Editing Ātman (Hinduism) (section)

==Notes==
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<ref group="note" name="Atman_soul">While often translated as "soul," it is better translated as "self":  
* {{harvtxt|Lorenzen|2004|pp=208–209}}: "individual soul (aatman) [sic]"
* {{harvtxt|King|1995|p=64}}: "Atman as the innermost essence or soul of man."
* {{harvtxt|Meister|2010|p=63}}: ''Atman'' (soul)"
* {{harvtxt|Shepard|1991}}: "Usually translated "Soul" but better rendered "Self.""</ref>
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<ref group=note name="Atman_Buddhism">Atman and Buddhism:
* {{harvtxt|Wynne|2011|pp=103–105}}: "The denial that a human being possesses a "self" or "soul" is probably the most famous Buddhist teaching. It is certainly its most distinct, as has been pointed out by G. P. Malalasekera: "In its denial of any real permanent Soul or Self, Buddhism stands alone." A similar modern Sinhalese perspective has been expressed by Walpola Rahula: "Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of such a Soul, Self or Ātman." The "no Self" or "no soul" doctrine (Sanskrit: anātman; Pāli: anattan) is particularly notable for its widespread acceptance and historical endurance. It was a standard belief of virtually all the ancient schools of Indian Buddhism (the notable exception being the Pudgalavādins), and has persisted without change into the modern era. [...] both views are mirrored by the modern Theravādin perspective of Mahasi Sayadaw that "there is no person or soul" and the modern Mahāyāna view of the fourteenth Dalai Lama that "[t]he Buddha taught that [...] our belief in an independent self is the root cause of all suffering"."
* {{harvtxt|Collins|1994|p=64}}: "Central to Buddhist soteriology is the doctrine of not-self (Pali: anattā, Sanskrit: anātman, the opposed doctrine of ātman is central to Brahmanical thought). Put very briefly, this is the [Buddhist] doctrine that human beings have no soul, no self, no unchanging essence."
* {{harvtxt|Plott|2000|p=62}}: "The Buddhist schools reject any Ātman concept. As we have already observed, this is the basic and ineradicable distinction between Hinduism and Buddhism."
The notion of no-self is not so much a doctrine, as it is a 'technique' to disidentify from any sorrowfull existent, akin to the Samkhya-notion of [[Kaivalya]]:
* {{harvtxt|Jayatilleke|1963|pp=246–249, from note 385 onwards}} refers to various notions of "self" or "soul" rejected by early Buddhism; several Buddhist texts record Samkhya-like notions of Atman c.q. consciousness being different from the body, and liberation is the recognition of this difference. 
* {{harvtxt|Javanaud|2013}}: "When Buddhists assert the doctrine of 'no-self', they have a clear conception of what a self would be. The self Buddhists deny would have to meet the following criteria: it would (i) retain identity over time, (ii) be permanent (that is, enduring), and (iii) have 'controlling powers' over the parts of a person. Yet through empirical investigation, Buddhists conclude that there is no such thing. 'I' is commonly used to refer to the mind/body integration of the five skandhas, but when we examine these, we discover that in none alone are the necessary criteria for self met, and as we've seen, the combination of them is a convenient fiction [...] Objectors to the exhaustiveness claim often argue that for discovering the self the Buddhist commitment to empirical means is mistaken. True, we cannot discover the self in the five skandhas, precisely because the self is that which is beyond or distinct from the five skandhas. Whereas Buddhists deny the self on grounds that, if it were there, we would be able to point it out, opponents of this view, including Sankara of the Hindu Advaita Vedanta school, are not at all surprised that we cannot point out the self; for the self is that which does the pointing rather than that which is pointed at. Buddha defended his commitment to the empirical method on grounds that, without it, one abandons the pursuit of knowledge in favour of speculation."
Liberation (nirvana) is not attained by a "self," but is the release of anything that could be "self":
* {{harvtxt|Collins1990|p=82}}: "It is at this point that the differences [between Upanishads and Abhidharma] start to become marked. There is no central self which animates the impersonal elements. The concept of nirvana (Pali ''nibbana''), although similarly the criterion according to which ethical judgements are made and religious life assessed, is not the liberated state of a self. Like all other things and concepts (''dhamma'') it is ''anatta'', not-self [in Buddhism]."
* {{harvtxt|McClelland|2010|pp=16–18}}: "Anatman/Anatta. Literally meaning no (an-) self or soul (-atman), this Buddhist term applies to the denial of a metaphysically changeless, eternal and autonomous soul or self. (...) The early canonical Buddhist view of nirvana sometimes suggests a kind of extinction-like (kataleptic) state that automatically encourages a metaphysical no-soul (self)."</ref>
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<ref group=note name="Atman_definition">Definitions:
* Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press (2012), ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20141230210157/http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/atman Atman]'': "1. real self of the individual; 2. a person's soul";
* John Bowker (2000), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0192800947}}, ''Atman'': "the real or true Self"; 
* W.J. Johnson (2009), A Dictionary of Hinduism, Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0198610250}}, See entry for Atman (self).
* Encyclopedia Britannica, [https://www.britannica.com/topic/atman Atman]: Atman, (Sanskrit: "self," "breath") one of the most basic concepts in Hinduism, the universal self, identical with the eternal core of the personality that after death either transmigrates to a new life or attains release (moksha) from the bonds of existence."
* {{harvtxt|Shepard|1991}}: "Usually translated "Soul" but better rendered "Self.""
* John Grimes (1996), A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy, State University of New York Press, {{ISBN| 0791430685}}, ''Atman'': "breath" (from the verb root at = "to breathe"); inner Self, the Reality which is the substrate of the individual and identical with the Absolute (''Brahman'').
* The Presence of Shiva (1994), [[Stella Kramrisch]], Princeton University Press, {{ISBN|9780691019307}}, ''Atma'' (Glossary) p. 470 "the Self, the inmost Self or, the life principle"</ref>
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