Upādhi
Upādhi · upa-ādhi, “that which is placed near; a limiting adjunct”
Grammar: masculine noun, from upa (near) + ā + the root dhā (to place): “that which is placed near”.
Meaning: a limiting adjunct. It is “that which, being near, seems to pass its own qualities to another”. In the teaching of the ātmā, the body, the senses and the mind are the upādhis of the jīva: they seem to limit and bind the ātmā, but they are not its nature.
In the scriptures: the Bhāgavata Purāṇa uses the word again and again in its teaching on the ātmā.
The jīva and its upādhi. Bhagavān Kapila teaches Devahūti that the jīva is only the reflection of the undivided Sat in the antaḥkaraṇa. The jīva who has given up the upādhi is not different from that Sat, which is the non-dual Brahman that pervades and lights up this mithyā world (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 27). In the state of yoga the sādhaka is freed from identification with the upādhi of the body and the rest, and sees the undivided ātma-tattva, with no division of meditator and meditated, as the ground of all (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 28).
Birth and death. In Kapila’s teaching the jīva in the womb bows to the Parameśvara who is untouched by upādhi, free of birth and change, and shines in his heart. With the subtle body as his upādhi the jīva goes from loka to loka and from body to body. Death is when the jīva and the upādhi lose the power of working together, and birth is when they appear together. When a defect in the eye stops the power of seeing, the one who sees loses sight; in the same way the jīva’s birth and death are only properties of the upādhi (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 31). Maitreya tells Vidura that when Devahūti meditated, the ātmā, by revealing its own svarūpa, removed the bondage of the upādhis, the body, the senses and the rest, which are effects of the guṇas of the māyā-śakti (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 33).
The mind as upādhi. Jaḍabharata teaches Rahūgaṇa that in its many births the mind takes different names and forms as upādhis, some high, like the body of a devatā, some low, like that of an animal. Only by identification with such an upādhi does the jīva know “inside” and “outside”. The mind, a product of māyā, is the jīva’s upādhi and does the karmas that bind; so the sādhaka should know the mind, the upādhi of the ātmā, as the field that yields the sorrows of saṃsāra (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 11). In the Haṃsa-gīti, which Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava, Haṃsa teaches the Sanakādis that the mind and its objects enter each other, but the ātmā of the jīva is he himself; the mind and the objects are only the jīva’s upādhi, not its nature (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 13).
One Parabrahman, two upādhis. In the account of Purañjana, which Nārada tells King Prācīnabarhi, Avijñāta, the friend who speaks as Īśvara, teaches the queen: as a man’s form looks one way in a mirror and another way in another person’s eye, so the one Parabrahman appears as Īśvara in the collective upādhi and as the jīva in the individual upādhi; the difference is made by māyā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 28). Nārada adds that a man in a dream moves with the vāsanā of the mind as his upādhi, and suffers though the dream is not real; so the sorrow of saṃsāra does not end though its objects are mithyā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 29).
Śrī Hari untouched. Kubera tells Dhruva that though Śrī Hari takes up the upādhi of the māyā-śakti to create, sustain and dissolve, in his own nature there is no second, not even māyā-śakti; he is the being of all, and all the upādhis shine in him, yet in truth they are not in him (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 12). Bhūdevī, praising Śrī Hari present as Pṛthu, says that the Parabrahman takes many bodies by the māyā-śakti of three guṇas and becomes manifest in upādhis, yet he is ever established in his own nature and has no delusion of “I” and “mine” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 17). Śiva, in his stuti to Śrī Hari, says that people lay difference on him through ignorance, for in truth he has no relation with upādhi; yet, reflected in the guṇas sattva, rajas and tamas, the distinctions appear (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 8, Chapter 12).
The end of the upādhi. Śrī Śuka tells Parīkshit that when the yogī has merged the tattvas one into another, and his subtle body has merged into prakṛti, his link with the upādhi ends, and with that prakṛti he merges into the changeless Paramātmā, who is a mass of bliss. Śrī Hari shines in all beings as the witness-consciousness, and the upādhis lit by that witness, the buddhi, the senses and the rest, bring it within reach of our understanding (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 2).
Related terms: Jīva · Ātmā · Liṅga-śarīra · Māyā · Antaḥkaraṇa · Dehābhimāna
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 2; Skandha 3, Chapters 27, 28, 31, 33; Skandha 4, Chapters 12, 17, 28, 29; Skandha 5, Chapter 11; Skandha 8, Chapter 12; Skandha 11, Chapter 13