Parama Purushartha in Hinduism is moksha and it is the
liberation from birth-death cycle. There are four purusharthas (righteousness, wealth,
enjoyment and liberation).
Of the four purusharthas, liberation is termed parama purushartha.
It is supreme because one transcends all bondages and becomes free on its
attainment. While the first three purusharthas are transient, moksha is
permanent and envisages no difference. Whoever is liberated will have the same
blissful state. Advaita holds the state of liberation as recognizing one’s own
state of ever-conscious, ever-free nature in the present life itself. It is an
absolute condition of ananda (bliss).
According to Advaita, liberation is not the result of any
action. The atman, being eternal, immutable, all pervasive and ever pure,
cannot be the result of any action. Hence it is attained only on the removal of
avidya (ignorance) covering of Brahman. Such knowledge through inquiry comes as
the grace of an already liberated self.
According Adi Shankaracharya, moksha is attained only
through spiritual knowledge, jnana jnanatevatu kailvalyam. It is state of self
realization whereby the individual attains the state of perfection of the
Absolute.
The other schools of philosophy, Visistadvaita and Dvaita,
do not accept the Atman Brahman identity but attach great importance to the
grace of Narayana. The individual self remains separate but partakes of the
qualities of Narayana, who is Brahman.
In the Samkhya Yoga system of philosophy, moksha is neither
identity with Brahman nor reaming in a state of ananda in proximity to God. It
is a state of isolation of the self solely in the self. It does not admit an
Absolute in which the temporal and the eternal are reconciled - the individual self, with the removal of
avidya, realizing its real identity as nothing but a being with the Supreme
Being in the Absolute Realm of consciousness and bliss, satchidananda. It does
not provide for an all knowing eternal God with all the auspicious qualities –
kalyana guna. It considers moksha as the desolation of the individual self
within its own ‘eternal and timeless essence.”
The epic Mahabharata also contains endless descriptions or
moksha. The conception of moksha set forth in the Mahabharata differs both from
the monistic and theistic as wel the Samkhya Yoga views.