Introduction to Tantra Sastra - Aghori

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INTRODUCTION TO TANTRA ŚĀSTRA
In the ante-natal life there are three main stages,
whether viewed from the objective (physical) standpoint,
or frorn the subjective (super-physical) standpoint. 1 The
first period includes on the physical side all the structural
and physiological changes which occur in the fertilized
ovum from the moment of fertilization until the
period when the embryonic body, by the formation of
trunk, limbs, and organs, is fit for the entrance of the
individualized life, or jīvātmā. When the pronuclear
activity and differentiation are completed, the jīvātmā,
whose connection with the pronuclei initiated the pronuclear
or formative activity, enters the miniature
human form, and the second stage of growth and development
begins. The second stage is the fixing of the
connection between the jīva and the body, or the
rendering of the latter viable. This period includes all
the anatomical and physiological modifications by which
the embryonic body becomes a viable fœtus. With the
attainment of viability, the stay of the jīva has been
assured; physical life is possible for the child, and the
third stage in ante-natal life is entered. Thus, on the
form side, if the language of comparative embryology is
used, the first saṃskāra denotes the impulse to development,
from the “fertilization of the ovum” to the “critical
period.” The second saṃskāra denotes the impulse to
development from the “critical period” to that of the
“viability stage of the fœtus”; and the third saṃskāra
denotes the development from “viability” to “full term.”
On the birth of the child there is the jata-karma,
performed for the continued life of the new-born child.
1 For what follows on the medical side, see the Appendix, vol. i. p. 194, on
the Saṃ
skāras. by Dr. Louise Appel, in the “Pranava-vāda” of Bhagavān Dās.