अनात्मन्
Anatta (Anatman)
anātman
In simple words
The Buddha taught that when you look carefully at body, feelings, perceptions, mental habits and awareness, you find no fixed, unchanging 'me' in any of them. Clinging to such a self is seen as a root of suffering.
What is it?
Anatta (Pali; Sanskrit anatman) is one of the three marks of existence with impermanence and unsatisfactoriness. The person is analysed into five aggregates (skandhas), none of which is permanent or under full control, so none qualifies as a self. The teaching targets the idea of an eternal, unchanging self (atman) of the kind held by several Brahmanical schools. Buddhist schools still affirm continuity of a person across lives through causal process, and they differ on how to describe that continuity.
Scholar’s note
The Pudgalavada school posited a 'person' neither identical nor different from the aggregates, and was criticised by others. Abhidharma schools reduce persons to momentary dharmas; Madhyamaka extends the absence of self to all phenomena (dharma-nairatmya). Some modern scholars debate whether early texts deny any self or only refuse to identify one with the aggregates; traditional schools overwhelmingly read it as a denial of a permanent self.How its meaning differs
No self is found in the five aggregates; seeing this directly, as impermanent and unsatisfactory, loosens craving and leads to nirvana.
Not only persons but all things lack intrinsic self-nature; no-self is extended to emptiness of all phenomena.
Contrast: Vedanta agrees the body and mind are not the Self, but concludes there is a witnessing Self (atman) beyond them; this is a central point of Buddhist–Vedantic debate.
Where else it appears
Follow this idea
Trace the idea from one source to the next.
- 1Thinkerगौतम बुद्धSiddhartha Gautama, the BuddhaThe Buddha's analysis of the person into aggregates.
- 2Conceptअनित्यAnitya / Anicca — impermanenceNo-self is argued from impermanence.
- 3ConceptदुःखDukkha — suffering, unsatisfactorinessClinging to self as a root of suffering.
- 4Textमूलमध्यमककारिकाMulamadhyamakakarikaNagarjuna extends no-self to all things.
- 5Gita verseBhagavad Gita 2.20Contrast: the Gita's teaching of an unborn, undying Self.
- 6Conceptआत्मन्Atman — the SelfContrast in full: the Vedantic Self.
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