A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ATMAN ACROSS EASTERN AND WESTERN DOCTRINES: PHILOSOPHICAL, RELIGIOUS, AYURVEDIC AND INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES

Hrishikesh Gaitonde*, Hitendra Gohel

ABSTRACT

Background: The problem of the self concerns the enduring subject of experience: the principle to which bodily change, cognition, memory, moral responsibility, suffering and the search for liberation are attributed. In Indian traditions this inquiry is articulated through such terms as Ātman, Jīva, Puruṣa, Chetanā and Sākṣī, whereas Western traditions employ soul, mind, self, subject, person and consciousness. The thesis on which this article is based argues that these vocabularies overlap only partially and must be interpreted within their own philosophical settings. Objective: To critically synthesize the thesis findings on Ātman across Vedic and Upaniṣadic literature, Indian Darśanas, Western philosophy, religious traditions, Āyurveda and selected interdisciplinary theories of consciousness, while preserving the distinctions among these systems. Methodology/Textual Analysis: The study is qualitative, textual, interpretative, analytical and comparative. Classical texts, translations, commentaries, philosophical works, Ayurvedic sources, religious texts and selected writings on consciousness were analyzed thematically. Comparison was organized around self and body, consciousness, permanence and change, moral agency, liberation or salvation, identity, health and the limits of scientific explanation. Key Findings: Indian thought does not present a single doctrine of Ātman: Sāṃkhya and Yoga defend witness-consciousness; Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika treat self as substance; Mīmāṃsā emphasizes agency; Vedānta relates Ātman to Brahman; Jainism affirms plural Jīvas; Buddhism rejects a permanent self; and Cārvāka identifies consciousness with embodied material existence. Western thought likewise moves through multiple models, from immortal or embodied soul to thinking substance, memory-based identity, bundle theory, transcendental subject and socially conditioned consciousness. Āyurveda is distinctive in situating Ātman within life and health through the conjunction of body, senses, mind and conscious principle. Scientific theories illuminate embodied mechanisms of consciousness but do not, within the thesis, establish or refute metaphysical Ātman. Conclusion: Ātman remains a philosophically productive category when interpreted neither as a measurable physical entity nor as an unquestioned dogma, but as a disciplined concept for examining conscious subjectivity, moral agency, human continuity, liberation and holistic well-being.

Keywords: ?tman; selfhood; consciousness; Indian Dar?ana; ?yurveda; soul; comparative philosophy.