Jīva
Jīva, “the living one”
Grammar: masculine noun, from the root jīv (to live): “the living one”. With ātmā it forms jīvātmā, “the living self”.
Meaning: (1) the embodied self, the conscious one who dwells in every body, takes birth after birth by its karma, and is freed by jñāna; the kośa of the Agni Purāṇa gives kshetrajña, ātman and purusha as its names. (2) In the kośa, also a name of Guru, Bṛhaspati, the guru of the devas, with guru and āṅgirasa (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 360).
In the scriptures: the Agni Purāṇa teaches of the jīva both in its account of moksha and in its rites.
Pushkara, teaching on the purification of the dead, says that dharma alone is the companion who goes with the jīva wherever it goes. When the span of life and the prārabdha karma are complete, death comes suddenly and takes the jīva away. As childhood and youth come in the body, so another body also comes; as one puts on a new garment, the jīva leaves the former body and takes a new one. The jīva can never be killed; it never dies. Therefore grief over death should be given up. Janārdana protects the jīva from falling, and Śrī Mahāvishṇu alone gives bhoga and moksha to jīvas about to fall (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 159).
In the Gītā-sāra, Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches Arjuna that the jīva is unborn, so one should grieve neither for the dead nor for the living; the ātmā has no old age or death and cannot be pierced (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 381).
Agnideva teaches that until one learns from the mouth of the guru that the jīvātmā is Brahman, this moving and unmoving world, though unreal, shines as real (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 375). As a potter makes a pot with clay, rod and wheel, the ātmā gathers the instruments and takes form in birth after birth; it is bound by karma, dosha and moha, and jīvas become free through jñāna. The jīva possessed by rajas and tamas keeps turning like a wheel. One who does not know the two paths of the jīvātmā is born as a serpent, a winged insect, an insect or a worm. By meditating on Brahman, shining like a lamp in the space of the heart, the jīva becomes of the nature of amṛta. A gṛhastha who earns wealth justly, loves guests, is steadfast in tattva-jñāna, performs śrāddhas and speaks the truth is also freed (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 376). The jīva taught by the guru, “That Brahman you are”, knows the Brahman that is distinct from the body (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 377).
The jīva who identifies with the body, covered by the darkness of moha, thinks “I am this body of the five bhūtas”, and says “mine” of sons and grandsons. The wise man holds an even attitude to the body, which is not the self. A man does karma for the body, and the body is other than the Purusha; so that karma binds (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 379). In the Advaita Brahma-vijñāna, Ṛtu teaches Nidāgha that the oneness of the Paramātmā and the jīvātmā is paramārtha, the highest truth (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 380). Yama teaches Naciketas: as the space in a pot becomes one with the great space as soon as the pot is broken, so the freed jīva becomes one with Brahman. The jīva, whose nature is Sad-Brahman, thinks itself different from Brahman by the power of ajñāna; as soon as ajñāna and its effects are removed, he becomes ajara and amara, free of old age and death (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 382).
In the Tvaritā dīkshā, Agnideva tells what moksha is like: the mantra-yogī, freed of dharma and adharma, attains moksha and does not return. As water poured into water becomes one with it, the jīva unites with Śiva and becomes of Śiva’s form (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 311).
In the rites: in the vyūha-nyāsa taught by Nārada, the ādi-mūrti, the jīva, is all-pervading. In the ashṭa-vyūha the jīva is eightfold: dhī, ahaṅkāra, manas, śabda, sparśa, rūpa, rasa and gandha, with buddhi pervading. In the nava-vyūha the jīva stands first, before buddhi, ahaṅkāra, manas, śabda, guṇa, vāyu, rūpa and rasa, and is placed on both thumbs. The jīva is then tenfold, and elevenfold in the form of manas, the ear, the eye, the tongue, the nose, speech, the hands, the feet, the pāyu and the upastha, placed on the fingers and the body, with manas pervading (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 25). In the Bhadra maṇḍala, the jīva is among the tattvas worshipped on the twenty-four-petalled lotus of the third enclosure, between the five subtle elements and the collective manas, buddhi and ahaṅkāra (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 30).
In the adhivāsa of a mūrti, Hayagrīva teaches Brahmā that the sādhaka separates the jīva, which identifies with consciousness, makes the ātmā and that jīva one, and merges it in the Parameśvara. In the tattva-nyāsa that follows, the bīja maṃ is the jīva, placed over the whole body (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 59). In the pratishṭhā of Vāsudeva, the ācārya invokes the jīva that pervades the twenty-five tattvas: it is consciousness and supreme bliss, free of waking, dream and deep sleep, free of body, senses, mind, buddhi, prāṇa and ahaṅkāra; it pervades the whole world from Brahmā down to the insect and dwells in the heart of all. “Parameśvara, you are that jīva-caitanya: enter from the heart into the image and stay firm. Make this image living” (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 60).
At the close of the dīkshā, the guru dissolves the para in the Paramātmā by jñāna-yoga and contemplates the jīva, freed from bondage, rejoicing in the Paramātmā, who is pure, of the nature of knowledge, changeless and of the form of supreme bliss; then the pūrṇāhuti is given (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 27). In the saṃskāra-dīkshā, Bhagavān Śiva teaches Skanda: the śishya’s heart is struck with a flower consecrated with the astra-mantra, and the jīva is seen within, shining like a star. With recaka joined to huṅkāra, the guru enters the śishya’s heart, draws out the jīva with the saṃhāriṇī mudrā and sets it in his own heart with pūraka. With the udbhava mudrā and the ātma-mantra enclosed by the hṛdaya-mantra, he places it in the yoni of Vāgīśvarī Devī. Garbhādhāna here is the rising of śakti in the jīvātmā whose bond is loosened, for it is the cause of his becoming a son of Rudra. With kumbhaka, Śiva and Śakti are united in the heart; leaving the kāraṇas from Brahmā onward, the jīva is taken to Śiva and brought back with the udbhava mudrā, and the guru places it in the pericarp of the śishya’s heart-lotus (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 82).
In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa: the jīva is taught in nearly every skandha: what it truly is, how it comes to be bound, how it wanders from body to body, and how it is freed.
Its true nature. Nārada Maharshi tells Vyāsa Maharshi that creation, sustenance and dissolution come from Bhagavān Vāsudeva, and the world and the jīva are not other than him, though he is distinct from them (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 5). The jīva, though he is Parabrahman, is deluded by māyā, thinks himself made of the guṇas and suffers saṃsāra (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 7). Brahmā tells Nārada that nothing, neither dravya, kāla, kriyā, avidyā nor the jīva, truly exists apart from Vāsudeva; the jīva is ever free, yet seems bound by avidyā, tied by the guṇas to the body, the senses and the buddhi proud of doing (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 5). Bhagavān Kapila teaches Devahūti that the jīva is the reflection of the undivided Sat in the antaḥkaraṇa; free of the upādhi it is not different from that Sat, the advaya Brahman (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 27). In the dhyāna of Śrī Hari, the Kaustubha gem at his neck is the pure jīva-tattva itself (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 28), and because Śrī Hari himself has entered all beings as the jīva, one should honour all beings and bow to them in the mind (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 29).
When Nārada brought back the jīva of Citraketu‘s dead son, the jīva told its kinsmen that it is eternal; it dwells in a body born of a mother, and the notion “I am this body” lasts only while it is manifest there. It is beyond time, without decay, beyond the senses, the support of all, self-luminous, and in truth one with Parabrahman (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 6, Chapter 16). Akrūra, in his stuti, says that the jīva, though the unborn Parabrahman, is bound by the guṇas of Māyā-śakti and does not know Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa, who is beyond the guṇas; by the upādhis the one Parabrahman of consciousness becomes jīva, Īśvara and Prakṛti (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 40). Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that the jīva is his aṃśa, bound by ajñāna and freed by jñāna (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 11); that in the dhyāna of his subtle tattva as light in the heart-lotus, the jīva is a part of that light (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 27); and, as Bhagavān Haṃsa told the Sanakādi, that the mind and its objects are only the jīva’s upādhi, for the Ātmā of the jīva is Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa himself (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 13). The jīva, an aṃśa of the Paramātmā, is untouched by Time, as fire is not burned by its own flames (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 23). Brahman became manifest as two, the visible world and the jīva who sees it (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 24). Nārāyaṇa is called the friend of Nara, and the text glosses Nara as the jīva (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 9).
How it is bound. Śrī Śuka Maharshi tells Parīkshit Mahārāja that the jīva asleep in ignorance spins on the wheel of birth and death and cannot reach Parabrahman (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 2); it delights in bodies made of the guṇas of Māyādevī and falls into the delusion of “I” and “mine” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 9). Karma makes saṃskāras of rāga and dvesha that drive the jīva to karma again; caught in that coil of vāsanā threads, these karma-vāsanās are called ūti (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 10). Kapila teaches that through avidyā the jīva identifies with Prakṛti, thinks himself the doer and fears Kāla (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 26); with the sense of doership he becomes the enjoyer of the puṇya and pāpa of the body’s karmas (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 27). Pṛthu tells his people that as fire in wood seems to take the wood’s form, the all-pervading Īśvara, identifying with the buddhi, appears as one with the fruits of karma and is taken as the jīva (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 21). In the account of Purañjana, which Nārada told Prācīnabarhisha, Purañjana is the jīva. Its true nature is the nirguṇa ātmā; with ahaṅkāra in the body and mamakāra in its belongings, it thinks itself the doer, does sāttvika, rājasa or tāmasa karmas, and by their fruit gains the bright worlds of the devas, the human world of toil, or births as beasts and birds. Like a hungry dog going from house to house, getting blows at one door and food at another, the jīva of desires wanders the higher and lower paths; and like a leech that grips the next blade before leaving the last, it does not let go of the present body until the next is ready (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 29). Bhagavān Śiva, in his stuti to Saṅkarshaṇa, says that avidyā binds the jīva with knots of karma, and one who identifies with the body cannot easily know māyā or the way across it (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 17).
The yogīśvaras teach Nimi that by identification with the body the Paramātmā becomes the jīva and does karma; jīva-hood came upon it by the knot of “I and mine”, and to cut that knot quickly one should do the nitya-karmas and worship Śrī Hari by the Āgama method (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 3). Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that the three-guṇa māyā builds the jīva’s bodies, the jīva is bound by identifying with them, and ātma-jñāna ends saṃsāra (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 10); that the guṇas belong to the mind and the jīva, not to him (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 25); and that the Paramātmā is called the jīva through “I and mine”, and as the jīva, subject to Kāla, wanders in saṃsāra (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 28). Among the marks of a Purāṇa, Sūta names hetu: the jīva, deluded by ajñāna and doing karma, is the cause of the world’s creation, sustenance and dissolution. The mahātmās call the jīva anuśayī, the conscious one lying in prakṛti, or the one who travels from loka to loka by its remaining karma-phala; and through ajñāna it is imagined as Viśva in waking, Taijasa in dream and Prājña in deep sleep (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 7).
From body to body. Kapila teaches that the jīva takes deva births by good karma, paśu births by bad and manushya births by mixed karma, wandering in the wheel of saṃsāra (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 27). As clouds driven by a strong wind do not know its power, the jīva whirled by Kāla does not know Kāla’s power; in whatever yoni he is born he thinks it happy, and deluded by Śrī Hari’s māyā, even in naraka he grows fond of that body (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 30). Impelled by daiva according to past karma, the jīva enters a woman’s womb through a man’s seed. On the first night it is one cell; in five days like a bubble; in ten days hard like a jujube fruit; then a lump of flesh. In one month the head forms, in two the limbs divide, in three the nails, hair, bones, skin and openings of the senses appear. Bound in the body of seven dhātus and afraid of saṃsāra, the jīva joins his hands and praises Bhagavān Śrī Hari, who placed him in the womb (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 31). Ajñāna and its karmas make many gatis for the jīva, who cannot know his own svarūpa (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 32).
Vasudeva told Kaṃsa that the jīva, not free, travels from body to body by its karma: like one walking on one foot, or a grass-worm that holds one blade before letting go of the last, and as a dreamer takes the dream body for himself, the dying jīva forgets everything and takes another body as his own (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 1). Akrūra told Dhṛtarāshṭra that the jīva is born alone, experiences puṇya and pāpa alone and dies alone (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 49). When Yaśodā saw the world in her son’s mouth, she saw that at the root of the different forms of beings are the jīva, his ajñāna, kāla, the karmas and the karma-vāsanās (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 8). Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches that birth is only the jīva’s full identification with a visible body, as with a dream-body; as one does not remember past dream-bodies, the jīva does not remember the body of a past birth. The jīva has no birth or death: to think it is born of karma is like thinking fire is born with the wood and dies when the wood is burned (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 22). By puṇya the jīva reaches the higher lokas and by pāpa the lower (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 24). Dattātreya told Yadu that the jīva wanders in saṃsāra through the Sūtrātmā, which has the form of prāṇa-śakti (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 9).
The forest of saṃsāra. In the account of the merchant band lost in the forest, which Śuka explains to Parīkshit, the band is the host of jīvas, put on that path by the māyā of Bhagavān Śrī Hari, doing karmas in the thought that the body is the ātmā; of them not one to this day knows the way out (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 13). The jīva runs about for dwelling, drink, wealth and clothes; even when he sees that sense pleasure is futile, he forgets it and runs after mirages again; he cheats others for a little gain, holds enmity for wealth, and wandering in enjoyment does not see that death is near. Deluded, the band grieves, faints, fears, quarrels, weeps and sings, and keeping away from the company of sādhus does not reach Śrī Hari; failing in karmas, the jīva to this day does not take refuge at the lotus feet of Śrī Hari and the guru (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 14).
The jīva and Īśvara. The devas, in their stuti to Śrī Hari in Devakī‘s womb, speak of the tree of the body on which two birds sit, the jīva and Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 2); Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava of the two birds with fine wings that nest on that tree, the jīva and the Paramātmā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 12). The jīva cannot gain self-knowledge by itself; Īśvara must grant it, and so the tattvas are counted with the jīva and Īśvara as two, though in the body there is not the least difference between them (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 22). In the account of Purañjana, the one Parabrahman appears as Īśvara in the collective upādhi and as the jīva in the individual upādhi, and the haṃsa of the Mānasa Sarovara, the jīva, was awakened by its friend haṃsa, Īśvara, and knew its own nature again (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 28).
Its freedom. Mukti, Śuka says, is when the jīva casts off by jñāna the doership and enjoyership imagined through ignorance and stays steady in his own sat-cit-ānanda (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 10). The Śrutis, praising Bhagavān Śrī Hari, say that māyā took on the guṇas only to cover the jīva’s nature, and the jīva who worships and attains Śrī Hari casts off avidyā as a sleeper forgets the body (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 87). Nārada told Śrī Kṛshṇa that for the jīva suffering in saṃsāra he took his avatāras and lit the lamp of his fame (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 70). The jīva who has passed beyond the guṇas gives up jīva-bhāva and merges into Śrī Kṛshṇa, pervaded by him, becoming full (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 25).
Related terms: Jīvātmā · Ātmā · Paramātmā · Kshetrajña · Brahman · Ajñāna · Moksha
Sources
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 25, 27, 30, 59–60, 82, 159, 311, 360, 375–377, 379–382
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 5, 7; Skandha 2, Chapters 2, 5, 9–10; Skandha 3, Chapters 25–32; Skandha 4, Chapters 21, 28–29; Skandha 5, Chapters 13–14, 17; Skandha 6, Chapters 16–17; Skandha 10, Chapters 1–2, 8, 40, 49, 70, 87; Skandha 11, Chapters 3, 9–13, 22–25, 27–28; Skandha 12, Chapters 7, 9