The science of respiration and the doctrine of the bodily winds in ancient India.

• Author: Zysk, Kenneth G.

Ancient Indians paid particular attention to respiration and the function of wind in the body by making the breathing process a focus of religious concern and practice. In the minds of the early Indians, respiration was the principal indicator of life; and what humans breathed was the motivating force of both the cosmos and human existence. This cosmic wind was mankind's vital breath (prana), the principal manifestation of a person's immortal soul.

The word prana is a derivative noun, originally meaning "the breath in front," or the inhaled air. When prana is combined with its opposite, apana, "the breath away," i.e., exhaled air, the process of respiration is indicated. Observation of the vital function of these complementary aspects of respiration, combined with intuitions about the function of wind after it entered the body, eventually led Indians to conceptualize and codify the bodily winds and their operations in the human organism. Prana assumed the character of vital breath, inhaled air in the process of respiration, and was the principal wind in the upper part of the body, on which all other breaths depended. Apana was the exhaled air, and the essential wind in the lower part of the body.

Ancient Indians identified organs resembling lungs (pupphusa, kloman) as part of human and animal anatomy, but they never understood their function in respiration. They conceived the lungs to be the locus of phlegm, and usually the heart to be the seat of vital breath. Respiration was simply the intake and expulsion of vital air from the body. Once in the body, it was carried throughout the organism by a series of vessels and stimulated the vital functions of the various bodily organs and parts. Each bodily function or locus of bodily functions had a wind or breath that acted as its motivator, giving rise to innumerable vital breaths, which eventually became codified into five basic bodily winds: prana, apana, vyana, udana and samana.

In addition to scrutinizing afresh certain Vedic sources on respiration, this study surveys classical ayurvedic treatises and yogic texts in order to trace more precisely the evolution of ancient Indian ideas about respiration and the bodily winds.(1) The analysis that follows indicates that a central theory uniting respiration and the bodily winds appeared in the Vedic literature. Thereafter the two components split and developed in two distinct directions: medical circles focused on the physiology of bodily winds, and practitioners of Yoga advanced doctrines of respiration and techniques of arresting the breathing process. Gradually Yoga began to assimilate and adopt theories about the bodily winds developed by physicians. The result was a harmonious blending of medicine and Yoga.

Asceticism is the common thread running through and stitching together the science of respiration and the doctrine of the bodily winds. Focusing on the ultimate principle and its manifestation in the human body, ascetics strove to understand completely the operation of atmospheric wind when it entered the human body, then systematically codified and gradually recorded in Indian technical and scriptural literature a comprehensive theory of bodily wind and respiration.

1. RESPIRATION AND THE BODILY WINDS IN THE EARLY VEDA

   In the Rgveda, prana has a threefold association. It is associated with life; it is the representation of atmospheric wind (vata, vayu) in mankind;(2) and it is connected with the process of respiration. Indicating the beginnings of a physiological understanding of the body, the Vedic theory of prana's relationship to respiration is our principal concern.

   Rgveda 10.189.1-2 illustrates by way of analogy that respiration was rhythmic, involving an inbreath and an outbreath:

   The spotted steer approached [and] rested on Mother [Earth] in the east; and going ahead to his Father Heaven,

   He wanders between shining ones, breathing out after his inbreath. The bull peered out unto heaven.(3)

   The obscure allusion in these verses is to a celestial body, conceived of as both a spotted steer and a bull, which travels across the heavens, pausing before the Earth and moving between other bright objects in the sky in a seemingly regular fashion. The poet likely had in mind the (full) moon in one night-long course across the sky. Its normal appearance and disappearance on the cosmic scale resembled the regular process of a human's inhalation and exhalation (asya pranad apanati [apanatah]). This is the earliest indication that breathing involved a twofold process of taking in and expelling air.

   The Atharvaveda contains numerous references to vital breath and respiration, continuing the theory of breath begun in the Rgveda and further developing the notion of respiration indicated in the late Rgvedic passage. Prana in the Atharvaveda is associated with life and the promotion of longevity. Often it is listed with other aspects of life, such as seeing, hearing, strength, and progeny. The lack of prana signaled death and the loss of life,(4) and charms were recited to kill enemies by removing their breath.(5)

   The importance of prana as life's promoter and sustainer is indicated by AV 11.4(6), an entire hymn devoted to life-breath. Here prana controls the universe and is lord of all things in the cosmos, both those that breathe and those that do not. It protects humans, as a father safeguards his son, and rules over and destroys enemies.(6)

   The association between human breath and atmospheric wind (vata, vayu), indicated in the famous "Purusa" hymn of the Rgveda (10.90.13), is developed in the Atharvaveda. Wind is breath's principal link to the cosmos,(7) for breath comes from wind(8) and wind purifies breath.(9) But also the sun, the cosmic fire, is the source of breath and, because of its self-motivating and life-producing characteristics, it is equated with breath.(10) Both earthly and atmospheric fires (agni) have breath and breathe,(11) water (ap) gives breath,(12) and time (kala) is said to contain breath and mind (manas).(13) The last might refer to the seasonal winds.

   From the joining together of the various cosmic aspects of breath come the life-producing and sustaining rainstorms of the monsoons that manifest breath as roaring wind, thunder, lightning and watering rains.(14) Rain causes the earth to yield her life in the form of plants, which in turn sustain humans and other living beings. Earth therefore is said to give breath and longevity (ayus);(15) and breath promotes the growth of all types of plants,(16) which themselves breathe.(17) Specifically the food plants rice and barley are products of apana and prana, respectively,(18) and rice-gruel (odana) gives breath and possesses life-giving qualities.(19) Wind, like plants, was also a remedy against life-threatening disease.(20) In the minds of the Vedic Indians, breath was equated with, contained in, and associated with all elements which produced and maintained life. In short, breath was life's universal witness.

   The hymns of the Atharvaveda point to a fundamental connection between life and the process of breathing. The twofold mechanism of inhalation and exhalation was clearly recognized and defined by prana and apana, often occurring in compound form as pranapana. They are like two draft-oxen in the pen,(22) and walking together, they are allies for maintaining a sound bodily condition and long life.(23) Although scientifically incorrect, a more sophisticated physiological understanding of respiration occurs at AV 11.4(6).14:

   A human being breathes out (apanati) and breathes in (pranati) when inside the womb (garble). When you, O Prana urge him on he is born again.(24)

   As respiration was the primary life-force, it was natural for the Vedic Indians to imagine that it was present in the active fetus ready for birth and that the issuance of the fetus from the womb resulted from the functioning of the life-breath. Although modern medicine disproves the assertions in this ancient text, one can clearly understand its basis. Moreover, this conceptual connection between bodily wind and the fetus could have resulted from the observation of the breathing patterns of women in labor. Ancient medical doctrines are replete with similar "logical," albeit scientifically inexact, explanations which contribute to ancient Indian medical intuition.

   Respiration, Bodily Winds, and the Role of Ascetics

   In classical Indian medicine, there are ordinarily five bodily winds or breaths operating in the body to regulate and stimulate various internal functions: 1. prana, the "front breath," located in the mouth, ensures respiration and swallowing; 2. udana, the "upward moving breath," produces speech; 3. samana, the "concentrated breath," promotes digestion; 4. apana, the "downward moving breath," ensures excretion and childbirth; and 5. vyana, the "diffused breath," circulates in the limbs and motivates their movement.(25)

   The same five terms occur as bodily winds in the Atharvaveda. They are found in pairs, like pranapana, and in groups of threes and fours; never does the group of five occur together as one unit, indicating that their classical formulation was not yet standardized. These Atharvavedic passages contain what Filliozat claims to be the germs of the ayurvedic physiological doctrine of bodily winds.(26) Further examination of the evidence suggests that it is unlikely that the Vedic understanding of these words corresponded precisely to that expounded in the ayurvedic treatises. The sequence of their pairings are as follows: prana and vyana;(27) prana, apana, vyana;(28) prana, apana, vyana, samana, as bodily parts;(29) and prana, apana, vyana, udana, as bodily parts.(30) It is likely that these words were originally conceived of in terms of manifestations and variations of respiration with some intuitions about their functions inside the body. From the acute awareness of the breathing process, prana was "inhalation," manifested as air carrying out...