“Brahman alone is real; the world is appearance; the individual soul is none other than Brahman.”
— Adi Shankara[commonly attributed] Vivekachudamani, verse 20 (Sanskrit: brahma satyam jagan mithya jivo brahmaiva naparah); widely cited formula
Commentary
This verse, which condenses the central claim of Advaita Vedanta into a single line, has become the most recognised statement of Shankara's non-dualism. It distinguishes between the absolute reality of Brahman and the empirical world, which Shankara characterises through the category of mithya, a term that denotes dependent appearance rather than simple falsehood. Eliot Deutsch, in Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (1969), argues that the formula must be read as an ontological claim about the grounds of experience rather than as a denial of the phenomenal world. Sengaku Mayeda, in his study of the Upadesasahasri (1992), shows how Shankara uses such distinctions to explain why the soul's identity with Brahman is hidden by ignorance. Richard King, in Early Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism (1995), places the formula within the polemical context of Shankara's debates with Buddhist and Mimamsa opponents. Paul Hacker's earlier study of Shankara's teaching (1950) cautions that the verse's wording belongs to a didactic text and may have been shaped for memorisation. The line is widely quoted, but its status as Shankara's own utterance rests on the tradition that the Vivekachudamani is his work.
Commentary
This verse, which condenses the central claim of Advaita Vedanta into a single line, has become the most recognised statement of Shankara's non-dualism. It distinguishes between the absolute reality of Brahman and the empirical world, which Shankara characterises through the category of mithya, a term that denotes dependent appearance rather than simple falsehood. Eliot Deutsch, in Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (1969), argues that the formula must be read as an ontological claim about the grounds of experience rather than as a denial of the phenomenal world. Sengaku Mayeda, in his study of the Upadesasahasri (1992), shows how Shankara uses such distinctions to explain why the soul's identity with Brahman is hidden by ignorance. Richard King, in Early Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism (1995), places the formula within the polemical context of Shankara's debates with Buddhist and Mimamsa opponents. Paul Hacker's earlier study of Shankara's teaching (1950) cautions that the verse's wording belongs to a didactic text and may have been shaped for memorisation. The line is widely quoted, but its status as Shankara's own utterance rests on the tradition that the Vivekachudamani is his work.