A

 Here’s a clearer map of how the idea of ātman shifts across three major Indian philosophical frameworks. A lot of the “translation confusion” you pointed to comes from these systems disagreeing internally, not just from English equivalence issues.

1) Advaita Vedānta (non-dualism)

In Advaita Vedānta, especially in the tradition associated with Śaṅkara, ātman is:

• Pure, unchanging consciousness
• Not an individual “thing” inside the body
• Not a transmigrating entity in ultimate terms
• Identical with Brahman (ultimate reality)

So the key claim is:

The sense of being a separate person (jīva) is ultimately ignorance (avidyā).

From this perspective:

• Rebirth belongs to the empirical level (vyavahāra)
• At the absolute level (paramārtha), there is no real “migration” of ātman at all
• Liberation (mokṣa) is realizing you were never separate

So here, translating ātman as “soul” is especially misleading, because it suggests a distinct personal essence that travels, which Advaita explicitly denies at the deepest level.

2) Sāṃkhya / Yoga (dualism of consciousness and matter)

In Sāṃkhya philosophy (closely aligned with classical Yoga):

• Reality is split into:
• Puruṣa = pure consciousness (many puruṣas)
• Prakṛti = material nature (mind, body, emotions, etc.)

Here:

• Each being has a distinct puruṣa
• Puruṣa is:
• passive
• conscious
• unchanging
• not the doer of actions

Rebirth happens because:

• Puruṣa falsely identifies with prakṛti (bodies/minds)

Key difference from Advaita:

• There are many puruṣas, not one universal Self

So here “self” is closer than “soul,” but still not quite right:

• It’s not psychological selfhood
• It’s pure witnessing consciousness

Liberation = puruṣa disentangles from prakṛti and remains isolated in awareness (kaivalya).

3) Theistic Vedānta (Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita)

In theistic Vedānta traditions (like Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita and Madhva’s Dvaita), the picture changes again.

Common features:

• God (Īśvara / Viṣṇu / Brahman with qualities) is supreme
• Individual souls (jīvas) are real and distinct
• The world is real (not illusion in the Advaita sense)

Ātman / jīva here:

• Is a real, individual spiritual entity
• Has consciousness but is dependent on God
• Can be bound or liberated
• Survives death and continues across lifetimes

So in this framework:

• “Soul” is actually closer to the intended meaning than in Advaita
• But it still lacks precision because the soul is not fully self-subsistent—it is relationally dependent on God

Liberation:

• Not absorption into impersonal reality
• But eternal relationship with the divine (devotion, proximity, service)

Pulling it together (why translation breaks)

So your intuition about “ātman ≠ soul” is partly right, but the deeper issue is:

• There is no single ātman concept
• There are at least three major metaphysical models:

Tradition	Ātman is	Rebirth	Liberation
Advaita Vedānta	Universal consciousness only	Empirical illusion	Realization of non-duality
Sāṃkhya/Yoga	Individual pure witness (puruṣa)	Real psychological mechanism	Isolation of consciousness
Theistic Vedānta	Individual eternal soul (jīva)	Real journey	Eternal relationship with God

So is “self” the best translation?

It depends:

• Best neutral academic term: self
• Best in theistic Vedānta contexts: soul (with caveats)
• Best in Advaita contexts: consciousness / Self (capital S)
• Worst assumption: that any of these map cleanly onto a Christian-style immortal soul-substance

If you want, I can also  show how the Bhagavad Gītā is read differently by each of these schools, because it’s one of the main places where people assume there is a single doctrine when there really isn’t.