---
type: Concept
bundle: upanishadic-core
bundle_version: "0.6.0"
id: avastha-traya
title: "Avasthātraya"
iast: "Avasthātraya"
devanagari: "अवस्थात्रय"
description: "The three experiential states — Jāgrat (waking), Svapna (dream), Suṣupti (deep sleep) — as the complete field of possible experience used in the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad's inquiry into the witness; not a hierarchy of consciousness, not levels of reality, not sequential stages"
darshana:
  - Advaita Vedānta
  - Vedānta
school_scope: "Central to the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad; used in Advaita as the experiential laboratory for identifying the unchanging witness (Sākṣin / Turīya)"
text_source: "Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 3–7"
tags: [avastha-traya, jagrat, svapna, sushupti, turiya, mandukya, advaita, inquiry]
not:
  - term: "levels or hierarchy of consciousness"
    why: "Waking, dream, and deep sleep are not ranked — one is not higher or more real than the others in terms of the inquiry. Each state is complete within itself; each has its own experiencer (Viśva, Taijasa, Prājña) and its own field. The point of the three-states analysis is not to rank them but to identify what is constant across all three."
    instead: "Read the three states as the exhaustive set of possible experiential domains — waking (gross objects), dream (subtle objects), deep sleep (no objects) — and use them to locate what remains unchanged across all three"
  - term: "states of meditation or spiritual attainment"
    why: "Svapna is sometimes read as an 'inner' state superior to waking, or Suṣupti as a state of partial enlightenment. These states are not spiritual achievements — they are ordinary, recurring features of every human night. Their value in the Māṇḍūkya is their ordinariness: the inquiry uses universal experience, not rare attainment."
  - term: "sequential stages (waking leads to dream leads to deep sleep toward liberation)"
    why: "The three states cycle continuously and involuntarily. They are not a path toward Turīya — Turīya is the witness of all three simultaneously. The sequence of the Māṇḍūkya's analysis moves from Jāgrat to Svapna to Suṣupti to Turīya pedagogically, but this is an analytical sequence, not a teleological one."
related:
  - /concepts/jagrat.md
  - /concepts/svapna.md
  - /concepts/sushupti.md
  - /concepts/turiya.md
  - /concepts/sakshin.md
  - /concepts/ayam-atma-brahma.md
timestamp: "2026-07-01"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Avasthātraya — अवस्थात्रय

**Not:** hierarchy of consciousness, spiritual stages, sequential path to liberation

## Etymology

Avasthā (अवस्था) = state, condition, situation; from ava + sthā (to stand in a position). Traya (त्रय) = three, triad. Avasthātraya = the triad of states.

## The Māṇḍūkya's Method

The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad opens (1.2) with the Mahāvākya "Ayam Ātmā Brahma" and then immediately proceeds to establish the triad as the field of inquiry: "All this (sarvam) is Brahman (om iti eva dhyāyita). The Ātman is fourfold: Jāgrat, Svapna, Suṣupti — and the fourth (Turīya)" (Māṇḍūkya 2–7, summary).

The pedagogical logic: if Ātman = Brahman, then the student needs a method for locating Ātman. The three states provide the most accessible laboratory: every human being passes through waking, dream, and deep sleep repeatedly and can confirm the description from personal experience.

## What Changes Across the Three States

| State | Experiencer | Field | Instrument |
|-------|-------------|-------|------------|
| Jāgrat (waking) | Viśva | Gross (Sthūla) objects | Gross body |
| Svapna (dream) | Taijasa | Subtle (Sūkṣma) objects | Subtle body |
| Suṣupti (deep sleep) | Prājña | No objects | Causal body (bliss) |

The experiencer-identity, the field, and the instrument of experience all change across the three states. What does not change? The witness (Sākṣin). In waking, there is an awareness of waking-objects. In dream, there is an awareness of dream-objects. In deep sleep, there is awareness of the absence of objects (which is how one knows deep sleep occurred — the awareness of rest). The awareness itself is constant.

## The Inquiry

The three-states analysis is a form of Neti Neti applied to experience: the Ātman is not the waking self (it is present in dream and deep sleep when the waking self is absent). The Ātman is not the dream self (it is present in waking when the dream self is absent). The Ātman is not the deep-sleep experience (it is present in waking and dream when deep sleep's bliss is absent). What remains after negating all three state-identities is Turīya — the unchanging witness.

## The Exhaustiveness of the Triad

A key philosophical claim of the Māṇḍūkya is that the three states constitute all possible experience. There is no fourth domain of ordinary experience not covered by waking, dream, or deep sleep. This exhaustiveness makes the inquiry conclusive: if the Sākṣin can be shown to persist through all three states, it is established as the constant, and the Mahāvākya "Ayam Ātmā Brahma" can be received with complete epistemic grounding.

## Audience Metaphor

A detective needs to establish a suspect's alibi. They check all three possible locations — home, office, restaurant. The suspect was not the home-person (the home-person left). Not the office-person (the office-person arrived later). Not the restaurant-person (the restaurant-person was with others). Who then was present throughout? The investigation locates the constant: the one who connected all three accounts. Avasthātraya is that investigation — and Turīya is the constant it reveals.

## Citations

1. Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 2–7 — source text for the three states and Turīya; see [references/mandukya-upanishad.md]
2. Māṇḍūkya Kārikā 1.1–16 (Gauḍapāda) — Avasthātraya as the laboratory of Ajātivāda inquiry; see [references/mandukya-karika.md]
3. Pañcadaśī 1.1–15 (Vidyāraṇya) — three-states analysis as a method of witness-identification; see [references/panchadashi.md]
