Vices

Abhinivesha

Dharmic Vices

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Abhinivesha." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/vices/abhinivesha.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Abhinivesha. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/vices/abhinivesha

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-abhinivesha,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Abhinivesha},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/vices/abhinivesha},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Abhinivesha is the fifth and final of Patanjali's five kleshas in the Yoga Sutra, the instinctive clinging to life and fear of death that Yoga Sutra 2.9 says persists even in the learned, carried, on Patanjali's own account, from experience in a former body. Unlike the other four kleshas it is not traced to a mistaken judgment so much as to a self-perpetuating instinct, present in principle even in someone who has otherwise seen through avidya, asmita, raga and dvesha, which is why classical commentary treats it as the last and most stubborn of the five to uproot.

Facts

Origins

Place of Origin

India, in the tradition traditionally associated with Patanjali; no more specific locale is recorded for the text's composition. 1

Origin of the Name

Sanskrit abhinivesha, from abhi, toward or intensely, and nivesha, settling in or entering, literally an intense clinging or settling into; commonly rendered will to live or fear of death in translation. 1

Attributed Author / Compiler

Defined at Yoga Sutra 2.9 as the fifth of the five kleshas Patanjali names at 2.3, and elaborated across the classical commentarial tradition on the text, including Vyasa's Yogabhashya, which reads the sutra's own remark that it appears even in the wise as evidence the instinct is not learned within this life alone. 1

Language

Sanskrit 1

Disputed

Origin Period

Named within the Yoga Sutra, a text whose own compilation and dating remain unsettled among scholars: traditional accounts place Patanjali well before the Common Era, while modern philological scholarship has proposed dates ranging from roughly the second century BCE to as late as the fourth or fifth century CE, with the text possibly compiled from older material rather than composed at a single sitting. 1

Status

Status Within the Tradition

Standard teaching, not formally defined 1

Doctrinal Status Detail

The fifth and last of Patanjali's five kleshas, avidya, asmita, raga, dvesha and abhinivesha, named as a set at Yoga Sutra 2.3; classical commentary treats it as the one klesha the sutra explicitly says persists even in the wise, and so as the most deeply rooted and last to be uprooted of the five. 1

Attestation

Meaning in the Attesting Source

The instinctive clinging to life and fear of death that the Yoga Sutra says persists even in the learned, the fifth and final of Patanjali's five kleshas and, in classical commentary, the most stubborn of the five to uproot. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections