concentration as well as the states of inner concentration that this practice effects. In the former sense dhyana is synonymous with the word yoga. In the Moksadharma, meditation is the most common spiritual by which a person can realise the atman.

jhanathe Middle Indic form of dhyana used in early Buddhist texts.

karma“Action.” An important preoccupation of early Indian thinkers. In earlier Brahminism, karma refers to religious acts and duties, and especially to the ritual acts enjoined by the Veda. But the concept underwent an ethical transformation in the period of the early Upanishads, and so in the Moksadharma refers to good and bad deeds as well as the subsequent merit and demerit they cause, this merit or demerit in turn causing good and bad experiences. A general belief of early Indian thinkers was that karma causes future reincarnation, and thus that salvation from reincarnation coincides or is effected by the cessation of karma.

ksetrajnaField-knower. An important term in early Brahminic thought that is usually synoymous with the term atman. But whereas the term atman is usually connected with the nondualistic understanding that brahman pervades the world, in some passages of the Moksadharma the ksetrajna is described as “spirit” that stands apart from and observes matter (pradhana, prakrti).

nirvanaThe ultimate goal of Buddhism, where it denotes the cessation or “blowing out” (nir-√va) of the three “fires” of greed, hatred and delusion. Appears in the Moksadharma in the Buddhist-influenced canto 195, where it simply denotes the religious goal.

prana“Breath.” A person’s inner breaths or winds were an important subject of speculation in early Brahminism. It was believed that a person has five breaths that are responsible for all the vital functions of the body and without which it would not work. In the singular, prana refers to a person’s “lifebreath.”

rajas“Passion,” one of the three bhavas, i.e. a quality that when sensed in an object causes various states of bodily and mental passion.

sattva“Purity,” one of the three bhavas and so a quality that when ________