---
type: Concept
bundle: yoga-darshana
bundle_version: "0.2.0"
id: klesha
title: "Kleśa"
iast: "Kleśa"
devanagari: "क्लेश"
description: "The five structural afflictions that generate saṃsāric experience — not mere emotions, not moral failings."
darshana:
  - Pātañjala Yoga
  - Sāṃkhya
text_source: "YS 2.3"
tags:
  - Yoga
  - Patanjali
  - affliction
  - citta
  - samsara
  - liberation
not:
  - term: "affliction"
    why: "acceptable only with the qualifier 'structural'; alone it implies surface emotion, not root cause"
    instead: "Keep Kleśa untranslated; do not substitute the English term."
  - term: "suffering"
    why: "kleśa-s are the *causes* of suffering, not suffering itself"
  - term: "hindrance"
    why: "too mild; kleśa-s are the architectural source of all saṃsāric experience"
  - term: "defilement"
    why: "implies moral impurity; kleśa-s are structural features of conditioned existence, not moral failures"
  - term: "negative emotion"
    why: "kleśa-s are not emotions; emotions are their downstream symptoms"
related:
  - /concepts/avidya-yoga.md
  - /concepts/asmita.md
  - /concepts/raga.md
  - /concepts/dvesha.md
  - /concepts/abhinivesha.md
  - /concepts/samskara.md
  - /concepts/viveka-khyati.md
  - /concepts/kaivalya.md
timestamp: "2026-06-20"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Kleśa — क्लेश

**Not:** affliction, suffering, hindrance, defilement, negative emotion

The five structural affliction-roots that perpetuate the cycle of saṃsāra. Defined by Patañjali in YS 2.3: *avidyāsmitārāgadveṣābhiniveśāḥ kleśāḥ* — "The kleśa-s are: avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dveṣa, and abhiniveśa."

## Etymology

- Root *kliś* — to afflict, to torment, to distress
- *kleśa* — that which afflicts; an affliction-generating root

## Precise Definition

The kleśa-s are not emotions or psychological states but the **structural causes** from which all suffering, misidentification, and rebirth arise. They operate at the level of the citta's deepest conditioning, generating saṃskāra-s (latent impressions) that produce future vṛtti-s (mental modifications), which in turn produce future karma — sustaining the entire cycle.

## The Five Kleśa-s (YS 2.3)

| Kleśa | Mechanism | Root |
|-------|-----------|------|
| Avidyā — primal misidentification | Mistake the non-eternal for eternal, non-self for self | Root of all others |
| Asmitā — I-am-ness | Conflate the power of seeing (Puruṣa) with the instrument of seeing (Buddhi) | Rests on avidyā |
| Rāga — craving | Residue of past pleasure becomes compulsion toward its repetition | Rests on asmitā |
| Dveṣa — aversion | Residue of past pain becomes compulsion to avoid its repetition | Rests on asmitā |
| Abhiniveśa — clinging to life | Deep existential fear of cessation, rooted in past-life death memory | Rests on all above |

## Four States of Kleśa-s (YS 2.4)

Patañjali describes kleśa-s as existing in four intensities:
- *Prasuptā* — dormant, lying as seeds in the citta
- *Tanu* — thinned, weakened through sustained yogic practice
- *Vicchinna* — intercepted, temporarily suppressed (but not eliminated)
- *Udārā* — fully active, driving thought and behavior

Suppression (*vicchinna*) is not liberation. Only viveka-khyāti — discriminative wisdom so complete that Puruṣa is seen as permanently distinct from all Prakṛtic phenomena — burns the kleśa-seeds so they can no longer germinate (YS 2.11).

## Relationship to Karma

The kleśa-s and karma form a self-reinforcing loop: kleśa-s drive action (*karma*), action deposits *saṃskāra-s*, saṃskāra-s sustain the kleśa-s, and the cycle continues across lifetimes. This is the mechanism of saṃsāra described in Yoga Darśana.

## Cross-References

- [Avidyā](avidya-yoga.md) — the root kleśa; see for the full Yoga Sūtra definition
- [Asmitā](asmita.md), [Rāga](raga.md), [Dveṣa](dvesha.md), [Abhiniveśa](abhinivesha.md) — the individual kleśa-s
- [Saṃskāra](samskara.md) — the latent impressions kleśa-s deposit and draw upon
- [Viveka-Khyāti](viveka-khyati.md) — the discriminative wisdom that burns the kleśa-s
- [Kaivalya](kaivalya.md) — the state of liberation once kleśa-s are completely uprooted

## Audience Metaphor

The kleśa-s are the OS-level bugs in the citta's firmware. You can patch individual applications (manage emotions, change habits) indefinitely, but until the root misidentification (avidyā) is corrected at the firmware level, the bugs regenerate every cycle.

## Citations

1. [Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali](/references/yoga-sutras.md) 2.3–2.9
2. [Yoga Bhāṣya of Vyāsa](/references/yoga-bhasya.md) on YS 2.3
3. [Sāṃkhya Kārikā](/references/samkhya-karika.md) of Īśvarakṛṣṇa
4. Light on the Yoga Sūtras — B.K.S. Iyengar
