From the time of Sankara onwards nearly all Hindu theologians of the first rank expounded their views by writing a commentary on the Brahma Sutras, an authoritative but singularly enigmatic digest of the Upanishads.  Sankara’s doctrine may be summarized as absolute monism which holds that nothing really exists but Brahman and that Brahman is identical with the soul.  All apparent plurality is due to illusion.  He draws a distinction between the lower and higher Brahman which perhaps may be rendered by God and the Godhead.  In the same sense in which individual souls and matter exist, a personal God also exists, but the higher truth is that individuality, personality and matter are all illusion.  But the teaching of Ramanuja rejects the doctrines that the world is an illusion and that there is a distinction between the lower and higher Brahman and it affirms that the soul, though of the same substance as God and emitted from him rather than created, can obtain bliss not in absorption but in existence near him.

It is round these problems that Hindu theology turns.  The innumerable solutions lack neither boldness nor variety but they all try to satisfy both the philosopher and the saint and none achieve both tasks.  The system of Sankara is a masterpiece of intellect, despite his disparagement of reasoning in theology, and could inspire a fine piety, as when on his deathbed he asked forgiveness for having frequented temples, since by so doing he had seemed to deny that God is everywhere.  But piety of this kind is unfavourable to public worship and even to those religious experiences in which the soul seems to have direct contact with God in return for its tribute of faith and love.  In fact the Advaita philosophy countenances emotional theism only as an imperfect creed and not as the highest truth.  But the existence of all sects and priesthoods depends on their power to satisfy the religious instinct with ceremonial or some better method of putting the soul in communication with the divine.  On the other hand pantheism in India is not a philosophical speculation, it is a habit of mind:  it is not enough for the Hindu that his God is lord of all things:  he must be all things and the soul in its endeavour to reach God must obtain deliverance from the fetters not only of matter but of individuality.  Hence Hindu theology is in a perpetual oscillation illustrated by the discrepant statements found side by side in the Bhagavad-gita and other works.  Indian temperament and Indian logic want a pantheistic God and a soul which can transcend personality, but religious thought and practice imply personality both in the soul and in God.  All varieties of Vishnuism show an effort to reconcile these double aspirations and theories.  The theistic view is popular, for without it what would become of temples, worshippers and priests?  But I think that the pantheistic view is the real basis of Indian religious thought.