Glossary

A vocabularyfor the inward life.

80 Sanskrit and Pāli terms, defined as each school uses them — because the same word can mean different things in different mouths.

Abhāva: Absence; made a separate category in later systematic accounts.; Vaisheshika
Abhyāsa: Sustained practice.; Yoga
Acit: Non-conscious reality.; Vishishtadvaita
Adhyāsa: Superimposition: attributing the properties of one thing to another.; Advaita Vedanta
Ahiṃsā: Non-harm, a central ethical commitment.; Jainism
Ajīva: Non-living reality.; Jainism
Anattā / anātman: Not-self; rejection of an enduring independent self.; Buddhism
Anekāntavāda: The many-sidedness of reality.; Jainism
Anicca / anitya: Impermanence.; Buddhism
Anumāna: Inference.; Nyaya
Anupalabdhi: Non-apprehension as a means of knowing absence in the Bhāṭṭa school.; Mimamsa
Aparigraha: Non-possession or restraint of attachment.; Jainism
Apauruṣeya: Not authored by a person; a claim about the Veda.; Mimamsa
Apavarga: Release from suffering.; Nyaya
Apūrva: A previously nonexistent potency linking action to later result.; Mimamsa
Arthāpatti: Postulation to account for otherwise incompatible facts.; Mimamsa
Ātman: Self; in Advaita, awareness that is not an object.; Advaita Vedanta
Avidyā: Ignorance or misapprehension of the Self.; Advaita Vedanta

Bhakti: Loving devotion informed by knowledge.; Vishishtadvaita
Bhakti: Devotion grounded in knowledge of God and dependence.; Dvaita Vedanta
Bheda: Real difference.; Dvaita Vedanta
Bhūta: Element; often earth, water, fire and air in doxographical accounts.; Charvaka
Bodhisattva: One committed to awakening for the benefit of beings.; Buddhism
Brahman: The non-dual ground of reality, not the deity Brahmā.; Advaita Vedanta
Buddhi: Discriminating intellect, a product of nature.; Samkhya

Cārvāka / Lokāyata: Labels associated with Indian materialist currents; their historical usage varies.; Charvaka
Cit: Conscious selves.; Vishishtadvaita
Citta: The mind, including cognitive and affective processes.; Yoga

Dehātman: The embodied self rather than an independent surviving soul.; Charvaka
Dharma: Duty known through authoritative Vedic injunction.; Mimamsa
Doxography: An account of philosophical schools, often written from a rival standpoint.; Charvaka
Dravya: Substance: a bearer of qualities and motion.; Vaisheshika
Dukkha: Suffering, stress or unsatisfactoriness; wider than constant felt misery.; Buddhism

Kaivalya: Isolation or independence of consciousness from nature.; Samkhya
Kaivalya: The independence of the seer from nature.; Yoga
Karma: Motion or action as an ontological category; distinguish moral karma.; Vaisheshika
Karuṇā: Compassion.; Buddhism
Kevalajñāna: Perfect, unobstructed knowledge.; Jainism
Kleśa: Affliction, such as ignorance, attachment or aversion.; Yoga

Mala: A limitation or impurity conditioning finite experience.; Kashmir Shaivism
Mithyā: Dependent, sublatable reality; neither absolutely real nor sheer nonexistence.; Advaita Vedanta
Mokṣa: Freedom through knowledge of the identity of ātman and Brahman.; Advaita Vedanta

Nibbāna / nirvāṇa: Release from greed, hatred and delusion; interpreted across traditions.; Buddhism
Nirodha: Restraint or stilling; interpreted in relation to meditative discipline.; Yoga

Padārtha: A category of knowable reality.; Vaisheshika
Pañcabheda: Five kinds of fundamental difference.; Dvaita Vedanta
Paratantra: Dependent; the status of souls and the world.; Dvaita Vedanta
Paṭiccasamuppāda: Dependent arising.; Buddhism
Prakṛti: Unmanifest nature, the source of mental and material change.; Samkhya
Pramāṇa: A reliable means of knowledge.; Nyaya
Pramāṇa: A means of knowledge, the topic of materialist criticism.; Charvaka
Prapatti: Surrender or taking refuge in God.; Vishishtadvaita
Pratyabhijñā: Recognition of one’s identity with the supreme conscious reality.; Kashmir Shaivism
Pratyakṣa: Perception.; Nyaya
Pratyakṣa: Perception, accorded central authority in the received account.; Charvaka
Puruṣa: Conscious witness; many, inactive and distinct from nature.; Samkhya

Śabda: Reliable testimony.; Nyaya
Śakti: Consciousness’s inseparable power of manifestation.; Kashmir Shaivism
Samādhi: Absorptive meditative integration.; Yoga
Sāmānya: Universal or common nature.; Vaisheshika
Samavāya: Inherence, an inseparable relation.; Vaisheshika
Saṃvara / nirjarā: Stopping karmic influx / shedding accumulated karma.; Jainism
Śarīra–śarīrin: Body and indwelling self; a model of dependence on Brahman.; Vishishtadvaita
Satkāryavāda: The effect exists potentially in its material cause.; Samkhya
Śiva: Supreme consciousness in this non-dual account.; Kashmir Shaivism
Spanda: The dynamic pulse of consciousness; not a measured physical vibration.; Kashmir Shaivism
Śūnyatā: Emptiness of independent inherent nature in Madhyamaka.; Buddhism
Svataḥ-prāmāṇya: The prima facie or intrinsic validity of cognition.; Mimamsa
Svatantra: Independent; fully applicable to God.; Dvaita Vedanta
Svātantrya: The freedom or sovereignty of consciousness.; Kashmir Shaivism
Syādvāda: Conditioned predication: specifying the respect in which a claim holds.; Jainism

Tāratamya: Hierarchy or gradation, including differences among souls.; Dvaita Vedanta

Upamāna: Comparison, notably learning a word’s application through similarity.; Nyaya
Upāya: A means or approach to realisation.; Kashmir Shaivism