Also Vedānta, Vedânta. [Skr. vēdânta, f. vēda VEDA + anta end.] One of the leading systems of Hindu philosophy. Also attrib.
The Hindī form Vedant has also been occas. used.
1823. Colebrooke, Philos. Hindus, in Trans. Roy. Asiatic Soc. (1827), I. 19. The latter (Uttara) commonly called Védánta, and attributed to Vyása, deduces from the text of the Indian scriptures, a refined psychology, which goes to a denial of a material world.
1849. C. S. Henry, trans. Epit. Hist. Philos., 28. The Vedanta philosophy is an exhibition of pantheism in its greatest metaphysical strictness. Ibid., 29. The Vedanta system shows us … how pantheism must logically result in scepticism.
1895. Westm. Gaz., 23 Oct., 1/3. The philosophy of Vedânta is the abstract science which embraces all these methods.
Hence Vedantic a., Vedantism, Vedantist.
The Skr. Vedantin and Hindī Vedanti have also been used instead of ‘Vedantist.’
1882. Max Müller, India, vii. 270. The Brahma-Samâg … was *Vedântic in spirit.
1882. Athenæum, 8 July, 41/1. He commences his enumeration with that system which is furthest removed from Vedāntic speculation,… omitting, however, the Vedānta itself.
1849. C. S. Henry, trans. Epit. Hist. Philos., 29. *Vedantism embraces in its wide comprehension, a multitude of other conceptions, which are common to it and to the other philosophies of India.
1880. Birdwood, Ind. Arts, I. 4. But Vedantism is really nothing else than Nihilism.
1849. C. S. Henry, trans. Epit. Hist. Philos., 26. Brahma alone exists; everything else is an illusion. The *Vedantists prove this capital axiom by [etc.]. Ibid., 29. In order to avoid misconception of the Vedantist reasoning.
1864. Trevelyan, Compet. Wallah (1866), 215. His sect went by the name of ‘Vedantists;’ in fact, the ‘Evangelicals’ of the East.
