Summary

The most profound philosophical work of Narayana Guru in simple Sanskrit. This was written at the request of his disciple Svami Vidyananda, to compose a work expounding his philosophical vision in its entirety in the Sanskrit-based traditional style of Vedanta. Guru agreed to do it on condition that the disciple himself would take down the dictation. The disciple followed Guru with a notebook and pencil, and took down the verses that Guru dictated off and on. One day he dictated a few verses together and then asked the disciple to count the number of verses. It was 100. Then he asked him to divide the verses into ten sections of ten verses each, and he gave a separate name to each section. He called each section a darsanam and the entire work, Dar‍sanamala (Garland of Visions). The one non-dual Reality, the basic concept of Vedanta, in this work, is visualised looking at it from ten different philosophical perspectives. Nataraja Guru thinks this was written in 1916. It is composed in the most popular Sanskrit metre Anustup.