History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c94.238

v7.c94.238

There are other differences between the works on Haṭhayoga and the Pātañjala Yoga According to the Gorakṣaśataka and H. Y. P. the main aim of āsana and prāṇāyāma is to rouse the Kuṇḍalinī (the vital force in a person slumbering at the base of the spine coiled like a snake) and take it through the several cakras and the Suṣumṇanāḍī to *brahmadvāra*, while the Y. S. hardly ever dilates upon chakras and nāḍīs²³⁴⁷ Several people after reading some modern works on Kuṇḍalinī are tempted to make efforts to rouse the Kuṇḍalinī. This is a dangerous experiment. Shri Purohit Swami in his 'Aphorisms of Yoga' states that the awakening of the Kuṇḍalinī is a terrifying experience, that on the first day on which the Kuṇḍalinī was awakened, the whole body was as it were on fire and he thought that he was dying and that he drank in three months gallons of milk and clarified butter and ate all the leaves on two *nimba* trees (pp. 57-58 of the translation). The germ of the doctrine of nāḍīs in Tantras is found in a verse occurring in Kaṭha Up. VI. 16 and Chān. Up. VIII. 6. 6 'there are hundred and one nāḍīs (arteries) of the heart; one of them penetrates the (crown of) head; moving upwards by it, one attains immortality; the others (of the nāḍīs) serve for departing in various directions.' The Praśna Up. (III. 6-7) states that each of 101 nāḍīs has 72 sub-nāḍīs, each of which again has 1000 more. Vide Muṇḍaka Up. II. 2. 6. In Chān. Up. VIII. 6. 1 it is stated that the nāḍīs of the heart consist of a subtle substance, brown, white, blue, yellow or red in colour. This is probably the germ of the statement of a nāḍī being called *pingalā*. The Maitrāyaṇī Up. VI. 21 speaks of the nāḍī going upwards as Suṣumṇā.