Śivasaṃhitā 2.40

The verse characterizes the jīva as nānāvidhaguṇopetaḥ — «endowed with qualities of innumerable kinds» — and sarvavyāpārakārakaḥ, «the cause of every kind of activity». This dual characterization insists that the individual being is not a simple entity but a complex of dispositions and tendencies unfolding in continuous action, generating in turn new karmic consequences.

Nānāvidha («of multiple types», «of diverse kinds») derives from nānā («diverse», «varied») and vidha («type», «kind»). Guṇopetaḥ combines guṇa («quality», «attribute») with upeta («endowed with», «furnished with»). The phrase kāmādayo doṣāḥ — «defects beginning with desire» — invokes the classical list of mental disturbances: kāma (desire), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), among others.

That the doṣāḥ (defects, disturbances) are the very vehicles of pleasure and pain reveals a sophisticated soteriological psychology: not external circumstances but internal dispositions determine experience. Yogic practice aims precisely at purifying these doṣāḥ, severing the mechanism that perpetuates the karmic cycle.