A History of Indian Philosophy v2.c19.s6.25

v2.c19.s6.25

The word *jīvan-mukta* is not used either in the *Kārikā* or in the *Tattva-kaumudī* or in the *Tattva-vibhākara*. The *Sāṃkhya-sūtra*, however, uses the term and justifies it on the same grounds as does Vācaspati². The *Sāṃkhya-sūtra*, more particularly the *Pravacana-bhāṣya*, raises the threefold conception of *manda-viveka* (feeble discrimination), *madhya-viveka* (middle discrimination), and *viveka-niṣpatti* (finished discrimination)³. The stage of *manda-viveka* is that in which the enquirer has not attained the desired discrimination of the difference between *prakṛti* and *puruṣa*, but is endeavouring to attain it; the *madhya-viveka* stage is the state of the *jīvan-mukta*. But this is an *asamprajñāta* state, i.e. a state in which there is still subject-object knowledge and a full conscious discrimination. The last stage, *viveka-niṣpatti*, is an *asamprajñāta* state in which there is no subject-object knowledge, and therefore there cannot in this stage be any reflection of pleasure or sorrow (due to the fructifying *karma*—*prārabdha-karma*) on the *puruṣa*.