The body in early Hatha Yoga
by Ruth Westoby | 2024 | 112,229 words
This page relates 鈥楾apas in the longue dur茅e: gestative or terminative鈥� of study dealing with the body in Hatha Yoga Sanskrit texts.鈥擳his essay highlights how these texts describe physical practices for achieving liberation and bodily sovereignty with limited metaphysical understanding. Three bodily models are focused on: the ascetic model of 鈥榖aking鈥� in Yoga, conception and embryology, and Kundalini鈥檚 affective processes.
Go directly to: Footnotes.
Tapas in the longue dur茅e: gestative or terminative
笔腻办补 in the 丑补峁环补 corpus and the mediate corpus refers to heating the body by using the breath to increase the abdominal fire which burns out or digests impurities. The digestion of impurities has an alchemical sense of assimilating impurities. Tapas, 鈥榓scetic power鈥� (Mallinson and Singleton 2017:177), is not a key term for describing the processes of the early 丑补峁环补 corpus. Tapas occurs as a preparatory personal restraint in the early 丑补峁环补 corpus and is part of the ascetic milieux in which the corpus is situated.[1] In the 贬补峁环补辫谤补诲墨辫颈办腻 办耻峁囜笉补濒颈苍墨 is described as an ascetic (迟补辫补蝉惫颈苍墨) (贬补峁环补辫谤补诲墨辫颈办腻 3.108), and more broadly across the corpus 办耻峁囜笉补濒颈苍墨 is heated (tapta) as we examine in chapter five. 贬补峁环补 techniques do not harm the body like physical methods of 迟补辫补蝉测腻 such as sitting amid five fires, keeping the arms above the head and standing on one leg for twelve years and Birch suggests, 鈥楾he fact that Hat岣-and 搁腻箩补测辞驳补 texts do not integrate or even mention the methods of 迟补辫补蝉测腻 suggests that their authors were unwilling to conflate the two鈥� (Birch 2020b:234).
Though tapas was not a key analytic for the 丑补峁环补 corpus the long history of tapas nonetheless bears on baking as a paradigm derived from asceticism. Knipe defines tapas:
The Sanskrit term tapas, from tap (鈥�heat鈥�), was in ancient India an expression of cosmic energy residing in heat, fervor, and ardor. Through anthropocosmic correspondences established in early Vedic sacrificial traditions tapas became one of the key concepts of South Asian religions and the accepted term in Sanskrit and other Indic languages for ascetic power, especially a severely disciplined self-mortification that produces both personal and cosmic results. (Knipe 2005:8997)
It is the association of ascetic heat with desire, and as Knipe terms the 鈥榓nthropocosmic correspondences鈥� that this section focuses on. This section seeks not to trace an intertextual genealogy of tapas in the 丑补峁环补 corpus鈥攖hough important work is done in this regard by Birch (2011) and ethnographically by Bevilacqua (2017)鈥攂ut rather to draw on the history of tapas to illuminate questions of procreation and gestative heat, and celibacy and the role of desire, that may inform the practice of baking the body.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Tapas is a personal restraint (niyama) in the 痴补蝉颈峁ａ弓丑补蝉补峁僪颈迟腻 (痴补蝉颈峁ａ弓丑补蝉补峁僪颈迟腻 1.53) of which eating quantities of food in accordance with the lunar cycle (办峁沜肠丑谤补肠腻苍诲谤腻测补峁嘺) is the best (1.54), as well as a niyama in some recensions of the 贬补峁环补辫谤补诲墨辫颈办腻 that adopt readings from the 痴补蝉颈峁ａ弓丑补蝉补峁僪颈迟腻 or the 艢腻谤补诲补迟颈濒补办补迟补苍迟谤补 25.7-8 and insert them after 贬补峁环补辫谤补诲墨辫颈办腻 1.16 of the critical edition (http://www.hathapradipika.online/ accessed 25 February 2024). The 痴颈惫别办补尘腻谤迟补峁囜笉补 describes the 补箩补辫腻 mantra as an austerity (tapas) (VM 30). There is a trope of residing in ascetic groves (tapovana) (痴补蝉颈峁ａ弓丑补蝉补峁僪颈迟腻 1.3, 2.57) and much use of the epithet 鈥榬ich in austerities鈥� (tapodhana) in the 痴补蝉颈峁ａ弓丑补蝉补峁僪颈迟腻 (痴补蝉颈峁ａ弓丑补蝉补峁僪颈迟腻 1.33, 3.57, 4.54, 4.67). The 艢颈惫补蝉补峁僪颈迟腻 lists tapas as one of many methods (艢颈惫补蝉补峁僪颈迟腻 1.4, 3.41). See Birch (2013:110ff).