The body of the individual is constituted of five sheaths, known as annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya and anandamaya—the physical, vital, mental, intellectual and causal sheaths the investigation of which will enable the individual to know the Pure Consciousness. While the Taittiriya Upanishad deals with this subject of the five koshas, the Mandukya Upanishad-another important Upanishad, sometimes considered as the most important, deals with the very same koshas by way of the elucidation of the involvement of consciousness in these koshas.
Bhagawan Rama advises Hanuman in Muktikopanisad – “Mandukyam ekam evalam mumukshunam vimuktaye” – “For the sake of the liberation of the Soul, one Upanishad is sufficient—the Mandukya Upanishad”. Such is the significance of Mandukya Upanishad among the upanishad collection.
The upanishad classifies the koshas into 3 groups – physical or sthula sharira containing Annamaya Kosha, subtle or sookshma sharira containing Pranamaya, mayomaya and vijnanamaya and causal or Karana sharira containing the Anandamaya Kosha and explains how consciousness is involved in these 3 groups of koshas in the different states that a jiva can exist in, namely wakeful or Jagrat, dreaming or Taijasa and dreamless sleep or Sushupti states.
In the Jagrat/Visva or the waking state 4 koshas are operative and their actions are concentrated mostly on the physical body. Annamaya kosha works on the external physical activities through the brain. Pranamaya Kosha is used to carry on with the life-functions of the body. The consciousness uses mano-maya kosha to desire and to think. Elevated jivas like deep thinkers and philosophers can sometime use Vijnanamaya kosha in the waking state. But ordinary Jivas stop with Mano-maya kosha.
In Taijasa/Swapna or the dream state, the physical body is not operative and hence the Annamaya kosha does not come into picture. But the remaining 3 koshas – Pranamaya, Mano-maya and Vijnanamaya are active. This is clear from the fact that during any dream, we breathe, we think and we understand. The sukshma-shariram is active in this state.
In Prajna or the deep-sleep state none of these faculties are active. Hence all the 4 koshas Annamaya, Pranamaya, mano-maya and vijnanamaya are inactive. The consciousness is withdrawn entirely from the physical, vital, mental and intellectual. Hence our mind does not think, our intellect does not make decisions and we are not even aware of our existence in the first place. Only Anandamaya kosha or the causal sheath works in this state.
Now that we have seen the relationship between the koshas and the various states of the Jiva, we can look next at the eschatological question of what happens when death happens. This is an especially important question since many of our dharmic tattvas like samsara, karma, and re-birth depend on what happens to a Jiva after death. We will look at this through the tattvic web created by the Koshas, Lokas, Shariras and Pranas in our next post.
mythological squirrel 