Samsara

Saṃsāra is a Sanskrit word that means "wandering" or "world", with the connotation of cyclic, circuitous change. It also refers to the theory of rebirth and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence", a fundamental assumption of all Indian religions.Saṃsāra is sometimes referred to with terms or phrases such as transmigration, karmic cycle, reincarnation, and "cycle of aimless drifting, wandering or mundane existence".

The concept of Saṃsāra has roots in the Vedic literature, but the theory is not discussed there. It appears in developed form, but without mechanistic details, in the early Upanishads. The full exposition of the Saṃsāra doctrine is found in Sramanic religions such as Buddhism and Jainism, as well as the various schools of Hindu philosophy, after about mid 1st millennium BCE. The Saṃsāra doctrine is tied to the Karma theory of Indian religions and the liberation from Saṃsāra has been at the core of the spiritual quest of Indian traditions, as well as their internal disagreements. The liberation from Saṃsāra is called Moksha, Nirvana, Mukti or Kaivalya.

Saṃsāra (Sanskrit: संसार) is a term that means "wandering", as well as "world" wherein the term connotes "cyclic change".Saṃsāra is a fundamental concept in all Indian religions, is linked to the karma theory, and refers to the belief that all living beings cyclically go through births and rebirths. The term is related to phrases such as "the cycle of successive existence", "transmigration", "karmic cycle", "the wheel of life", and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence". Many scholarly texts spell Saṃsāra as Samsara.

According to Monier-Williams, Saṃsāra is rooted in the term Saṃsṛi (संसृ), which means "to go round, revolve, pass through a succession of states, to go towards or obtain, moving in a circuit". A conceptual form from this root appears in ancient texts as Saṃsaraṇa, which means "going around through a succession of states, birth, rebirth of living beings and the world", without obstruction. The term shortens to Saṃsāra, referring to the same concept, as a "passage through successive states of mundane existence", a transmigration, metempsychosis, a circuit of living where one repeats previous states, from one body to another, a worldly life of constant change, that is rebirth, growth, decay and redeath. The concept is then contrasted with the concept of moksha, also known as mukti, nirvana, nibbana or kaivalya, which refers to liberation from this cycle of aimless wandering.

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