Speaker - Dr. Venkataraman Swaminathan

The main source of human insecurities and sense of sadness is ignorance of the limitless Self and subsequently taking the non-Self to be the Self. Ādi Śaṅkara offers a brilliant insight into this fundamental human problem by advocating the principle of superimposition or adhyāsa, which causes the appearance of a thing on a locus other than its own. Since the superimposition is a cognitive error, naturally, the remedy is removing the error by a cognitive de-superimposition.

This webinar will introduce the great Adi Sanskara and unfold the Adhyāsa Bhāṣya, considered perhaps to be the magnum opus of Adi Sankara. This text finds its place as the introduction to Sankara’s exhaustive commentary of the Brahma sutras, known also by different names such as Vyāsa sutras, bhikṣu sutras, or śārīrika sutras.