The Nayanars (or Nayanmars; Tamil: நாயன்மார், romanized: Nāyaṉmār, lit. ‘hounds of Siva’, and later ’teachers of Siva’) were a group of 63 poet-saints living in Tamil Nadu during the 3rd to 8th centuries CE who were devoted to the Hindu god Shiva. Along with the Alwars, their contemporaries who were devoted to Vishnu, they influenced the Bhakti movement in early medieval South India. The names of the Nayanars were first compiled by Sundarar....
Swami Nigamananda Paramahansa (born Nalinikanta Chattopadhyay; 18 August 1880 – 29 November 1935) was an Indian yogi, guru and mystic well known in Eastern India. He is associated with the Shakta tradition and viewed as a perfect spiritual master of vedanta, tantra, yoga and prema or bhakti. His followers idealized him as their worshipped and beloved thakura. Nigamananda was born into a Bengali Brahmin family in the hamlet of Kutabpur in Nadia district (at present Meherpur district Bangladesh)....
Nimbarkacharya (Sanskrit: निम्बार्काचार्य, romanized: Nimbārkāchārya) (c.1130 - c.1200), also known as Nimbarka, Nimbaditya or Niyamananda, was a Hindu philosopher, theologian and the chief proponent of the theology of Dvaitadvaita (dvaita–advaita) or dualistic–non-dualistic. He played a major role in spreading the worship of the divine couple Radha and Krishna, and founded Nimbarka Sampradaya, one of four main traditions of Hindu sect Vaishnavism. Nimbarka is believed to have lived around the 11th and 12th centuries, but this dating has been questioned, suggesting that he lived somewhat earlier than Shankaracharya, in the 6th or 7th century CE....
Pāṇini (Devanagari: पाणिनि, pronounced [paːɳɪnɪ]) was a Sanskrit philologist, grammarian, and revered scholar in ancient India, variously dated between the 6th and 4th century BCE. Since the discovery and publication of his work by European scholars in the nineteenth century, Pāṇini has been considered the “first descriptive linguist”, and even labelled as “the father of linguistics”.Pāṇini’s grammar was influential on such foundational linguists as Ferdinand de Saussure and Leonard Bloomfield.
Patañjali (Tamil: பதஞ்சலி, Sanskrit: पतञ्जलि) was a sage in ancient Tamilakam, thought to be the author of a number of Sanskrit and Tamil works. The greatest of these are the Yoga Sutras, a classical yoga text. There is doubt as to whether the sage Patañjali is the author of all the works attributed to him as there are a number of known historical authors of the same name. A great deal of scholarship has been devoted over the last century to the issue of the historicity or identity of this author or these authors....
Prabhākara (active c. 6th century) was an Indian philosopher-grammarian in the Mīmāṃsā tradition of Kerala.
Prabhupāda is an honorific popularised outside India by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), and is used on the title page of all Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT) books authored by Bhaktivedānta Swāmī. Books Srimad-Bhagavatam First Canto Volume 1 PDF Srimad-Bhagavatam First Canto Volume 2 PDFSrimad-Bhagavatam First Canto Volume 3 PDF
Praśastapāda (Sanskrit: प्रशस्तपाद) was an ancient Indian philosopher. He wrote the Padārtha-dharma-saṅgraha (Collection of Properties of Matter) and a commentary, titled Praśastapāda Bhāṣya, on the Vaisheshika Sutras of Kanada (circa 6th century BCE); both texts are comprehensive books in physics. In these texts Prashastapada discusses the properties of motion. Ganganath Jha had translated Praśastapāda Bhāṣya which was published in 1916. Prashasta or Praśasta (Sanskrit: प्रशस्त) means praised or praiseworthy, lauded or laudable, commended or commendable or eulogized....
Purandara Dasa (IAST: Purandara dāsa) (born Srinivasa Nayaka; c. 1484 – c. 1565) was a Haridasa philosopher and a follower of Madhwacharya ’s Dwaitha philosophy -saint from present-day Karnataka, India. He was a composer, singer and one of the chief founding-proponents of Carnatic music (Karnataka classical music). In honor of his significant contributions to Carnatic music, he is widely referred to as the Pitamaha (lit. “father” or “grandfather”) of Carnatic music....
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Sarvepalli Radhakrishnayya; pronunciation 5 September 1888 – 17 April 1975) was an Indian philosopher and statesman who served as the second president of India from 1962 to 1967. One of the most distinguished twentieth-century scholars of comparative religion and philosophy, Radhakrishnan held the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta from 1921 to 1932 and Spalding Chair of Eastern Religion and Ethics at University of Oxford from 1936 to 1952....
Raghavendra Tirtha (Śrī Rāghavēndra Tīrtha) (c.1595 – c.1671) was a Hindu scholar, theologian and saint. He was also known as Sudha Parimalacharya (Sudhā Parimaḷācārya). His diverse oeuvre include commentaries on the works of Madhva, Jayatirtha and Vyasatirtha, interpretation of the Principal Upanishads from the standpoint of Dvaita and a treatise on Purva Mimamsa. He served as the pontiff of matha at Kumbakonam from 1624 to 1671. Sri Raghavendra swamy was also an accomplished player of the Veena and he composed several songs under the name of Venu Gopala....
Raghunatha Shiromani (Bengali: রঘুনাথ শিরোমণি, IAST: Raghunātha Śiromaṇi) (c. 1477–1547) was an Indian philosopher and logician. He was born at Nabadwip in present-day Nadia district of West Bengal state. He was the grandson of Śulapāṇi (c. 14th century CE), a noted writer on Smṛti from his mother’s side. He was a pupil of Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma. He brought the new school of Nyaya, Navya Nyāya, representing the final development of Indian formal logic, to its zenith of analytic power....
Raikva, the poor unknown cart-driver, appears in Chapter IV of the Chandogya Upanishad of Muktika canon where it is learnt that he knew That which was knowable and needed to be known, he knew That from which all this had originated. Along with Uddalaka, Prachinshala, Budila, Sarkarakshaya and Indradyumna, who respectively held earth, heaven, water, space and air to be the substrata of all things, and many others, Raikva was one of the leading Cosmological and Psychological philosophers of the Upanishads....
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Sanskrit pronunciation: [ɽaːmɐkr̩ʂɳɐ pɐɽɐmɐɦɐ̃sɐ]; Bengali pronunciation: [ramˌkriʃno ˈpɔromˌɦɔŋʃo] (listen), Ramkṛiṣṇo Pôromôhongśo, 18 Feb 1836 – 16 August 1886), born Gadadhar Chattopadhyaya, was an Indian Hindu mystic and religious leader in 19th-century Bengal. Ramakrishna drew from several religious approaches, including devotion toward the Goddess Kali and observance of elements from Tantra, Bhakti, Vaishnava, and Advaita Vedanta, as well as dalliances with Christianity and Islam. He held that the world’s various religious traditions represented “so many paths to reach one and the same goal....
Ramananda (IAST: Rāmānanda) was a 14th-century Vaishnava devotional poet saint, who lived in the Gangetic basin of northern India. The Hindu tradition recognizes him as the founder of the Ramanandi Sampradaya, the largest monastic Hindu renunciant community in modern times. Born in a Brahman family, Saint Ramananda for the most part of his life lived in the holy city of Varanasi. His year of birth or death are uncertain, but historical evidence suggests he was one of the earliest saints and a pioneering figure of the Bhakti movement as it rapidly grew in North India, sometime between the 14th and mid 15th century during its Islamic rule period....