Advaita Vedanta

====Neo-Vedanta====
[[File:MKGandhi.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Mahatma Gandhi]] stated "I am an advaitist".<ref name=jordens116>{{cite book|author=J. Jordens|title=Gandhi's Religion: A Homespun Shawl|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ELODDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA116|year=1998|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0-230-37389-1|page=116}}</ref><ref name=long194>{{cite book|author=Jeffrey D. Long|editor=Rita Sherma and Arvind Sharma|title=Hermeneutics and Hindu Thought: Toward a Fusion of Horizons|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x4eXRvwyvtMC&pg=PA194|year=2008|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-4020-8192-7|page=194|access-date=1 June 2017|archive-date=21 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721073153/https://books.google.com/books?id=x4eXRvwyvtMC&pg=PA194|url-status=live}}</ref>]]
{{Main|Neo-Vedanta|Hindu nationalism}}

According to King, with the consolidation of the British imperialist rule the new rulers started to view Indians through the "colonially crafted lenses" of [[Orientalism]]. In response Hindu nationalism emerged, striving for socio-political independence and countering the influence of Christian missionaries.{{sfn|King|2002|pp=107–109}} Among the colonial era intelligentsia the monistic Advaita Vedānta has been a major ideological force for Hindu nationalism,<ref>{{cite book|author=Anshuman A Mondal|title=Nationalism and Post-Colonial Identity: Culture and Ideology in India and Egypt|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Rw2CAgAAQBAJ |year= 2004|publisher= Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-49417-0|pages=85, 256}}</ref> with Hindu intellectuals formulating a "humanistic, inclusivist" response, now called Neo-Vedānta, attempting to respond to this colonial stereotyping of "Indian culture [as] backward, superstitious and inferior to the West."{{sfn|King|2002|pp=136–138}}

Due to the influence of Vidyaranya's [[Sarva-Darsana-Sangraha|''Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha'']], early Indologists regarded Advaita Vedanta as the most accurate interpretation of the Upanishads.{{sfn|Nicholson|2010|pp=160}} Vedānta came to be regarded, both by westerners as by Indian nationalists, as the essence of Hinduism, and Advaita Vedānta came to be regarded as "then paradigmatic example of the mystical nature of the Hindu religion" and umbrella of "inclusivism".{{sfn|King|2002|pp=107–109, 128}} Colonial era Indian thinkers, such as [[Vivekananda]], presented Advaita Vedānta as an inclusive universal religion, a spirituality that in part helped organize a religiously infused identity. It also aided the rise of Hindu nationalism as a counter weight to Islam-infused Muslim communitarian organizations such as the [[All-India Muslim League|Muslim League]], to Christianity-infused colonial orientalism and to religious persecution of those belonging to Indian religions.<ref>{{cite book|author=Brian Morris|title=Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PguGB_uEQh4C&pg=PA142|year=2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-85241-8|pages=112, 141–144|access-date=29 January 2017|archive-date=16 January 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240116180154/https://books.google.com/books?id=PguGB_uEQh4C&pg=PA142#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=gaborieau7/><ref>{{cite book|author=Thomas Blom Hansen|title=The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SAqn3OIGE54C|year=1999|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0691006710|pages=76–77, 91–92, 179–181, 44–47, 69–70|access-date=29 January 2017|archive-date=16 January 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240116180224/https://books.google.com/books?id=SAqn3OIGE54C|url-status=live}}</ref> Neo-Vedānta subsumed and incorporated Buddhist ideas thereby making the [[Buddha]] a part of the Vedānta tradition, all in an attempt to reposition the history of Indian culture.{{sfn|King|2002|pp=136–138, 141–142}} This view on Advaita Vedānta, according to King, "provided an opportunity for the construction of a nationalist ideology that could unite Hindus in their struggle against colonial oppression".{{sfn|King|2002|pp=132–133, 172}}

Vivekananda discerned a [[Universalism|universal religion]], regarding all the apparent differences between various traditions as various manifestations of one truth.{{sfn|Rambachan|1994|pp=91–92}} Vivekananda emphasised ''nirvikalpa'' [[samadhi]] as the spiritual goal of Vedānta, he equated it to the liberation in [[Yoga]] and encouraged Yoga practice which he called ''Raja yoga''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Rabindra Kumar Dasgupta|title=Swami Vivekananda on Indian philosophy and literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U4LXAAAAMAAJ|year=1996|publisher=Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture|isbn=978-81-85843-81-0|pages=145–146, 284–285|access-date=29 January 2017|archive-date=16 January 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240116190113/https://books.google.com/books?id=U4LXAAAAMAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|According to Comans, this approach is missing in historic Advaita texts.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Comans | first=Michael | s2cid=170870115 | title=The Question of the Importance of Samadhi in Modern and Classical Advaita Vedanta | journal=Philosophy East and West | publisher=University of Hawai'i Press | volume=43 | issue=1 | year=1993 | pages=19–38 | doi=10.2307/1399467 | jstor=1399467 }}</ref>}} With the efforts of [[Swami Vivekananda|Vivekananda]], modern formulations of Advaita Vedānta have "become a dominant force in Indian intellectual thought", though Hindu beliefs and practices are diverse.{{sfn|King|2002|p=135}}

[[Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan]], first a professor at Oxford University and later a President of India, further popularized Advaita Vedānta, presenting it as the essence of Hinduism.<ref group=web name="IEP" /> According to Michael Hawley, Radhakrishnan saw other religions, as well as "what Radhakrishnan understands as lower forms of Hinduism," as interpretations of Advaita Vedānta, thereby "in a sense Hindusizing all religions".<ref group=web name="IEP" /> Radhakrishnan metaphysics was grounded in Advaita Vedānta, but he reinterpreted Advaita Vedānta for contemporary needs and context.<ref group=web name="IEP">{{Cite web |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/radhakri/#H2 |title=Michael Hawley, ''Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888—1975)'', Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=9 June 2014 |archive-date=12 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190712171420/https://www.iep.utm.edu/radhakri/#H2 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{refn|group=note|name=bhedabheda|Neo-Vedanta seems to be closer to [[Bhedabheda|Bhedabheda-Vedanta]] than to Shankara's Advaita Vedanta, with the acknowledgement of the reality of the world. Nicholas F. Gier: "Ramakrsna, Svami Vivekananda, and Aurobindo (I also include M.K. Gandhi) have been labeled "neo-Vedantists," a philosophy that rejects the Advaitins' claim that the world is illusory. Aurobindo, in his ''The Life Divine'', declares that he has moved from Sankara's "universal illusionism" to his own "universal realism" (2005: 432), defined as metaphysical realism in the European philosophical sense of the term."<ref>{{Cite journal |first =Nicholas F. |last =Gier |year=2012 |title=Overreaching to be different: A critique of Rajiv Malhotra's Being Different |journal=[[International Journal of Hindu Studies]] |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=259–285 | doi =10.1007/s11407-012-9127-x|s2cid =144711827}}</ref>}}

Mahatma Gandhi declared his allegiance to Advaita Vedānta, and was another popularizing force for its ideas.<ref>{{cite book|first=Nicholas F.|last=Gier|year=2004|title=The Virtue of Nonviolence: From Gautama to Gandhi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tVLt99uleLwC&pg=PA40|publisher=State University of New York Press|isbn=978-0-7914-5949-2|pages=40–42|access-date=1 June 2017|archive-date=21 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721073707/https://books.google.com/books?id=tVLt99uleLwC&pg=PA40|url-status=live}}</ref>