Nadis
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Origin 1000 to 1500
The central channel that runs straight through the spinal axis from the root to the crown. When Ida and Pingala are balanced, awakened kundalini energy rises through Sushumna, piercing each chakra in turn until it reaches the Sahasrara, or Crown center, producing spiritual realization.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1000 to 1500 1Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Origin Period700 to 1300 CE 2Tradition: Tantra Origin PeriodNamed within Tantric literature from the eighth century CE, and given its classical systematisation in the hatha yoga corpus between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries CE. 1 Place of OriginThe Indian subcontinent. 1Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Origin of the NameIt is not the word for a nerve, and the channels of this physiology are not nerves; the nerve reading is a modern Western gloss 1Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Origin of the NameNadi is Sanskrit for a tube, pipe or channel, from a root meaning to flow 1Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus LanguageSanskrit 1Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceSushumna is the central channel, running the axis of the body. The texts hold that while the breath moves in the two side channels the central one stays shut, and the whole apparatus of posture and breath-restraint is directed at opening it. 1Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe texts do not agree on how many channels there are. The Hathapradipika and the Goraksasataka give seventy-two thousand, the Shiva Samhita three hundred and fifty thousand, and Katha Upanishad 6.16 counts one hundred and one radiating from the heart. Three are principal in every account. 1Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseNo channel corresponds to a nerve, a vessel or any identified structure 3Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe channels are widely presented in modern wellness and yoga material as an anatomical or neurological system 3Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe classical descriptions belong to a religious physiology worked with in practice, and modern postural yoga is itself a twentieth-century formation 3Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThey are not 3Tradition: The hatha yoga corpus Learn More
Sushumna, the Central Channel
Sushumna is, in the yogic and tantric physiology of India, the central channel, the most important of the nadis, running straight up the axis of the subtle body along the spine from its base to the crown, with the lunar Ida and solar Pingala spiralling around it and crossing at the energy centres. It is the channel through which, when the two side-channels are balanced and the breath is stilled, the awakened kundalini energy is said to rise, ascending through the chakras from the base to the crown in the process the tradition regards as the goal of the practice. So long as prana flows in the two outer channels the central one is said to remain closed; the whole apparatus of posture, breath-control and concentration in hatha yoga aims at opening Sushumna so that energy may travel the central path. The nadi doctrine is ancient, set out in the tantric literature and in hatha-yoga texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, and Sushumna as the central axis of ascent is the pivot of the entire subtle-body model.
Sushumna in Breath and Meditation Practice, and How It Differs from a Meridian
While Ida and Pingala are engaged directly through nadi shodhana, alternate nostril breathing, Sushumna is described in yogic and tantric texts as normally closed, its opening the goal rather than the immediate object of most breath practice. Preliminary work in Ida and Pingala is held to prepare the way for prana to enter Sushumna, at which point deeper meditative absorption is said to become possible, since Sushumna is the channel through which awakened energy is described as rising toward the crown.
Along Sushumna's length the tradition places a series of granthis, psychic knots, at the base of the spine, the heart and the point between the eyebrows, marking where Ida and Pingala are said to cross the central channel, and texts describe these as points of resistance that rising energy must loosen in turn.
Sushumna is sometimes likened to the Governing Vessel of Chinese medicine, another channel running along the spine, but the two belong to separate traditions with independently developed anatomies, and the resemblance in position does not make one a translation of the other; each system's own texts describe a distinct set of channels, functions and practices that developed without reference to the other.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Originates in Language
Source Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.) Related To
Sushumna, the central channel the Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes kundalini as rising through.
Kundalini is said to rise through the sushumna, the central channel, piercing each chakra in sequence.
Source Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.) Kundalini is traditionally said to rise through the sushumna, the central channel, piercing each chakra in sequence. Nadi cosmology is drawn from the same hatha and tantric sources these disciplines rely on.
Source Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.) Prana is said to be driven up the sushumna, the central channel, through pranayama practice.
Source Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.) Sushumna is the central channel pranayama practice is traditionally said to open and balance. Nadi cosmology is drawn from the same hatha and tantric sources these disciplines rely on.
Source Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.) Sources
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