Yatra

In Buddhist philosophy, anatta (Pāli) or anātman (Sanskrit) refers to "non-self" or "absence of separate self". One scholar describes it as "...meaning non-selfhood, the absence of limiting self-identity in people and things...". Its opposite is Atta (Pāli) or Ātman (Sanskrit), the idea of a subjective Soul or Self which survives transmigration, which the Buddha explicitly rejects.

What is normally thought of as the "self" is in fact an agglomeration of constantly changing physical and mental constituents ("skandhas"). This concept has, from early times, been controversial amongst Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike and remains so to this day. In the Pali suttas and the related āgamas (referred to collectively below the nikayas) the Buddha repeatedly emphasizes not only that the five skandhas of living being are "not-self", but that clinging to them as if they were an immutable self or soul (ātman) gives rise to unhappiness.

Another understanding of anatta (as enunciated by the Buddha in the Mahayana "Tathagatagarbha" scriptures) insists that the five "skandhas" (impermanent constituent elements of the mundane body and mind of each being) are indeed "not the Self", since they are doomed to mutation and dissolution, but that, in contrast, the eternal buddha nature deep within each being is the supramundane True Self—although this realisation is only fully gained on reaching awakening ("bodhi").

Anatta, along with dukkha (suffering/unease) and anicca (impermanence), is one of the three dharma seals, which, according to Buddhism, characterise all phenomena.

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