The Serpent Power — Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe) (1924)

There are, however, if I read them correctly, statements in the above-cited accounts with which, though not uncommonly accepted, I disagree. It is said, for instance, that the Ādhāra Chakra is the sacro-coccygeal plexus, and that the Svādhishthāna is the sacral plexus, and so forth. This work, however, not to mention others, makes it plain that the Chakras are in the Sushumnā. Verse 1 speaks of the “Lotuses inside the Meru (spinal column); and as the Sushumnā supports these (that is, the lotuses) She must needs be within the Meru”. This is said in answer to those who, on the strength of a passage in the Tantrachūdāmani, 2erroneously suppose that Sushumnā is outside the Meru. In the same way the Commentator refutes the error of those who, relying on the Nigamatattvasāra, suppose that not only Sushumnā, but Idā and Pinggalā, are inside the Meru. Verse 2 says that inside Vajrā (which is itself within Sushumnā) is Chitrinī, on which the lotuses are strung as it were gems, and who like a spider’s thread pierces all the lotuses which are within the backbone. The Author in the same place combats the view, based on the Kalpa Sūtra, that the lotuses are within Chitrinī. These lotuses are in the Sushumnā; and as Chitrinī is within the latter, she pierces but does not contain them. Some confusion is raised by the statement in v. 51, that the lotuses are in or on the Brahmanādī. But by this is meant appertaining to this Nādī, for they are in Sushumnā, of which the Brahmanādī is the central channel. The commentator Vishvanātha, quoting from the Māyā Tantra, says that all the six lotuses are attached to the Chitrinī Nādī (Chitrinī-grathitam). One conclusion emerges clearly from all this—namely, that the Lotuses are in the vertebral column in Sushumnā, and not in the nerve plexuses which surround it. There in the spinal column they exist as extremely subtle vital centres of Prānashakti and centres of consciousness. In this connection I may cite an extract from an article on the “Physical Errors of Hinduism,”¹ for which I am indebted to Professor Sarkar’s work: “It would indeed excite the surprise of our readers to hear that the Hindus, who would not even touch a dead body, much less dissect it, should possess any anatomical knowledge at all. . . . It is 3the Tantras that furnish us with some extraordinary pieces of information concerning the human body. . . . But of all the Hindu Shāstras extant, the Tantras lie in the

1 Published in Vol. XI, pp. 436—440, of the Calcutta Review.

greatest obscurity. . . . The Tantrik theory, on which the well-known Yoga called ‘Shatchakrabheda’ is founded, supposes the existence of six main internal organs, called Chakras or Padmas, all bearing a special resemblance to that famous flower, the lotus. These are placed one above the other, and connected by three imaginary chains, the emblems of the Ganges, the Yamunā, and the Saraswatī. . . . Such is the obstinacy with which the Hindus adhere to these erroneous notions, that, even when we show them by actual dissection the non-existence of the imaginary Chakras in the human body, they will rather have recourse to excuses revolting to common sense than acknowledge the evidence of their own eyes. They say, with a shamelessness unparalleled, that these Padmas exist as long as a man lives, but disappear the moment he dies.”¹ This, however, is nevertheless quite correct, for conscious and vital centres cannot exist in a body when the organism which they hold together dies. A contrary conclusion might indeed be described as “shameless” stupidity.²

The Author of the work from which this citation is made says that, though these Chakras cannot be satisfactorily identified, the Tantriks must nevertheless have obtained their knowledge of them by dissection. By this he must refer to the physical regions which correspond on the gross plane to, and are governed by, the Chakras proper, which as subtle, vital, and conscious centres in the spinal cord are invisible to any but a Yogī’s vision,³