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 OriginIndia, in the tradition traditionally associated with Patanjali; no more specific locale is recorded for the text's composition. 1 Origin of the NameSanskrit 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 / CompilerDefined 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 Disputed
Origin PeriodNamed 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 TraditionStandard teaching, not formally defined 1 Doctrinal Status DetailThe 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 SourceThe 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 Connections
Attested In
Named the fifth and final of the five kleshas at Yoga Sutra 2.9.
Source The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and CommentaryEdwin F. Bryant
Belongs to Tradition
Source The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and CommentaryEdwin F. Bryant
Derived From
Yoga Sutra 2.4: avidya is the field in which the other kleshas arise.
In Language
Opposed By
Abhinivesha, the klesha of clinging to bodily life and fear of death, is one of Patanjali's five kleshas; nekkhamma, renunciation of clinging to worldly and bodily existence, is its direct Buddhist counterpart, on the same holds-opposes pattern already used for the section's other kleshas (raga opposed by upekkha, dvesha opposed by metta).
Originates in Language
Source The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and CommentaryEdwin F. Bryant
Related To
Dvesha (Aversion), Vices The five kleshas Patanjali names as a set at Yoga Sutra 2.3, in the order the sutra gives them: avidya, asmita, raga, dvesha, abhinivesha.
Source The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and CommentaryEdwin F. Bryant
Sources
1. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary
Edwin F. Bryant, North Point Press, 2009Originates in Language: Sanskrit, Stored language property on this entity, cited to this source: sanskrit
Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
the entity's is-shadow flag, carried forward from the first edition's own entity catalogue, marking this vice as the shadow or corrupted form of a virtue in this atlas's taxonomy
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