Introduction to Tantra Sastra - Aghori

THE HUMAN BODY 47
yoga. Jīva in turīya is merged in the great causal body
(mahā-kāraṇ a). The fifth state arises from firmness in
the fourth. He who is in this state becomes equal to
Śiva, or, more strictly tends to a close equality; for it is
only beyond that, that “the spotless one attains the
highest equality,” which is unity. Hence even in the
fourth and fifth states there is an absence of full perfection
which constitutes the Supreme. Bhāskararāyā,
in his Commentary on the Lalitā, when pointing out
that the Tāntrik theory adds the fourth and fifth states
to the first three adopted by the followers of the
Upaniṣads, says that the latter states are not separately
enumerated by them owing to the absence in those two
states of the full perfection of Jīva or of Śiva.
NĀDI
It is said 1 that there are 3½ crores of nāḍ is in the
human body, of which some are gross and some are subtle.
Nāḍ i means a nerve or artery in the ordinary sense;
but all the nāḍ is of which the books on Yoga 2 speak are
not of this physical character, but are subtle channels of
energy. Of these nāḍ is, the principal are fourteen; and
of these fourteen, iḍ a, pingalā and suṣumnā are the chief;
and again, of these three, suṣumnā is the greatest, and
to it all others are subordinate. Suṣumnā is in the
hollow of the meru in the cerebro-spinal axis. 3 It
1 Nāḍi-vijnāna (chap. i, verses 4 and 5).
2 Ṣ at-cakra-nirūpaṇa (commentary on verse 1), quoting from Bhūta
śuddhi-Tantra, speaks of 72000 nāḍis (see also Niruttara-Tantra, Prāṇatoṣinī,
p. 35), and the Śiva-saṃ
hitā (2, 13) of three lacs and 50,000.
3 It has been thought, on the authority of the Tantra-cūḍā-maṇi, that
suṣumnā is outside meru; but this is not so, as the Author of the Ṣ at-cakranirūpaṇa
points out (verse 2). Iḍa and Pingalā are outside the meru; the
quoted passage in Nigama-tattva-sāra referring to suṣumnā, vajrā and citrīnī.