Organisations in India

(Note that further organisations appear on the Traditional Teacher pages)

The Official Website of the Divine Life Society at Uttaranchal, India. This is a huge website containing well organised articles from Swami Sivananda on many aspects of spiritual practice and yogas, pdf books to download by Swamis Sivananda, Chidananda, Krishnananda, Venkatesananda and others, information about the DLS and the Sivananda Ashram, a multimedia centre, bookstore, e-magazine and much more.

The Divine Life Society, Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, Himalayas, India. This organisation, led by Swami Krishnananda until his death in 2001, has books by Swami Krishnananda on yoga, meditation, spiritual practice, Gita, Upanishads, mysticism and philosophy. Many books and discourses may be downloaded free of charge.

Another Divine Life Society site, dedicated to Swamis Sivananda, Chidananda and Krishnananda has much information available for free download: teachings, 'inspiring messages', saints and mystics, Gods and scriptures together with many discourses. A large number of the full-length books have already been made available in html or pdf format for free download. (The former are readable by any web browser, the latter by Adobe's free Acrobat Reader.)

A related organisation is the Yoga Vedanta Centre, established by Swami Vishnudevananda, a disciple of Swami Sivananda.

Swami Omkarananda Ashram, Rishikesh
There are lots of articles and information to download, including a comprehensive summary of Western Philosophical thinking on the nature of reality, with definitions of all of the 'isms' etc. This is the organisation that produced the excellent, free PC utility for generating Sanskrit script from ITRANS text for copying into any word processor. See page of Sanskrit links.

Vedanta Mission
This huge, professionally produced website has a wealth of information on the Vedantic scriptures and Advaita philosophy. The mission itself was established in 1992 by Poojya Guruji Sri Swami Atmananda Saraswati. There is an ashram at Indore where a free three-year course in Advaita may be taken, with donations at the conclusion. There are centres at other locations in India offering week-long courses. There is a free monthly 'ezine' (i.e. electronic magazine), containing various articles and details of talks, camps etc. All back issues may be downloaded. A glossary of common Sanskrit words and an FAQ are under construction. There are also two on-line courses based upon Shankara's Tattva Bodha and on the Bhagavad Gita. There is a further channel containing information relating to Hinduism.

Yoga Malika
This is an institution in Chennai, India, guided by Swami Dayananda Saraswati and Swami Paramarthananda Saraswati. It provides classes in Vedanta, trains teachers, maintains a library of books and cassettes etc. Some talks by Swami Dayananda and Paramarthananda may be downloaded , including an excellent one on japa. A few are also available in Real Audio format. There is a year-long 'self-help' program that can be studied at the site for ten-minutes per day with a different practice each month.

Vedanta Life Institute
Founded by Sri Parthasarathy, who has been touring the world for the past 20+ years giving the most wonderful lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, full of profundity and humour and illustrated by many excellent metaphors and stories. The 'Vedanta Academy', near Mumbai in India, offers a three year residential course on Vedanta, based on study, contemplation and practice. It is open to those aged 16 - 30. Short-term, practical residential courses are also available for business men and professionals on topics such as stress and time management. Books may also be purchased (though not by credit card) and there are Vedantic Centres at various locations around the world.

V.V. Brahmam - Advaita teacher, founder and president of the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi Ashram, Tadpatri, Andhra Pradesh, India. Site features many hours of audio and video recordings of satsang and several texts.

Mathas
Shankara, the Sage who formalised classical Advaita, established four 'seats' in India in the N, E, S and W of the country, their purpose being to provide living Sages throughout history to pass on the teaching and answer questions from any seeker of the truth. These four 'mathas' or monasteries still exist today at Puri in the East, Sringeri in the South, Dvaraka in the West and Jyotir Math at Badari in the North.

The Sringeri matha is currently headed by His Holiness Shri Bharati Tirtha Swamigal. The site contains lots of information about the area, temples, branches, functions and its history and guru paramparA. The site appears to be still under development with an area set aside for downloads of photos and audio/video. Also see SriSharada.com where there is an on-line book by M.K.Venkatarama Iyer (1976), entitled 'Contribution of Bharati Tirtha and Vidyaranya to Development of Advaitic Thought' with chapters on metaphysics, jIva, mAyA, knowledge, truth and error, ethics and religion, and moksha. A commentary on the vivekachUDAmaNi, by Sri Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati Mahaswamigal, is also under construction.
Sri Sringeri Sarada Peetham is another site with much valuable information on this matha.

The Self Realization Fellowship, established by Swami Paramahamsa Yogananda, maintains traditional links with the Puri matha.

Shri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham has more than 1000 pages of information on Hinduism and Advaita. See their site map for links to everything about Hindu dharma, together with many articles and tributes to Shankara and his lineage.

The Jagannath Puri Site is essentially a tourism site and contains details about such things as the architecture and the worship that takes place at the temple.

The Jyotir matha is briefly described here, one of the pages of 'TempleNet', that has information on Indian Temples in general.

bharatonline.com is another tourism site but has masses of information and photos of temples throughout India.

The Adi Sankara Advaita Research Centre is related to the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham. It is concerned, as the name suggests, with carrying out studies relating to Advaita as taught by Shankara. It publishes a newsletter and journal and organises talks and seminars. There are several articles on-line and a number of publications may be purchased.