---
type: Concept
bundle: vedanta-epistemology
bundle_version: "0.3.0"
id: paramarthika
title: "Pāramārthika — The Absolutely Real (Ultimate Level of Reality)"
iast: "pāramārthika"
devanagari: "पारमार्थिक"
description: "The Absolutely Real (Ultimate Level of Reality). Not transcendental (Kantian), not metaphysical (analytic philosophy usage)."
darshana:
  - Advaita Vedānta
school_scope: "Advaita Vedānta (pāramārthika as the exclusive ontological status of Brahman alone is Śaṅkara's position; Viśiṣṭādvaita holds that Brahman, the world, and jīvas are all pāramārthika though modally distinct; Dvaita holds that all three are real at their own levels; the specifically Advaita claim is that ONLY Brahman satisfies the criterion trikālābādhita)"
text_source: "Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya 1.1.2 (Śaṅkara); Māṇḍūkya Kārikā 3.18 (Gauḍapāda); Vivekacūḍāmaṇi v.20 (Śaṅkara — brahma satyaṃ)"
tags:
  - advaita-vedanta
  - ontology
  - three-levels-of-reality
  - brahman
  - satya
  - tier-2
  - high
not:
  - term: "transcendental (Kantian)"
    why: "Kant uses 'transcendental' to describe the a priori conditions of possible experience (space, time, categories) that are mind-imposed structures; pāramārthika is not an epistemological condition of the knowing subject but the ontological status of Brahman, which exists independently of any knower and without the knowing apparatus — the confusion imports Kantian idealism into a non-idealist framework"
    instead: "Keep The Absolutely Real untranslated; do not substitute the English term."
  - term: "metaphysical (analytic philosophy usage)"
    why: "in contemporary analytic philosophy, 'metaphysical' often means pertaining to a theoretical enquiry about fundamental categories; pāramārthika is not a theoretical category but a claim about the actual ontological status of Brahman — it is not a postulate within a metaphysical system but the name for what is ultimately, non-theoretically real"
  - term: "supernatural"
    why: "'supernatural' implies something that stands above or outside the natural order as an additional domain; pāramārthika Brahman is not a separate domain above nature — it is the substratum (adhiṣṭhāna) in which the natural order appears; the natural order does not stand apart from it but depends on it; 'supernatural' imports a dualist topology completely foreign to Advaita"
  - term: "noumenal (Kantian)"
    why: "Kant's noumena are things-in-themselves, forever unknowable because the forms of intuition cannot reach them; pāramārthika Brahman is not unknowable — it is self-revealing (svayaṃprakāśa), the very nature of consciousness; it is not hidden behind experience but is the witness of experience; calling it noumenal makes it inaccessible, which is the opposite of the Advaita position"
  - term: "absolute idealism (Hegel)"
    why: "Hegel's Absolute is the result of a dialectical development through history; pāramārthika Brahman is not the outcome of any process, does not develop, and has no history; it is akhaṇḍa (undivided), nirvikāra (unchanging), beyond cause and effect; idealism in the Hegelian sense involves temporal unfolding — pāramārthika Brahman is trikālābādhita (uncancellable in all three times)"
  - term: "ground of being (Tillich)"
    why: "Paul Tillich's 'ground of being' is a theological concept within a Christian-existentialist framework; while superficially similar (both refer to a foundational reality underlying everything), Tillich's concept has personalist and existential dimensions; pāramārthika Brahman in Advaita is nirguṇa (without attributes), not a personal God; importing Tillich misleads about the nirguṇa-saguṇa distinction and the specifically Advaita claim that even Īśvara (God with attributes) is not pāramārthika from the ultimate standpoint"
  - term: "ultimate reality (generic)"
    why: "when used as a generic translation, 'ultimate reality' loses the specific technical criterion — trikālābādhita — that defines pāramārthika in Advaita; the phrase can apply to anything a philosophy calls most fundamental, erasing the precision of the definition"
related:
  - /concepts/mithya.md
  - /concepts/vyavaharika.md
  - /concepts/pratibhasika.md
  - /concepts/shabda-pramana.md
  - /concepts/adhyasa.md
  - /concepts/vivartavada.md
timestamp: "2026-06-20"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Pāramārthika — पारमार्थिक

**Not:** transcendental (Kantian), metaphysical (analytic philosophy usage), supernatural, noumenal (Kantian), absolute idealism (Hegel), ground of being (Tillich), ultimate reality (generic)

Pāramārthika is the level of absolute, ultimate reality in Advaita Vedānta's three-level ontology — the level at which only Brahman exists, unsublatable at any time, in any state, by any cognition. It is not one level among three in a graduated hierarchy where all three have some kind of real existence; it is the only level that is genuinely, unconditionally real. The vyāvahārika and prātibhāsika levels have their reality from it and depend on it — they are mithyā, dependent appearances on the pāramārthika substratum.

The three-level structure:

| Level | Term | What exists here | Criterion |
|-------|------|-----------------|-----------|
| Absolute | **Pāramārthika** | **Brahman alone (Sat-Cit-Ānanda)** | **Trikālābādhita — unsublatable in all three times** |
| Empirical | Vyāvahārika | The world, jīvas, pramāṇas | Real within its frame; sublated by brahma-jñāna |
| Apparent | Prātibhāsika | Snake-in-rope, dream-objects | Real only to the deluded observer; immediately sublatable |

## Etymology

From Sanskrit *parama* (highest, ultimate, supreme — superlative from *para*, far, other, beyond) + *artha* (meaning, purpose, object, end) + suffix *-ika* (pertaining to, of). Literally: pertaining to the highest meaning or the highest object; of the ultimate purpose or end. In the philosophical context: the level that is real in the most ultimate, final, and unconditional sense — the level of the highest artha.

*Artha* in the tradition also carries the sense of "that which is cognized" — the object-side of cognition. Pāramārthika is therefore also: the real as cognized at the ultimate level, by the ultimate mode of cognition (not pramāṇa-based, but self-revealing).

## The Defining Criterion: Trikālābādhita

The technical criterion for pāramārthika status is *trikālābādhita*: that which is uncancellable (abādhita) at all three times — past, present, future. What cannot be sublated in any possible state of cognition is pāramārthika.

In Advaita, only Brahman satisfies this criterion:
- In the waking state: Brahman (as witness-consciousness) is present.
- In the dream state: Brahman (as consciousness) is what the dream appears in.
- In deep sleep (suṣupti): the individual appearance dissolves; only Brahman persists.
- After liberation: the world's apparent reality is sublated; Brahman remains.
- Before creation (in the cosmological analysis): Brahman alone exists.

No sublating cognition is possible that would cancel Brahman's existence. Even the sublation of the dream by waking — which cancels all dream-objects — does not cancel the consciousness that was dreaming. At every level of sublation, Brahman (consciousness, sat) is what remains.

Contrast: the world (vyāvahārika) is sublated by brahma-jñāna; the snake-in-rope (prātibhāsika) is sublated by corrective perception; the sky-lotus (asat) was never even sublated because it never appeared. Only Brahman survives all possible sublations — trikālābādhita.

## What Pāramārthika Does Not Mean

The most common AI-generated errors when translating pāramārthika:

**It does not mean "the highest level in a range":** Saying pāramārthika is "the most real" or "higher on the reality scale" implies a continuum of reality. Advaita's position is more radical: only the pāramārthika is real in an absolute sense; the others are mithyā (dependent) and asat (non-existent). It is not a matter of degree but of an unbridgeable ontological distinction.

**It does not mean God in the theistic sense:** Brahman is pāramārthika; Īśvara (Brahman with attributes, the personal God, the creator) is not strictly pāramārthika from the ultimate standpoint — Īśvara involves the superimposition of the power of māyā on Brahman; from the pāramārthika viewpoint, even Īśvara is within the vyāvahārika frame. This is one of the most counterintuitive features of Advaita from a theistic perspective, and the source of much inter-Vedānta disagreement.

**It does not mean unknowable:** Unlike Kant's noumena, pāramārthika Brahman is *svayaṃprakāśa* — self-luminous, self-revealing. Brahman is not revealed by an instrument (pramāṇa) operating on it from outside; it is the very consciousness in which all pramāṇa results appear. The Mahāvākyas of Śruti (tat tvam asi — you are that; aham brahmāsmi — I am Brahman) do not generate inferential knowledge of a hidden object; they remove the adhyāsa that conceals what was already, always, self-evidently present.

## Pāramārthika and the Pramāṇas

No pramāṇa directly establishes Brahman as pāramārthika through ordinary cognition — because all pramāṇas operate within the vyāvahārika frame, presupposing a pramātā (knower), a pramāṇa (instrument), and a prameya (object). This tripartite structure is itself vyāvahārika. To cognize the pāramārthika via this structure would require treating Brahman as an object, which it is not.

The path to pāramārthika knowledge is via *śabda* as apauruṣeya Śruti — Vedic Mahāvākyas that function not by generating a new cognition but by removing the adhyāsa that obscures what is already self-evident. The Mahāvākya does not produce brahma-jñāna in the way anumāna produces inferential knowledge of fire from smoke; it removes the obstructing ignorance (avidyā / adhyāsa), leaving Brahman's self-luminous reality apparent. This is why the result is called *aparokṣānubhūti* (direct, non-mediated realization) rather than any of the standard pramāṇa-results.

## Pāramārthika and Nirguṇa Brahman

In Advaita, the pāramārthika level is occupied exclusively by *nirguṇa Brahman* — Brahman without attributes (guṇas). Saguṇa Brahman (Brahman with attributes — omniscience, omnipotence, the creator Īśvara) belongs to the vyāvahārika frame. The attributes (omniscience, creativity, compassion) presuppose a world of which they are attributes — they are relational, and relationality belongs to the vyāvahārika level.

This is expressed in the Vivekacūḍāmaṇi mahāvākya paraphrase: *brahma satyaṃ* — Brahman (nirguṇa) is *satyam* (real, pāramārthika). Not "God" in the theistic, volitional sense, not the creator, but the undivided sat-cit-ānanda — existence, consciousness, bliss — which appears to become the world through vivartavāda (appearance-causation) without actually undergoing transformation.

## Pāramārthika and Liberation

Mokṣa (liberation) in Advaita is the recognition — not the attainment — of what is already pāramārthika. The jīva does not become pāramārthika at liberation; it recognizes that it was never other than Brahman. Saṃsāra is the vyāvahārika appearance of Brahman as many jīvas in a world; mokṣa is the recognition of the pāramārthika unity underlying that appearance.

The jīvanmukta (liberated while living) continues to function in the vyāvahārika world — the body eats, the mind thinks, the eyes see. But the identification with the vyāvahārika (the "I am this body-mind" adhyāsa) is dissolved. From the pāramārthika standpoint, there are not, and were not, any jīvas — *jīvo brahmaiva nāparaḥ* (the jīva is Brahman alone, nothing else — Vivekacūḍāmaṇi v.20c).

## Cross-References
- [Mithyā](mithya.md) — the ontological status (neither-sat-nor-asat) of what is vyāvahārika and prātibhāsika; mithyā is defined in contrast to pāramārthika
- [Vyāvahārika](vyavaharika.md) — the empirical level; the world in its working reality; mithyā, not pāramārthika
- [Prātibhāsika](pratibhasika.md) — the apparent level; lower than vyāvahārika; immediately sublatable
- [Śabda / Āgama (pramāṇa)](shabda-pramana.md) — the only instrument capable of pointing to the pāramārthika; Mahāvākyas remove adhyāsa rather than establishing Brahman as an object of cognition
- [Adhyāsa](adhyasa.md) — the structural overlay that makes the pāramārthika appear as the vyāvahārika; what brahma-jñāna dissolves
- [Vivartavāda](vivartavada.md) — the Advaita theory of how the pāramārthika Brahman "appears as" the world without actually undergoing transformation

## Audience Metaphor

In the dream, there is a fire that burns a house. The fire is real within the dream — it is not the dream-version of a non-existent thing, it genuinely affects the dream-house. But the fire is not real the way the sleeping consciousness is real. Wake up and the fire has vanished, but the consciousness that was dreaming continues, untouched. Pāramārthika is the sleeping consciousness — not the fire, not even the good things in the dream, but what was there before the dream began and remains after it ends, and was never actually in it. In Advaita's own framing: what survives all possible sublation is pāramārthika.

## Citations

1. [Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya](/references/brahmasutra-bhasya.md) 1.1.2 (Śaṅkara) — jijñāsā (inquiry into Brahman); Brahman as sat, cit, ānanda; pāramārthika status as the issue all of Vedānta addresses
2. [Māṇḍūkya Kārikā](/references/mandukya-karika.md) 3.18 (Gauḍapāda) — ajāti (no-origination doctrine); Brahman as never undergoing birth, change, or dissolution; the pāramārthika is precisely what survives all sublation
3. [Vivekacūḍāmaṇi](/references/vivekachudamani.md) v.20 (Śaṅkara) — brahma satyaṃ jagat mithyā: Brahman is satyam (real, pāramārthika); the world is mithyā (vyāvahārika-prātibhāsika)
4. [Pañcadaśī](/references/panchadashi.md) 1.7 (Vidyāraṇya) — explicit three-level taxonomy: pāramārthika, vyāvahārika, prātibhāsika
