An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c9.35

c9.35

Thibaut discusses in considerable detail the question whether Śaṅkara or Rāmānuja comes nearest the teaching of the sūtras and reaches the conclusion¹ that, while the kind of Vedānta represented in the Vedānta-sūtras must be left an open question, there is reason to suppose that in some important points their teaching is more closely related to the system of Rāmānuja than to that of Śaṅkara.² On the other hand, he is inclined to believe that the teaching of Śaṅkara stands nearer to the teaching of the Upanishads than the Sūtras of Bādarāyaṇa do; and he explains this striking fact by the supposition that the teaching of the Sūtras was influenced in some degree by the Bhagavadgītā.³