Key term
OCR A-Level Religious Studies H573
Philosophy of Religion
Topic overviewPlato: the Forms and the analogy of the caveAristotle: the four causes and the Prime MoverSoul, mind and bodyThe teleological argumentThe cosmological argumentAnselm and the ontological argumentKant's criticisms of the ontological argumentReligious experienceThe problem of evilOmnipotence, omniscience and benevolenceEternity, foreknowledge and free willReligious language: via negativa, analogy and symbolVerification and falsificationLanguage games and non-cognitive approaches
Religion and Ethics
Topic overviewAquinas and the precepts of natural lawApplying and evaluating natural lawFletcher's propositions and working principlesApplying and evaluating situation ethicsThe categorical imperativeDuty, the summum bonum and evaluationUtilitarianismEuthanasiaBusiness ethicsEthical language and meta-ethicsConscienceSexual ethics
Developments in Christian ThoughtReligion
Topic overviewAugustine on human natureDeath and the afterlifeKnowledge of God's existenceThe person of Jesus ChristChristian moral principlesChristian moral action: Dietrich BonhoefferReligious pluralism and theologyReligious pluralism and societyGender and societyGender and theology: Ruether and DalyThe challenge of secularismLiberation theology and Marx
Developments in Islamic ThoughtReligion
Topic overviewProphecy and revelation in IslamHadith, Sira and the formation of Sunni and Shi'a IslamThe oneness of God (tawhid)Human destiny, the afterlife and divine willThe Shari'a and Islamic law in practiceSufism and Islamic spiritualityIslam, science and philosophyGender in Islam: equality, law and feminismTolerance, religious freedom and apostasyJustice, jihad and liberationIslam and the stateIslam in Europe
Developments in Jewish ThoughtReligion
Topic overviewJewish oral and written lawCovenant in the TorahMaimonides and the Thirteen PrinciplesDebate over the Principles and Jewish beliefSuffering and messianic hopeKashrut and the dietary lawsBusiness ethics and sexual ethics in halakhahConversion to JudaismThe Haskalah and Jewish emancipationZionismThe land of Israel and the modern stateJewish feminism: Plaskow and AdlerResponses to the HolocaustThe Holocaust and the problem of evilChagall: art as resistance
Developments in Buddhist ThoughtReligion
Topic overviewThe Buddha: Siddhartha's life and intellectual contextTaking refuge: the Three JewelsSamsara, kamma and rebirthThe three marks of existenceThe Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold PathBuddhist meditationThe development of Mahayana BuddhismMadhyamaka and the perfection of wisdomZen and Pure Land BuddhismBuddhism in the WestEngaged Buddhism and social activismBuddhism and gender
Developments in Hindu ThoughtReligion
Topic overviewOrigins and diversity in HinduismHindu scriptures and holy personsBrahman, atman and mokshaSamsara, karma and liberationDharma and adharmaVarnashramadharma and Hindu virtuesVedanta and its schoolsIs Hinduism a single religion?Hinduism and IndiaHinduism and the WestCaste, gender and discriminationHindu social reform movements
Developments in Hindu Thought
Brahman, atman and moksha
- 2 things to know
- Component 3
Overview
Recall questions on Brahman, atman and samsara, sat-chit-ananda, neti neti and tat tvam asi, teachings from the Chandogya and Katha Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita on the self, moksha, and whether Hinduism is monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic or monistic.
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
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Key term
What does the Bhagavad Gita establish about the self when Krishna answers Arjuna's grief on the battlefield?
Questions from this subtopic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
What do Hindus mean by Brahman?
Model answer
Brahman is the ultimate reality: not one being among others but that from which everything arises, in which it subsists and into which it returns. Hindu thinkers distinguish Brahman without attributes, nirguna, which is beyond every description and every category the mind can apply, from Brahman with attributes, saguna, which is Brahman as knowable, worshipped as a personal Lord. Traditions differ sharply over which of these is the higher truth. What almost all agree is that Brahman is not a thing inside the universe and therefore cannot be found by looking harder at the universe.
- 2
What is atman, and how does it differ from what Westerners usually mean by the self?
Model answer
Atman, in Hindu thought, is the innermost self: the conscious reality held to be present in a person and to survive the death of the body. It is not the personality, the memories, the emotions or the mind, all of which Hindu analysis treats as belonging to the changing psycho-physical apparatus rather than to the self proper. The difference from ordinary Western usage is that atman is not what makes you distinctively you; it is what is left when everything distinctive has been stripped away, and precisely for that reason it can be identified with, or intimately related to, the ultimate reality.
- 3
What is samsara?
Model answer
Samsara is the round of birth, death and further birth in which unliberated beings are held. Hindus generally understand it as beginningless, driven by karma and by the desire that produces karma, and extending across many kinds of existence, not only human ones. It is not usually described as a tragedy in the way Western readers expect; it is simply how things are for anyone still ignorant of the self. What makes it a problem is not that it involves suffering, though it does, but that it is endless, so no achievement within it is ever final.
- 4
How do Brahman, atman and samsara fit together?
Model answer
The classical account is that the atman is in truth Brahman, or at the least is inseparably related to Brahman, but does not know it. Failing to know this, a being identifies itself with its body, mind and history, acts out of desire, generates karma, and is therefore reborn; that is samsara. Since ignorance is what sustains the cycle, knowledge dissolves it: when the self is known for what it is, there is nothing left to be reborn, because the person who was being reborn was never the real self in the first place. Traditions differ over whether this knowledge is identity with Brahman or recognition of one's dependence on Brahman.
- 5
What does the phrase sat-chit-ananda tell Hindus about Brahman?
Model answer
It is the positive description, translated as being, consciousness and bliss. These are not three components but one nature described from three angles: Brahman simply is, without depending on anything else for existence; Brahman is awareness itself rather than something that happens to be aware; and Brahman is unqualified fullness, so nothing is lacking. Its use is to keep Brahman from being reduced to an abstraction. If bliss belongs to the nature of the ultimate, then liberation is not annihilation, and Hindus who use this formula argue that it makes moksha intelligible as something anyone would want.
- 6
What is meant by neti neti, and why would anyone describe the ultimate by denial?
Model answer
Neti neti means not this, not this, and it is a method of teaching by systematic refusal. Any description offered of Brahman is rejected, because every description uses categories drawn from finite things, and Brahman is not a finite thing. The point is not that Brahman does not exist or that nothing is true of Brahman, but that the mind's affirmations always domesticate what they describe. Used properly the method is progressive: as each false identification of the self with body, senses, mind and thought is removed, what remains cannot be objectified at all, and that is what the teaching is pointing at.
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