Jīva

Jīva, “living being”, is the self as embodied: the individual who acts, experiences the results of action, and passes from life to life. Where ātman names the self in its essential nature, jīva names it as we know it, bound up with body, senses and a particular history.

How the jīva relates to Brahman is the dividing question of Vedānta. For Advaita, the jīva is Brahman itself as limited by the adjuncts of body and mind, like the space in a jar, which is not other than space; when the adjuncts are seen through, nothing individual remains to be liberated. For Viśiṣṭādvaita, the jīvas are real and many, eternally distinct from Brahman yet part of its body and wholly dependent on it. For Dvaita, they are eternally distinct from Brahman and from one another, and are graded by nature.

The Jain tradition uses the same word for the conscious soul, of which there are infinitely many, and makes its liberation from karmic matter the goal of its path.