Vedanta for the Western World

First of all, what is Vedanta? Vedanta is the philosophy of the Vedas, those Indian scriptures which are the most ancient religious writings now known to the world. More generally speaking, the term “Vedanta” covers not only the Vedas themselves but the whole body of literature which explains, elaborates and comments upon their teaching, right down to the present day. The BHAGAVAD-GITA and the works of Shankara belong to Vedanta: so do many of the articles in this volume [...] The magazine from which this selection has been made was started in January 1938, under the auspices of Swami Ashokananda of the San Francisco [Vedanta] Center and Swami Prabhavananda of the [Vedanta] Center in Los Angeles. During its first three years, it was called THE VOICE OF INDIA; then the title was changed to VEDANTA AND THE WEST. [From C. Isherwood's Introduction.]