Apratibuddha
Apratibuddha · a-prati-buddha, “the not-awakened”
Akshara has other meanings too: see all meanings of Akshara.
Grammar: adjective, also used as a noun; a (not) with pratibuddha (awakened): “not awakened”. The state is apratibuddhatva.
Meaning: not awakened: the state of the jīva, and of the imperishable tattva bound by ajñāna, that does not know its own true nature. In the Sāṅkhya that Vasishṭha teaches it is one of three, with the buddha (awakened) and the budhyamāna (awakening), and it names the māyā tattva, the root of aparā prakṛti.
In the scriptures: the Brahma Purāṇa uses the word in the dialogue of Vasishṭha and King Janaka, which Vyāsa tells the munis.
The bound akshara. Vasishṭha teaches that the akshara, the imperishable tattva, though its nature is knowledge, becomes apratibuddha when joined with ajñāna, and so follows beings like us who are not awakened. It passes from body to body and takes thousands of births (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 242). Of the unmanifest and the manifest he says: the avyakta is prabuddha (awakened) and budhyamāna; the manifest kshara is aprabuddha (not awakened) (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 243).
The awakening. The passage from the kshara state to the akshara state, from the mixed state of happiness and sorrow to purity, is called going from apratibuddhatva to pratibuddhatva. The jīva who has seen the faults of saṃsāra says to himself that, like a fish that does not know the water is other than itself, he has been carried away all this time in the stream of saṃsāra, and that from now on he must go to that steady state. So, becoming pratibuddha, he leaves the states of kshara, vyakta and saguṇa and reaches the states of akshara, avyakta and nirguṇa.
Vasishṭha then names the three that the Sāṅkhya darśana discerns: buddha and apratibuddha, akshara and kshara, and between the two the budhyamāna. The buddha is the paramārtha tattva, whose nature is awakening and knowledge. The apratibuddha is the māyā tattva, the root of aparā prakṛti. The budhyamāna is the stage of the mumukshu’s inquiry, with hearing, reflection and the rest, and of the practice of yoga in the wish for ātma-darśana. In the Yoga darśana only the budhyamāna and buddha states are set out, as stages of experience (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 244).
The close of the teaching. The jīva who is being taught the form of the avyakta is called budhyamāna; when he knows the twenty-fifth tattva and its nirguṇa nature, he is called pratibuddha. Vasishṭha ends: “O sinless King Janaka, I have thus told you, by the method of Sāṅkhya, the marks of the buddha, the budhyamāna and the apratibuddha” (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 245).
Related terms: Pratibuddha · Buddha · Budhyamāna · Akshara · Aparā Prakṛti · Māyā · Sāṅkhya
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 242–245