In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death." -Schopenhauer. T H E Vedantic system of philosophy has two broad aspects, the esoteric and the exoteric. The former is technically metaphysical and is abstract in form; the latter is in a concrete historical setting and is for the requirements of those who have not, so to speak, risen above faith and form. The four main divisions

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... Vedantism deal with the doctrine of God or of the philosophical principle, the doctrine of the world, the doctrine of the soul, and lastly the doctrine of the fate of the soul after death. These constitute respectively the theology, cosmology, psychology and eschatology of the system. A treatment of these doctrines as such must proceed entirely on historical lines so as to represent faithfully the traditional views. But with this merely exoteric aspect we shall not be concerned at all, the present exposition being confined solely to the Vedantic theory of being, the central ontological tenet of the identity of the self and the universe, the doctrine of Brahma as the one and sole ultimate reality, the One Eternal Being to which there is no second. In fact the attempt will be made to show how it is by guest on June 7, 2016 http://monist.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on June 7, 2016 http://monist.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from