"A man who has faith in the Absolute rises from the level of necessity to the level of contingency by doing that which seems to be impossible.
Otherwise, he remains an ordinary man.
Impossible things become possible when you believe in them strongly enough - in accord with the Science of the Absolute."
 
Nataraja Guru.
 
 

CONTENTS

These are the major original works of Nataraja Guru, together with his translations and commentaries of the works of other authors:

 

Saundarya Lahari: a translation of Sankara's philosophical poem with an extensive commentary and shorter comments and remarks, accompanied by students' notes and numerous structural diagrams, which bring out for the first time the protolinguistic and schematic methodology used by Sankara.

 

The Darsana Mala is Narayana Guru's summary of possible philosophical viewpoints or "Darsanas". We have first provided Nataraja Guru's translation of the hundred verses of this work, then a more detailed word-for word translation, then a brief and incomplete short commentary taken from students' notes (See Saundarya Lahari/Notes), then a commentary, the "Didhiti", drawn up under the supervision of Narayana Guru himself.

Darsana Mala: Narayana Guru's most important philosophical work which, under ten subdivisions, covers all major philosophical viewpoints. Accompanied by two brief introductory commentaries.

 

Next we present "An Integrated Science of the Absolute", an exhaustive and lengthy commentary by Nataraja Guru on the Darsana Mala, which brings Narayana Guru's compendium of Indian Philosophy together with the Western Philosophy of Science, ranging from Heraclitus and Plato to Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Popper.

An Integrated Science of the Absolute: an extensive commentary on the Darsana Mala. Covers the major Indian and Western philosophers. A detailed study of structural methodology.

 

Bhagavad Gita: a commentary on what is perhaps the most authoritative and best known philosophical work of the Indian tradition. One of the three canonical works of Advaita Vedanta.

 

Atmopadesa Satakam: One Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction by Narayana Guru, with a commentary by Nataraja Guru. A second version of the same text, without page numbers and with corrections, is also available thanks to Scott Teitsworth. As we have not had time to compare the two versions, both are presented here for the time being.

 

The Philosophy of a Guru: a further commentary on the Atmopadesa Satakam.

 

Shorter Works: essays and articles on a wide range of subjects ranging from Greek Tragedy to Bertrand Russell. A full index is available by clicking on the above.

 

Shorter Poems by Narayana Guru - 1

Shorter Poems by Narayana Guru - 2

Shorter poems by Narayana Guru - 3

 

Dialectical Methodology: an introduction to Dialectics, the method underlying Vedantic speculation.

 

Structural Methodology: an introduction to the structuralism which is Nataraja Guru's major contribution to the Philosophy of Science.

 

Structuralism: various texts on structuralism.

 

Short Articles and Translations etc.

 

A Glossary of Sanskrit terms used in these works.

 

A Shorter Glossary of Sanskrit terms.

 

Some quotations from Nataraja Guru.

 

"Le Facteur Personnel dans le Processus Educatif": Nataraja Guru's Doctoral Thesis, presented at the Sorbonne, 1932.

Thesis, Part 1

Thesis, Part 2

Thesis, Part 3

 

BIOGRAPHIES:

1) "The Word of the Guru" combines a biography of Narayana Guru with an introduction to the philosophical, cultural and historical context of Advaita.

2) "The Autobiography of an Absolutist" is an autobiography of Nataraja Guru collated from short magazine articles published over many years. It can be of great help in understanding the background which produced his philosophical writings.

 

3) "Nataraja Guru as I Knew  Him" is one disciple's personal account of Nataraja Guru.