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Updated: June 13, 2025
German philosophy has borrowed its pantheism from India rather than from Greece, and in its most shadowy developments it has never transcended the ancient Vedantism of Vyasa.
Apart from some special metaphors the whole doctrine set forth in the Sukh Nidhan and Amar Mul is little more than a loose Vedantism, somewhat reminiscent of Sufiism. The teaching of Kabir is known as the Kabirpanth. At present there are both Hindus and Mohammedans among his followers and both have monasteries at Maghar where he is buried. The sect numbers in all about a million.
The old Vedantism, by representing all things as mere phenomenal expressions of infinite Brahm, tended necessarily to destroy all sense of personal responsibility. The abdication of the personal ego is an easy way of shifting the burden of guilt.
Here, as elsewhere, Buddhist and Brahmanic ideas acted and reacted in such complex interrelations that it is hard to say which has borrowed from the other. As to dates, the older Upanishads which contain the foundations but not the complete edifice of Vedantism, seem a little earlier than the Buddha.
And that, next to Vedântism, was the essence of Śaṅkara's teaching: he wished to regard tradition as a coherent whole, based on the eternal Veda but including authoritative Sṃriti to be interpreted in the light of the Veda, and thus he hoped to correct extravagant and partial views and to lead to those heights whence it is seen that all is one, "without difference."
And the broad pantheism which overrides the distinctions of eternal right and wrong, and divests God of all moral discriminations, puts Vedantism and Fetichism, Christianity and Witchcraft, upon the same basis. The Bhagavad Gita and the Gospel both enjoin the brotherhood of men, but what are the meanings which they give to this term? What are their aims, respectively?
Many intelligent men, and many uneducated, but earnest souls, have grown weary of their multitudinous pantheon, and of its hydra-headed idolatry, which charms and debases the masses. In like manner, many of them have ceased to be satisfied with the unknown Brâhm of Vedantism, and are seeking after a personal Deity, who can meet the demands of their craving hearts.
It must also be remembered that according to Chinese accounts Bodhidharma preached at Nanking in 520 a doctrine very similar to the advaita of Śaṅkara though expressed in Buddhist phraseology. Of other forms of Vedântism, the best known is the system of Râmânuja generally called Viśishṭâdvaita.
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