Ánanda Márga was the first-published of the more than two hundred books of Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrti. It appeared in its original Bengali in 1955 and was translated into English in 1961. When the original Bengali came to be revised in 1963, a subtitle was added; so when the revised Bengali was translated into an English second edition in 1967, that second edition was titled Ánanda Márga: Elementary Philosophy.

Though the author produced over two hundred books between 1955 and 1990, Ánanda Márga: Elementary Philosophy continues to hold a key place as an introduction to the author’s entire ideology. Its speciality is the use of formal, though simple, logic to make an utterly convincing case for the existence of Supreme Consciousness and the need of spiritual practice.

The author used a certain shorthand for explaining the etymologies of words. Under this system, a minus sign (–) follows a prefix, and a plus sign (+) precedes a suffix. Thus ava – tr + ghaiṋ = avatára can be read, “the root tr prefixed by ava and suffixed by ghaiṋ becomes avatára.”