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Beginning with
Vedantic Hindu
philosophy, the Ātman - Sanskrit (masculine nominative singular: Ātmā) is
regarded as an underlying metaphysical self. It is first seen in its current
Hindu usage in the
Upanishads, some of which date back to 1000 BC. The word
“Atman” (pronounced in Sanskrit like “Atma”) is interpreted by some schools as
the “Main Essence” of man, as his Highest Self. “A” in this word is a negative
particle. One popular, albeit apocryphal, etymology has it that the 'tma' of "atma"
“Tma” means “darkness” in light of the word “tamas” - “darkness, ignorance or
inertia”, “spiritual darkness” - has the same root. Therefore “A-tma” or
“Atman” means “opposite to darkness”, “shining”.
Advaita philosophers believe that individual "personal" souls exist as Maya
only. Dvaita philosophy claims that there is an eternal plurality of souls as
per Bhagavad Gita 2.12.
Advaita posits an ultimate ātman (synonymous with
Brahman) as
the all-pervading soul of the universe: the universal life-principle, the
animator of all organisms, and the world-soul. This view is of a sort of panentheism (not pantheism) and thus is sometimes not equated with the single
creator God of monotheism. Dvaita calls the all-pervading aspect of Brahman
Paramatman (Paramatma), quantitatively different from individual Atman.
Identification of individual souls, or jiva-atmas, with the 'One Atman' is the
monistic Advaita Vedanta position, which is critiqued by dualistic/theistic
Dvaita Vedanta (which claims reality for both a God functioning as the
ultimate metaphorical "soul" of the universe, and for actual individual
"souls" as such) and compromise schools like Vishishtadvaita
Vedanta. The 'dvaita'
(or dualist) schools, therefore, in contrast to Advaita, advocate a exclusive
monotheistic position wherein Brahman is made synonymous with Vishnu.
By contrast, Jiva is the psychological or phenomenological self, the "I" which
appears as the subject of verbs. The jiva is typically regarded as having its
freedom limited by the triple bond of anava (ego), karma (action) and maya
(illusion).
Non-technical uses of ātman
Ātman is also sometimes used non-technically to refer to the commonsense self
(i.e., the individual as opposed to other beings or to the environment). It is
frequently used to reform compounds in this capacity, both in Hindu and
Buddhist writings. Upanishadic writers would frequently stress the difference
between oneself (ego-bound) and the True Self (atman and Atman).
Buddhism
A major departure from the Hindu conception of atman was to be found in
Buddhism. Both negation (in anatta/anatman) and redefining (Atman (Buddhism))
of atman yielded different philosophical outlooks on the concept of "I" and
the "self."
Jainism also believes in the concept of atman.
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