The body in early Hatha Yoga
by Ruth Westoby | 2024 | 112,229 words
This page relates ‘Union of Shiva and Shakti� of study dealing with the body in Hatha Yoga Sanskrit texts.—This 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 ‘baking� in Yoga, conception and embryology, and Kundalini’s affective processes.
Union of Śiva and Śakti
In some sources ṇḍī unites with ś as the ultimate stage of yoga. An early example occurs in dzԲԻ岹’s possibly tenth-century ś ŚٲñԲ. Here ṇḍī rises before resting in ś (ŚٲñԲ 10). The unification of ś and ṇḍī śپ is a version of internalised sexual union. This does not necessarily imply the union of ś and ṇḍī. A synonym for ṇḍī is śپ but the opposite is not necessarily the case: śپ is such a broad term that we cannot infer ṇḍī to be the referent everywhere that the term śپ is used. There are examples of ṇḍī uniting with ś in the head in the ī (3.4849) and Ҵǰṣaśٲ첹 (86). The Ҵǰṣaśٲ첹 concludes its description of śپcālana by observing that in this way menses (rajas) from below and semen (śܰ) from above come together in ś following which ‘upward moving breath� (ṇa) and ‘downward moving breath� (apana) also come together (Ҵǰṣaśٲ첹 87). In the Amaraugha the technique of 峾ܻ makes ṇḍī straight (Amaraugha 23) and the objective of the work is the union of ś and śپ (Amaraugha 13). In the ۴DzīᲹ ṇḍī, having pierced rudragranthi, goes to the place consisting of ś; there, yoga arises when the moon and the sun are made the same (۴DzīᲹ 89). Finally, the yogi goes beyond the three ṇas due to splitting the three granthis: from the union of ś and śپ the highest state arises (۴DzīᲹ 90).
In the ī there is an internalisation of external ritual and a consuming of the elixirs of the body by the yogi. According to Mallinson’s note on the use of the terms melaka and melana in ī 1.5-9, ’s commentary defines melana is a type of internal physical practice (folio 4v) and defines it as the conjunction of the tip of the tongue and ṛt, i.e. the drinking of ṛt (folio 4v). This contrasts with melaka, or specifically a meeting with Dzī (Dzī첹) as is implied in ś texts, ‘in which the 첹 causes a circle (cakra) of ۴Dzī to surround him and grant him siddhis� (Mallinson 2007a:195n198). The վ첹ٲṇḍ picks up this practice whereby through pressing the great hollow at the uvula with the tip of the tongue and meditating on the goddess as consisting of the nectar of immortality one becomes a poet (kavi) in six months (վ첹ٲṇḍ 126).