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Apavarga In Hindu Philosophy

In Hindu philosophy, Apavarga is the state of the self released from all bonds of body-mind complex in Nyaya Vaiseshika systems. It is a singular concept of moksha in Hindu philosophy.

Knowledge or consciousness is not an essential quality of the self. The self is a unique substance to which all cognitions, feelings and experiences belong as its attributes. It is because of its association with the mind that there arise conscious states and experiences. So for the soul to realize its true nature, this system analyzes the world of reality. The realization is moksha, technically called apavarga. Vaiseshika Sutra, V.2.18. states – ‘Liberation of self consists in abandoning all its adventitious properties.’ There is no concept of embodied release in Nyaya.

The state of release is also not a state of bliss. The experience of pleasure is always mixed with pain. So the blissful state of liberation also will be followed by pain and requires some sense organs to experience bliss. So there is nothing like experience in the liberated state. It is the state of unconscious, indifferent, pure existence like that of a stone (pasana).

According to Nyaya Vaiseshika, the cause of bondage is ignorance of the nature of categories and karma. The soul can attain tattva-jnana only through the grace of God. By the study of scriptures, by means of reasoning, and by meditation, the wrong knowledge of ‘I am the body and mind’, mithya jnana is destroyed. The soul becomes free from actions and fruit of actions. This leads to the cessation of births and consequently of all pains and sufferings.