Concept
Malaमल
Impurity, in the technical sense of a limiting condition on consciousness — not moral stain and not the rosary of the same spelling in English.
Literal meaning
Mala means impurity or taint. Two cautions. It is not moral guilt: the texts describe a structural limitation, not a wrongdoing. And it is a different word from the mala meaning a rosary of beads, which is spelled the same in English transliteration and constantly confused with it.
Philosophical meaning
Traditional interpretationShaiva systems commonly enumerate three: anavamala, the contraction that makes awareness feel finite; mayiyamala, the sense of separateness between self and world; and karmamala, the binding of action and its consequence.
These are described as conditions of the individual subject, removed by recognition or by grace depending on the school, not as substances to be cleaned off.
Ksemaraja, Pratyabhijnahrdayam, sutras 9 and following