ātmā (stem ātman): what the term means and how it is translated
ātmā (stem ātman) आत्मा is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 7 different ways, which is the reason this page exists: the renderings do not agree, and the difference between them changes what the term is taken to mean.
| Transliteration | ātmā (stem ātman) |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | आत्मा |
| Also written | atman, atma, ātman, puruṣa (in the ṣaḍdhātu sense), cetanā-dhātu, kṣetrajña, jīva |
| Category, as gathered | darshana / sharira |
| Grouped here under | Foundations and categories |
| Classical citations | 7 |
| Citations checked | 2026-10-07 |
How it is translated, and whether the translation holds
Each rendering is given with the source that uses it. The assessment is ours.
Self
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-1.9.3.2.1 ātmā · standard
COMPARATOR. Description: 'Soul, the principle of life and sensation, the individual self, the conscious element in the human body.' Related WHO entries: ITA-1.9.3.2.2 bhūtātmā 'Self-embodied being'; ITA-1.9.3.2.3 jīvaḥ 'Living being, individual self'; ITA-1.9.3.2.9 puruṣaḥ 'Person, living being'; ITA-1.9.3.2.11 cikitsya-puruṣaḥ / ṣaḍdhātupuruṣa 'Person as the object of treatment'; ITA-1.9.3.2.14 niṣkriyaḥ 'Inactive' ('Inactiveness of atma, indicating its principal quality of performing the duty of being a witness'); ITA-1.9.3.2.15 vibhu 'Omnipresent'; ITA-1.9.3.2.19 nirvikāram 'Formless'. ITA-1.9.4.3.1 ātmaguṇaḥ lists six attributes: buddhi, sukha, duḥkha, icchā, dveṣa, prayatna.
Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda, which is what that licence permits. It is deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is offered under CC BY 4.0 and invites the modification a NoDerivs licence forbids.
Soul or spirit: principle of life and sensation, the individual self; the only conscious element in the human body
National Institute of Ayurveda terminology list · SV0009 ātmā · standard
COMPARATOR. Wording almost identical to WHO ITA-1.9.3.2.1, which suggests a shared source.
Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the National Institute of Ayurveda terminology list, which is what that licence permits. It is deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is offered under CC BY 4.0 and invites the modification a NoDerivs licence forbids.
soul
Charaka Samhita tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Sūtrasthāna 1, his aphorisms 41, 45, 47; Sūtrasthāna 8 footnote · translation
Public domain. Kaviratna's default, but his own footnote to Sū.8 (his aphorism 2) says: 'To render atman therefore, as soul would be misleading. But in the absence of a more exact word, this usual equivalent in English for atman cannot be discarded.' He glosses the commentator's sense as 'chetana-pratisandhatri i.e., the principle that is the cause of the consciousness of one's own identity as a living being.'
the Soul ... the eternal witness
Charaka Samhita tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Sūtrasthāna 1, his aphorism numbered 56 in the OCR (= standard 1.56) · translation
Public domain.
the Supreme Soul (when invested with a body) / the living (or Jiva-Soul)
Charaka Samhita tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · Śārīrasthāna 1, his aphorisms 78 (= standard 72-73) · translation
Public domain. His rendering of paramātman in Śā.1.72, with jīva for the embodied self.
the self-conscious self / Purusha (self-conscious subjectivity) / Kshetrajna
Sushruta Samhita tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1911, vol. 2) · Śārīrasthāna 1, Bhishagratna's sections 8-17 · translation
Public domain. Bhishagratna avoids 'soul' in the body text, preferring 'self-conscious self', 'units or atoms of consciousness', and 'Kshetrajna'; his editorial note uses 'soul' freely.
self / soul / spirit / consciousness principle
common textbook renderings · other · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
All current; none standardised.
The classical passages
Each citation gives its address so a reader can check it in a printed edition, our account of what the passage establishes, and the result of reading it against its source.
Charaka SamhitaSūtrasthāna 1:42 (standard; Kaviratna prints 41) · checked against the source
śarīrēndriyasattvātmasaṁyōgō dhāri jīvitam| nityagaścānubandhaśca paryāyairāyurucyatē||42||
Ātmā is the fourth constituent of āyu alongside body, senses and sattva (mind). Kaviratna (his 41): 'The union of body, senses, mind, and soul is called Life.'
Charaka SamhitaSūtrasthāna 1:46-47 (standard; Kaviratna prints 45-46) · checked against the source
Mind, soul, and body, this trinity, called person, resteth on union like three sticks (standing with one another's support.) Upon that (trinity) everything rests. That is also called purusha or Being. It is also animate. That is also regarded as the subject matter of this Science; and it is also for the sake of that, that this Science is promulgated.
The tridaṇḍa: sattva, ātmā and śarīra together constitute puruṣa, the subject of Ayurveda. Sanskrit (Charak Samhita Online 46-47): 'sattvamātmā śarīraṁ ca trayamētattridaṇḍavat' ... 'sa pumāṁścētanaṁ tacca taccādhikaraṇaṁ smr̥tam'. OCR spacing normalised.
Charaka SamhitaSūtrasthāna 1:48 (standard; Kaviratna prints 47) · checked against the source
khādīnyātmā manaḥ kālō diśaśca dravyasaṅgrahaḥ| sēndriyaṁ cētanaṁ dravyaṁ, nirindriyamacētanam||48||
Ātmā is one of the nine dravyas (five bhūtas, ātmā, manas, kāla, diś). Kaviratna (his 47): 'Those having ether for the first (i.e., ether, air, fire, water, and earth), soul, mind, and the quarters, are constituent elements (of all things).'
Charaka SamhitaSūtrasthāna 1:56 (standard) · checked against the source
nirvikāraḥ parastvātmā sattvabhūtaguṇēndriyaiḥ| caitanyē kāraṇaṁ nityō draṣṭā paśyati hi kriyāḥ||56||
Ātmā is nirvikāra (unchanging), para, the cause of consciousness only in conjunction with sattva, bhūta-guṇas and indriyas, eternal, and a witness (draṣṭā). Kaviratna: 'The Soul is immutable (incapable of being affected by anything) and eternal; faculties, the attributes of matter, and the senses, are the causes of consciousness. The Soul is the eternal witness, for it views all actions (without being itself affected by any of them).' His printed number for this aphorism is illegible in the OCR (reads 56 twice); by sequence it is his 55.
Charaka SamhitaŚārīrasthāna 1 (Katidhāpuruṣīya):16 (standard; Kaviratna prints 23) · checked against the source
khādayaścētanāṣaṣṭhā dhātavaḥ puruṣaḥ smr̥taḥ| cētanādhāturapyēkaḥ smr̥taḥ puruṣasañjñakaḥ||16||
The ṣaḍdhātu puruṣa: five bhūtas plus cetanā-dhātu; the cetanā-dhātu alone is also called puruṣa. This is the medical (cikitsya) puruṣa in which ātmā appears as the sixth, conscious constituent. Kaviratna (his 23): 'Some regard that Purusha is made up of six ingredients, viz, those begining with ether, and consciousness. Others regard that only one of the ingredients, viz., consciousness is called Purusha.'
Charaka SamhitaŚārīrasthāna 1:70-73 (standard; Kaviratna prints 76-78 and a second 78 in the OCR) · checked against the source
prāṇāpānau nimēṣādyā jīvanaṁ manasō gatiḥ| indriyāntarasañcāraḥ prēraṇaṁ dhāraṇaṁ ca yat||70|| dēśāntaragatiḥ svapnē pañcatvagrahaṇaṁ tathā| dr̥ṣṭasya dakṣiṇēnākṣṇā savyēnāvagamastathā||71|| icchā dvēṣaḥ sukhaṁ duḥkhaṁ prayatnaścētanā dhr̥tiḥ| buddhiḥ smr̥tirahaṅkārō liṅgāni paramātmanaḥ||72|| yasmāt samupalabhyantē liṅgānyētāni jīvataḥ| na mr̥tasyātmaliṅgāni tasmādāhurmaharṣayaḥ||73||
The liṅgas (inferential marks) of the embodied ātmā: breathing, blinking, life, movement of mind, passage of mind between senses, impulsion, retention, dreaming, dying, cross-ocular recognition, desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, effort, consciousness, steadiness, buddhi, memory, ego-sense; absent in the dead. Kaviratna's English (his 76-78): 'The vital breaths called Prana and Apana, the opening and closing of the eye (and other similar motions), the period of time called Life, the movements of the mind, the passing of the mind from one sense to another, the despatch of the mind (to a particular object), and holding the mind thereto. Sojourns (of the mind) to other places in dreams, as also the acceptance of death, the perception by the left eye of objects seen by the right eye. Desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, will, consciousness, apprehension, understanding, memory, and the idea of personal identity, these are the indications of the Supreme Soul (when invested with a body).' Both the Sanskrit and English were retrieved; the English is at the archive.org URL given in the other entries.
Sushruta SamhitaŚārīrasthāna 1 (Sarvabhūtacintā):Bhishagratna's sections 16-17; Sanskrit verse number not established · checked against the source
The Science of medicine does not lay down that the self-conscious Selves (Kshetrajna) are all pervading, but on the contrary it asserts that they are real and eternal and are born in the planes of divine, human or animal existence according to their good or evil deeds in life. The existence of these self-conscious entities can be ascertained duly by inference inasmuch as they are extremely subtle in their essence. ... Purusha (individual) is nothing but a combination of a self-conscious self and the five kinds of matter (Maha- bhutas) formed into an organic body. This Purusha or individual, which is called Individual of action (Karma- Purusha), falls within the scope of the science and art of medicine.
Suśruta's medical position on the self: not all-pervading (against Sāṃkhya), real, eternal, transmigrating, known by inference; the karma-puruṣa (self plus five bhūtas) is the object of medicine. Bhishagratna's section numbers are his own, not verse numbers.
Not to be confused with
- puruṣa
- In Ca.Śā.1.16 puruṣa is either the six-dhātu compound (five bhūtas plus cetanā) or the cetanā-dhātu alone; in Sū.1.46-47 it is the sattva-ātmā-śarīra triad. Ātmā is the conscious constituent of puruṣa, not a synonym, though Śā.1.16b and Bhishagratna's 'Purusha (self-conscious subjectivity)' use puruṣa for ātmā.
- manas / sattva
- Listed separately from ātmā in every enumeration retrieved (Sū.1.42, 1.48, Śā.1.17). Ātmā is nirvikāra and a witness; manas is an instrument with guṇas (aṇutva, ekatva) and objects.
- buddhi
- Buddhi is a liṅga (mark) of ātmā (Śā.1.72) and in Sū.1.49 a guṇa of ātmā; it is not the self.
- jīva / bhūtātmā
- WHO separates jīvaḥ (ITA-1.9.3.2.3) and bhūtātmā (1.9.3.2.2, the embodied self) from ātmā; Kaviratna uses 'Jiva-Soul' for the living embodied self in Śā.1.73.
- paramātman
- Śā.1.72 says the liṅgas are of paramātman; Kaviratna renders 'the Supreme Soul (when invested with a body)'. Whether Caraka intends a cosmic self or the individual self qualified as supreme is a commentarial question not resolved here.
Renderings that do not hold
- soul. Not wrong but loaded; Kaviratna himself flags it as 'misleading' (footnote, Sū.8) because it imports a theological entity where the text means the principle that unifies consciousness. Bhishagratna avoids it in favour of 'self-conscious self'.
- spirit. NIA SV0009 offers 'Soul or spirit'. 'Spirit' in English overlaps with prāṇa and with ghosts; the texts never make ātmā a breath or a spectre.
- consciousness. Ātmā is the CAUSE of consciousness only in conjunction (Sū.1.56: caitanye kāraṇam ... sattvabhūtaguṇendriyaiḥ); cetanā is a mark of ātmā, not its definition.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Whether paramātman in Ca.Śā.1.72 means the individual self or a cosmic one (commentaries not retrieved).
- How Suśruta's denial that selves are vibhu (all-pervading) squares with WHO ITA-1.9.3.2.15 vibhu 'an attribute of atma'; WHO appears to follow the Caraka/Sāṃkhya line.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, ātmā (stem ātman)
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/atma/, CC BY 4.0.
The whole lexicon is downloadable from the index.
Machine-readable source: Markdown.
Data exported 2026-10-08.
Educational reference only. A term entry explains what a word means and how it has been translated. Nothing here is advice, and nothing here describes how any condition should be treated.