Diksha Sharma

This study explores the structural resonance at the level of philosophical function between Śaṅkara’s concept of Brahman as articulated through the Upanishadic method of neti neti (not this, not this) and Jacques Derrida’s notion of aporia. Instead of a simple method of negation, neti neti functions as a systematic removal of empirical and conceptual predication, guiding inquiry towards that which exceeds linguistic determination, while Derrida’s aporia signifies the structural impossibility of closure within conceptual systems. Without claiming doctrinal sameness, this study isolates a shared philosophical tension: inadequacy of conceptual predication to secure final meaning or presence either in ultimate reality or self-identity. The paper reads Brahman as a figure of aporia within Śaṅkara’s Vedānta through a Derridean lens, where it appears as aporetic with respect to language, representation and conceptual access. Thus, Aporia here functions as a hermeneutic marker of the limit at which conceptual thought falters in articulating the non-dual absolute. By reading across traditions, understood here as a comparative engagement that acknowledges asymmetries, risks, and interpretive limits, the study foregrounds the impasse at the heart of both traditions, proposing that Śaṅkara’s negational metaphysics reveals a structural configuration that can be read alongside what deconstruction later theorizes as undecidability.