Just like a world: the synchronic concepts of “difference” and “non-difference” (bhedābheda) in Hajime Nakamura’s studies on Vedānta

A dimensão sincrônica da “diferença” e da “não diferença” (bhedābheda) nos estudos sobre Vedānta de Hajime Nakamura

Abstract

Hajime Nakamura (1912-1999), a Japanese-born scholar and philosopher, became one of the main contemporary references in the study of Vedānta, one of the most acclaimed philosophical currents of Indian thought. Through his work A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy, Nakamura contributed to the defense and dissemination of one of the most significant traits of this tradition’s argumentative rationality: its productive dynamism through a circular structure of understanding between original texts and their subsequent interpretative communities. Additionally, he played a recognized and fundamental role in promoting the study of the intriguing conceptual and scholastic category known as bhedābheda ("difference and non-difference"), acknowledging it as one of the earliest “hermeneutic” matrices of Vedānta. The purpose of this article is to analyze, both through the Japanese scholar's approach and by direct access to important Vedantic textual sources, the soteriological reflection based on the synchronic categories of Reality (brahman) and “world” (loka).