Dehavasāna — Liberation at the End of the Body
Dehavasāna (deha = body, avasāna = end/conclusion) refers to the moment of physical death — the dissolution of the current body — which is, in Śrī Vaiṣṇava theology, the precise moment at which the prapanna (one who has performed Prapatti/Śaraṇāgati) attains Paramapada-prāpti (the attainment of Paramapada/Vaikuṇṭha). This is one of the defining doctrinal claims of Viśiṣṭādvaita: Prapatti guarantees liberation, but that liberation is not instantaneous — it is guaranteed to occur at dehavasāna, the end of the current bodily existence.
The key distinction in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta is between the guarantee and the timing of liberation. For the prapanna, the guarantee is absolute: at the moment of Prapatti, Bhagavān accepts the jīva's surrender and commits to liberation. But the jīva still carries prārabdha karma — karma that has already begun to bear fruit and whose effects must be experienced in this current lifetime (unlike sañcita karma, accumulated past karma, and āgāmī karma, future karma — which are both destroyed at the moment of Prapatti). The prapanna therefore lives out the remainder of this life experiencing prārabdha karma while already being a mukta (liberated) in the sense of being under Bhagavān's protective custody. At dehavasāna, prārabdha is exhausted, the body is relinquished, and the ātman proceeds directly — without further rebirth — to Vaikuṇṭha.
This doctrine contrasts with the path of Bhakti-yoga (the path of the Upāsaka), where karma must be exhausted across many lives before liberation is attained. It also contrasts with Sādhanā-Bhakti requiring long tapas. The prapanna's assurance of dehavasāna-liberation is expressed in the famous dictum: 'dehavasāna-samaya prāpya paramapade' — at the time of the body's end, the prapanna reaches Paramapada. For devotees anxious about their final liberation, Dehavasāna is the great consolation: death is not a threat but the appointed moment of divine union.