Prasthanatrayi


Prasthanatrayi, literally, three sources , refers to the three canonical texts of theology having epistemic authority, especially of the Vedanta schools. It consists of:
  1. The Upanishads, known as ', and the ', especially the Principal Upanishads.
  2. The Bhagavad Gita, known as ', and the '
  3. The Brahma Sutras, known as ' or ' or
The Upanishads consist of ten, twelve or thirteen major texts, with a total of 108 texts. The ten Upanishads are Īśā, Kena, Kaṭha, Praṣna, Muṇḍaka, Māṇḍūkya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Chāndogya and Bṛhadāraṇyaka.
The is part of the Bhishma Parva of the.
The, systematize the doctrines taught in the Upanishads and the.
Founders of the major schools of Vedanta, Adi Shankara, Madhvācharya wrote on these texts. Rāmānujāchārya did not write any on the Upanishads, but wrote on Brahma Sutras and Bhagavad Gita. Even though Ramanuja did not write individual commentaries on principal Upanishads, he included many hundreds of quotations from Upanishads in his Sri Bhasya. In the Ramanuja lineage, one of his followers, Rangaramanuja, wrote commentaries on almost all of the Principal Upanishads around the 1600s. Vallabhacharya and Nimbarkacharya wrote on Brahma Sutras and Bhagavad Gita but they did not write commentaries on Upanishads. Like Ramanuja, they quoted many verses from Upanishads in their works. Baladeva Vidyabhushana in his Govinda Bhashya and Gita-bhusana-tika quoted verses from Upanishads but later wrote separate commentaries on each of the 10 Upanishads.