Orthodox schools Atman is a metaphysical and spiritual concept for Hindus, often discussed in their scriptures with the concept of Brahman. All major orthodox schools of Hinduism – Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Mimamsa, and Vedanta – accept the foundational premise of the Vedas and Upanishads that "Ātman exists." In
Hindu philosophy, especially in the
Vedanta school of
Hinduism,
Ātman is the
first principle.
Jainism too accepts this premise, although it has its own idea of what that means. In contrast, both Buddhism and the
Charvakas deny that there is anything called "Ātman/soul/self".
Samkhya In Samkhya, the oldest
Hindu school of
Dualism,
Puruṣa, the witness-consciousness, is
Atman. It is absolute, independent, free, imperceptible, unknowable through other agencies, above any experience by mind or senses and beyond any words or explanations. It remains pure, "nonattributive consciousness". Puruṣa is neither produced nor does it produce. No appellations can qualify purusha, nor can it substantialized or objectified. It "cannot be reduced, can't be 'settled'." Any designation of purusha comes from prakriti, and is a limitation. Unlike
Advaita Vedanta, and like
Purva-Mīmāṃsā, Samkhya believes in plurality of the puruṣas. Samkhya considers ego (
asmita,
ahamkara) to be the cause of pleasure and pain. Self-knowledge is the means to attain
kaivalya, the separation of
Atman from the body-mind complex.
Yoga philosophy The Yogasutra of Patanjali, the foundational text of
Yoga school of Hinduism, sees
purusha as the essence of human beings, revealed in
samadhi, but mentions
Atma in multiple verses, and particularly in its last book, where Samadhi is described as the path to self-knowledge and
kaivalya. Some earlier mentions of
Atman in Yogasutra include verse 2.5, where evidence of ignorance includes "confusing what is not Atman as Atman". In verses 2.19-2.20, Yogasutra declares that pure ideas are the domain of Atman, the perceivable universe exists to enlighten Atman, but while Atman is pure, it may be deceived by complexities of perception or mind. These verses also set the purpose of all experience as a means to self-knowledge. {{blockquote| द्रष्टा दृशिमात्रः शुद्धोऽपि प्रत्ययानुपश्यः तदर्थ एव दृश्यस्यात्मा The seer is the absolute knower. Though pure, modifications are witnessed by him by coloring of intellect. The spectacle exists only to serve the purpose of the Atman. In Book 4, Yogasutra states spiritual liberation as the stage where the yogin achieves distinguishing self-knowledge, he no longer confuses his mind as Atman, the mind is no longer affected by afflictions or worries of any kind, ignorance vanishes, and "pure consciousness settles in its own pure nature". The Yoga school is similar to the Samkhya school in its conceptual foundations of
purusha as
Ātman. It is the self that is discovered and realized in the Kaivalya state, in both schools. Like Samkhya, this is not a single universal
Ātman. It is one of the many individual selves where each "pure consciousness settles in its own pure nature", as a unique distinct soul/self. However, Yoga school's methodology was widely influential on other schools of Hindu philosophy. Vedanta monism, for example, adopted Yoga as a means to reach
Jivanmukti – self-realization in this life – as conceptualized in Advaita Vedanta. Yoga and
Samkhya define
Ātman as an "unrelated, attributeless,
self-luminous, omnipresent entity", which is identical with consciousness.
Nyaya According to John Plott, "
Nyaya made considerable contributions to the logical explanation of the mode in which
Ātman, although itself of the nature of the knower, can still be an object of knowledge." Plott states that the Nyaya scholars developed a theory of negation that far exceeds
Hegel's theory of
negation, while their epistemological theories refined to "know the knower" at least equals Aristotle's sophistication. Nyaya methodology influenced all major schools of Hinduism. Nyaya scholars defined
Ātman as an imperceptible substance that is the substrate of human consciousness, manifesting itself with or without qualities such as desires, feelings, perception, knowledge, understanding, errors, insights, sufferings, bliss, and others. Nyaya theory of the
ātman had two broader contributions to Hindu conceptions of the
ātman. One, Nyaya scholars went beyond holding it as "self evident" and offered rational proofs, consistent with their epistemology, in their debates with Buddhists, that "Atman exists". As proofs for the proposition 'self exists', for example, Nyaya scholars argued that personal recollections and memories of the form "I did this so many years ago" implicitly presume that there is a self that is substantial, continuing, unchanged, and existent.
Nyayasutra, a 2nd-century CE foundational text of Nyaya school of Hinduism, states that Atma is a proper object of human knowledge. It also states that Atman is a real substance that can be inferred from certain signs, objectively perceivable attributes. For example, in book 1, chapter 1, verses 9 and 10, Nyayasutra states The Naiyayikas emphasize that
Ātman has qualities, but is different from its qualities. For example, desire is one of many qualities of
Ātman, but
Ātman does not always have desire, and in the state of liberation, for instance, the
Ātman is without desire.
Vaiśeṣika The
Vaisheshika school of Hinduism, using its non-theistic theories of atomistic
naturalism, posits that
Ātman is one of the four eternal non-physical substances without attributes, the other three being
kāla (time),
dik (space) and
manas (mind). Time and space, stated Vaiśeṣika scholars, are
eka (one),
nitya (eternal) and
vibhu (all pervading). Time and space are indivisible reality, but human mind prefers to divide them to comprehend past, present, future, relative place of other substances and beings, direction and its own coordinates in the universe. In contrast to these characteristics of time and space, Vaiśeṣika scholars considered
Ātman to be many, eternal, independent and spiritual substances that cannot be reduced or inferred from other three non-physical and five physical
dravya (substances). Unlike all other schools of Hinduism, Mimamsaka scholars considered ego and
Atman as the same. Within Mimamsa school, there was divergence of beliefs.
Kumārila, for example, believed that
Atman is the object of I-consciousness, whereas
Prabhākara believed that
Atman is the subject of I-consciousness. While other schools disagreed and discarded the
Atma theory of Mimamsa, they incorporated Mimamsa theories on ethics, self-discipline, action, and dharma as necessary in one's journey toward knowing one's
Atman.
Vedanta Advaita Vedanta Advaita Vedanta (non-dualism) sees the Ātman (“spirit, soul, self”) as
seemingly manifesting as many individuals, while being fully identical with Brahman. Each self is non-different from the infinite. Advaita Vedanta philosophy considers
Atman as
Sat-cit-ānanda, self-existent awareness, limitless and non-dual.
Atman is the universal principle, one eternal undifferentiated
self-luminous consciousness, the truth asserts Advaita Hinduism. Human beings, in a state of unawareness of this universal self, see their "I-ness" as different from the being in others, then act out of impulse, fears, cravings, malice, division, confusion, anxiety, passions, and a sense of distinctiveness. To Advaitins, Atman-knowledge is the state of full awareness, liberation, and freedom that overcomes dualities at all levels, realizing the divine within oneself, the divine in others, and in all living beings; the non-dual oneness, that God is in everything, and everything is God. God is the ultimate, perfect, but distinct soul from incomplete, imperfect
jivas (individual souls). God created individual souls, state Dvaita Vedantins, but the individual soul never was and never will become one with God; the best it can do is to experience bliss by getting infinitely close to God. Liberation is only possible in after-life as communion with God, and only through the grace of God (if not, then one's
Atman is reborn).
Heterodox schools Buddhism Applying the disidentification of 'no-self' to the logical end, Buddhism does not assert an unchanging essence, any "eternal, essential and absolute something called a soul, self or atman," According to Jayatilleke, the Upanishadic inquiry fails to find an empirical correlate of the assumed
Atman, but nevertheless assumes its existence, and, states Mackenzie, Advaitins "reify consciousness as an eternal self." In contrast, the Buddhist inquiry "is satisfied with the empirical investigation which shows that no such Atman exists because there is no evidence" states Jayatilleke. While
Nirvana is liberation from the
kleshas and the disturbances of the mind-body complex, Buddhism eludes a definition of
what it is that is liberated, implying, in
Anguttara Nikaya 4.23, that the '
tathagata' is "deep, unfathomable." According to Johannes Bronkhorst, "it is possible that original Buddhism did not deny the existence of soul," but did not want to talk about it, as they could not say that "the soul is essentially not involved in action, as their opponents did." While the
skandhas are regarded is impermanent (
anicca) and sorrowfull (
dukkha), the existence of a permanent, joyful and unchanging self is neither acknowledged nor explicitly denied. Liberation is not attained by knowledge of such a self, but by " turning away from what might erroneously be regarded as the self." According to Harvey, in Buddhism the negation of temporal existents is applied even more rigorously than in the Upanishads: Nevertheless, Atman-like notions can also be found in Buddhist texts chronologically placed in the 1st millennium of the
Common Era, such as the Mahayana tradition's
Tathāgatagarbha sūtras suggest self-like concepts, variously called
Tathagatagarbha or
Buddha nature. In the Theravada tradition, the
Dhammakaya Movement in Thailand teaches that it is erroneous to subsume nirvana under the rubric of
anatta (non-self); instead, nirvana is taught to be the "true self" or
dhammakaya. Similar interpretations have been put forth by the then
Thai Sangharaja in 1939. According to Williams, the Sangharaja's interpretation echoes the
tathāgatagarbha sutras. The notion of Buddha-nature is controversial, and "eternal self" concepts have been vigorously attacked. These "self-like" concepts are neither self nor sentient being, nor soul, nor personality. Some scholars posit that the
Tathagatagarbha Sutras were written to promote Buddhism to non-Buddhists. The Dhammakaya Movement teaching that nirvana is
atta (atman) has been criticized as heretical in Buddhism by
Prayudh Payutto, a well-known scholar monk, who added that 'Buddha taught nibbana as being non-self".
Pudgalavāda Pudgalavāda was a Buddhist philosophical view and also referred to a group of
Nikaya Buddhist schools (mainly known as Vātsīputrīyas) that arose within the
school of minority elders who split from the majority Mahāsāṃghika after the Second Buddhist Council. The Pudgalavādins asserted that while there is no
ātman, there exists a pudgala (person) or sattva (being), which is neither a conditioned dharma nor an unconditioned dharma.
Jainism Ātman is a philosophical term used within
Jainism to identify the
soul. As per
Jain cosmology,
jīva or soul is the principle of
sentience and is one of the
tattvas or one of the fundamental substances forming part of the universe. According to the Jain text,
Samayasāra (2nd century CE or later): According to Vijay Jain, the souls which rest on the pure self are called the Real Self, and only
arihant and
Siddhas are the Real Self.
Ājīvika The predetermined fate (niyati) of living beings was the major distinctive doctrine of Ājīvika school, along with withholding judgement on how to achieve liberation (
moksha) from the
eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, instead believing that fate would lead us there. Ājīvikas further considered the
karma doctrine as a fallacy. They were mostly considered as
atheists; however, they believed that in every living being there is an Ātman.
Sassatavāda Sassatavāda refers to a school of "eternalism and categoralism" that holds the belief in an unchanging self. Whatever is known about Sassatavāda comes from Buddhist sources. According to the Pali Canon,
Pakudha Kaccāyana founded this school around the 6th century BCE. He was an atomist who taught that everything is composed of seven eternal elements: earth, water, fire, air, happiness (joy), pain, and Ātman (soul). Pakudha further asserted that these elements do not interact with one another. ==Influence of Atman-concept on Hindu ethics==