Hi Patrick,

As you know this is a rather broad inquiry considering that jīvanmukti is a term used across traditions in different ways.  Before it was used in Advaita Vedānta it was employed in the non-dual Śaiva context and in the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha/Mokṣopāya (from where it may have made transit into Advaita Vedāntin sampradāyas as a technical term [but not as a new conceptual notion]).

Advaita Vedānta is not doctrinally uniform across time and space and, to paraphrase Daya Krishna, all that is Advaita Vedānta is not Śaṃkara. It is difficult therefore to speak across the whole tradition but I can say that in the fourteenth century, Vidyāraṇya, in his Jīvanmuktiviveka, argues that the "jīvanmukta" is precisely the one who has secured, stabilized or safeguarded non-dual knowing (jñānarakṣā).  So, in this case, there are no obstacles for the one who is called a jīvanmukta; however, there may be potential obstacles for  knowers of brahman (but they are therefore not yet considered jīvanmuktas).  Antecedents of this position—i.e., that there may be obstacles for knowers—can be found in the commentarial works of Śaṃkara, as noted here by Aleksandar.

The term jīvanmukti, of course, indicates something philosophically different in other vedānta traditions, as well as in haṭha yogic, rasāyana, and Nāth-Siddha texts, etc. This is, of course, to say nothing of regional or vernacular traditions (some of which are advaitic in orientation) where the term is also employed. 

I have included here some references that engage with the issue of jīvanmukti which may, in some cases, overlap with the notion of the “perfected body.”  (I have not listed individually the interesting articles in the excellent volume edited by Andrew Fort and Patricia Mumme).

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Arapura, J.G. 1987.  Hermeneutical Essays on Vedāntic Topics.  Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Bansat-Boudon, Lyne. 2013. “The contribution of Nondual Śaivism of Kashmir to the Debate on jīvanmukti: A Thematic Perspective on the Question of Periodization.” In Periodization and Historiography of Indian Philosophy, ed. Eli Franco.  Wien: De Nobili Research Library, 307-326.

Das Gupta, Shashi Bhushan. 1946. Obscure Religious Cults. Calcutta: Firma KLM.

Eliade, Mircea. 1958. Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. Translated by Willard R. Trask. New York: Pantheon.

Fort, Andrew O. 1998. Jīvanmukti in Transformation: Embodied Liberation in Advaita and Neo-Vedanta. New York: State University of New York.

Fort, Andrew O., and Patricia Y. Mumme (eds.). 1996. Living Liberation in Hindu Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Mallinson, James and Mark Singleton.  2017.  Roots of Yoga.  London: Penguin Books.

Ondračka, Lubomír. 2015.  "Perfected Body, Divine Body and Other Bodies in the Nātha-Siddha Sanskrit Texts." Journal of Hindu Studies 8:2, 210-232

Prajnanananda, Swami. 1992. Is a Jīvanmukta subject to ignorance. Kolkata: Ramakrishna Vedanta Math.

Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi. 2001. Knowledge and Liberation in Classical Indian Thought. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Saraogi, Serbaeva Olga. 2010.  “Liberation in life and After Death in Eary Śaiva Mantramārgic Texts: The Problem of Jīvanmukti.” In Release from Life — Release from Death: Indian Perspectives on Individual Liberation, eds., Andreas Bigger, et. al. New York: Perter Lang, 211-234. 

Slaje, Walter. 2000. “Liberation From Intentionality and Involvement: On the Concept of Jīvanmukti According to the Mokṣopāya.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 28:2, 171-194.

Srivastava, L. K. L. 1990. Advaitic Concept of Jīvanmukti. Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan.

Suthren Hirst, Jacqueline. 2016.  "When the body does not fall: Śaṃkara, Sureśvara and Ānandagiri on living while liberated." Journal of Hindu Studies 9:1, 1-28.

White, D.G. 1996. The Alchemical Body: siddha traditions in medieval India. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

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Best,

James 

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Dr. James Madaio

Fellow, Oriental Institute (Prague), Czech Academy of Sciences

Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Associate Editor, Journal of Hindu Studies