Raising Rajas in Hathayoga and Beyond
This article discusses the concept of rajas in the Hathayoga corpus and compares it with material in Ayurveda and Daoism. Rajas is the red blood of menstruation, female sexual fluid, and one aspect of a gendered binary with bindu or semen. In texts deriving from a male celibate context, rajas occurs...
| Auteur principal: | |
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| Type de support: | Électronique Article |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | En cours de chargement...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Publié: |
Equinox
2019
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| Dans: |
Religions of South Asia
Année: 2019, Volume: 13, Numéro: 3, Pages: 289–316 |
| Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés: | B
Hatha yoga
/ Yogini
/ Menstruation
/ Sang
/ Méditation
/ Aménorrhée
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| RelBib Classification: | AG Vie religieuse BK Hindouisme KBM Asie |
| Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Menstruation
B rajas B voluntary amenorrhea B Haṭhayoga B yogic body |
| Accès en ligne: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Résumé: | This article discusses the concept of rajas in the Hathayoga corpus and compares it with material in Ayurveda and Daoism. Rajas is the red blood of menstruation, female sexual fluid, and one aspect of a gendered binary with bindu or semen. In texts deriving from a male celibate context, rajas occurs within male practitioners without the interaction of a woman. In some paradigms of the yogic body, bindu is drawn upwards and preserved alongside rajas using the technique of vajrolimudra, conferring success (siddhi) and immortality (amrta). Women appear infrequently in Hatha texts, but those who preserve their rajas are said to be yoginis. Rajas in Ayurveda functions in embryology as a vital essence, thus explaining its power in Hathayoga. Daoist materials are more detailed and cohesive than Hatha, and female inner alchemy (Nüdan) describes a practice of voluntary amenorrhea, ‘slaying the crimson dragon’—the halting of menstruation. The Daoist model enables an interpretation of the scant Hatha sources to suggest that yoginis who preserve their rajas potentially halt their periods. |
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| ISSN: | 1751-2697 |
| Contient: | Enthalten in: Religions of South Asia
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/rosa.19012 |