Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism's Greatest Thinker

by Pavan K. Varma

There is nothing like an enduring self, Brahman or Atman, said the Buddha; in this state of non-self (anatta) what exists is only the body (rupa) and the mind (nama). Everything that we see is an aggregate (samghata); all is inherently unsubstantial (nairatmaya). Moreover, even the self, at the level of body and mind, is eternally transient and impermanent (anityatva). He further said that the reality that we see around us has no transcendental substratum (svabhava); it is in constant flux (samtana), and all experience is a series of impressions, conceived and extinguished in the same instance (kshana bhanga vada), so that no one can ever step into the same river twice. Nirvana, and in this context meaning liberation from sorrow, is literally the realisation of the emptiness of the notion of self, a process of blowing out and extinguishing oneself from the binding shackles of the web of life, samsara.