What are the four kinds of bodies covering the soul?

[sridatta]

The four types of the external bodies are:-

(1) Gross body or sthuula shariira, containing matter (with some energy also),

(2) Subtle body or sukshma shariira, made of inert energy,

(3) Causal body or karana shariira, made of desires, which may be selfish or divine (if the desires are selfish, such body is called the body of ignorance or the body of rajas and tamas or the body of avidyaa and if the desires are divine, such body is called the body of knowledge or the body of sattvam or the body of vidyaa) and

(4) The root causal body or mahaa kaarana shariira that is based on the root will of God for entertainment and this root cause is the divine power of God, called as maayaa or mahaa maayaa. The avidyaa or ignorance is also roughly called as maayaa and correspondingly, the avidyaa maayaa and vidyaa maayaa are attributed to the body of ignorance and the body of knowledge respectively. All these four types of bodies cover the soul in any human being. In the case of an energetic being, all the three bodies except the gross body cover the inner soul. In the case of the incarnation, God plus the human being is the human incarnation and God plus the energetic being is the energetic incarnation.