Atman

Atman, in both Hinduism and Buddhism, refers to the human soul. While Hindus believe that the soul represents the life-force within all human beings and animals which survives death in a cycle of reincarnation, Buddhists believe that no such soul exists, a doctrine referred to as anatman. In some schools of Hinduism, such as Advaita Vedanta, it is held that atman is fully identical to Brahman, the supreme monistic principle or deity, while other schools such as Visistadvaita and Dvaita Vedanta, claim that this is only partially true or not true at all, respectively.

Hinduism

Basic Formulation

While the Vedic texts largely describe an external religious tradition of sacrifice and other ritualism, the commentaries upon these texts, the Upanishads (ca. 900 B.C.E.), turn the focus inward. Included within this new intrinsic religious perspective is a detailed discussion of the Self. Upanshadic thinkers characterize the self in a number of ways, describing it as food, will, consciousness, breath and the "fire-soul" (the warmth of life, usually related to the sun, by which the "food" which constitutes life is cooked) among other things, though none of these was truly satisfactory. Gradually, this notion of a vital force became deprived of specific content so it could better characterize an abstract, cosmic principle of self. This more familiar understanding of atman most likely grew out of the combination and elaboration of the early idea of life-breath and the fire-soul. Like breath and warmth atman supports the ground of the person. Soon enough, Atman was no longer the breath of the warmth of life, but rather the agent beyond description which maintained each of the senses. Atman is most profoundly described as the eternal person which is never born and never dies, lasting throughout eternity through a continual process of reincarnation. The ... Upanishad describes this eternal self as "the shining, immortal person."

The Upanishads also introduce the idea that atman is trapped within a cycle of rebirth, or reincarnation. The motivation of religious activity, then, is to free oneself from the baneful material world in order to liberate the soul from the cycle of rebirth. As the Chandogya Upanishad explains:

The self which is free from sin, free from old age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, which desires nothing but what it ought to desire, and imagines nothing but what it ought to imagine, that it is which we must search out, that it is which wew must try to understand. He who has searched out that Self and understands it, obtains all worlds and desires (Chandogya Upanishad VIII:7:1).

Bliss, then, awaits the individual who realizes the true nature of their self.

Atman and Brahman

Perhaps the most famous claim made in the Upanishads is that atman is the very same as Brahman. In this sense, the human soul is a microcosm of the pervasive divinity that forms the ground of the universe. The ninth chapter of The Taittiriya Upanishad reports this as follows: "He who knows the Bliss of Brahman, whence words together with the mind turn away, unable to reach It? He is not afraid of anything whatsoever. He does not distress himself with the thought: 'Why did I not do what is good? Why did I do what is evil?'. Whosoever knows this regards both these as Atman; indeed he cherishes both these as Atman. Such, indeed, is the Upanishad, the secret knowledge of Brahman." The most famous suggestion of this oneness between brahman and atman comes in Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7. within a dialogue between Uddālaka and his son Śvetaketu. Here, Uddalka advises his son "tat tvam asi", which translates to "that thou art." Scholars have interpreted this prhase to mean that all things in the universe are united by a single principle, and that the human soul or consciousness is also equivalent to the Ultimate Reality. Based upon statements such as these, the three schools of Vedanta ("end of the Vedas') provided varied interpretations of the nature of this equivalence between Brahman and atman in the years that followed.

Advaita Vedanta

Advaita (or "non-dualistic") Vedanata was the first of the Vedanta schools, garnering its name from the dualism it denies between atman and brahman. Shankara (788-820 C.E.), the famous Hindu mystic philsopher who developed the Advaita philosophy, interpreted the Upanishadic connection between brahman and atman to be one of essential oneness. The Self is brahman, indistinguishable from the supreme reality suggested from which it derives. For Shankara, the entirety of the universe except for the highest, indescribable form of Brahman, is an illusion (or maya). Perceived differences between god and the individual soul are created by the erroneous perception of particulars in the physical world. Once one eschews all distinctions of the particular things in the illusory physical, Shankara believe they could then come to realize that atman is brahman. Only then can they escape maya and merge into oneness with Brahman.

Visistadvaita Vedanta

Visistadvaita (or "qualified non-dualistic") Vedanta refers to the school which acknowledges a limited equivalence between atman and brahman. While Advaita claims that atman is brahman, Visistadvaita founder Ramanuja (1017-1137 C.E.) held atman is merely like brahman, representing an incomplete part of the whole. That is, atman is a part of the body of God, while God provides the soul of each individual atman. Ramanuja's conception of atman has its own independent from and subordinate to Brahman. While brahman (conceived of in personal or impersonal form) is infinite and represents the cause and effect of the universe, the soul is limited and infinetesmal in relative size. Although a soul maintains its own will, it is ultimately dependent upon Brahman for its creation and preservation. For Ramanuja, a soul's union with Brahman and its subsequent liberation from the world is attained through intense personal devotion to god, or bhakti rather than Shakara's prescribed realization of equivalence. Liberation entails the experience of the divine power of Brahman, though the individual self is not dissolved into brahman as in Shankara's delineation.

Dvaita Vedanta

Dvaita (or "dualistic") Vedanta denies any equivalence between brahman and atman. Rather, brahman (which is almost always perceived in the form of a personalized god, rather than the impersonal form) is totally seperate from and superior to the physical universe and also the souls within it. Founder Madhva (1238-1317 C.E.), denied the Advaita teaching that all human beings are essentially divine, instead construing the divine as completely separate from humanity and the physical world. Instead, God must be revealed to humanity in personal form through a series of avatars rather than a process of spiritual introspection. Like Ramanuja, Madhva claimed that souls are real entities, existing independent from human perception, although they depend upon the will of the divine. All souls are independent, not only from each other but also from God, though the God is responsible for each soul's existence and continuity. Brahman and atman are not the same, though they are vaguely similar, in Madhva's estimation, much as reflections of the sun are like the sun itself. Madhva also prescribes bhakti as the means by which to attain salvation, though the physical world and the distinction between all souls within it remain even after salvation.

Buddhism

Unlike Hindus Buddhists do not believe in that within human beings there is a permanent, indestructable and absolute entity which remains constant despite the flux observed in the material world. Nor do Buddhist believe in the similar view found in many other religious traditions which states that each person has a soul distinct from others which survives after death for purposes of judgement by a higher being. Therefore, Buddhist reject the similar doctrines of atman, souls, of selfhood, instead believing that such ideas are a fabricated by humans in order to deny their impermanence. Buddha taught that the idea of an eternal self is a fallacious belief which is ultimately harmful, producing negative notions of "me" and "mine" which provide the psychological basis for desire, attachment, and hatred. In short, Buddha described the self as the root of all evil, and characterized the attachments it creates as detractors from one's rise to Nirvana. This denial of the self marks Buddhism as unique among the other world religions.

The unchanging self is merely an illusion of psychophysical factors which change from moment of moment. These psychophysical factors are known as the five skandhas, which make up what is referred to as the human personality, but do not actually maintain a permanent ego or self. Instead, the notion of the eternal soul is replaced in the Pali Theravada traditions by the five skandhas, an ever-changing group of elements (or "dharmas") which compose the human being. These elementary psycho-physical states are: form, feeling, cognition, volition and consciousness. No permanent entity can be found in any of these human faculties; beyond these there is no self. Since there is no permanent self, there also cannot be said to be any distinction between persons, evident in Buddhist descriptions of samsara as an indvisible unity in constant flux. Thus, the Buddhists claim that there is no Atman is not a direct statement that atman does not exist, but rather an assertion that it exists solely as a cognitive fallacy.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Arrington, Robert L. ed. A Companion to the Philosophers. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
• Carr, Brian. "Shankara." In Robert L. Arrington, ed., 613-620.
• Carr, Indira Mahalingam. "Ramanuja." In Robert L. Arrington, ed., 609-612.
• Carr, Indira Mahalingam & Carr, Brian. "Madhva." In Robert L. Arrington, ed., 592-594.
• Embree, Ainslee T. ed. The Hindu Tradition. New York: Vintage Books, 1966.
• Humphreys, Christmas. Popular Dictionary of Buddhism. London: Curzon Press, 1976
• Myers, Michael W. Brahman: A Comparative Theology. Richmond UK: Curzon, 2001.
• Muller, F. Max. The Upanishads. New York: Dover Publications, 1962.
• Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught. New York : Grove Press, 1974.
• Tortchinov, Evgueni A. "The Buddhist Doctrine of Self." <http://www.kheper.net/topics/Buddhism/doctrine_of_self.html> [Accessed August 28, 2006].

See Also

• Advaita
• Brahman
• Dvaita
• Visistadvaita