Vedārthasaṅgraha (Summary of the Meaning of the Veda)

A compact prose treatise in which Rāmānuja, the chief philosopher of Viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified non-dualist) Vedānta, sets out how the Upaniṣads should be read as a whole. Against Shankara's Advaita, he argues that scripture cannot teach that the world and individual selves are illusory, or that Brahman is a featureless consciousness. He also criticises the 'difference-in-identity' views of Bhāskara and Yādavaprakāśa, which in his view make Brahman itself subject to limitation or change. His own answer is the relation of body and soul: conscious selves and matter are real, and together form the body of Brahman, who is their inner controller, much as a soul animates its body. So statements of identity such as 'that thou art' refer to one Brahman qualified by its body, without erasing difference. Brahman is identified with Viṣṇu–Nārāyaṇa, a personal God with countless auspicious qualities, and the text presents loving devotion (bhakti), grounded in knowledge, as the way to liberation.

It is the clearest short entry into Rāmānuja's theistic alternative to Advaita, showing how one tradition can read the same scriptures to defend a real world, real selves and a personal God.