Atman

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Beginning with Vedantic Hindu philosophy, the Ātman (Mascuine nominative singular: Ātmā) is regarded as an underlying metaphysical self, comparable in reference to the English word "soul". It is first seen in its current usage in the Upanishads, some of which date back to 1500 BCE. Many believe that individual "personal" souls exist as an illusion only, and think of an ultimate ā tman as the all-pervading soul of the universe: the universal life-principle, the animator of all organisms, and the world-soul. This is the monistic Advaita Vedanta position, which is critiqued by dualistic/theistic Dvaita Vedanta (which claims reality for both a God functioning as the ultimate metaphorical "soul" of the universe, and for actual individual "souls" as such) and compromise schools like Vishishtadvaita Vedanta.

By contrast, Jiva is the psychological or phenomenological self, the "I" which appears as the subject of verbs. The jiva is typically regarded as having its freedom limited by the triple bond of anava (ego), karma (action) and maya(illusion).

Jainism also believes in the atman.

Non-Belief In Atman

With the doctrine of anatta (Pā li; Sanskrit: anā tman) Buddhism maintains that the concept of an ā tman is both unnecessary and counterproductive as an explanatory device for analyzing the apparent categories of action, causality, karma, and reincarnation. Buddhists account for these and other "self"-related phenomena by other means. ([[pratitya-samutpada|pratī tya-samutpā da]], the skandhas, and, for some schools, a pudgala, though it could be argued that the pudgala is just the ā tman by another name.) Thus it is not necessary for Buddhists to posit an ā tman, and they further regard it as dangerous to do so, as they believe it provides the psychological basis for attachment and aversion.

Buddhism can analyze the self itself as a very act of grasping after self--i.e., inasmuch as we have a self, we have it only through a deluded attempt to shore it up. This in itself does not differentiate Buddhists from Advaita Vedantists, however, as they, too, deconstruct the individual self. It is only in pushing the critique of the ā tman through to the level of metaphysical being in itself that it becomes perfectly clear how Buddhist differs from Advaita on this point.

==Non-technical uses of ā tman==

Ātman is also sometimes used non-technically to refer to the commonsense self (i.e., the individual as opposed to other beings or to the environment). It is frequently used to reform compounds in this capacity, both in Hindu and Buddhist writings.