In 1971, the University of Hawaii Press published A Source Book of Advaita Vedānta, edited by myself and the late distinguished Professor of Sanskrit and Indic Studies at the University of Chicago, J. A. B. van Buitenen. The present volume, edited by myself and Rohit Dalvi, is basically a 2nd edition of the earlier work. Some changes and additions have been made in the selections from the Upanisads and new materials from Śrīharsa have been added to the selections from the major Advaitic philosophers.
In the preface to the first edition we noted that the purpose of this book is to help make possible a study of Advaita Vedānta in its classical form as this great tradition of thought actually functioned in Indian culture and as this tradition represents distinctive philosophical achievements. We are concerned in short to understand Advaita Vedānta both in terms of cultural history and philosophy.
We are presenting translations of selections from the major Sanskrit writings of some of the most important Advaitic thinkers, together with the appropriate background materials. We have not included in this work any material from the neo-Vedānta that has developed in India in recent decades (e.g., Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Radhakrishnan) as the literature of this movement, having been written in English, is readily accessible.
In a collaboration of this sort the authors, while standing behind the entire work, have naturally divided it into areas of special individual responsibility. Van Buitenen has worked primarily with chapters 1–4, and Deutsch with chapters 5–21.
The authors are extremely grateful to the publishers of the selected Sanskrit translations for their permission to use material previously published by them. Publishers are cited in the publication information preceding each quoted passage. Notes, footnotes, and some translator’s interpolations have been deleted from the quoted material and diacritic marks have been altered where necessary to conform with contemporary usage.
Eliot Deutsch