The Brahma Sutras set out the teaching of the Upanishads in short Sanskrit aphorisms, or sutras, and with the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita they form the Prasthanatrayi, the three canonical texts of Vedanta. Tradition attributes them to Sage Badarayana, and many traditional accounts identify him with Sage Veda Vyasa. Some 550 sutras — the count differs slightly from one commentator to another — are arranged in four chapters of four parts each.
The opening sutra, athato brahma jijnasa, names the subject: now, therefore, the inquiry into Brahman. The second describes Brahman as that from which the birth, sustenance and dissolution of this world proceed. The opening chapter shows that the Upanishads, read together, speak of Brahman; the second answers objections from other schools of thought; the third turns to the means — the seeker's meditation and conduct — and the fourth to the fruit, liberation. The last sutra, anavrittih shabdat — there is no return, so scripture declares — is said twice, and its commentators, Adi Shankaracharya and Ramanujacharya among them, note that the repetition marks the close of the work.
Because the sutras are so brief, each tradition of Vedanta reads them through a commentary of its own — Adi Shankaracharya's for Advaita, Ramanujacharya's Sri Bhashya for Vishishtadvaita, Madhvacharya's for Dvaita and Vallabhacharya's Anubhashya for Shuddhadvaita, among others. In this collection, Adi Shankaracharya is remembered at Sringeri, where tradition holds he founded the Sharada Peetham; Ramanujacharya at Srirangam, his home; Madhvacharya at Udupi, where he founded the Sri Krishna Matha; and Vallabhacharya at Nathdwara, a shrine of the Pushtimarg, his path of grace. Guru Purnima is kept as the birthday of Sage Veda Vyasa, and temples honour him with a puja on that day.