Nadis
Vishvodara
vish-VOH-dah-rah
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Origin 1000 to 1500
Vishvodara is one of the fourteen principal nadis of classical yogic physiology, described in the Darshana Upanishad by its position among the other channels rather than by a separate bodily terminus of its own.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period Origin Period 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. 1 Origin of the NameNadi is Sanskrit for a tube, pipe or channel, from a root meaning to flow. It is not the word for a nerve, and the channels of this physiology are not nerves; the nerve reading is a modern Western gloss. 1 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe channels of this physiology are widely presented in modern wellness and yoga material as an anatomical or neurological system. They are not: no channel corresponds to a nerve, a vessel or any identified structure, and the classical descriptions belong to a religious physiology worked with in practice rather than a claim about the body's neuroanatomy. 4 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe Darshana Upanishad places Vishvodara between Kuhu and Hastijihva, situated in the middle of the Nabhi Kanda, the navel region where the principal nadis are described as originating. 3 Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Originates in Language
Source Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.) Sources
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