Why Should a Vedāntin Care About the Ten Prāṇas?
Why Should a Vedāntin Care About the Ten Prāṇas?
A recent discussion began with a very reasonable question.
While reading Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam, one encounters not merely the
familiar five prāṇas, prāṇa, apāna, vyāna, udāna and
samāna, but also the five subsidiary prāṇas,
nāga, kūrma, kṛkara,
devadatta and dhanañjaya.
The question was essentially this: for a serious Vedānta
student, is this level of detail really necessary? If a vedānta student already
understands that prāṇa
belongs to anātman, why spend mental cycles remembering which prāṇa performs which function? Is
this not somewhat “out of syllabus”?
It is a fair question. My response (after deep consideration which I put forth in this blog) is that the value of this
material is not in memorizing a physiological taxonomy. Its value is in
becoming sufficiently familiar with the field of the prāṇamaya kośa so that when our
ātma-anātma-viveka concerning it is assimilated, we will never fall into the
error of mis-identifying with the functions of prāna (like I’m hungry, I’m in
pain, I’m exhausted, I’m constipated, My neurological responses are slower than
they used to me, etc.…).
First, what are these ten prāṇas?
The Śāṇḍilya
Upaniṣad gives a particularly concrete account of the ten vāyus and their
functions. The passage occurs in Śāṇḍilya
Upaniṣad 1.4. The text first says that these ten vāyus move through the nāḍīs, and then specifies their
respective functions.
|
Prāṇa |
Text |
Function |
|
Prāṇa |
niśvāsocchvāsakāsaś
ca prāṇa-karma
ucyate |
Inhalation,
exhalation, coughing |
|
Apāna |
viṇ-mūtrādi-visarjanam
apāna-vāyu-karma |
Elimination
of feces, urine, etc. |
|
Vyāna |
hānopādāna-ceṣṭādi vyāna-karma |
Releasing,
taking up, bodily activity |
|
Udāna |
dehasyonnayanādikam
udāna-karma |
Raising or
uplifting the body |
|
Samāna |
śarīra-poṣaṇādikaṃ samāna-karma |
Nourishment
and maintenance of the body |
|
Nāga |
udgārādi
nāga-karma |
Belching and
related expulsive activity |
|
Kūrma |
nimīlanādi
kūrma-karma |
Closing or
blinking of the eyes |
|
Kṛkara |
kṣut-karaṇaṃ kṛkara-karma |
Sneezing.
Some later presentations associate kṛkara
more broadly with hunger and related reflexes |
|
Devadatta |
tandrā
devadatta-karma |
Drowsiness |
|
Dhanañjaya |
śleṣmādi
dhanañjaya-karma |
Phlegm and
related functions |
The immediate context of Śāṇḍilya
is yogic. The passage concludes by saying that, having properly understood the
nāḍīs, vāyus and their
functions, the yogin should undertake nāḍī-śodhana.
So I am not claiming that the Śāṇḍilya
Upaniṣad itself is presenting this taxonomy specifically as a precursor to
transcending the prāna-maya kosha, as part of
Interestingly, Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam itself goes
into comparable detail. After explaining the five principal prāṇas, it says:
नागः
कूर्मः कृकरो देवदत्तो धनंजय इत्यन्ये पञ्च वायवः श्रूयन्ते । तेषामपि पूर्वोक्तपञ्चप्राणेष्वन्तर्भावः
।
nāgaḥ kūrmaḥ kṛkaro devadatto dhanañjaya ity anye pañca vāyavaḥ śrūyante | teṣām api pūrvokta-pañca-prāṇeṣv antarbhāvaḥ |
“It is
taught that there are five other vāyus, Nāga,
Kūrma, Kṛkara,
Devadatta, and Dhanañjaya. These too are included within the five principal prāṇas mentioned earlier.”
It then
assigns functions to each, including vomiting to nāga,
opening and closing functions to kūrma, kṣut
to kṛkara, yawning to devadatta, and
bodily swelling to dhanañjaya.
Source: Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam, Aṣṭama-varṇakam, printed pp. 68–69, PDF pp. 129–130.
The fact that Śāṇḍilya
and Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam do not give identical descriptions of every
subsidiary function is itself instructive. The Vedāntic value cannot lie
primarily in memorizing a rigid medical chart.
The real problem is cognitive fluency
Let us assume a mature Vedānta student who understands
perfectly well that “I am not prāṇa.
I am the sākṣī of prāṇa.”
The danger is subtler.
We often mistake cognitive fluency with a limited model, for comprehensive understanding.
Because a proposition is familiar and easy
to repeat, we assume that the entire field to which it refers has already been
discriminated.
For most of us, “prāṇa”
has quietly become synonymous with breathing. We understand the movement of
breath, vāyu chalanam. We can watch the breath and say, “I m aware of
the breath; therefore, I am its witness.”
True enough.
But is the breath the whole of the prāṇamaya kośa?
Our own texts clearly say no. Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam
describes the five principal prāṇas
as part of the subtle body and gives them distinct functions. Earlier, it
explicitly includes the prāṇa-pañcaka
within the seventeenfold sūkṣma-śarīra. Later it again defines the five prāṇas through their
characteristic activities.
So the problem is not lack of Vedāntic knowledge. The
problem is that we may have applied that knowledge only to a very narrow slice
of the kṣetra and assumed that the whole prāṇamaya
field has thereby been transcended.
Prāṇa
sits at a particularly important interface
The Taittirīya Upaniṣad's own sequence is significant.
From annamaya it introduces:
anyo 'ntara ātmā prāṇamayaḥ
“Different from and interior to this is the prāṇamaya
self.”
Then from prāṇamaya:
anyo 'ntara ātmā manomayaḥ
“Different from and interior to this is the manomaya self.”
Śaṅkara
explains that the annamaya is filled by the prāṇamaya,
and that the manomaya is interior to the prāṇamaya.
The Bhṛguvallī
makes the relation between body and prāṇa
even more striking:
prāṇe
śarīraṃ pratiṣṭhitam / śarīre prāṇaḥ pratiṣṭhitaḥ
The body is established in prāṇa,
and prāṇa is established
in the body. Śaṅkara
explicitly comments on this mutual dependence.
This is why I find it useful, pedagogically, to think of prāṇa as an operational interface between annamaya and manomaya.
This is an important link, which fuels the chit-jaḍa-granthi (i.e. linking mind to the body and vice versa). Even though the granthi is outcome of avidya, its fueled by prāṇe śarīraṃ - the link between body and mind.
The point I’m making is,
very experiential. Bodily conditions
reach and condition the mind through this living, functioning interface –
namely the subtle prāṇa.
Digestion is disturbed. Pain becomes persistent. Energy
collapses. Elimination becomes difficult. Breathing becomes uncomfortable.
Sleep becomes disturbed. Some sensory or bodily function becomes unusually
intrusive.
What happens next?
The manas is pulled downward toward the deha.
This is where dehābhimāna can reassert itself with
remarkable strength.
In that sense, prāṇa
is particularly important to the lived experience of the chit-jaḍa-granthi. When the prāṇamaya field is quiet, the mind
can easily imagine that its discrimination from the body is complete. When prāṇa becomes disturbed, the
strength of that discrimination is tested (to put it mildly).
Prāṇa-kleśa
exposes unfinished viveka
This is where prārabdha matters.
As long as everything works well, “I am the sākṣī of prāṇa” can remain a very
convincing intellectual conclusion.
But suppose prārabdha is not anukūla. Some prāṇa vyāpāra becomes disturbed
and eventually manifests as significant discomfort or vyādhi in the body. The
disturbance continually announces itself to the mind.
The risk is not that Vedānta suddenly becomes false. The
risk is that our earlier viveka was not sufficiently assimilated, across the
whole field of prāṇa.
Then the language rapidly changes:
“this pain,” becomes “my pain.”
“this bodily disturbance,” becomes “what is happening to me?”
The mind that was supposedly available for śravaṇa, manana and nididhyāsana
becomes repeatedly captured by the body-prāṇa
complex.
This is precisely why I would not dismiss familiarity with
the prāṇamaya kośa too
quickly.
To be clear: This does not make prāṇa study a co-requisite for
Vedānta
Here the hierarchy must remain absolutely clear.
Vedānta does not demand that yoga, prāṇāyāma or upāsanā produces
ātma-jñāna. LVM says:
एवंभूतं
ज्ञानमात्मविचारेणैवागच्छति
न तु कर्मभिर्न योगेन नोपासनया वा ।
“Knowledge of this nature arises only through ātma-vicāra,
not through karma, yoga or upāsanā.”
It then continues:
एवमात्मज्ञानमप्यात्मानात्मविचारं
विनोपासनादिभिः साधयितुं न शक्यते । तस्मान्मुमुक्षुरितरव्यापारं विहाय श्रवणमननाभ्यां सदा आत्मानात्मविचारमेव कुर्यात् ।
“Ātma-jñāna cannot be accomplished by upāsanā and the like
without ātma-anātma-vicāra. Therefore the mumukṣu, setting aside other
preoccupations, should remain constantly engaged in ātma-anātma-vicāra through
śravaṇa and manana.”
Source: Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam, Ṣaṣṭha-varṇakam, printed pp. 50–51, PDF pp. 111–112.
So when I say that understanding the prāṇas has value, I am not moving
the center of gravity away from Vedānta. Quite the opposite. The purpose is to
make the anātma-vicāra more complete.
The text says:
श्रवणेन
संशयं मननेनासंभावनां निदिध्यासनेन विपरीतभावनां च निवर्त्य...
“By śravaṇa,
doubt is removed; by manana, asambhāvanā, the sense that the teaching cannot
really be so, is removed; and by nididhyāsana, viparīta-bhāvanā, the habitual
contrary orientation, is removed.”
Source: Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam, Prathama-varṇakam, printed p. 7, PDF p. 68.
The same analysis appears again more elaborately in Pañcama-varṇakam. There the text
identifies three pratibandhakas, saṃśaya-bhāvanā,
asambhāvanā and viparīta-bhāvanā, and assigns their removal respectively to
śravaṇa, manana and
nididhyāsana.
Source: Pañcama-varṇakam,
printed pp. 34–35, PDF pp. 95–96.
It also gives us the right way to understand the present
discussion.
Knowing “I am not prāṇa”
at the level of a correct proposition is one thing. Discovering that adverse
prārabdha repeatedly produces viparīta-bhāvanā through dehābhimāna is
another.
The latter is precisely where proper assimilation of the
knowledge of the field of prānamaya kosha, matters.
Nāma-japa is a different route of preparation
Our sampradāya gives us an extraordinarily powerful
preparatory means in Nāma japa. Sustained japa generates puṇya saṃskāra, contributes to chitta śuddhi,
disciplines the mind, and gradually attenuates contrary vāsanās. It can
also bring considerable harmony to the prāṇa-indriya-manas complex.
There is a further dimension to this. Nāma-japa can also
become a nididhyāsana-hetu, when the mantra is taken up after aikyānusandhānam
with the mahāvākya-tātparya already understood. In such a case,
repetition is no longer merely an act of nāma-smaraṇa. It becomes a vehicle
for repeatedly dwelling upon the truth already unfolded through Vedānta.
Take, for instance, the Sāvitrī-mantra as contemplated in sandhyopāsanā
After aikyānusandhānam, one can dwell upon the Self
itself as that effulgent reality (brahman) symbolized by the sun. Brahman is
verily all this, so as the source, its Savitur. Bhargaḥ devasya as the
self-revealing effulgence. In a Vedāntic contemplation, bhūr, bhuvaḥ, svaḥ can be assimilated
through the waking, dream and deep-sleep states, across all of which the same
Consciousness remains self-evident. That Reality is vareṇyam, supremely worthy of
choosing, adoration and contemplation.
We place, as it were, the buddhi in that Reality!
(Dip in svātma teertham). The already prepared buddhi is repeatedly
resolved into the recognition of its own source, until the habitual sense of
separation loses its hold. The contemplation becomes – that which illumines the
buddhi is not other than myself. I am verily that self-revealing Satyam. In
this manner, mantra-japa itself can support nididhyāsana when it is
informed by ātmaikatva-jñāna. This process is not limited to just
Any Vedānta-guru who gives us a mantra for japa can also give us the means to truly know the mantra, by revealing that the mantra, its adhiṣṭhāna devatā, and one’s own Self are not ultimately different, but are one and the same as śuddha-caitanyam. Such upadeśa from the Guru, grounded in the brahmavidyā of the Upaniṣads, can transform japa from mere repetition into a means for abiding in that recognition, gradually leading toward svarūpa niṣṭhā. That, however, is a topic for another day!
This should, of course, be distinguished from the more general role of japa as puṇya karma and citta-śuddhi sādhana. Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam explicitly places mantra-japa and Bhagavan-nāma-kīrtana among forms of vācika-puṇya-karma.
वेदाध्ययनं
शास्त्रपठनं गीतापठनं सहस्रनामपठनं पञ्चाक्षरादिमन्त्रजपो भगवन्नामकीर्तनं ... वाचा क्रियमाणं पुण्यकर्म
।
vedādhyayanaṃ
śāstrapaṭhanaṃ gītāpaṭhanaṃ sahasranāmapaṭhanaṃ pañcākṣarādimantrajapo
bhagavannāmakīrtanaṃ
... vācā kriyamāṇaṃ puṇyakarma.
“Vedic study, study of śāstra, recitation of the Gītā,
recitation of the Sahasranāma, japa of the Pañcākṣara and other mantras,
Bhagavan-nāma-kīrtana, and so on, are meritorious actions performed through
speech.”
Source: Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam, Pañcama-varṇakam, printed p. 29, PDF p. 90. Prose, not a numbered verse.
A person who has spent years in genuine upāsanā and Nāma-japa may have a deeply prepared antaḥkaraṇa. For that sādhaka, the shift from identification with the field to recognition of oneself as the knower of the field, from kṣetra to kṣetrajña, can become much more stable.
In that sense, Nāma-japa can serve almost as a bypass around
the need to analytically dwell on each prāṇa
function. It prepares the instrument so that the knowledge delivered by Vedānta
meets less resistance from deeply entrenched vāsanās.
What does it actually mean to “cross” a kośa?
This brings us directly to the Taittirīya Upaniṣad.
sa ya evaṃvit
/ asmāllokātpretya / etamannamayamātmānamupasaṅkramya / etaṃ
prāṇamayamātmānamupasaṅkramya / etaṃ manomayamātmānamupasaṅkramya / etaṃ vijñānamayamātmānamupasaṅkramya /
etamānandamayamātmānamupasaṅkramya...
Taittirīya Upaniṣad 3.10.5
“He who knows thus, having passed beyond the annamaya-self,
then the prāṇamaya-self,
then the manomaya-self, then the vijñānamaya-self, and then the
ānandamaya-self...”
The word that matters for our discussion is upasaṅkramya.
What kind of “crossing” is this?
Bhagavatpāda in his bhāṣya
on the parallel passage at Taittirīya 2.8.5, he says:
na jalūkādivat saṅkramaṇam ihopadiśyate, kiṃ tarhi vijñānamātraṃ saṅkramaṇaśruter arthaḥ
This is not movement like that of a leech from one place to
another. The intended “crossing” is knowledge.
He goes further. The error produced by taking the annamaya
and the other kośas as oneself is destroyed through the arising of ātma-viveka-vijñāna,
discriminative knowledge of the Self.
And in the Bhṛguvallī
passage, Bhagavatpāda says that the annamaya through ānandamaya are avidyā kalpitāḥ, projected upon the Self
through ignorance, and are successively crossed through knowledge until the
nondual Brahman is recognized.
This is important. Kośa-transcendence is not brushing the
kośa aside. It is viveka.
One does not
say, “Yes, yes, prāṇamaya is anātma,” and proceed to manomaya while one's actual
identification with the prāṇāyāma field remains largely unexamined. (this is perhaps the sentiment, that prompted me to write this blog).
Why the viveka should be done while things are working well
To make my point again, which I made before, the correct
time to establish this viveka is not when the body is already screaming for
attention. (Some would say, there is no better time for viveka than when body
is screaming for attention and I see the merit in the argument too, but for
now, please indulge me….)
It is when things are relatively normal (or rather bearable 😊)
When breathing is happening normally, recognize it as prāṇa vyāpāra.
When food is being digested without drama, recognize the
traditional samāna function.
When the body moves, speaks, reaches, releases, eliminates,
blinks, yawns, sneezes, sleeps and wakes, become sufficiently familiar with the
fact that an enormous field of activity is occurring without any of it
constituting your svarūpa.
The exercise need not become obsessive. The point is simple:
This is occurring.
This is changing.
This is sometimes harmonious and sometimes disturbed.
This is known to me.
Therefore this belongs to the kṣetra, the dṛśya-prapañca.
It is not my svarūpa.
Then, when prārabdha later produces prāṇa kleśa, the mind is not
encountering a completely unfamiliar field and attempting suddenly to
manufacture detachment from it.
The viveka has already been practiced.
What would successful transcendence mean?
It cannot mean that pain never hurts or that a bodily
disorder no longer disturbs the mind at all. Even the mature Vedāntin continues
to transact through a body and mind under prārabdha.
It means that the disturbance does not acquire the status of
an ātmadharma or assails one’s conviction (however unstable or stable it may
be).
----------------
In other words, the conclusion “I am not the prāṇa” should not depend upon
the prāṇa remaining
pleasant. That is what I mean by making the transcendence sufficiently firm.
----------------
A well cannot be crossed halfway. Similarly, kośa viveka
should not remain a half-assimilated intellectual conclusion that works only
while the kośa behaves itself.
The purpose of studying the ten prāṇas is therefore not to become an authority on
yogic physiology. It is to prevent a subtle mistake: mistaking fluency about
one small part of the prāṇamaya
kośa, usually the breath, for complete discrimination from the entire field of
prāṇa.
For someone whose antaḥkaraṇa has already been deeply
prepared through Nāma-japa, upāsanā and dhyāna, very little analytical
engagement may be necessary.
For someone else, the daśa-prāṇa
framework may be extremely useful, esp., on the yogic path.
Either way, the destination remains identical:
prāṇa
is dṛśya.
I am not prāṇa.
Its health and illness, harmony and disturbance, activity and inactivity are
known to me.
I am the sākṣī in whose presence all of them are known.
And Bhagavatpāda's interpretation of upasaṅkramya takes us one step
further. Even this sākṣī-sākṣya language performs a pedagogical function. The
final knowledge is not an eternally separate witness standing apart from five
kośas. The kośas themselves are avidyā-kalpitāḥ. When the error of identification is removed
through ātma-viveka-vijñāna, what remains is not a more detached individual.
What remains is the knowledge of one's svarūpa as advitīyaṃ brahma.
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