Achintya Bheda-Abheda

Achintya Bheda-Abheda

Achintya-Bheda-Abheda (अचिन्त्यभेदाभेद, acintyabhedābheda in IAST) is a school of Vedanta representing the philosophy of inconceivable one-ness and difference, in relation to the power creation and creator, (Krishna), svayam bhagavan. and also between God and his energies within the Gaudiya Vaishnava religious tradition. In Sanskrit achintya means 'inconceivable', bheda translates as 'difference', and abheda translates as 'one-ness'. It is believed that this philosophy was taught by the movement's theological founder Chaitanya Mahaprabhu(1486 - 1534) and differentiates the Gaudiya tradition from the other Vaishnava Sampradayas. It can be best understood as integral monism, as a position between the opposites of absolute monism of Adi Sankara's Advaita, and the dualist monism of Ramanujacarya's Vishishtadvaita.

Caitanya's philosophy of acintya-bhedābheda-tattva completed the progression to devotional theism. Rāmānuja had agreed with Śaṅkara that the Absolute is one only, but he had disagreed by affirming individual variety within that oneness. Madhva had underscored the eternal duality of the Supreme and the Jīva: he had maintained that this duality endures even after liberation. Caitanya, in turn, specified that the Supreme and the jīvas are "inconceivably, simultaneously one and different" (acintya-bheda-abheda). He strongly opposed Śaṅkara's philosophy for its defiance of Vyāsadeva's siddhānta.

— Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Readings in Vedic Literature: The Tradition Speaks for Itself, Chapter 5