Vedantist (or Vedantin) is the Anglicized term for an adherent to philosophy (or Vedanta) of the end section of the Vedas. Vedanta is a system of Jnana Yoga that attempts to guide the individual to englightenment. It is drawn from the Upanishads, considered the fundamental essence of all the Vedas, and some of the earlier Aranyakas. The three branches of Vedanta best known in the West are Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita. In the West, it has not been necessary to take Hindu rites or identify oneself as a Hindu in order to be a philosophical Vendantist or Vedantin.

Other than Shri Adishankara, Shri Ramanuja and Shri Madhva, the founders of each of the three main Vedantic divisions, other important pre-modern Vedantins include Bhaskara, Vallabha, Caitanya, Nimbarka, Vacaspati Misra, Suresvara, and Vijnanabhiksu. In the modern period, Vedantins include Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, and Sri Ramana Maharshi. These modern thinkers represent of the Advaita Vedanta school. Proponents of other Vedantic schools continue to write and develop their ideas as well, although their works are not as widely known outside of India.

While the traditional Vedic 'karma kanda', or ritualistic components of religion, continued to be practiced as meditative and propitiatory rites to guide society, through the Brahmins, to self-knowledge, more jnana- or knowledge-centered understandings began to emerge, mystical streams of Vedic religion that focused on meditation, self-discipline and spiritual connectivity rather rituals. In earlier writings, the Sanskrit word Vedanta simply referred to the Upanisads, the most speculative and philosophical of the Vedic texts. In the medieval period, the word Vedanta came to mean the school of philosophy that interpreted the Upanisads. Traditional Vedanta considered scriptural evidence, or sabdapramana, as the most authentic means of knowledge, while perception, or pratyaksa, and logical inference, or anumana, were considered to be subordinate.

Consistent throughout Vedanta is the exhortation that ritual be eschewed in favor of the individual's quest for truth through meditation governed by a loving morality, secure in the knowledge that infinite bliss awaits the seeker. Near all existing sects of Hinduism are directly or indirectly influenced by the thought systems developed by Vedantic thinkers. Hinduism to a great extent owes its survival to the formation of the coherent and logically advanced systems of Vedanta.