Apas, the Water Tattva

Apas is the water tattva, one of the five gross elements or mahabhuta of the Indian elemental scheme, the principle of fluidity, cohesion, taste and flow. In the classical analysis each of the five elements is linked to a sense and a subtle essence: water is associated with the sense of taste and, in the subtle physiology of the body, with fluidity, the sacral region and the waters of the organism. The tattvas belong to the Samkhya and Tantric metaphysics of India, where they are stages in the unfolding of manifest nature from its subtle roots.

The element passed into Western occultism through Rama Prasad's Nature's Finer Forces of 1890 and the Golden Dawn, which used the tattva symbols, water represented by a silver crescent, as objects of meditation and "tattva vision" from 1888. That adoption is a modern Western development; the water tattva itself and its attributes of cohesion and taste are part of the far older Indian doctrine of the elements.

Sources Classical Samkhya: An Interpretation of Its History and MeaningGerald James Larson with Nature's Finer Forces: The Science of Breath and the Philosophy of the TattvasRama Prasad