Advaita holds that Brahman without qualities (nirguna) is the ultimate reality; Ishvara is Brahman as seen through maya, real at the level of the world but not the final truth.
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What is God?
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Editorial overview
Indian traditions hold a remarkable range of views about God. Some speak of a personal Lord (Ishvara) who creates, sustains and graces the world — Vishnu, Shiva or the Goddess; some of an impersonal absolute (Brahman) beyond all qualities; some of both, as different levels of one truth. Classical Sankhya, Mimamsa, Jainism and Buddhism do not accept a creator God, while Sikh thought affirms one formless God known through the Name. The Gita presents Krishna as both the personal Lord and the ground of all being.
Concepts involved
Philosophical perspectives
Different answers, each in its own terms. None is ranked.
For Ramanuja, Brahman is the personal God Narayana, possessed of infinite auspicious qualities, with the world and selves as his body.
Madhva holds that Vishnu is supreme and fully independent, eternally distinct from souls and matter, which depend on him entirely.
Shakta traditions worship the Goddess as the supreme power who creates, sustains and dissolves the world, and who is both fierce and compassionate.
Later Nyaya thinkers offered arguments that the world, as an effect, requires an intelligent maker, and defended Ishvara by reasoning.
Jainism rejects a creator God; the universe is uncreated, and liberated souls (siddhas) are revered as perfected beings rather than creators.
Sikh thought affirms one God, formless, timeless and beyond birth, who is also immanent in creation and known through the Name and grace.
Start here
7.7
Nothing exists apart from Me
मेरे सिवाय दूसरा कुछ भी नहीं
मत्त: परतरं नान्यत्किञ्चिदस्ति धनञ्जय।
God alone is the root cause of everything; the whole world is strung on Him like beads of thread on a thread.
भगवान् ही सबके मूल कारण हैं; सारा जगत् सूतकी मणियोंकी तरह उनमें पिरोया हुआ है।
Everything is strung on the Divine like pearls on a thread.
Go deeper
- 1 · Gita verseBhagavad Gita 9.4All beings are in Me, yet I am not in them — God as both immanent and transcendent.
- 2 · Gita verseBhagavad Gita 10.20The Divine as the Self in the heart of all beings.
- 3 · Gita verseBhagavad Gita 15.17The Supreme Person beyond the perishable and the imperishable.
- 4 · Conceptईश्वरIshvara — GodHow the schools debate a personal God.
- 5 · Conceptब्रह्मन्BrahmanThe absolute of the Upanishads.
Primary sources
References to the texts behind each perspective.
The Gita’s answer
Grounded in Sadhak Sanjivani.
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