Advaita Vedanta (; Sanskrit: अद्वैत वेदान्त,) is a Hindu tradition of textual exegesis and philosophy and a Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience. In a narrow sense it refers to the scholarly tradition belonging to the orthodox Hindu Vedānta tradition, with works written in Sanskrit, as exemplified by the Vedic scholar and teacher (acharya) Adi Shankara (9th cent. CE); in a broader sense it refers to a popular medieval and modern syncretic tradition, blending Vedānta with Yoga and other traditions and producing works in vernacular.
The term Advaita (literally "non-secondness", but usually rendered as "nondualism", and often equated with monism) refers to vivartavada, the idea that "the world is merely an unreal manifestation (vivarta) of Brahman," as proposed by the 13th century scholar Prakasatman. In this view, Brahman alone is ultimately real, while the transient phenomenal world is an illusory appearance (maya) of Brahman. In this view, jivatman, the experiencing self, is ultimately non-different ("na aparah") from Ātman-Brahman, the highest Self or Reality. The jivatman or individual self is a mere reflection or limitation of singular Ātman in a multitude of apparent individual bodies.
In the Advaita tradition, moksha (liberation from suffering and rebirth) is attained through recognizing this illusoriness of the phenomenal world and disidentification from the body-mind complex and the notion of 'doership', and acquiring vidyā (knowledge) of one's true identity as Atman-Brahman, self-luminous (svayam prakāśa) awareness or Witness-consciousness. Upanishadic statements such as tat tvam asi, "that['s how] you are," destroy the ignorance (avidyā) regarding one's true identity by revealing that (jiv)Ātman is non-different from immortal Brahman.
Advaita Vedānta adapted philosophical concepts from Buddhism, giving them a Vedantic basis and interpretation, and was influenced by, and influenced, various traditions and texts of Indian philosophy. The earliest Advaita writings are the Sannyasa Upanishads (first centuries CE), the Vākyapadīya, written by Bhartṛhari (second half 5th century,) and the Māndūkya-kārikā written by Gauḍapāda (7th century). While Adi Shankara is generally regarded as the most prominent exponent of the Advaita Vedānta tradition, and his works have a prominent place in the Advaita tradition, some of the most prominent Advaita-propositions come from other Advaitins, and his early influence has been questioned. Shankara's prominence started to take shape only centuries later in the 14th century, with the ascent of Sringeri matha and its jagadguru Vidyaranya (Madhava, 14th cent.) in the Vijayanagara Empire.
Adi Shankara did not embrace Yoga, and emphasized that, since Brahman is ever-present, Brahman-knowledge is immediate and requires no 'action' or 'doership', that is, striving (to attain) and effort. The Advaita Vedānta tradition in medieval times accepted yogic samadhi as a means to knowledge, explicitly incorporating elements from the yogic tradition and texts like the Yoga Vasistha and the Bhagavata Purana, culminating in Swami Vivekananda's full embrace and propagation of Yogic samadhi as an Advaita means of knowledge and liberation. The Advaita tradition, as exemplified by Mandana Misra and others, also prescribes elaborate preparatory practice, including contemplation of the mahavakyas, posing a paradox of two opposing approaches which is also recognized in other spiritual disciplines and traditions.
In the 19th century, due to the influence of Vidyaranya's Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha, the importance of Advaita Vedānta was overemphasized by Western scholarship, and Advaita Vedānta came to be regarded as the paradigmatic example of Hindu spirituality, despite the numerical dominance of theistic Bhakti-oriented religiosity. In modern times, Advaita views appear in various Neo-Vedānta movements.
The word Advaita is a composite of two Sanskrit words:
Advaita is often translated as "non-duality," but a more apt translation is "non-secondness." Advaita has several meanings:
The word Vedānta is a composition of two Sanskrit words: The word Veda refers to the whole corpus of vedic texts, and the word "anta" means 'end'. From this, one meaning of Vedānta is "the end of the Vedas" or "the ultimate knowledge of the Vedas". Veda can also mean "knowledge" in general, so Vedānta can be taken to mean "the end, conclusion or finality of knowledge". Vedānta is one of six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy.
While "a preferred terminology" for Upanisadic philosophy "in the early periods, before the time of Shankara" was Puruṣavāda, the Advaita Vedānta school has historically been referred to by various names, such as Advaita-vada (speaker of Advaita), Abheda-darshana (view of non-difference), Dvaita-vada-pratisedha (denial of dual distinctions), and Kevala-dvaita (non-dualism of the isolated). It is also called māyāvāda by Vaishnava opponents, akin to Madhyamaka Buddhism, due to their insistence that phenomena ultimately lack an inherent essence or reality,
According to Richard King, a professor of Buddhist and Asian studies, the term Advaita first occurs in a recognizably Vedantic context in the prose of Mandukya Upanishad.
According to Frits Staal, a professor of philosophy specializing in Sanskrit and Vedic studies, the word Advaita itself is from the Vedic era, and the Vedic sage Yajnavalkya (8th or 7th-century BCE) is credited to be the one who coined it. Stephen Phillips, a professor of philosophy and Asian studies, translates the Advaita containing verse excerpt in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, as "An ocean, a single seer without duality becomes he whose world is Brahman."
While the term "Advaita Vedanta" in a strict sense may refer to the scholastic tradition of textual exegesis established by Shankara, "advaita" in a broader sense may refer to a broad current of advaitic thought, which incorporates advaitic elements with yogic thought and practice and other strands of Indian religiosity, such as Kashmir Shaivism and the Nath tradition. The first connotation has also been called "Classical Advaita" and "doctrinal Advaita," and its presentation as such is due to mediaeval doxographies, the influence of Orientalist Indologists like Paul Deussen, and the Indian response to colonial influences, dubbed neo-Vedanta by Paul Hacker, who regarded it as a deviation from "traditional" Advaita Vedanta. Yet, post-Shankara Advaita Vedanta incorporated yogic elements, such as the Yoga Vasistha, and influenced other Indian traditions, and neo-Vedanta is based on this broader strand of Indian thought. This broader current of thought and practice has also been called "greater Advaita Vedanta," "vernacular advaita," and "experiential Advaita." It is this broader advaitic tradition which is commonly presented as "Advaita Vedanta," though the term "advaitic" may be more apt.
See also: Metaphysics and Ontology.
The nondualism of Advaita Vedānta is often regarded as an idealist monism. According to King, Advaita Vedānta developed "to its ultimate extreme" the monistic ideas already present in the Upanishads. In contrast, states Milne, it is misleading to call Advaita Vedānta "monistic," since this confuses the "negation of difference" with "conflation into one." Advaita is a negative term (a-dvaita), states Milne, which denotes the "negation of a difference," between subject and object, or between perceiver and perceived.
According to Deutsch, Advaita Vedānta teaches monistic oneness, however without the multiplicity premise of alternate monism theories. According to Jacqueline Suthren Hirst, Adi Shankara positively emphasizes "oneness" premise in his Brahma-sutra Bhasya 2.1.20, attributing it to all the Upanishads.
Nicholson states Advaita Vedānta contains realistic strands of thought, both in its oldest origins and in Shankara's writings.
See also: Hindu philosophy.
Advaita is a subschool of Vedānta, the latter being one of the six classical Hindu darśanas, an integrated body of textual interpretations and religious practices which aim at the attainment of moksha, release or liberation from transmigratory existence. Traditional Advaita Vedānta centers on the study and what it believes to be correct understanding of the sruti, revealed texts, especially the Principal Upanishads, along with the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gitā, which are collectively called as Prasthantrayi.
A main question in all schools of Vedanta is the relation between the individual self (jiva) and Atman/Brahman. Shankara and his followers regard Atman/Brahman to be the ultimate Real, and jivanatman "ultimately [to be] of the nature of Atman/Brahman." This truth is established from a literal reading of selected parts of the oldest Principal Upanishads and Brahma Sutras, and is also found in parts of the Bhagavad Gitā and numerous other Hindu texts, and is regarded to be self-evident, though great effort is made to show the correctness of this reading, and its compatibility with reason and experience, by criticizing other systems of thought. Vidya, correct knowledge or understanding of the identity of jivan-ātman and Brahman, destroys or makes null avidya ('false knowledge'), and results in liberation.
According to the contemporary Advaita tradition, this knowledge can be obtained by svādhyāya, study of the self and of the Vedic texts, which consists of four stages of samanyasa: virāga ('renunciation'), sravana ('listening to the teachings of the sages'), manana ('reflection on the teachings') and nididhyāsana, introspection and profound and repeated meditation on the mahavakyas, selected Upanishadic statements such as tat tvam asi ('that art thou' or 'you are That') which are taken literal, and form the srutic evidence for the identity of jivanatman and Atman-Brahman.[1] This meditation negates the misconceptions, false knowledge, and false ego-identity, rooted in maya, which obfuscate the ultimate truth of the oneness of Brahman, and one's true identity as Atman-Brahman. This culminates in what Adi Shankara refers to as anubhava, immediate intuition, a direct awareness which is construction-free, and not construction-filled. It is not an awareness of Brahman, but instead an awareness that is Brahman. Although the threefold practice is broadly accepted in the Advaita tradition, and affirmed by Mandana Misra, it is at odds with Shankara, who took a subitist position, arguing that moksha is attained at once when the mahavakyas, articulating the identity of Atman and Brahman, are understood.[2]
While closely related to Samkhya, the Advaita Vedānta tradition rejects the dualism of Samkhya purusha (primal consciousness) and prakriti (nature), instead stating that Brahman is the sole Reality, "that from which the origination, subsistence, and dissolution of this universe proceed." Samkhya argues that Purusha is the efficient cause of all existence while Prakriti is its material cause. Advaita, like all Vedanta schools, states that Brahman is both the efficient and the material cause. What created all existence is also present in and reflected in all beings and inert matter, the creative principle was and is everywhere, always. By accepting this postulation, various theoretical difficulties arise which Advaita and other Vedānta traditions offer different answers for. First, how did Brahman, which is sat ('existence'), without any distinction, become manifold universe? Second, how did Brahman, which is cit ('consciousness'), create the material world? Third, if Brahman is ananda ('bliss'), why did the empirical world of sufferings arise? The Brahma Sutras do not answer these philosophical queries, and later Vedantins including Shankara had to resolve them. To solve these questions, Shankara introduces the concept of "Unevolved Name-and-Form," or primal matter corresponding to Prakriti, from which the world evolves, coming close to Samkhya dualism. Shankara's notion of "Unevolved Name-and-Form" was not adopted by the later Advaita tradition; instead, the later tradition turned avidya into a metaphysical principle, namely mulavidya or "root ignorance," a metaphysical substance which is the "primal material cause of the universe (upadana)." Prakasatmans (13th c.) defense of vivarta to explain the origin of the world, which declared phenomenal reality to be an illusion, became the dominant explanation, with which the primacy of Atman/Brahman can be maintained.
Classical Advaita Vedānta states that all reality and everything in the experienced world has its root in Brahman, which is unchanging Consciousness. To Advaitins, there is no duality between a Creator and the created universe. All objects, all experiences, all matter, all consciousness, all awareness are somehow also this one fundamental reality Brahman. Yet, the knowing self has various experiences of reality during the waking, dream and dreamless states, and Advaita Vedānta acknowledges and admits that from the empirical perspective there are numerous distinctions. Advaita explains this by postulating different levels of reality, and by its theory of errors (anirvacaniya khyati).
See also: Three Bodies Doctrine (Vedanta) and Two truths doctrine.
Shankara proposes three levels of reality, using sublation as the ontological criterion:
Absolute and relative reality are valid and true in their respective contexts, but only from their respective particular perspectives. John Grimes explains this Advaita doctrine of absolute and relative truth with the example of light and darkness. From the sun's perspective, it neither rises nor sets, there is no darkness, and "all is light". From the perspective of a person on earth, sun does rise and set, there is both light and darkness, not "all is light", there are relative shades of light and darkness. Both are valid realities and truths, given their perspectives. Yet, they are contradictory. What is true from one point of view, states Grimes, is not from another. To Advaita Vedānta, this does not mean there are two truths and two realities, but it only means that the same one Reality and one Truth is explained or experienced from two different perspectives.
As they developed these theories, Advaita Vedānta scholars were influenced by some ideas from the Nyaya, Samkhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy. These theories have not enjoyed universal consensus among Advaitins, and various competing ontological interpretations have flowered within the Advaita tradition.
See main article: Ātman (Hinduism).
See also: Samadhi, Buddha-nature, Sunyata and Choiceless awareness.
Ātman (IAST: ātman, Sanskrit: आत्मन्) is the "real self" or "essence"[3] of the individual. It is caitanya, Pure Consciousness, a consciousness, states Sthaneshwar Timalsina, that is "self-revealed, self-evident and self-aware (svaprakashata)," and, states Payne, "in some way permanent, eternal, absolute or unchanging." It is self-existent awareness, limitless and non-dual. It is "a stable subjectivity, or a unity of consciousness through all the specific states of individuated phenomenality." Ātman, states Eliot Deutsch, is the "pure, undifferentiated, supreme power of awareness", it is more than thought, it is a state of being, that which is conscious and transcends subject-object divisions and momentariness. According to Ram-Prasad, "it" is not an object, but "the irreducible essence of being [as] subjectivity, rather than an objective self with the quality of consciousness."
According to Shankara, it is self-evident and "a matter not requiring any proof" that Atman, the 'I', is 'as different as light is from darkness' from non-Atman, the 'you' or 'that', the material world whose characteristics are mistakingly superimposed on Atman, resulting in notions as "I am this" and "This is mine." One's real self is not the constantly changing body, not the desires, not the emotions, not the ego, nor the dualistic mind, but the introspective, inwardly self-conscious "on-looker" (saksi), which is in reality completely disconnected from the non-Atman.
The jivatman or individual self is a mere reflection of singular Atman in a multitude of apparent individual bodies. It is "not an individual subject of consciousness," but the same in each person and identical to the universal eternal Brahman, a term used interchangeably with Atman.
Atman is often translated as soul, though the two concepts differ significantly, since "soul" includes mental activities, whereas "Atman" solely refers to detached witness-consciousness.
Advaita posits three states of consciousness, namely waking (jagrat), dreaming (svapna), deep sleep (suṣupti), which are empirically experienced by human beings, and correspond to the Three Bodies Doctrine:
Advaita also posits "the fourth," Turiya, which some describe as pure consciousness, the background that underlies and transcends these three common states of consciousness.[4] [5] Turiya is the state of liberation, where states Advaita school, one experiences the infinite (ananta) and non-different (advaita/abheda), that is free from the dualistic experience, the state in which ajativada, non-origination, is apprehended. According to Candradhara Sarma, Turiya state is where the foundational Self is realized, it is measureless, neither cause nor effect, all pervading, without suffering, blissful, changeless, self-luminous, real, immanent in all things and transcendent. Those who have experienced the Turiya stage of self-consciousness have reached the pure awareness of their own non-dual Self as one with everyone and everything, for them the knowledge, the knower, the known becomes one, they are the Jivanmukta.
Advaita traces the foundation of this ontological theory in more ancient Sanskrit texts. For example, chapters 8.7 through 8.12 of Chandogya Upanishad discuss the "four states of consciousness" as awake, dream-filled sleep, deep sleep, and beyond deep sleep. One of the earliest mentions of Turiya, in the Hindu scriptures, occurs in verse 5.14.3 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The idea is also discussed in other early Upanishads.
See main article: Prakāśa.
See also: Svasaṃvedana.
In the Advaita tradition, consciousness is svayam prakāśa, "self-luminous," which means that "self is pure awareness by nature." According to Dasgupta, it is "the most fundamental concept of the Vedanta." According to T. R. V. Murti, the Vedanta concept is explained as follows:
According to Jonardon Ganeri, the concept was introduced by the Buddhist philosopher Dignāga (c.480–c.540 CE), and accepted by the Vedanta tradition; according to Zhihua Yao, the concept has older roots in the Mahasanghika school.
See main article: Brahman and Satcitananda.
According to Advaita Vedānta, Brahman is the true Self, consciousness, awareness, and the only Reality (Sat). Brahman is Paramarthika Satyam, "Absolute Truth" or absolute Real. It is That which is unborn and unchanging, and immortal. Other than Brahman, everything else, including the universe, material objects and individuals, are ever-changing and therefore maya. Brahman is "not sublatable", which means it cannot be superseded by a still higher reality:
In Advaita, Brahman is the substrate and cause of all changes. Brahman is considered to be the material cause and the efficient cause of all that exists. The Brahma Sutras I.1.2 state that Brahman is:
Advaita's Upanishadic roots state Brahman's qualities to be Sat-cit-ānanda, "true being-consciousness-bliss," or "Eternal Bliss Consciousness". A distinction is made between nirguna Brahman, formless Brahman, and saguna Brahman, Brahman with form, that is, Ishvara, God. Nirguna Brahman is undescribable, and the Upanishadic neti neti ('not this, not that' or 'neither this, nor that') negates all conceptualizations of Brahman.
Avidyā is a central tenet of Shankara's Advaita, and became the main target of Ramanuja's criticism of Shankara. In Shankara's view, avidyā is adhyasa, "the superimposition of the qualities of one thing upon another." As Shankara explains in the Adhyasa-bhasya, the introduction to the Brahmasutrabhasya:
Due to avidya, we're steeped in loka drsti, the empirical view. From the beginning we only perceive the empirical world of multiplicity, taking it to be the only and true reality. Due to avidyā there is ignorance, or nescience, of the real Self, Atman-Brahman, mistakingly identifying the Self with the body-mind complex. With parmartha drsti ignorance is removed and vidya is acquired, and the Real, distinctionless Brahman is perceived as the True reality.
The notion of avidyā and its relationship to Brahman creates a crucial philosophical issue within Advaita Vedānta thought: how can avidyā appear in Brahman, since Brahman is pure consciousness? For Shankara, avidya is a perceptual or psychological error. According to Satchidanandendra Saraswati, for Shankara "avidya is only a technical name to denote the natural tendency of the human mind that is engaged in the act of superimposition." The later tradition diverged from Shankara by turning avidya into a metaphysical principle, namely mulavidya or "root ignorance," a metaphysical substance which is the "primal material cause of the universe (upadana)," thereby setting aside Shankara's 'Unevolved Name-and-Form' as the explanation for the existence of materiality. According to Mayeda, "[i]n order to save monism, they characterized avidya as indefinable as real or unreal (sadasadbhyam anirvacanya), belonging neither to the category of being nor to that of non-being." In the 20th century, this theory of mulavidya became a point of strong contention among Advaita Vedantins, with Satchidanandendra Saraswati arguing that Padmapada and Prakasatman had misconstrued Shanakara's stance.
Shankara did not give a 'location' of avidya, giving precedence to the removal of ignorance. Sengaku Mayeda writes, in his commentary and translation of Adi Shankara's Upadesasahasri:
The later Advaita-tradition diverged from Shankara, trying to determinate a locus of avidya, with the Bhamati-school locating avidya in the jiva c.q. prakriti, while the Vivarana-school locates it in Brahman.
In Advaita Vedanta, the perceived empirical world, "including people and other existence," is Māyā, "appearance." Jiva, conditioned by the human mind, is subjected to experiences of a subjective nature, and misunderstands and interprets the physical, changing world as the sole and final reality. Due to avidya, we take the phenomenal world to be the final reality, while in Reality only Sat (True Reality, Brahman) is Real and unchanging.
While Shankara took a realistic stance, and his explanations are "remote from any connotation of illusion," the 13th century scholar Prakasatman, founder of the influential Vivarana school, introduced the notion that the world is illusory. According to Hacker, maya is not a prominent theme for Shankara, in contrast to the later Advaita tradition, and "the word maya has for [Shankara] hardly any terminological weight."
Due to avidya, atman is covered by koshas (sheaths or bodies), which hide man's true nature. According to the Taittiriya Upanishad, the Atman is covered by five koshas, usually rendered "sheath". They are often visualized like the layers of an onion. From gross to fine the five sheaths are:
See also: Ajativada and Vivartavada.
Cause and effect are an important topic in all schools of Vedanta. Two sorts of causes are recognised, namely, the efficient cause, that which causes the existence of the universe, and, the material cause, that from which the matery of this universe comes. All schools of Vedānta agree that Brahman is both the material and the efficient cause, and all subscribe to the theory of Satkāryavāda, which means that the effect is pre-existent in the cause.
There are different views on the origination of the empirical world from Brahman. All commentators "agree that Brahman is the cause of the world," but disagree on how exactly Brahman is the cause of the world. According to Nicholson, "Mediaeval Vedantins distinguished two basic positions." Parinamavada is the idea that the world is a real transformation (parinama) of Brahman. Vivartavada is the idea that
The Brahma Sutras, the ancient Vedantins, most sub-schools of Vedānta, as well as Samkhya argue for parinamavada. The "most visible advocates of Vivartavada," states Nicholson, are the Advaitins, the followers of Shankara. "Although the world can be described as conventionally real", adds Nicholson, "the Advaitins claim that all of Brahman's effects must ultimately be acknowledged as unreal before the individual self can be liberated".
Yet, Adi Shankara himself most likely explained causality through parinamavada. In Shankara's works "Brahman constitutes the basic essence (svabhava) of the universe (BS Bh 3.2.21) and as such the universe cannot be thought of as distinct from it (BS Bh 2.1.14)." In Shankara's view, then, "The world is real, but only in so far as its existence is seen as totally dependent upon Brahman."
Shankara introduced the concept of "Unevolved Name-and-Form," or primal matter corresponding to Prakriti, from which the world evolves, but this concept was not adopted by the later Advaita tradition. Vivartavada became the dominant explanation, with which the primacy of Atman/Brahman can be maintained. Scholars such as Hajime Nakamura and Paul Hacker already noted that Adi Shankara did not advocate Vivartavada, and his explanations are "remote from any connotation of illusion".It was the 13th century scholar Prakasatman, who founded the influential Vivarana school, who gave a definition to vivarta, introducing the notion that the world is illusory. It is Prakasatman's theory that is sometimes misunderstood as Adi Shankara's position. Andrew Nicholson concurs with Hacker and other scholars, adding that the vivarta-vada isn't Shankara's theory, that Shankara's ideas appear closer to parinama-vada, and the vivarta explanation likely emerged gradually in Advaita subschool later.
See also: Jnana and Prajna (Vedic).
The soteriological goal, in Advaita, is to gain self-knowledge as being in essence (Atman), awareness or witness-consciousness, and complete understanding of the identity of jivan-ātman and Brahman. Correct knowledge of Atman and Brahman is the attainment of Brahman, immortality, and leads to moksha (liberation) from suffering and samsara, the cycle of rebirth This is stated by Shankara as follows:
According to Advaita Vedānta, liberation can be achieved while living, and is called Jivanmukti. in contrast to Videhamukti (moksha from samsara after death) in theistic sub-schools of Vedānta. The Atman-knowledge, that is the knowledge of true Self and its relationship to Brahman is central to this liberation in Advaita thought.