Karana-Sharira

The causal body — the third and innermost of the Vedantic three bodies, consisting of the beginningless ignorance that separates atman from its recognition of itself as brahman. Named a “body” only figuratively.

Overview

Vedanta organizes the apparent person as three nested coverings over the atman:

1. sthula-sharira — the gross / physical body (outermost)
2. sukshma-sharira — the subtle body (19 parts: senses, pranas, antahkarana)
3. Karana-sharira — the causal body (innermost)

The causal body is the ignorance that makes the atman appear as a limited jiva at all. It is the condition under which the other two bodies take on the appearance of “mine” and “me.” In the five-sheath model (pancha-kosha), the karana-sharira corresponds to the anandamaya-kosha (the bliss sheath), because in deep sleep — where the subtle body’s activity subsides — only the causal body remains, and the experience is reported as a kind of blissful blankness.

The causal body travels with the subtle body through transmigration; both dissolve at moksha. When an enlightened person’s body dies, the Upanishads’ image is: as rivers run into the sea and become one with it, so the sheaths dissolve back into nature, and what remains is just the brahman that was always there.

Related concepts

• sthula-sharira, sukshma-sharira — the outer two bodies
• pancha-kosha — the five-sheath cross-reference
• ajnana — what karana-sharira is constituted of
• moksha — dissolution of all three bodies

In the Gita

• 02-22 — the “changing clothes” verse: the physical body is discarded, but subtle and causal bodies travel to the next birth

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 8 [60:15]: Karana-sharira introduced as the innermost body — figuratively called a body; it is the ignorance-sheath that transforms brahman into the appearance of a jiva.
• Ep. 8 [67:03]: Mapped to the anandamaya-kosha in the pancha-kosha model.