Abstract

Classical Indian views of the self and person range from maximal to minimal conceptions, from a view of everyone's true self as the supreme being, infinite, immortal, self‐existent, self‐aware, and intrinsically blissful, to a view of the person as nothing more than the living human body that ceases to be at death. (“Consciousness is an adventitious attribute of the body, like the intoxicating power of fermented grain.”) Every major school and subschool takes a stance on what a self is and how it is known; a rich diversity of opinion and argument marks this area of classical Indian thought.