Abstract:
The concept of Self and ethics in śaṄkara’s philosophy
The paper proposes to examine how the identity of the individual Self with the absolute has its bearing on the ethical principal in Śaṅkara’s philosophy. It further analyses that the apparent difference on the empirical plane is due to the ignorance of the individual Self about its own real nature. This ignorance is annihilated when one embarks on the spiritual path following the axiological principles based on the concept of the individual Self which is not different from the Universal Self and discovers one’s own real nature that individual Self is Brahman itself. Obviously these ethical principles have to be based on the ‘principle of equality of all human beings’, which is entailed from the identity of the individual Self with the absolute. Śaṅkara’s approach in this respect permeates his whole philosophical discourse.
