Agnipurana 214

English (machine translation) 214

Language: English

214.1 — 4 parts
214.13 — 1 part
214.23 — 3 parts
214.34 — 3 parts
214.41 — 4 parts

214.1

Agni said: / I shall declare the system of subtle channels, by the knowledge of which Hari is known. / Below the navel is a bulb from which sprouts emerge.

214.2

Seventy-two thousand [channels] are situated in the center of the navel. / The whole [body] is pervaded by them horizontally, upward, and downward on all sides.

214.3

Arranged like a wheel, ten of these channels are primary: / Iḍā, Piṅgalā, and likewise Suṣumnā,

214.4

Gāndhārī, Hastijihvā, and likewise Pṛthā as well, / Alambuṣā, Huhū, and Śaṅkhinī is remembered as the tenth.

214.5

These channels are proclaimed as carrying the ten vital breaths: / prāṇa, apāna, samāna, udāna, and vyāna,

214.6

nāga, kūrma, kṛkara, devadatta, and dhanañjaya. / Prāṇa is the first wind, and he is the lord of all ten.

214.7

Prāṇa animates the breath from expiration to inspiration. / Situated in the chest of living beings, it constantly fills [them].

214.8

Prāṇa depends upon the individual soul through exhalations, inhalations, and coughing. / Because it makes departure (prayāṇa), it is called prāṇa.

214.9

Apāna carries downward; it carries the food of men down. / Because it is the wind carrying urine and semen, it is called apāna.

214.10

The wind named samāna brings what is drunk, eaten, and smelled / to equilibrium in the limbs, along with blood, bile, phlegm, and wind.

214.11

The wind named udāna causes the lower lip and mouth to quiver, / excites the redness of the eyes, and agitates the vital points.

214.12

Vyāna bends the body; vyāna provokes disease. / From throat and from pervading (vyāpāna) it is called vyāna, [distributing] returns.

214.13

Nāga is said to dwell in belching, and kūrma in opening the eyes;

214.13_2

kṛkara in eating, and devadatta in yawning.

214.14

Dhanañjaya is situated in sound, and does not abandon even a dead person. / The individual soul moves in ten ways; therefore, it is indeed that system of channels.

214.15

The planetary transit, the equinox, day and night, the solstices, / the intercalary month, the waning day, the subtracted day, and wealth:

214.16

The subtracted day is hiccup, the intercalary month is yawning, / the waning day is cough, and inhalation is called wealth.

214.17

North and south are to be known, designated as left and right. / The equinox is declared to be in the center, emerging from both nostrils.

214.18

And the transit of this [breath occurs] from its own place by the conjunction of places. / Suṣumnā is fixed in the central limb, and Iḍā in the left,

214.19

Piṅgalā in the right, O brāhmaṇa. The upward prāṇa is known as day; / apāna is night in this way. The single wind consists of ten forms.

214.20

Restraint stationed in the middle of the body is considered a lunar eclipse; / the restraint that transcends the elements of the body, they know as a solar eclipse.

214.21

One should fill the abdomen with wind as long as desired. / This breath-control, the filler of the body, is the inhalation (pūraka).

214.22

Having closed all the apertures, free from exhalation and inhalation, / one should remain like a filled jar; that breath-control is the retention (kumbhaka).

214.23

Then the knower of mantras should release the wind upward in a single breath. / Connected with the application of exhalation, he should expel the wind upward.

214.24

Because Śiva, residing in one's own body, sounds forth spontaneously, / therefore that alone is called recitation by knowers of the truth.

214.25

Twenty-one thousand and six hundred [times]: / that is the number of recitations the lord of yogins performs in a day and night.

214.26

The Gāyatrī named Ajapā is the sovereign of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva. / For one who recites that Ajapā, rebirth does not occur.

214.27

The primordial Kuṇḍalinī is considered to be joined with moon, fire, and sun. / She should be known in the heart region, situated in the form of a sprout.

214.28

Deposition of creation occurs there, resting indeed upon creation. / The best sattvic person should contemplate nectar flowing within it.

214.29

Dwelling in the body, it is known as qualified (sakala); free from the body, it is partless (niṣkala). / He who utters 'haṃsa haṃsa'—that Haṃsa is the god Sadāśiva.

214.30

Just as oil resides in sesame seeds and fragrance in a flower, / so does he dwell outside and inside the body of the person.

214.31

Brahmā's place is in the heart; Viṣṇu rests in the throat; / Rudra is situated in the palate; and Maheśvara in the forehead.

214.32

One should know Śiva at the tip of the breath, and at its end the supreme and non-supreme. / The qualified is declared to be fivefold; its reverse is the partless.

214.33

Raising the prāsāda [mantra] and the sound (nāda), if one should recite it a hundred times, / joined with yoga, one attains perfection in six months without doubt.

214.34

Through knowledge of the coming and going [of the breath], destruction of all sins takes place.

214.34_2

In six months he obtains lordship endowed with qualities such as miniaturisation.

214.35

The prāsāda-mantra has been declared by me as gross, subtle, and supreme. / One should discern the prāsāda-mantra in three ways: short, long, and prolated.

214.36

The short burns sins; the long bestows liberation; / and the prolated, adorned with a bindu on its crest, is for nourishment.

214.37

The sound 'phaṭ' at the beginning and the end of the short [syllable] is beneficial for slaying. / The heart-mantra at the beginning and the end is proclaimed for attraction.

Remaining steady, one should recite five hundred thousand times facing the southern icon of the god. / At the end of the recitation, a fire oblation of clarified butter should consist of ten thousand [offerings].

214.39

The mantra thus invigorated may effect subjugation, eradication, and the like. / Void above, void below, void in the middle, free from affliction—

214.40

that twice-born man who knows the threefold void is surely liberated. / He who does not know the prāsāda-mantra, the great body consisting of five mantras,