Jīva
What is the individual self?
The jīva is the individual self. The question is what it is and how it relates to Brahman.
All three traditions ask that question, but they describe the relationship differently, as the accounts below show.
How each commentator reads it
The individual self as ordinarily experienced (the empirical ego, ahamkartri, that identifies with the body and acts as agent and enjoyer), as distinguished from the true Self (Atman/Brahman), which is merely a witness and is, at the level of ultimate truth, non-different from Brahman. The apparent individuality of the jiva is due to Nescience, not a final ontological fact.
Read Śaṅkara’s interpretation →The individual self, really distinct from Brahman yet inseparably dependent upon and related to Brahman, as body is to Self. An agent and enjoyer whose experience of pleasure and pain in transmigration is real, not illusory. In the dream-state discussion, the jiva is the proposed (but ultimately rejected as sole) creator of dream-objects.
Read Rāmānuja’s interpretation →The individual soul as really distinct from the Lord who rules it from within, to whom it stands as a body stands to its self, and as wholly dependent on Him: its works are accomplished by the Lord and not by its own independent agency, and its bondage and release depend on His will. Souls are many, and they differ from one another in rank and in the bliss and knowledge they attain.
Read Madhva’s interpretation →