Swami Paramarthananda studied in Sandeepany Sadhanalaya of Chinmaya Mission. Took Sanyasa from Swami Dayananda (arsha vidya). He is devoted to both Masters – Swami Chinmayananda and Swami Dayananda. Swami later started taking Advaita Vedanta shastra classes in Chennai.
Swami was born on 18-05-1953 to Subramania Iyer and Parvathy in Palakkad, Kerala. He grew up with three older siblings and had his early schooling and college education in Palakkad, his home town.
In the year 1976 Swamiji joined a three year course in Vedanta offered by his Guru Swami Dayananda Saraswati at Sandeepany Sadhanalaya, Mumbai. There, he studied Sanskrit and the Sastras like the Bhagavad Gīta, principal Upanishads, Brahmasutras and several Prakarana-granthas. After the completion of his course he moved to Chennai as a Brahmachari on the directive of his Guru and started teaching Vedanta. He received Sannyāsa from his Guru in the year 1984 and continues to live in Chennai and teach at various centres in the city.
Official website: https://www.yogamalika.org
Links of Recordings:
- Books & Audio Transcriptions
- Sastraprakasika (iOS / Android App) — 6000+ hours of recordings.
- Blog which summarizes Paramarthananda's discourses
Ask Swami Paramarthananda Anything: AI Trained on His Teachings
AI Model: It's using Deepseek V3.1 model (via API) with strong reasoning, which is crucial in Vedanta or Philosophical dialogues. Context is 128K, so it can retain long conversations.
Citations: Click the number (eg. 2.4) next to a statement to read the original text snippet.
Limitations: If you ask it to explain a certain verse (EG: “Explain BG 2.34”) – 50% of the time it'll pull the wrong verse. This is limitation of all RAG systems due to “needle in a haystack” problem. If you want to know meaning of a verse, at least copy-paste the verse and ask it to explain. RAG system is prone to hallucination especially when pulling verse numbers. For that, ask public LLM.
Here's the books it draws from whenever you ask it a question:
- Advaita Makaranda.pdf
- Aitareya Upanishad.pdf
- Aparokshanubhuti_V3.pdf
- Ashtavakra Gita.pdf
- Atma Bodha.pdf
- Bhagavad Gita – Transcription.pdf
- Bhagavad Gita Summary.pdf
- Bhagawad Gita Summary Class Notes of 18 Chapters – ADVAIDAM.com.pdf
- BrahmaSutra (entire 555 sutras explained).pdf
- Brihadaranyaka Upanisad(contains all mantras).pdf
- Chandogya Upanisad.pdf
- Dakshinamoorthy Stotram.pdf
- Drg Drsya Viveka.pdf
- Introduction To Vedanta – Based on Tattva Bodha (Transcribed by Smt. Viji Natarajan).pdf
- Introduction to Vedanta (Swami Paramarthananda) – 2 (Class Notes) – Tattvabodha.pdf
- Introduction to Vedanta.pdf
- Isavasya Upanishad.pdf
- Jiva Yatra.pdf
- Kaivalya Upanishad.pdf
- Katha Upanisad.pdf
- Kenopanisad (Kena Upanishad).pdf
- Mandukya Upanishad with Karika.pdf
- Manisa Pancakam (Swami P).pdf
- Manisha_Pancakam (Student).pdf
- Meditations – Destructive Values to Eliminate.pdf
- Mundaka_Upanishad_SP.pdf
- Naishkarmya Siddhi.pdf
- Niti Satakam of Bhartrhari (Book on universal values prescribed by Dharma Sastra).pdf
- Pancadasi (CHAPTERS 1 TO 10 with summary of CHAPTERS 11 TO 15).pdf
- Pancadasi (From CH9 to CH10 + Summary of Chapters 11 to 15).pdf
- Prasna Upanisad.pdf
- Profound Q & A on Vedanta (1-153).pdf
- Saadhana Chathushtayam – 4 Qualifications SUMMARY (advaitam.com).pdf
- Saddarsanam.pdf
- Sarva Vedanta Siddhanta Sara Sangraha_July2019.pdf
- Self Knowledge & Emotional Problems (Paramarthananda Articles).pdf
- Sri-Kaivalyopanishad-Notes-Feb-2019 (VedantaStudents.com).pdf
- Strategies to Describe Brahman & Technical Teachings (By Paramarthananda Student).docx
- TaittiriyaFeb2018.pdf
- Tattvabodha.pdf
- Upadesa Saram (Ramana Maharishi text).pdf
- Upadesa_Sahasri (Magnum opus work of Shankara. 640 Slokas. Hightlight CH18.233).pdf
- Vairagya Shatakam.pdf
- Vakya-Vritti.pdf
- Vichara Sagaram (Chapter 6 & 7 Summary).pdf
- Vichara Sagaram (Chapters 1 to 7).pdf
- Vivekachudaamani_SP.pdf
Advantage of this AI is the output sticks solely to above expert content, rather then being contaminated by notions of misguided spiritual seekers – an issue when relying on public LLM's like Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, etc.
How Does It Work?
It works on a RAG system, which is like a search engine that takes one or more relevant topics and stiches them together into a cohesive paragraph + looks at the context of your question + applies reasoning. For example if you search for “what is meditation?” — it'll collect all information about meditation, definitions, practices, how-to's, do's, don'ts, etc.
System Prompt Used:
Extract concrete teachings about the subject with rich examples, metaphors, and analogies. Begin by defining key terms, then provide a logical flow that helps users connect emotionally. Use the original text's vocabulary, style, and tone. Pack each sentence with insights, eliminating fluff. Don't just tell, but show and explain concepts thoroughly using the source material's language. Connect ideas to support arguments from multiple perspectives. Provide brief explanations of specialized terms. Write in a warm, engaging tone as if speaking to a valued student you deeply care about. You MUST prioritize original text's wording, word choice, vocabulary – over your own synonyms.