Advaita Vedānta in early modern history

This essay considers the possibility of a social history of Advaita Vedānta in early modern India by doing five things: surveying the principal literary works, authors, and trends in Advaita in the fifteenth through early eighteenth centuries; mapping the networks connecting the authors of those works through pedagogical and familial ties; locating Advaita in the human geography of early modern India; tracing the linkages of Advaitins with the social institutions that supported them and their rivals; and considering what sort of theory of social history might be useful in studying the history of a long-lived school of thought.