1 UNITY OF EXISTENCE IN PHILOSOPHY OF SANKARA AND MULLA SADRA Hossein Kohandel and Jan Mohammad Lone 1 Email:montahajaan@gmail.com Abstract: Unity of existence has been interpreted in Islamic philosophy and school of Vedanta in Indian philosophy. The transcendental philosophy of Mulla Sadra is based on multiplicity in unity and unity in multiplicity that is explained by two theories: (I) Gradational unity of existence, and (II) Individual unity of existence. Sankara as mystic philosopher of Vedanta built his philosophy on unity of existence that is called non-dualism which means that Atman is identical to Brahman. Sankara demolishes the realm of multiplicity with the help of cosmic illusion that is known as doctrine of Maya. This paper focuses on the idea of Mulla Sadra and Sankara in unity of existence. Although both mystic thinker’s ideas are common on unity of existence and one reality is hidden by veil and these two thinkers accepted the spirituality of classical ascription in own realms consist of Quran and Vedas so they developed system of thought which is built upon premises and assertions that permit some degree of examination but some discrepancy also can be seen in their ideas and our main endeavour in this paper is to discuss the similarities and polarities among Mulla Sadra’s and Sankara’s philosophy. Keywords: Unity of Existence, Mulla Sadra and Sankara. Introduction: The doctrine of unity of existence is the key principle in Islamic mysticism and one of the Indian philosophical systems that is known as school of Vedanta. In the realm of Islam, Ibn-Arabi was the first person who discussed on unity of existence. Unity of existence is known as theory that believes only one existence can be as reality of being all into the world of being. This theory believes that all things or the world of multiplicity originated from one truth that embracing all of them, i.e., the entire world is gathered in one. In Indian philosophy unity of existence started while the people tired of powers of gods, ritual ceremonies and doing sacrifices for them so the preachers reduced the power of gods towards one. This situation caused the Upanishads was created because instead of outside Upanishads looked at inside and focused on the connectivity 1 Research Scholars, Department of Philosophy, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh-202002, U.P, India