Asava

Asava (Sanskrit, Pali) [from the verbal root su to distill, make a decoction] A distilling or a decoction; a Buddhist term, difficult to render in European languages, signifying the distillation or decoction which the mind makes or produces from the impact upon it of outside energies or substances, whether these latter be thoughts or suggestions automatically arising and acting from outside upon us, or such as impinge upon the human consciousness from another consciousness striving to affect the former. Thus it corresponds in some respects to the Christian idea of temptation. Asava signifies attachments rising in the mind from the impact upon it of outside influences, and the ideas born of outside influences which intoxicate the mind, born in the mind or flowing into it and presenting its being held upon higher lines. Freedom from the asavas constitutes the essential of arhatship, which involves self-mastery in all its phases.
The four asavas are enumerated in Southern Buddhism as
1) sensuousness and sensuality (kama);
2) hunger for life (bhava);
3) dreamy speculation (dittha); and
4) nescience (avijja).