Upādhi () is a term in

Hindu philosophy Hindu philosophy encompasses the philosophies, world views and teachings of Hinduism that emerged in Ancient India which include six systems ('' shad-darśana'') – Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta.Andrew Nicholson (20 ...

meaning "imposition" or "limitation". In Hindu logic, an upādhi is the condition which accompanies the

major term A syllogism ( grc-gre, συλλογισμός, ''syllogismos'', 'conclusion, inference') is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true ...

and must be supplied to limit the too general

middle term In logic, a middle term is a term that appears (as a subject or predicate of a categorical proposition) in both premises but not in the conclusion of a categorical syllogism. Example: :Major premise: All men are mortal. :Minor premise A syllogi ...

. For instance, "the mountain has smoke because it has fire" rests on the false premise that all fire is accompanied by smoke. To restrict the too general middle term here, 'damp fuel' should be added as the condition of smoky fire. It can also be viewed as a disguise or vehicle for true reality, both defining something and limiting it. For example, the body of a man or animal is the upādhi of its true self. Another example is that the true self, Brahman (Sanskrit: ब्रह्म) is hidden in a living being, jiva (Sanskrit: जीव) by the upādhi of the mind, Antahkarana (Sanskrit: अंतःकरण) and the creator God, ''Īshvara (Sanskrit: ईश्वर)'' by the upādhi of Māyā (Sanskrit: माया) an appearance which is not what it seems. Upādhi is the condition of body and

mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

obscuring the true self which Indian schools of thought seek to remove for the attainment of

moksha ''Moksha'' (; sa, मोक्ष, '), also called ''vimoksha'', ''vimukti'' and ''mukti'', is a term in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism for various forms of emancipation, enlightenment, liberation, and release. In its soteriology, ...

, realisation of the true self.

References

Hindu philosophical concepts Sanskrit words and phrases {{Hindu-philo-stub