the other one as a duplicate."– Pandya ♦Commented Oct 3, 2016 at 14:45
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1 Answer
Swami Vireswarananda has done 2 translations of the Brhama-Sutras with Sanskrit text, English rendering, and commentary. One is a translation of Sankaracharya's Brahma-Sutra and the other is the Brahma-Sutra Sri-Bhasya of Ramanujacharya. In the Sri-Bhasya translation, he has an Introduction where he explains in detail the agreements and differences between the two, Shankara's Brahma-Sutras and Ramanuja's Brahma-Sutras. It is 50 pages in length so I won't go into a lot of detail. The books are still in print. If you are interested I can tell you where to order from, depending upon what country you're in.
I will quote only the first paragraph of one of the last sections of the Introduction:
From the previous sections we find that all the Vedantic schools more or less agree on certain points, especially in their attacks against non-Vedantic schools. All agree that Brahman, the ultimate reality, is the cause of the world; that a knowledge of It leads to release, which is the summum bonum of life; that Brahman can be known only through the Scriptures and not through mere reasoning or other means of knowledge, the Scriptures being the sole authority with respect to It. But they differ among themselves as to the nature of Brahman, Its causality in respect of the world, the nature of the soul and its relation to Brahman, and the condition of the soul on release.
Hope that helps.
answered Feb 18, 2015 at 5:06
