---
type: Concept
bundle: dharmic-ethics
bundle_version: "0.5.0"
id: aparigraha
title: "Aparigraha — Non-Grasping, Inner and Outer"
iast: "aparigraha"
devanagari: "अपरिग्रह"
description: "Freedom from the clutch of ownership: taking and holding only what is needed, and releasing the grip of possessiveness itself. The fifth yama. Not minimalism as aesthetic, not poverty, and not asteya."
darshana:
  - Yoga Darśana
  - pan-dharmic (sādhāraṇa-dharma)
school_scope: "Fifth yama (YS 2.30, 2.39). Completes the restraints by addressing not the taking (asteya) but the keeping and the identification with the held."
text_source: "YS 2.39"
tags:
  - aparigraha
  - yama
  - non-attachment
  - tier-1
not:
  - term: "minimalism"
    why: "minimalism is an aesthetic of fewer, well-chosen possessions, often itself a refined form of acquisition and status; aparigraha is the release of the grasping relation to things, which can be practiced amid much or little, since the discipline is inward"
    instead: "Render aparigraha as non-grasping or non-possessiveness, freedom from the clutch of ownership; not as a minimalist style."
  - term: "poverty"
    why: "poverty is a lack of means, often involuntary and harmful; aparigraha is a chosen inner freedom from attachment to means, compatible with stewarding resources well, and never an idealization of deprivation"
  - term: "non-stealing (asteya)"
    why: "asteya restrains taking what is another's; aparigraha restrains keeping and clinging even to what is rightfully one's own, so the two yamas address opposite ends of the same grasping impulse"
  - term: "renunciation of all property"
    why: "the householder practices aparigraha without abandoning home or goods; it is the renunciation of the sense of mine, not necessarily of the objects, that the yama requires"
related:
  - /concepts/asteya.md
  - /concepts/santosha.md
  - /concepts/brahmacharya.md
  - /concepts/dana.md
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Aparigraha — अपरिग्रह

**Not:** minimalism, poverty, non-stealing (asteya), renunciation of all property

Aparigraha is non-grasping: holding what one needs without the clutch of ownership, and releasing the inner grip of possessiveness itself. As the fifth and final yama it completes the restraints by addressing not the act of taking but the deeper attachment of keeping and identifying with the held.

## Etymology

From *a-* (not) + *parigraha* (grasping all around, seizing, accumulation; from *pari*, around, + √*grah*, to grasp). Parigraha is the encircling grip by which we make things mine; aparigraha is the loosening of that grip. The image is of hands that hold open rather than clenched.

## What It Actually Means

YS 2.39 states that when aparigraha is firmly established, knowledge of the how and why of births arises: freed from clinging, the practitioner gains insight into the very mechanism of becoming. The fruit is a release from the chain of acquisition that binds one to saṃsāra. Aparigraha is inward first. One may handle wealth and possessions and still practice it, provided the sense of mine, the anxiety of holding, and the identification of self with property are released. It is the antidote to the restless accumulation that the modern economy treats as natural.

## Why the Substitutes Fail

"Minimalism" and "renunciation of all property" both fix on the quantity of objects, when aparigraha is about the quality of one's relation to them; one can own little and grasp hard, or steward much and hold loosely. "Poverty" confuses a chosen inner freedom with an imposed material lack. "Non-stealing" (asteya) is the complementary yama, not a synonym: asteya restrains taking, aparigraha restrains keeping.

## Cross-References
- [Asteya](asteya.md) — the complementary yama: asteya restrains taking, aparigraha restrains holding
- [Santoṣa](santosha.md) — contentment is the felt fruit of non-grasping; they reinforce each other
- [Brahmacharya](brahmacharya.md) — both order the appetites, brahmacarya the energies and aparigraha the possessions
- [Dāna](dana.md) — giving freely is non-grasping enacted toward others

## Audience Metaphor

Think of how a child holds a fistful of sand at the beach. Clench tight and the sand streams out between the fingers; the harder the grip, the faster it goes. Hold the hand open and flat, and the sand simply rests there. Aparigraha is the open hand. It is not refusing to touch the sand, and it is not having no sand; it is the discovery that things actually stay better when you stop strangling them, and that the clenched fist costs you more than the open palm ever does.

## Citations

1. [Yoga Sūtra](/references/yoga-sutra.md) 2.30, 2.39 — aparigraha as the fifth yama; knowledge of the rounds of birth arises in the one established in it
2. [Bhagavad Gītā](/references/bhagavad-gita.md) 6.10, 18.49 — the renunciation of possessiveness and the freedom of the unattached
3. [Manusmṛti](/references/manusmriti.md) — moderation in acquisition among the conduct of the wise
