Glossary

This glossary provides working definitions of the Sanskrit terms used throughout the Advaita and Upanishads Codex. Each definition is written to be philosophically precise and practically useful — not encyclopedic, but sufficient for understanding the term in its context on this site. Where a term has multiple uses in different philosophical contexts (the word 'brahman,' for example, functions differently in the Ṛgveda, in the early prose Upanishads, and in Śaṅkara's Advaita), the definition given here reflects the Advaita Vedanta usage that is standard on this site. Cross-references to the relevant pages where each term is discussed in depth are provided; those pages will give the fuller philosophical treatment that the glossary, by its nature, cannot. The Sanskrit terms are given in standard IAST transliteration with Devanagari where particularly useful. Definitions are arranged alphabetically by the standard transliterated form of the term.

Several of the most important philosophical distinctions in Advaita Vedanta are encoded in pairs of Sanskrit terms that must be understood together rather than in isolation. The most fundamental is ātman and brahman — the individual self and the universal ground — which Advaita holds to be ultimately identical (the mahāvākya 'tat tvam asi' is the tradition's direct assertion of this identity). The next most important is avidyā and vidyā — ignorance (the fundamental misidentification of the self with the body-mind complex) and knowledge (the direct recognition of the self as Brahman). Then māyā and its relationship to Brahman — the creative power through which the one Brahman appears as the many — and the three states (waking, dreaming, deep sleep) and their relationship to turīya (the fourth, the background awareness). Understanding these pairs as pairs — not as isolated terms but as poles of a philosophical relationship — is the most efficient available approach to understanding the Advaita system as a whole. The glossary's definitions are written to make these relationships visible.

Sanskrit is the primary vehicle of the Upanishadic tradition's philosophical expression, and some familiarity with its key philosophical terms is essential for serious engagement with the texts. This is not because the truth the Upanishads are pointing toward is linguistically bound to Sanskrit — the recognition of Brahman as the ground of all awareness is available in any language, culture, or era — but because the Sanskrit terms carry philosophical precision that English translations inevitably dilute. When Śaṅkara distinguishes between sat (being, the ultimately real) and asat (non-being, the ultimately unreal), the distinction is philosophically precise in ways that 'real' and 'unreal' in English do not fully capture. When the tradition uses cit (consciousness) as a technical term for the self-luminous awareness that is Brahman, the English 'consciousness' carries associations (from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy of mind) that introduce potential confusion. The glossary is designed to help the English-language reader understand what the Sanskrit terms are doing philosophically — not to burden them with unnecessary linguistic complexity but to provide the precision that the philosophical content requires.

The most important thing to understand about the Sanskrit philosophical terms in this glossary is that they are not merely labels for concepts — they are pedagogical instruments. The Advaita teacher does not teach by defining terms and having students memorize them; the teacher uses terms strategically to point the student toward the recognition that the terms are describing. When Śaṅkara uses adhyāsa (superimposition) to explain the mechanism of avidyā, he is not primarily giving an academic account of how misidentification works; he is pointing the student toward their own experience of superimposition — the felt sense of being a separate, bounded individual with specific characteristics — and inviting them to investigate whether this superimposition is ultimately real. The glossary's definitions are given in this spirit: not as endpoints (here is what this word means, now move on) but as starting points (here is what this word is pointing toward; now investigate it directly in your own experience).

For the student who is encountering Advaita Vedanta for the first time, the following ten terms are the most essential for initial orientation. Brahman: the non-dual, infinite, self-luminous awareness that is the ground of all existence — not a deity separate from the world but the awareness in which the world arises. Ātman: the self — the pure awareness that is the ground of individual experience; Advaita holds ātman and Brahman to be ultimately identical. Avidyā: the fundamental misidentification of the self with the body-mind complex — the root cause of suffering and rebirth, resolved by the recognition of the self as Brahman. Māyā: the creative power of Brahman through which the one appears as many; sometimes translated as 'illusion' but more precisely the appearance of multiplicity in what is ultimately non-dual. Mokṣa: liberation — the recognition of the self as Brahman, the dissolving of avidyā, the end of the cycle of conditioned rebirth. Viveka: discrimination — the capacity to distinguish the real (the self) from the apparently real (the phenomenal world); the essential quality for philosophical inquiry. Vairāgya: dispassion — the diminishing of compulsive attachment to the objects of ordinary experience; the ethical ground of the philosophical inquiry. Mahāvākya: great saying — one of the four condensed statements from the Upanishads that, when received from a qualified teacher, transmit the direct recognition of ātman as Brahman. Śravaṇa, manana, nididhyāsana: hearing, reflection, sustained contemplation — the three stages of the Vedantic inquiry. And neti, neti: not this, not this — the method of negation by which the self is recognised by eliminating all misidentifications.

The glossary's working definitions are starting points, not endpoints. Every term in Advaita philosophy opens into a world of philosophical depth that no definition can fully convey — it can only point toward. The student who has read the definition of avidyā and thinks they understand avidyā has the concept; the student who has investigated their own experience of misidentification — who has actually noticed the 'I am this body' or 'I am these thoughts' identification as it occurs — is beginning to understand avidyā from the inside. The glossary serves the first kind of understanding; the pages on this site serve the second. Every term in the glossary is linked to the pages where it is discussed in the context of the primary sources that introduce it, and those pages are where the deeper engagement happens. Use the glossary to orient; use the linked pages to investigate; and use the practice instructions on those pages to move from intellectual understanding toward the direct recognition that the entire tradition was always pointing toward.