Vedanta also called Uttara Mimamsa (‘the end of the Vedas’), the most influential of the six orthodox schools of Hinduism. Much of the philosophical content of other schools has been taken up into it. It claims to present the correct interpretation of the Vedas and Upanishads, along with the Bhagavad Gita, sacred texts within Indian culture. Much of the dispute over these texts is religious as well as philosophical in nature; it concerns whether or not they are best read theistically or monistically. To read these texts theistically is to see them as teaching the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient personal Brahman, who in sport (not out of need, but not without moral seriousness) everlastingly sustains the material world and conscious selves in existence; the ultimate good of the conscious selves then consists in being rightly related to Brahman. To read these texts monistically is to see them as teaching the existence of a qualityless ineffable Brahman who appears to the unenlightened to be manifested in a multiplicity of bodies and minds and in a personal deity; critics naturally ask to whom such an appearance appears. Two great thinkers in the theistic Vedantic tradition are Ramanuja (traditional dates: 1017– 1137) and Madhva (b.1238). Shankara (788– 820?) represents Advaita Vedanta (‘Advaita’ meaning ‘non-dual’) and defends the view that the sacred texts ought to be read monistically; his view is often compared to the absolute idealism embraced by Bradley; for Shankara what appears as a pluralistic world is really a seamless unity. Madhva is a leading proponent of Dvaita Vedanta, an uncompromisingly theistic reading of the same texts; for him, what appears as a pluralistic world is a pluralistic world that exists distinct from, though dependent on, Brahman. Ramanuja is a leading exponent of Visistadvaita Vedanta, often called ‘qualified non-dualism’ because Ramanuja, in contrast to Madhva, views the pluralistic world that appears as the body of Brahman but, in contrast to Shankara, views that body as real and distinct from Brahman conceived as an omnicompetent person. See also BRADLEY, BRAHMAN , HINDUIS. K.E.Y.