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This body comes into being from sexual intercourse, and, devoid of understanding, comes out through the gate of urine into a Hell-realm. It is constructed of bones, smeared with flesh, bound up with hide, filled with faeces, urine, bile, phlegm, marrow, fat, marrow of the flesh, and many other impurities.

惭补颈迟谤墨 鲍辫补苍颈峁�a诲 3.4 (Roebuck 2000:418)

The elements which [exist] in the three worlds are all [found] in the Body [but] the elements which are in the Body do not [all] exist elsewhere.

础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 1.19 (Mallinson and Sz谩nt贸 2021:110)

[The teacher] should examine [a student鈥檚 capability] according to their body. What will [a student] who is brilliant [only] in speech achieve? Do some yogis really become [yogis] simply by discussing it?

Amaraugha 45 (Birch 2023:124)

The S膩hebdhan墨s from colonial Bengal viewed the subtle body as geopolitical cartography. Using the metaphor of the 鈥榬ailway car鈥� they imagined the subtle body, 鈥榓s a landscape connected by the tracks, bridges, and stations laid down by the British empire, through which the passenger must navigate, amidst threats of thieves, derailments, and even bombs鈥� (Urban 2022:4, see also 2001:1085-1114). This description resonates with the preconceptions with which I came to this project, of the 鈥榶ogic body鈥� as an imagined ritual construct of channels (苍腻岣嵞�s), energies (such as 辫谤腻峁嘺 and 惫腻测耻) and wheels (cakras and padmas). This yogic body was sited between the gross and transcendent, between the material and immaterial, between female:body and male:reason. The yogic body was a map of the gulf between body and mind and a bridge or device, a yantra^[1] or 尘补峁囜笉补濒补, to cross that divide. This map was impervious to discovery through positivist experiments, hence Dayananda throwing his books in the river when esoteric anatomy proved imperceptible in cadavers (Wujastyk 2009:201-202). This dichotomised reading lends itself to a linear progression from gross to esoteric to divine to transcendent.^[2] But what do the 丑补峁环补 sources say? They barely mention the cakras. Studying the 丑补峁环补 sources鈥� treatment of the body has, as I noted, led me to drop the term 鈥榶ogic body鈥� and instead refer simply to the 鈥榖ody鈥�.

In this chapter I examine how the 丑补峁环补 corpus articulates the body which is taken to include aspects that are sometimes separated from the physical body and referred to as the 鈥榶ogic body鈥�, 鈥榮ubtle body鈥� or s奴k峁�ma 艣ar墨ra. I have chosen not to use the term 鈥榶ogic body鈥� even when the body is articulated with esoteric attributes or attenuations of the material body. The sources do not always or consistently separate the 鈥榶ogic body鈥� from the body. I avoid the term 鈥榶ogic body鈥� because I seek to avoid fabricating a conceptual consistency across the sources. Furthermore, I avoid the term because it suggests an ethereality or incorporeality to the 鈥榶ogic body鈥� at odds with the materiality of the body that I wish to problematise鈥攖hough the sources do also include ethereal accounts of the body (础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 35.1-2). I use the term 鈥榮a峁僺膩ric body鈥� to refer to the body that has not gone through the process of yoga and the term 鈥榶oga body鈥� to refer to the body that has been through the yoga process but nonetheless remains a material body.

Wujastyk notes, 鈥楾he variety of ancient Indian body concepts is naturally reflected in the rich Sanskrit vocabulary of names for the body, a litany of which includes such terms as 艣补谤墨谤补尘, 办腻测补岣�, 诲别丑补岣�, 惫颈驳谤补丑补岣�, a峁単am, vapus, kalevaram, tanus, g膩tram, 艣补惫补岣� and 办耻峁嘺辫补岣�, each carrying its own particular connotations according to usage and etymology鈥� (Wujastyk 2009:190). All these terms are found in the 丑补峁环补 corpus except the 办耻峁嘺辫补, the 鈥�dead body鈥� or 鈥榓live body dismissed as if dead鈥�, though 艣补惫补, 鈥榙ead body鈥�, is used to describe a posture for a living body to assume (贬补峁环补辫谤补诲墨辫颈办腻 1.32). There is no single Sanskrit term that I am translating with the term 鈥榖ody鈥� and so in what follows I indicate the Sanskrit term in parenthesis when I translate as 鈥榖ody鈥�.

This chapter is not primarily about charting the cartography or genealogy of the 鈥榶ogic body鈥� of channels (苍腻岣嵞玸), energies (such as 辫谤腻峁嘺, 惫腻测耻, bindu, rajas or 箩墨惫补) and vortices such as wheels (cakras) or lotuses (padmas). Mallinson and Singleton summarise these aspects of the 鈥榶ogic body鈥� in an eponymously named chapter: 鈥楶rior to the modern period, the body of the yogi was commonly conceived as a network of psychophysical centres (cakras, granthis, 腻诲丑腻谤补s, etc.) linked by channels (苍腻岣嵞�s) for the movement of various endogenous airs and vital forces (惫腻测耻s, bindu, 碍耻峁囜笉补濒颈苍墨, etc)鈥� (2017:171). Rather than that yogic body this chapter is about the body more broadly and viscerally construed in the sources: both esoteric elements and articulations of the body as material, elemental, physiological and cosmic. This thematic approach to the presentation of the body in the sources proceeds by way of selecting descriptions of the body and reading them alongside one another. These descriptions of the body comprise the foundations upon which the analysis of the thesis proceeds in subsequent chapters.

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

For yantra as the wheel of 蝉补峁僺腻谤补 see O鈥橞rien-Kop 2021:42-43 (page numbers refer to proofs not published edition).

[2]:

The divinised body appears a prior stage to transcendent, as I argued in my unpublished 2010 MA thesis, 鈥�莫艣惫补谤补 in the 驰辞驳补蝉奴迟谤补鈥�.