[INDOLOGY] chakras and vedic meditation

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Good writings on the body, including the cakras, can be found in

   - Bouillier, Vé. & Tarabout, G. *(Eds.) Images du corps dans le monde
   hindou **CNRS éditions, **2002*
   - Michaels, A. & Wulf, C. *(Eds.) The Body in India: Ritual,
   Transgression, Performativity. *Akademie Verlag, *2009*, 18

On one of the earliest Sanskrit descriptions of cakras, see

   - Heilijgers-Seelen, D. *The System of Five *Cakra*s in
   Kubjikāmatatantra 14--16. *Egbert Forsten, *1994*

The tantra specialists will offer more precision, but the *Kubjikamata* and
similar-period texts (*Mālinīvijayottara*) are among the earliest mentions
of the cakra system as we know it.   The dates are as Matthew said, end of
the first millennium CE.

Yoga-Patanjali mentions the nābhi cakra in his *Pātañjalayogaśāstra *(SARIT
<http://sarit.indology.info/exist/apps/sarit/works/search.html?query=cakr%5Ba%7Ce%5D&field=text&query-scripts=all&index=ngram&lucene-query-mode=any&tei-target=tei-text&work-authors=all&query-scope=narrow&bool=new&target-texts=sarit__p%C4%81ta%C3%B1jalayoga%C5%9B%C4%81stra>),
but to me this seems more related to medical models of the body, where
sirās and dhamanīs converge on the nābhi, than to much later multi-cakra
models of prāṇa and visualization that are developed in tantra.

Best,
Dominik

See also Wujastyk 2009: 199-200
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/3tq4pxtcincvkpo/2009%20IJHS%20Interpreting%20the%20image%20of%20the%20human%20body.pdf?dl=0>
.


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