Atman

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈɑːtman/

Definitions

1. The innermost essence or eternal self in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, believed to be the ultimate reality underlying individual consciousness and existence
2. The eternal, unchanging soul or consciousness within all beings that transcends the physical body and individual identity in Hindu and Buddhist thought
3. A person's innermost spiritual essence or divine core that exists beyond the material world and connects to ultimate universal reality according to Indian philosophical traditions

Etymology: The Sanskrit "ātmán" originally meant "breath" before it came to mean "soul" or "self," and that older sense survives in English through a surprising relative. Old English "ǣþm" meant "breath," and it is related to "atman" through a shared Indo-European root for breathing. Its close cousin in English is "edder," a word for a blood vessel, which came into the language by a different route and is a doublet of "atman," the two forms having split off from the same ancestor. The Sanskrit word moved from the physical act of breathing to the idea of the vital essence animating a living being. In Hindu philosophy, particularly the Upanishads, this essence came to be understood as the innermost self, the part of a person that persists beyond the body. Buddhist thought, which developed partly in response to these ideas, later reinterpreted the concept, and the term appears in both traditions with quite different implications.

Synonyms: soul, spirit, self, essence, consciousness