(a) Explain with reference to Yoga Philosophy, the nature of kleśas. How does the removal of these lead to kaivalya ? (20…

(a) Kleśas and how their removal leads to kaivalya

The Yoga Sūtra (2.3) lists five kleśas, afflictions that colour the mind and produce suffering. Avidyā (2.5) is taking the non-eternal, impure, painful and non-self to be eternal, pure, pleasant and self. Asmitā (2.6) is the identification of the seer (puruṣa) with the instrument of seeing (the buddhi). Rāga is attachment to what gives pleasure (2.7), dveṣa aversion to what gives pain (2.8), and abhiniveśa the clinging to life and fear of death (2.9).

Avidyā is the field (kṣetra) of the other four (2.4). Each exists in four states: dormant, attenuated, interrupted or fully active. They are the root of the karmāśaya, the store of karma, and so long as the root exists it ripens into birth, life-span and experience (2.12-13).

Removal comes in stages. Kriyā-yoga (tapas, svādhyāya, īśvara-praṇidhāna) attenuates them and brings samādhi (2.1-2). Gross, active kleśas are destroyed by meditation (2.11) and subtle ones by resolving the mind into its source (pratiprasava, 2.10). The aṣṭāṅga path purifies the mind, and viveka-khyāti, the discriminative knowledge of puruṣa as distinct from prakṛti, destroys avidyā (2.26).

When avidyā goes, the contact (saṃyoga) between puruṣa and prakṛti, which depends on it, ends (2.25). With the kleśas gone, karma no longer ripens, and the guṇas, having served the purpose of puruṣa, return to their source. Puruṣa then rests in its own nature as pure consciousness, which is kaivalya (4.34).

(b) The Sāṅkhya view of the three guṇas and their modifications

The guṇas are the three constituents of prakṛti, not its attributes: sattva, rajas and tamas. Sāṅkhya Kārikā 12-13 describes them as follows. Sattva is light, buoyant and illuminating, and is pleasure in its effects. Rajas is stimulating and mobile, and is pain. Tamas is heavy and obstructing, and is dullness and delusion.

They are inferred from the character of effects: the world presents pleasure, pain and delusion, so its cause must have the three corresponding natures. They always co-exist and cooperate, like the wick, oil and flame of a lamp (Kārikā 13), although one predominates and the others subordinate themselves in any given thing.

Modifications follow from two states. In dissolution the guṇas are in equilibrium (sāmyāvasthā) as unmanifest prakṛti, and change into like forms (sadṛśa-pariṇāma). Proximity to puruṣa disturbs the balance, and then they change into unlike forms (visadṛśa-pariṇāma): buddhi (mahat), ahaṃkāra, mind, the senses, the five subtle elements and the gross elements. From ahaṃkāra, sattva-dominant evolution gives mind and the senses, tamas-dominant gives the subtle elements, and rajas energises both.

The guṇas also explain differences in persons, since the predominance of one shapes character and action.

(c) The status of abhāva in Mīmāṃsā

The Mīmāṃsā schools differ. Kumārila Bhaṭṭa treats abhāva (absence) as a distinct category (padārtha), real but not a positive entity. Its four forms are prior absence (prāgabhāva), posterior absence (pradhvaṃsābhāva), mutual absence (anyonyābhāva) and absolute absence (atyantābhāva).

Bhāṭṭas hold that it is known by a separate pramāṇa, anupalabdhi (non-apprehension). I see an empty table and judge "no pot is here" because a pot, if present, would be perceptible but is not perceived (yogyānupalabdhi). Absence is not mere lack of cognition but a positive judgement made through that non-apprehension.

Prabhākara denies abhāva as a separate category. For him, the absence of a pot is just the bare locus (adhikaraṇa-svarūpa), known through perception, so no sixth pramāṇa is needed.

Examination: Nyāya treats abhāva as real and known through perception of the locus. The Prabhākara reduction has difficulty explaining why one empty floor yields different absences (of a pot, of a cloth), which seems to require a distinct counter-correlate (pratiyogin). Bhāṭṭas answer this with the independent category, but must explain how a non-entity is known by a pramāṇa. Advaita Vedānta also accepts anupalabdhi.