Glossary

• Ahiṃsā

  Ahiṃsā (अहिंसा)

  Non-harming; the practice of causing no injury — physical, verbal, or mental — to any living being. Listed by Patañjali as the first of the five yamas (ethical restraints) in the Yoga Sutras, and foundational to the ethical teachings of the Mahābhārata and Manusmṛti. While often translated as "non-violence," the scope is wider: it encompasses intention, speech, and thought, not only physical action. The Mahābhārata states: "Ahiṃsā is the highest dharma" (Anuśāsana Parva 115.1) — though the text also recognises contextual dharmic use of force, making its interpretation nuanced rather than absolute.

• Anekāntavāda

  Anekāntavāda (अनेकान्तवाद)

  The Jain doctrine of "many-sidedness" or "non-one-sidedness." It holds that no single perspective (dṛṣṭi) can capture the whole of reality; truth has many facets, and every statement about reality is conditionally true from a particular standpoint. Its practical expression is syādvāda (conditional predication): every proposition is prefaced with syāt ("in some respect" or "perhaps"), acknowledging its relative validity. This epistemological humility made Jain logic unusually rich and led to detailed engagement with all rival philosophical schools. Anekāntavāda is not relativism — it does not say all views are equally valid, but that reality is more complex than any single view can encompass.

• Anātman

  Anātman / Anattā (अनात्मन् / Pali: anattā)

  The Buddhist doctrine of non-self: the teaching that what we conventionally call "the self" is not a fixed, permanent, independently existing entity but a flowing, interdependent process — a stream of arising and passing physical and mental events (the five aggregates: rūpa, vedanā, saññā, saṃskāra, vijñāna). This stands in direct philosophical tension with the Vedāntic ātman doctrine. The Buddha did not deny that there is experience, consciousness, or continuity — he denied that these require or point toward an eternal, unchanging self. The debate between the ātman and anātman positions is one of the richest philosophical exchanges in the Indian tradition.

• Atman

  ātman

  The individual self or soul. Atman is the pure consciousness within each being. According to Advaita Vedanta, Atman and Brahman are ultimately identical — Tat tvam asi, That thou art.

• Brahman

  brahman

  The ultimate, unchanging reality. Brahman is the infinite, eternal consciousness that underlies all existence. It is beyond form, quality, and description — the ground of all being.

• Brahman

  Brahman (ब्रह्मन्)

  From the root bṛh — "to expand, to grow, to be vast." Brahman is the ultimate, self-luminous, undifferentiated ground of all that exists — not a god among gods, but the very nature of being itself. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad declares it tat tvam asi ("That thou art") and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka identifies it with pure consciousness (prajñānam brahma). It is described as sat-cit-ānanda: being (sat), consciousness (cit), and felicity (ānanda). Brahman should not be confused with Brahmā, the creator deity, or brahmin, the social category.

• Dharma

  dharma

  Cosmic order, duty, and righteousness. Dharma refers to the natural law that governs the universe and the moral duties incumbent upon each individual according to their nature and station in life.

• Dharma

  Dharma (धर्म)

  From the Sanskrit root dhṛ — "to hold, to sustain, to carry." Dharma is the foundational ordering principle of Sanatan Dharma: the law that holds the cosmos together, the code of right conduct that sustains society, and the inner duty that sustains the individual soul on its path. Unlike "religion" or "duty" in Western usage, dharma is relational and contextual: universal dharma (sāmānya-dharma) applies to all beings; one's personal dharma (svadharma) varies with nature, role, and circumstance. Its first appearances are in the Rigveda as dharman, linked closely to Ṛta, the principle of cosmic order.

• Guṇa

  Guṇa (गुण)

  Thread, quality, strand. In Sāṃkhya and Yoga philosophy, the three guṇas are the constitutive qualities of Prakṛti (nature): Sattva (clarity, purity, lightness), Rajas (energy, passion, agitation), and Tamas (inertia, heaviness, obscuration). Everything in the material world — matter, the senses, the mind, the intellect, even the ego — is a blend of these three in varying proportions. The Bhagavad Gita devotes an entire chapter (14) to their characteristics and effects, and teaches that the spiritual aspirant should cultivate sattva, then transcend all three guṇas toward the guṇātīta state.

• Ik Oaṅkār

  Ik Oaṅkār (ੴ)

  The opening symbol of the Gurū Granth Sāhib Jī and the foundational declaration of Sikh theology: "One Universal Creator God." Composed of the numeral Ik (one), Oa (the Sanskrit Oṃ, cosmic sound), and ṅkār (the form of that sound — "Oneness"). It declares the absolute unity, formlessness, and omnipresence of Waheguru (the Wondrous Enlightener). The Ik Oaṅkār principle bridges the nirguṇa (formless, attributeless) and saguṇa (with form, relational) dimensions of the divine — God is beyond all qualification yet intimately accessible through Naam (the divine Name) and the Gurū's grace.

• Karma

  karma

  The law of cause and effect governing all actions. Every intentional action creates an impression that shapes future experience. Karma is not punishment but a natural law of consequences.

• Karma

  Karma (कर्म)

  From the root kṛ — "to do, to make, to act." Karma denotes action in its widest sense: physical, verbal, mental. Philosophically, the doctrine holds that every intentional action plants a seed (saṃskāra) whose fruit must eventually be experienced. This is not fatalism — the Bhagavad Gita (2.47) famously locates freedom precisely in the quality of action: "Your right is to action alone, never to its fruits." Karma yoga — the yoga of action — teaches engagement with full effort and without clinging to outcome, as the route to both ethical clarity and spiritual liberation.

• Moksha

  mokṣa

  Liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Moksha is the ultimate goal of human life in Sanatan Dharma — the realisation of one's true nature as pure consciousness, beyond all limitation.

• Moksha

  Mokṣa (मोक्ष)

  From the root muc — "to release, to free." Mokṣa is the highest of the four purusharthas (aims of human life): liberation from the saṃsāric cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Different schools understand it differently. For Advaita Vedānta, mokṣa is the experiential recognition that ātman and Brahman are identical — no becoming, only recognition. For Dvaita Vedānta and Vaiṣṇava schools, it is the soul's eternal residence in the presence of a personal God. For Yoga philosophy, it is kaivalya — the puruṣa resting in its own nature, free of entanglement with prakṛti.

• Māyā

  Māyā (माया)

  From the root mā — "to measure, to create, to build." In early Vedic usage, māyā is the creative, magical power of the gods. In Advaita Vedānta, Śaṅkara redefines it as the cosmic power of veiling (āvaraṇa) and projection (vikṣepa) — the force by which the infinite appears as the finite, by which Brahman appears as the multiplicity of the world. Māyā is not illusion in the sense of non-existence: the world is real as experience; what is false is the belief that it is independently real, self-sufficient, and permanent.

• Nirvāṇa

  Nirvāṇa (निर्वाण)

  From the Sanskrit nir + vā — "blowing out" or "extinguishing." In Buddhist philosophy, nirvāṇa is the cessation of the three fires of greed (lobha), hatred (dveṣa), and delusion (moha) that perpetuate suffering and rebirth. It is the goal of the Buddhist path — the end of dukkha and the cycle of saṃsāra. Unlike the Vedāntic concept of mokṣa, nirvāṇa does not necessarily imply the union of an individual soul with a universal ground; the Buddha deliberately avoided metaphysical characterisation of the nirvāṇic state beyond the cessation of suffering. The Mahāparinirvāṇa is the final passing of a fully enlightened being who does not return to rebirth.

• Prakṛti

  Prakṛti (प्रकृति)

  From pra + kṛ — "primary doing, original activity." In Sāṃkhya philosophy, Prakṛti is primal matter — the uncaused, undifferentiated source of all material existence. Everything in the phenomenal world — from gross matter to the subtlest mental operations — evolves from Prakṛti. It operates through the three guṇas. Puruṣa (pure consciousness) is Prakṛti's eternal partner and witness: consciousness observes, matter acts. The confusion between Puruṣa and Prakṛti — taking the body-mind complex for the self — is, in Sāṃkhya, the root of bondage.

• Puruṣārthas

  Puruṣārtha (पुरुषार्थ)

  The four legitimate aims (arthāḥ) of a human life (puruṣa): Dharma (righteous conduct), Artha (material prosperity and security), Kāma (legitimate pleasure and desire), and Mokṣa (liberation). Together they form a framework that honours the full range of human aspiration without reducing life to either purely worldly or purely other-worldly ends. The tension between the four — particularly between artha/kāma and dharma, and between all three and mokṣa — structures much of the ethical reasoning in the Mahābhārata, Manusmṛti, and Arthaśāstra.

• Satya

  Satya (सत्य)

  From sat — "being, existence, truth." Satya is truthfulness: the alignment of thought, speech, and action. The second of Patañjali's yamas. In Vedāntic philosophy, satya carries a deeper resonance: that which is real, that which endures — ultimately pointing to Brahman as the only satya, while the world of change is mithyā (not unreal, but not independently real). The tension between conventional truth and ultimate truth (paramārtha) is a recurring theme across Upaniṣadic and Vedānta literature.

• Saṃsāra

  Saṃsāra (संसार)

  From saṃ + sṛ — "to flow together, to wander." The continuous stream of birth, life, death, and rebirth driven by karma and attachment. Saṃsāra is not a punishment but a consequence: the soul, mistaking the finite for the infinite, is drawn back by desire and unfulfilled action into repeated embodiment. The first systematic presentations of karma-saṃsāra doctrine appear in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya Upaniṣads. Liberation from saṃsāra — mokṣa — is the central soteriological goal across virtually all Hindu darśanas.

• Vairāgya

  Vairāgya (वैराग्य)

  From vi + rāga — "beyond passion, dispassion." Vairāgya is the quality of non-attachment — not indifference to the world, but freedom from compulsive craving for it. Patañjali defines it (Yoga Sutras 1.15) as the "consciousness of mastery" — the state of one who has ceased to thirst for objects seen or heard of. Śaṅkara pairs it directly with viveka as the two foundational qualifications for Vedāntic study: one must be able to discern the real from the unreal, and be sufficiently disenchanted with the unreal to pursue the real.

• Viveka

  Viveka (विवेक)

  From vi + vic — "to separate, to discern, to distinguish." Viveka is the capacity to discriminate between the real and the apparent, the permanent and the transient, the self (ātman) and the not-self (anātman). Śaṅkara identifies viveka as the first and most fundamental prerequisite for Vedāntic inquiry — without the ability to distinguish sat (being, real) from asat (non-being, apparent), the student cannot benefit from the highest teachings. His Vivekacūḍāmaṇi (Crest Jewel of Discernment) takes its name from this central faculty.

• Yoga

  Yoga (योग)

  From the root yuj — "to yoke, to join, to discipline." Yoga means union: the dissolution of the felt separation between individual self and universal reality. The word covers an enormous range: Patañjali's systematic eight-limbed path, the Gita's four main paths (jñāna, bhakti, karma, rāja), and the body-focussed haṭha yoga that is most familiar in the modern West. In the Bhagavad Gita, Kṛṣṇa calls "evenness of mind" (samatvam) itself yoga — a definition worth sitting with before narrowing to any specific technique.

• Ātman

  Ātman (आत्मन्)

  The innermost self; the unchanging witness behind all experience. Ātman is not the ego, the body, the mind, or even the intellect — it is the pure awareness in which all these arise and pass away. The Kaṭha Upaniṣad describes it as "subtler than the subtle, greater than the great, seated in the heart." In Advaita Vedānta, ātman is ultimately identical with Brahman (universal consciousness). In Dvaita, it is an eternal individual distinct from but dependent on God. The recognition of one's ātman — or rather, the removal of the ignorance that conceals it — is the goal of Vedāntic inquiry.

• Śramaṇa

  Śramaṇa (श्रमण)

  From the root śram — "to toil, to strive." A Śramaṇa is a renunciant practitioner who follows an inner path of effort and austerity, in contrast to the Brāhmaṇa who follows the path of outer ritual and Vedic authority. The Śramaṇa traditions — principally Buddhism and Jainism — share with the Vedic tradition the same foundational concerns (karma, rebirth, liberation) but arrived at them through independent inquiry and rejected the authority of the Vedas. The dialogue between Vedic and Śramaṇa traditions from the 6th century BCE onward produced some of the most rigorous philosophical literature in human history, each tradition sharpening its positions in response to the other.