Prayer and Invocation

Hari AUM!

Salutations to Lord Ganesha, remover of obstacles!

Many, many salutations to Godess ShAradA, Godess of knowledge, bestower of wisdom and our Merciful Mother who always heeds her devotee's call!

O Mother! Please shed thy grace on us!

Prostrations to ShrI Shankara bhagavatpAda, who was blessed with HER vision and out of compassion for the suffering souls, has blessed us with his spiritual works!

May his works and their divine wisdom guide us to HER!


Hello all :

    I wish to introduce a new series of posts in advaita-l on ShrI Shankara bhagavatpAda's spiritual literature called prakaraNa grantham. As the name indicates, the Great Teacher wrote these works as an introductory study of Advaita Vedanta.  These works contain not only the basic teachings of Advaita but also cover the ethical and moral pre-requisites to study advaita vedanta.

    The purpose to start this series is two-fold. I wish to improve my understanding of the fundamentals of advaita vedanta. What better way to do it than to study and discuss the introductory texts of advaita in advaita-l? The other reason is that, I have seen basic questions about advaita being posed repeatedly on this list. I feel that a sincere study of the prakaraNa granthas would answer most if not all such questions. Considering that our membership has soared in recent months and quite a few of our new members have expressed their desire to learn the basics, this venture, I hope, would be an useful one.

    I wish to declare up front that I am a sanskrit novice and that this is my maiden venture in transliteration of sanskrit literature. Please bear with me. I request the knowledgeable list members to correct my mistakes. As always, your comments are most welcome.

Notes on Posts

1. The subject of all posts would be pre-fixed with PGS,  indicating the prakaraNa grantha series, followed by the name of the text and the shloka number.

2. I intend to go at a slow pace to facilitate ample discussion.

3. All the posts should be searcheable by indicating the PGS in the subject line. To facilitate this, please reply with PGS as part of the subject.

4. Due to my limited knowledge of sanskrit, the posts would have minimal sanskrik ( or more English ). Again, I kindly request the knowledgeable list members to fill in the blanks.