How many nadis are there?

The two common figures are 72,000 and 350,000, depending on the text. Both are ways of saying a great many, and both narrow immediately to fourteen named channels.

What is nadi shodhana?

Alternate-nostril breathing. Shodhana means cleansing, and the practice is aimed at ida and pingala, on the principle that balancing the two opens sushumna between them.

Are nadis the same as meridians?

No. Chinese meridian theory developed separately, has twelve primary channels rather than fourteen named ones, and comes with a clinical apparatus the nadi literature does not have. The resemblance is real but the systems are not translations of each other.

Nineteenth-century writers wanted them to be, and the Sanskrit word does get used for tubular structures in medical texts. But the descriptions do not match neuroanatomy, and reading them as nerves loses more than it explains.

Why do the sources disagree about where they end?

Because the fourteen come from several lineages that were collected rather than reconciled. Where the lists differ we give the common version and name the variant.

What are the granthis?

Three knots along sushumna, at the root, the heart and the brow, named for Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra. They mark the places where energy is said to stall, and the tradition reads each as a form of attachment that has to be released rather than forced.

Channels

The fourteen nadis

A nadi is a channel that carries prana. The texts count them in the hundreds of thousands and then name fourteen that matter, of which three do nearly all the work. The rest reach the eyes, ears, tongue, mouth and lower body, and the lists that name them do not entirely agree.

14: named channels
3: do the real work
72,000: in the usual count

The channels

Three principal nadis and the eleven the classical lists add to them.

The three principal channels

Everything else in the system is described relative to these.

🛤️

Sushumna

Suṣumṇā · सुषुम्णा central spine

The central channel, running the length of the spinal axis from the base to the aperture at the crown. Normally closed, and opening it is the point of most hatha practice.

🌙

Ida

Iḍā · इडा left moon

The left channel, cool and lunar, ending at the left nostril. Associated with the parasympathetic side of things long before anyone used that word.

☀️

Pingala

Piṅgalā · पिङ्गला right sun

The right channel, hot and solar, ending at the right nostril. Active during effort, digestion and daylight work.

The eleven others

Named in the Shiva Samhita and its relatives, with variations between sources.

👁️

Gandhari

Gāndhārī · गान्धारी left eye

Runs beside ida and ends at the left eye. Named for the queen of the Mahabharata who bound her own eyes.

🐘

Hastijihva

Hastijihvā · हस्तिजिह्वा right eye

The elephant's tongue, running beside the central channel and ending at the right eye in most lists, at the left big toe in others.

👂

Pusha

Pūṣā · पूषा right ear

The nourisher. Ends at the right ear in the common list, at the right eye in several others.

🌾

Payasvini

Payasvinī · पयस्विनी right ear

Named for milk, running near pusha on the right side and ending at or behind the right ear.

✨

Yashasvini

Yaśasvinī · यशस्विनी left ear

The glorious one, ending at the left ear in most lists and at the left big toe in the Shiva Samhita's own wording.

🐚

Shankhini

Śaṅkhinī · शङ्खिनी lower body

The conch-shelled channel, running down the left side and ending at the anus. Some sources place it at the left ear instead.

👄

Alambusha

Alambuṣā · अलम्बुषा mouth

Ends at the mouth. In the sources that treat it as a downward channel it ends at the anus, which is the widest disagreement in the list.

🌑

Kuhu

Kuhū · कुहू genitals

Named for the new moon, running down the front of the central channel and ending at the genitals.

👅

Saraswati

Sarasvatī · सरस्वती tongue

Runs alongside sushumna and ends at the tongue. Associated with speech, which is what the goddess of the same name governs.

🌊

Varuni

Vāruṇī · वारुणी lower abdomen

Named for Varuna, the god of waters. Spreads through the lower abdomen and is associated with elimination.

🌐

Vishvodhara

Viśvodarā · विश्वोदरा navel

The all-bearing channel, spread around the navel, associated with the distribution of what the body takes in.

What a nadi is

Nadi comes from a root meaning to flow, and the word is used in Sanskrit for rivers, tubes and pulses as well as for these channels. In the subtle-body literature a nadi carries prana the way a vessel carries blood, and the chakras are placed where the important ones cross.

The counts are large and vary. The Shiva Samhita says 350,000. The Goraksha Shataka and much later teaching say 72,000. Both then narrow to fourteen worth naming, and of those fourteen, three carry the entire practical tradition.

The three that matter

Sushumna runs up the spinal axis, from the base of the spine to the aperture at the crown. It is described as normally closed. Nearly everything in hatha yoga, the locks, the breath retentions, the postures, is aimed at opening it.

Ida and pingala wind around it, crossing at each centre and ending at the left and right nostrils. Ida is lunar, cooling and receptive. Pingala is solar, heating and active. Their alternation is not only metaphor: nasal airflow does shift from side to side through the day in most people, and the tradition built a breathing practice on that observation long before it had a name in physiology.

When the two are balanced, sushumna is said to open. That is the whole logic behind nadi shodhana, alternate-nostril breathing, the most widely taught pranayama there is.

Why the eleven disagree

The remaining eleven are listed in the Shiva Samhita, the Gheranda Samhita and their commentaries, and the lists do not match. Alambusha ends at the mouth in one source and the anus in another. Yashasvini reaches the left ear here and the left big toe there. Pusha and payasvini swap the right ear between them depending on the manuscript.

We give the most commonly cited termination for each and note the main variant on its page. The disagreement is not a flaw in the sources so much as evidence of what they were for: these are practice notes from several lineages, collected, and nobody was auditing them for consistency.

One list, two logics

Read the eleven again and a pattern surfaces. One group is organised by sense organ: gandhari and hastijihva to the eyes, pusha and payasvini to the right ear, shankhini or yashasvini to the left, saraswati to the tongue. Another is organised by function below the navel: kuhu to the genitals, varuni through the fluids, vishvodhara around the navel, alambusha somewhere between the mouth and the other end of the same tube.

The sense-organ tables are tidier, which usually means later. Whichever grouping a source follows, the job of the eleven is the same: to carry prana out from the central column to the places where a body meets the world.

The three knots

Sushumna is not simply open once the two side channels balance. The texts place three granthis, knots, along it: brahma granthi at the root, vishnu granthi at the heart, rudra granthi at the brow. Each is described as a point where practice stalls, and each is glossed psychologically as an attachment: to security, to one's own effectiveness, and finally to insight itself.

Keep reading

The energy centres

The wheels that sit where the channels cross.

The vayus

What moves through the channels, sorted by direction.

The koshas

The sheath the whole channel system belongs to.

The layers of the aura

The modern field model laid over the same body.

Frequently asked questions

: The two common figures are 72,000 and 350,000, depending on the text. Both are ways of saying a great many, and both narrow immediately to fourteen named channels.
: Alternate-nostril breathing. Shodhana means cleansing, and the practice is aimed at ida and pingala, on the principle that balancing the two opens sushumna between them.
: No. Chinese meridian theory developed separately, has twelve primary channels rather than fourteen named ones, and comes with a clinical apparatus the nadi literature does not have. The resemblance is real but the systems are not translations of each other.
: Nineteenth-century writers wanted them to be, and the Sanskrit word does get used for tubular structures in medical texts. But the descriptions do not match neuroanatomy, and reading them as nerves loses more than it explains.
: Because the fourteen come from several lineages that were collected rather than reconciled. Where the lists differ we give the common version and name the variant.
: Three knots along sushumna, at the root, the heart and the brow, named for Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra. They mark the places where energy is said to stall, and the tradition reads each as a form of attachment that has to be released rather than forced.

The nadis

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