Chapter 1.1 - Madhyamika and Advaita (introduction)

Buddhism and Advaita vedanta are living philosophies. They enrich the lives of people from generation to generation and helped the people to relish the benefit of religiosity by their hermeneutical interpretations. Since the beginning of life and living, religion has played a very dominant role in shaping the outlook of the individual leading towards peaceful co-existence. It has helped in our awareness of individual approaches towards collective consciousness of the underlying unity in the apparent diversity witnessed with the universe. Realizing the needs of the people at periods, religious teachers have been trying to create harmony of wisdom from the chaos of ignorance.

Buddha, Nagarjuna, Gaudapada and Shankara are the luminaries who, through their religious and philosophical analysis of the reality of life and living, have been guiding the common man. The metaphysical reality in Advaita vedanta is a cosmic and its knowledge, which is liberation is derived from the transcendence of thought and reason, viz., the self-realization. The whole modification in Advaita metaphysics is based on the foundation of internal Self which is an undeniable reality. It is also known as Brahman, the Absolute reality. The difference between Brahman and Atman is only with respect to our approach that Brahman is the absolute reality and Atman is within the internal world of ourselves, i.e., reality in the individual self.