Brahman
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Brahman (Skt.). Connotes the highest universal principle, the ultimate reality of the universe, according to Hinduism.[1][2][3] In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the non-physical, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists.[2][4] It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth, consciousness and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes.[1][3][5] Brahman as a metaphysical concept refers to the single binding unity behind diversity in all that exists.
Rupert Gethin states:
- [According to the early Upaniṣads,] the immortal indestructible ātman that is the ultimate self is ... to be identified with the underlying ground of all reality known as brahman. In the final analysis I am not something different from the underlying ground of the universe itself. This is the famous Upaniṣadic equation of ātman and brahman.[6]
Ātman and brahman in pre-Buddhist India
Peter Harvey states:
- Brahmins learnt of yogic techniques of meditation, physical isolation, fasting, celibacy and asceticism from ascetics whose traditions may have gone back to the Indus Valley Civilization. Such techniques were found to be useful as spiritual preparations for performing the sacrifice. Some Brahmins then retired to the forest and used them as a way of actually carrying out the sacrifice in an internalized, visualized form. The Upaniṣads were composed out of the teachings of the more orthodox of these forest dwellers. Of these, the pre-Buddhist ones are the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya (seventh to sixth centuries BCE) and probably the Taittīriya, Aitareya and Kauṣītaki (sixth to fifth centuries BCE). In these, Brahman is seen as the substance underlying the whole cosmos, and as identical with the Ātman, the universal Self which the yogic element of the Indian tradition had sought deep within the mind. By true knowledge of this identity, it was held that a person could attain liberation from reincarnation after death, and merge back into Brahman. The idea of reincarnation seems to have developed as an extension of the idea, found in the Brāhmaṇas, that the power of a person’s sacrificial action might be insufficient to lead to an afterlife that did not end in another death. The Upaniṣads, perhaps due to some non-Aryan influence, saw such a death as being followed by reincarnation as a human or animal.[7]
Rupert Gethin states:
- Among the questions the early brahmanical texts known as the Upaniṣads seek to explore are: to whom or what the various experiences and parts of a being belong; who or what controls them; what is the ultimate nature of a being’s self. The standard term that the Upaniṣads use for the ‘self’ in its ultimate nature is ātman, which, although also employed as the ordinary word for ‘self’ in Sanskrit, may etymologically be derived from a word originally meaning ‘breath’. For the early Upaniṣads such as the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya (sixth century BCE), the self in its ultimate nature is a mysterious, ungraspable entity; it is the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the unknown knower; it is the inner controller; it is what is immortal in us. Although it is much easier to say what it is not than to specify it concretely, certain quite definite things can be said of it. This ultimate metaphysical self is the unchanging constant underlying all our various and unstable experiences. As such it is indestructible and ultimately unaffected by any specific experience and quite beyond suffering:
- The self is not this and not that. Ungraspable it is certainly not grasped; indestructible it is certainly not destroyed, without clinging it is certainly not clung to; unbound it comes to no harm, it does not suffer.
- Furthermore the immortal indestructible ātman that is the ultimate self is, according to the early Upaniṣads, to be identified with the underlying ground of all reality known as brahman. In the final analysis I am not something different from the underlying ground of the universe itself. This is the famous Upaniṣadic equation of ātman and brahman. This does not appear to be the only notion of the a ātman known to Buddhist texts.[6]
Further reading
Brahman, Wikipedia
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lochtefeld, James G. (2002). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism. 1. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 122.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 P. T. Raju (2006), Idealistic Thought of India, Routledge, page 426 and Conclusion chapter part XII
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Fowler 2002, pp. 49–55 (in Upanishads), 318–319 (in Vishistadvaita), 246–248 and 252–255 (in Advaita), 342–343 (in Dvaita), 175–176 (in Samkhya-Yoga).
- ↑ Mariasusai Dhavamony (2002), Hindu-Christian Dialogue: Theological Soundings and Perspectives, Rodopi Press, pages 43–44
- ↑ Brodd, Jeffrey (2009). World Religions: A Voyage of Discovery
(3rd ed.). Saint Mary's Press. pp. 43–47.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Gethin 1998, Chapter 6.
- ↑ Harvey 2013, Chapter 1.
Sources
Gethin, Rupert (1998), Foundations of Buddhism, Oxford University Press- Harvey, Peter (2013), An Introduction to Buddhism (Second ed.), Cambridge University Press
