International Congress of Vedanta was established in 1986 by Professor S.S. Rama Rao Pappu in the Department of Philosophy, Miami University in order to bring together scholars specializing in Indian Philosophies and Religions from all over the world for the study and exchange of ideas and to promote research. In the past eighteen years, fifteen conferences were organized, ten of them at Miami University and five conferences were organized abroad - in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and in Rishikesh (Himalayas), Madras, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, India. Centennial celebrations of great Indian philosophers were also held during the Vedanta Conferences - e.g. birth centennial of S. Radhakrishnan in 1988, 1200th anniversary of Sri Sankaracharya in 1990, centennial of Swami Vivekananda's sojourn to America and his participation in the Parliament of World's Religions in Chicago in 1992, birth centennial of J. Krishnamurti in 1995, and the 700th anniversary of sanjeewan Samadhi of Sri Jnaneswara in 1996.
Vedanta Congress welcomes for presentation in the conferences research papers in all areas of Indian philosophies and religions. Though the first Vedanta Conference began with a narrowly focused group for the study of Vedantic texts and their interpretation, the scope of the Vedanta Congress was expanded during the years to include (a) all major schools of Vedanta (Advaita, Visistadvaita, Dvaita, Suddhadvaita, etc.), Hindu, Buddhist and Jaina Darsanas, Epics, Puranas and Dharma Sastras, (b) applied Indian philosophy, dealing with contemporary issues like abortion and euthanasia, war and peace, caste and race, karma and cloning and (c) Indian philosophical implications of recent developments in mathematics, life sciences, cognitive science, etc. In the past conferences, in addition to the mainstream papers in Vedanta, physicists have presented papers on the "Brahman of Physics," medical researchers have presented papers on advances in medical research and their implications to Vedantic problems (e.g. Cloning, transgenesis, Karma and Rebirth), environmental scientists have presented papers on the Vedantic concept of humans-nature relationship and its implications for our environment, etc.
Hinduism Today reported that "the list of participants in the Congress reads like a veritable 'Who's Who' among authorities in Indian Philosophy." Many eminent philosophers have attended the Vedanta Congress. To name a few: P. T. Raju, K. Satchidananda Murty, Agehananda Bharati, Karl Potter, Eliot Deutsch, Gerald Larson, Bimal Matilal, Wilhelm Halbfaas, J. G. Arapura, Sangaku Mayeda, Ninian Smart, Alex Wayman, Paul Arthur Schilpp, J. N. Mohanty, R.Balasubramanian, V. Kutumba Sastry, M. Narasimhachary, Janardan Goneri, S. S. Barlingay, Padmanabh Jaini, Christopher Chapple, Steven Phillips, Arindam Chakrabarti, Ramakrishna Puligandla, Vidya Niwas Mishra, S. B. Raghunathacharya, Ashok Aklujkar, Vidyut Aklujkar, Debabrata Sinha, K. L. Seshagiri Rao, Daya Krishna, K. Kunjunni Raja, Glynn Richards, Arvind Sharma, Karan Singh, T. S. Devadoss, Klaus Klostermeir, D. Prahladachar, G.C.Nayak, Bijayananda Kar, Fred Dallmayr, S. Gopalan, K. R. Sundara Rajan K. N. Upadhyaya, Anil Sarcar, David Atkinson, John Koller, Carl Olson, Katherine Young , Anindita Balslev, Richard King, A. L. Herman, William Jackson, T. S. Rukmani, Srinivasa Rao, Judy Saltzman, Mahesh Mehta, etc. Because of the emphasis on "Applied Vedanta," the conferences were able to attract eminent scientists and mathematicians like E.C.G. Sudarshan, V. V. Raman, Amit Goswamy, P. Venugopla Rao, Illa Prigogine, P. R. J. Gangadharam, D. V. Subba Rao, S. Swaminathan, Subhash Kak, Ernest Sternglass, Sriram Abhyankar, Anand Rangarajan, etc.
In addition, Vedanta Conferences were also attended by distinguished members of the diplomatic corps. Professor John Kenneth Galbraith, former U.S. Ambassador to India gave the inaugural address to the conference in 1988 and several Indian Ambassadors to USA including P. K. Kaul, Karan Singh, Abid Hussain, and several Consuls-General of India have attended the conferences.
Spiritual leaders like Swami Tathagatananda of the Vedanta Society of New York and Swami Chidananda Saraswati of the India Heritage Research Foundation have also occasionally attended the Vedanta Congress.