Anandamaya-Kosha
Ānandamaya-Kośa (IAST)Translation: "The Sheath of Bliss"
A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy
Sanskrit: आनन्दमयकोश
Transliteration: Ānandamaya-Kośa
Translation: "the sheath of bliss"
Definition:
- The innermost of the five sheaths enveloping the self.
- Truly speaking it is infinite, transcendent, and perfect and not really a sheath, according to some schools, but the very essence of the self.
- It is also known as the causal body (Karaṇa-Śarīra), according to Advaita Vedānta.
Glossary to the Record of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo)
Ānandakośa (Anandakosha; Ananda-Kosha) — the sheath (Kośa) corresponding to the plane of Ānanda, the “bliss-sheath” which is the spiritual body of the “bliss soul” and in which, together with the Vijñāna-Kośa, “all the perfection of a spiritual embodiment is to be found, a yet unmanifested divine law of the body”.
Ānandamaya (Anandamaya; Anandamay) — full of or consisting of Ānanda; joyous, delightful, blissful, beatific; characterized by an equal delight (Sama Ānanda) in all experiences; having the nature of pure Ānanda of Saccidānanda, or of the principle of Ānanda involved in or subordinated to the principle of another plane, such as the physical, mental, etc.; (“the Anandamaya”) the All-Blissful, short for Ānandamaya Īśvara or Ānandamaya Puruṣa; the third degree of the third intensity of Kṛṣṇdarśana, a kind of vision of the divine Personality corresponding to Ānandaṃ Brahma in the impersonal Brahmadarśana.
Ānanda — delight, bliss, ecstasy, beatitude; “a profound concentrated intense self-existent bliss extended to all that our being does, envisages, creates, a fixed divine rapture”; same as Sama Ānanda, the universal delight which constitutes active/positive Samatā, “an equal delight in all the cosmic manifestation of the Divine,” whose “foundation is the Atmajñāna or Brahmajñāna by which we perceive the whole universe as a perception of one Being that manifests itself in multitudinous forms and activities”; the highest of the three stages of active/positive Samatā, “the joy of Unity” by which “all is changed into the full and pure ecstasy” of the Spirit; the third and highest state of Bhukti, consisting of the delight of existence experienced “throughout the system” in seven principal forms (Kāmānanda, Premānanda, Ahaituka Ānanda, Cidghanānanda, Śuddhānanda, Cidānanda, and Sadānanda) corresponding to the seven Kośa or sheaths of the being and the seven Lokas or planes of existence; physical Ānanda or Śārīrānanda in its five forms, also called Vividhānanda (various delight), the fourth member of the Śārīrā Catuṣṭaya; (especially in the plural, “Anandas”) any of these forms of Ānanda; same as Ānandaṃ Brahma, the last aspect of the fourfold Brahman; bliss of infinite conscious existence, “the original, all-encompassing, all-informing, all-upholding delight”, the third aspect of Saccidānanda and the principle manifested in its purity in Janaloka or Ānandaloka, also present in an involved or subordinated form on every other plane."
References:
- Grimes, John (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. Albany: State University of New York Press
- Hartz, Richard. Glossary to the Record of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo). Retrieved from http://wiki.auroville.org.in/wiki/Glossary_to_the_Record_of_Yoga
