Pingala

Pingala is, in the yogic and tantric physiology of India, the second of the two channels that spiral around the central Sushumna, the counterpart of the lunar Ida. Pingala is the solar channel, warm, active and associated with the right side, with the sun, with the energising and outward-directed functions and with the vital and active aspects of the self. In the classic description it winds from the base of the spine up to the region of the right nostril, crossing Ida repeatedly and meeting it at the energy centres along the spine, the two together forming the caduceus-like pattern often compared to the twin serpents.

The alternation of the breath between the nostrils is read as the alternation of these two channels, and the balancing of solar Pingala and lunar Ida, so that the central channel may open, is a central aim of pranayama and of hatha yoga. The nadi doctrine is ancient, part of the subtle anatomy described in the tantric and hatha-yoga texts, and the solar and lunar channels are among its oldest and most consistent features.

Nadi shodhana, alternate nostril breathing, is built directly around Pingala and its counterpart Ida: the practitioner alternates breath between the right nostril, Pingala's channel, and the left, Ida's, in a sequence said to balance the solar and lunar currents and prepare the central channel, Sushumna, to open. Pingala's association with the right nostril is why right nostril dominant breathing is traditionally read in yogic physiology as a solar, heating, active state, the counterpart to Ida's cooling introspection.

Where Pingala, Ida and Sushumna are said to cross is marked by a granthi, a psychic knot, at points including the base of the spine, the heart and the point between the eyebrows, and tantric and yogic texts describe these crossings as the sites through which rising kundalini energy must pass.

Pingala is sometimes compared to a meridian of Chinese medicine, since both are described as channels carrying a vital force through the body, but the two come from independent traditions with different maps, different numbers of channels and different diagnostic aims, and reading one system as an explanation of the other, rather than as a separate, historically unconnected framework, is not supported by either tradition's own texts.

Sources The Serpent PowerSir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon) with Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.)