Glossary of Sanskrit Terms

violation of or deviation from dharma; disorder

karma being created through current actions

Ahankāra (aham: I + kāra: making — 'I-making') is the faculty that individuates the stream of experience into a 'me' — that appropriates thoughts, feelings, body-states, and memories as belonging to a particular self.

Ahiṃsā is the principle of non-injury — the deliberate abstention from causing harm to any living being in thought, word, or deed.

unseen ritual potency (Mīmāṃsā karma theory)

one of four life stages in the dharmic framework

non-stealing; universal duty

Ātman is the innermost self — the pure witnessing awareness that remains when body, mind, and ego are recognised as objects of awareness rather than the subject.

The Ātman-Brahman identity teaching is the central philosophical claim of the Upaniṣads: the individual conscious self (Ātman) is ultimately identical with the universal ground of being (Brahman).

Avatāra is the voluntary descent of the supreme God (Īśvara) into a finite form — human, animal, or mixed — for the purpose of restoring Dharma when it has declined, protecting the righteous, and destroying those who cause harm.

path of devotion toward liberation

Bhakti Yoga is the path of liberation through devotional love — the orientation of the whole self toward God (Īśvara) through worship, prayer, remembrance, surrender, and loving service.

Brahmacharya is the fourth of the five Yamas in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (YS II.30) and the defining discipline of the Brahmacharya Āśrama (student stage of life).

Brahman is the ultimate reality — the infinite, self-luminous ground of all being — from which the entire universe arises, by which it is sustained, and into which it returns.

Brahmavidyā (Brahma + vidyā: knowledge/science) — the science/knowledge of Brahman.

Yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ — 'Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations (vṛttis) of the mind-field (citta).' This two-word definition — citta-vṛtti-nirodha — contains the entire Yoga philosophy in compressed form.

vedic injunction; basis of dharma in Mīmāṃsā school

sense control; universal duty

Devatā (from deva: the shining one + tā: quality/state) — divine being, deity.

field of dharma; setting of the Bhagavad Gīta

Mata bhumih putro aham prthivyah — "Earth is my mother; I am her son." Atharva Veda 12.1.12.

Sanskrit root: to hold, sustain, uphold

unsatisfactoriness; suffering; friction inherent in conditioned existence

The three Guṇas are the constituent qualities of Prakṛti (primordial matter/Nature) in the Sāṃkhya and Yoga philosophical systems, adopted with modifications by Vedānta.

To know That, let him go to a teacher — one who carries kindling (as a sign of readiness to serve), who is learned in the scripture (Śrotriya), and who is established in Brahman (Brahma-niṣṭha).

Īśvara is the personal God of Sanātana Dharma — the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator, sustainer, and dissolver of the universe, who can be approached through worship, prayer, and devotion.

birth-based caste (distinct from varṇa)

Jīvanmukti — liberation while living — is the state in which the individual has realised the identity of Ātman with Brahman and thereby eliminated the root cause of bondage (Avidyā), yet continues to inhabit a body and move through the world until the body's death, which then completes the liberation (Videhamukti — liberation from the body).

liberation while still embodied

path of knowledge toward liberation

Jñāna Yoga is the path of liberation through discriminative knowledge — the systematic inquiry into the nature of the self and the recognition of Ātman's identity with Brahman.

Puruṣārtha-śūnyānāṃ guṇānāṃ pratiprasavaḥ kaivalyaṃ svarūpa-pratiṣṭhā vā citi-śaktir iti — 'Kaivalya is the return of the Guṇas to their origin, having no further purpose for the Puruṣa — or the establishment of the power of consciousness (citi-śakti) in its own nature.'

path of action toward liberation

Karma Yoga is the path of disciplined action — performing one's prescribed duties and engaging fully with the world, while renouncing attachment to the fruits of action and the sense of personal doership.

Sanskrit root: to do, to act, to make

warrior/ruler social function

Mantra is a sacred sound-formula whose efficacy in the tradition depends on precise pronunciation, the lineage through which it is transmitted, and the practitioner's mental state.

Māyā is the cosmic power (Śakti) of Brahman by which the one, infinite, undivided reality appears as a diverse, finite, and mutually distinct universe.

Sanskrit root: to release, to free, to untie

Sa esha neti nety atma agrhyo na hi grhyate / asinyo na hi siyate / asango na hi sajyate / asito na vyathate / na risyati — 'That self is: not this, not this.

action performed without desire for its fruits

Oṃ — this syllable is all this.

Pariṇāmavāda holds that the world is a real transformation of Brahman (or Prakṛti, in the Sāṃkhya account) — as milk genuinely becomes curd, or as clay genuinely becomes a pot.

Prakṛti is the primordial matter or Nature in the Sāṃkhya and Yoga philosophical systems — the unconscious, non-intelligent ground from which the entire manifest world (including mind, intellect, and ego) evolves.

Prāṇa alone is the eldest and the best.

sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṃ śaraṇaṃ vraja / ahaṃ tvā sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ — "Abandoning all Dharmas, take refuge in Me alone.

karma currently active in this lifetime

rebirth; transmigration of the individual consciousness

merit; accumulated through right conduct

Puruṣa is the conscious being or Person — the principle of consciousness as distinct from matter.

Puruṣārtha are the four legitimate goals of human existence recognised in Sanātana Dharma — Dharma (right conduct and duty), Artha (material prosperity and security), Kāma (pleasure, desire, and aesthetic experience), and Mokṣa (liberation from the cycle of existence).

Rāja Yoga (also called Aṣṭāṅga Yoga — the eight-limbed path) is the systematic yogic path codified by Patañjali in the Yoga Sūtras (c.

Ṛṣi (from ṛṣ: to see, to flow) — the seer.

Ṛta is the self-existent cosmic order — the universal law of truth and right functioning that governs the movements of heavenly bodies, the sequence of seasons, the operation of ritual, and the moral conduct of beings.

Sādhana (from sādh: to achieve, to accomplish, to perfect) is the entire range of spiritual practices undertaken with the aim of realising the tradition's soteriological goal (Moksha, Kaivalya, liberation).

universal duties applicable to all humans

dwelling in God's realm (Vaiṣṇava liberation type 1)

proximity to God (Vaiṣṇava liberation type 2)

Saṃsāra is the beginningless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth — the condition of all conscious beings who, through ignorance (Avidyā) of their true nature and driven by the momentum of karma, continue taking birth across countless forms of existence.

eternal, timeless principles of existence

accumulated karma from all past lives (storehouse)

equal powers to God (Vaiṣṇava liberation type 5)

having same form as God (Vaiṣṇava liberation type 3)

Satyam jnanam anantam brahma (TaittU 2.1) — 'Brahman is truth, knowledge, and infinite.' The classical formulation Sat-Cit-Ananda takes the Taittiriya's account and synthesises it: Sat (truth/being), Cit (knowledge/consciousness), Ananda (infinity/bliss).

truth; second universal duty

purity; universal duty

union with God (Vaiṣṇava liberation type 4)

Sphoṭa (from sphuṭ: to burst open, to reveal) is the permanent, meaning-bearing word-unit that is distinct from the physical sounds (dhvani) that manifest it.

Shreyan svadharmo vigunah paradharmat svanushthitat / svadharme nidhanam sreyah paradharmo bhayavahah — 'Better is one's own dharma, though imperfectly performed, than the dharma of another well performed.

Tantra designates a body of texts (the Tantras and Āgamas), a system of practice (ritual, mantra, yantra, initiation), and a philosophical orientation (the world as the divine's self-expression — not illusion to be transcended but a vehicle for recognition).

"That thou art" — Mahāvākya from Chāndogya Upaniṣad

Triguṇātīta is the state of having transcended the three guṇas — sattva, rajas, and tamas — the constituent qualities of all material nature.

Nāntaḥprajñaṃ na bahiṣprajñaṃ nobhayataḥprajñaṃ na prajñānaghanaṃ na prajñaṃ nāprajñam / adṛṣṭam avyavahāryam agrāhyam alakṣaṇam acintyam avyapadeśyam ekātmapratyayasāraṃ prapañcopaśamaṃ śāntaṃ śivam advaitaṃ caturthaṃ manyante sa ātmā sa vijñeyaḥ — 'Not inward-knowing, not outward-knowing, not both; not a mass of knowing; not knowing; not non-knowing — unseen, beyond transaction, beyond grasping, without characteristics, unthinkable, indescribable; its essence is the certainty of the one self; the cessation of the world of appearances; peaceful, auspicious, non-dual — this is the fourth.

Vairāgya (from vi + rāga: the absence of rāga/colouring/attachment) is the quality of consciousness in which the mind does not cling to any sensory or mental experience.

Catvāri vāk parimitā padāni tāni vidur brāhmaṇā ye manīṣiṇaḥ / guhā trīṇi nihitā neṅgayanti turīyaṃ vāco manuṣyā vadanti — "Speech has four measured quarters; the wise Brahmins who are insightful know them; three [quarters] are hidden in the cave and do not move; the fourth is what human beings speak."

social function category (not hereditary caste)

Vivartavāda holds that Brahman is not actually modified into the world (as clay is modified into a pot) but only appears to be — like a rope that appears to be a snake in dim light.

Brahma satyam jagan mithya jivo brahmaiva naparah — 'Brahman alone is real; the world is unreal (mithya); the individual soul is Brahman and nothing else.' This verse (attributed to Shankara) is the capsule statement of Advaita Vedanta — and Viveka is precisely the capacity to see this: to recognise Brahman as real and the apparent world as unreal.