Comparative view of the eastern and western perspectives on the concept of Ahamkara/Ego

Abstract

In the Indian tradition, the experience of personal identity or the self-sense is termed as ‘aham’, which is translated to ‘I’. It is debatable that whether this interchangeable use of Sanskrit and English translation of Ahamkara/Ego respectively convey the same meaning. The present research focused on drawing a theoretical analysis of the concept of ‘Ahamkara’ from two dominant perspectives: Eastern and Western. At one end, western equivalent term ‘Ego’ is equated with eastern concept of ‘Ahamkara’ but gross differences can be observed in the two contexts. To explore the underline differences in the meaning of Ahamkara and Ego, a broader review of literature was carried out. It was extracted from the analysis that these concepts differ on under-mentioned dimensions: Nature of reality, Dimensions of self, Boundaries of self and non-self and Methodological approach to study the self. Salagame et al. (2005) concluded that the concept of Ahamkara has specific significance and value in the Indian context which emerges as a meta-construct that can embrace many of the modern psychological concepts related to self and identity. The differences between the two perspectives reveal the significance of context bound knowledge and its broad implications.