Chakras
Heart
ah-nah-HAH-tah
Also Known As Heart Chakra (English) The Sanskrit name for this chakra. · AnahatOriginal Term Anahata (Sanskrit) The Sanskrit name for this chakra.
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Origin 1920 to 1977
Anahata, the heart chakra, whose Sanskrit name means unstruck or unbeaten, after the celestial sound that arises without two things striking, the pure tone heard in deep meditation. It rests at the center of the chest and is pictured as a green lotus of twelve petals enclosing a six-pointed star of two interlaced triangles, the seat of the Air element (Vayu). Its seed sound is YAM, its traditional planet is Venus, and its glandular seat is the thymus, keystone of the immune system. Anahata is the great bridge of the system, joining the three lower, bodily centers to the three higher, spiritual ones, and it governs love, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, connection, and the balance of self and other. Here love matures from desire into unconditional care. In balance it brings warmth, acceptance, generosity, and peace. In deficiency it shows as isolation, coldness, grief, and difficulty giving or receiving love; in excess as codependency, poor boundaries, and love that demands and clings.
Facts
Disputed
Origin Period1919 3Tradition: The Western chakra system, from Blavatsky to Brennan Kurt Leland's Rainbow Body (Ibis Press, 2016) dates the London publisher Luzac and Co.'s first printing of Arthur Avalon's (John Woodroffe's) The Serpent Power, the work that fixed the seven-chakra scheme for Western readers, to 1919, based on the publisher's own catalogue record; some other library catalogues, and the Chakra 1 article elsewhere in this collection, instead give 1918. Leland does not adjudicate the one-year gap, which most likely reflects the ordinary difference between a book's printing date and its public release date, a common source of catalogue disagreement for this period. The atlas records 1919 as the publisher-attributed year and flags the alternative rather than asserting either flatly. Attributed Author / CompilerIts date is given as 1526 in some reckonings and 1577 in others 3Tradition: Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577) Kurt Leland's Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan (Ibis Press, 2016) traces the composition date of Purnananda Yati's Sri-tattva-cintamani, the Sanskrit source text behind the seven-chakra system as it reached the West, and finds two dates still in circulation among catalogers and translators, converted from the Hindu Saka calendar: Saka 1448 (1526 CE) and Saka 1499 (1577 CE). Leland compares the manuscript colophons and the catalogue entries recording each date and reports neither has driven out the other in the secondary literature, which is why this atlas's own separate article on the text gives 1577 as a working date while this property records the dispute rather than silently picking one figure. Attributed Author / CompilerPurnananda, a sixteenth-century Bengali tantric author 3Tradition: Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577) Kurt Leland's Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan (Ibis Press, 2016) traces the composition date of Purnananda Yati's Sri-tattva-cintamani, the Sanskrit source text behind the seven-chakra system as it reached the West, and finds two dates still in circulation among catalogers and translators, converted from the Hindu Saka calendar: Saka 1448 (1526 CE) and Saka 1499 (1577 CE). Leland compares the manuscript colophons and the catalogue entries recording each date and reports neither has driven out the other in the secondary literature, which is why this atlas's own separate article on the text gives 1577 as a working date while this property records the dispute rather than silently picking one figure. Attributed Author / CompilerThe Sat-Cakra-Nirupana is the sixth chapter of his Sri-tattva-cintamani 3Tradition: Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577) Kurt Leland's Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan (Ibis Press, 2016) traces the composition date of Purnananda Yati's Sri-tattva-cintamani, the Sanskrit source text behind the seven-chakra system as it reached the West, and finds two dates still in circulation among catalogers and translators, converted from the Hindu Saka calendar: Saka 1448 (1526 CE) and Saka 1499 (1577 CE). Leland compares the manuscript colophons and the catalogue entries recording each date and reports neither has driven out the other in the secondary literature, which is why this atlas's own separate article on the text gives 1577 as a working date while this property records the dispute rather than silently picking one figure. Origins
Origin Period1920 to 1977 3Tradition: The Western chakra system, from Blavatsky to Brennan Origin Period1927 to 1928 3Tradition: Theosophical chakra scheme (C. W. Leadbeater, 1927) Origin Period900 to 1300 CE 4Tradition: Tantra Origin PeriodNamed within Tantric literature between the ninth and thirteenth centuries CE, and given its widely known Western sequence through Theosophical writing running from Blavatsky to Leadbeater's 1927 chakra scheme and Barbara Brennan's 1987 book. 4 Place of OriginBritain, India and the United States: the scheme was assembled in English, through the Theosophical Society and its successors, over about a century. 3Tradition: The Western chakra system, from Blavatsky to Brennan Place of OriginThe Sat-Cakra-Nirupana itself is a Bengali work 4Tradition: Tantra Place of OriginThe tantric traditions of the Indian subcontinent 4Tradition: Tantra Attributed Author / CompilerCharles Webster Leadbeater, for the clairvoyant description, the colour plates and the endocrine correspondences that nearly every modern chakra illustration descends from. 3Tradition: Theosophical chakra scheme (C. W. Leadbeater, 1927) Attributed Author / CompilerSir John Woodroffe, writing as Arthur Avalon, for the translation that carried the scheme west. 3Tradition: The Western chakra system, from Blavatsky to Brennan Origin of the NameAnahata means unstruck, and names a sound rather than an organ 2Tradition: Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577) Origin of the NameThe English "Heart" renders the placement, not the name 2Tradition: Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577) LanguageSanskrit 2Tradition: Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577) Attributions
Associated NoteAttested as a fact about the modern chakra-tone correspondence system, not as an ancient teaching: the pairing dates to twentieth century Western esoteric writing rather than to classical Sanskrit chakra texts. Practice
Seat in the BodyAt the heart 1Tradition: Hindu Tantra Use
Ritual UseWoodroffe's translation of the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana describes Anahata as the seat of the anahata nada, the unstruck sound some meditative practices direct the practitioner to listen for at this center rather than visualize. 1Tradition: Tantra Correspondences
Bija MantraYAM 1Tradition: Hindu Tantra Identity
Also Known As ElementAir 1Tradition: Hindu Tantra The element is vayu, air, figured as a six pointed star of two interlocked triangles. The name anahata means unstruck, for the sound heard without two things being struck together, which is what the texts say is heard at this centre. Meaning
Symbolic MeaningAnahata's element is air, symbolised in the Shatchakranirupana by a smoke grey hexagram of two interlocking triangles set within its twelve petalled lotus, marking the unstruck sound the text says arises there without any two things striking together. 1 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceAnahata, the unstruck: a lotus of twelve petals at the heart, the region of air. The name is from anahata nada, the sound that arises without two things striking together, as against ahata, struck sound, a distinction in Indian musical and meditative theory much older than this text. 2Tradition: Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577) Rival Systems
A Rival System's AttributionThe Western chakra system: green. The colour this atlas records is a band of the ROYGBIV spectrum, an arrangement assembled in the twentieth century and standard by 1977. The Sanskrit sources give the centres colours, but not a spectrum, and Leadbeater in 1927 gave a third set again. 3Tradition: The Western chakra system, from Blavatsky to Brennan A Rival System's AttributionTheosophical chakra scheme: the thymus. The chakra-to-gland equation was made in Theosophical writing of the 1920s and has no counterpart in the Sanskrit texts, which place the centres in a subtle body explicitly distinguished from the physical one. 3Tradition: Theosophical chakra scheme (C. W. Leadbeater, 1927) Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryUsed, but its validity as a comparative category is disputed 4 Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 2 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseChakra diagnosis and chakra healing are marketed as ancient Indian medicine. They are not: the gland equation dates from the 1920s and the colour scale from the 1970s, and no anatomical structure or measurable phenomenon corresponds to a chakra. The Sanskrit sources describe a discipline of attention inside a lineage, not a therapy. No diagnostic claim made here should displace medical care. 3Tradition: The Western chakra system, from Blavatsky to Brennan Physical Description
PetalsTwelve petals 1Tradition: Hindu Tantra Learn More
Anahata in the Tantric Sources
Anahata is described in the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana as a lotus of twelve petals at the heart, bearing the letters kam through tham. Within it is a hexagram of two interlaced triangles, smoke-coloured, the region of air, with the seed syllable YAM seated on a black antelope; the presiding deity is Isha with the shakti Kakini, and within it is also the bana linga and, in the associated literature, the Ananda-kanda with the wish-fulfilling tree. The name means unstruck, from anahata nada, the sound that arises without two things striking together, the unstruck sound heard in deep meditation and contrasted with all ordinary sound, which is ahata, struck. That distinction is a genuine and important one in Indian musical and meditative theory and is much older than this text.
Tibetan Vajrayana completion stage practice gives the heart region a significance of its own, independent of the Hindu scheme recorded here: in traditions descending from the Six Yogas of Naropa and related Kalachakra teachings, the heart centre, rather than the crown, is generally treated as the seat of the subtlest level of mind, the one said to remain active through the process of dying, which places the emphasis of that tradition's practice differently from the Hindu ascent toward Sahasrara. The two traditions are independent developments rather than variants of a single source, and the atlas records them separately for that reason.
Sources The Serpent PowerSir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon) with The Origins of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth CenturyGeoffrey Samuel
The Rainbow Colours Are from 1977
The single most repeated fact about the chakras outside India, that they run red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet up the spine, is modern and can be dated closely. The Sanskrit texts assign colours, but not these: the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana gives Muladhara a red square, Svadhisthana a white crescent, Anahata a smoke-coloured hexagram, Vishuddha a white circle, and so on, and the scheme is not a spectrum. Leadbeater in 1927 gave a different set again, from his own clairvoyant claims.
The ROYGBIV rainbow arrangement now universal in popular material appears to have been introduced by Christopher Hills in Nuclear Evolution: Discovery of the Rainbow Body in 1977, and spread through the New Age publishing of the following decade. It is therefore around fifty years old. It may be a useful mnemonic; it is not ancient Indian teaching, and it should not be described as such.
Sources Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to BrennanKurt Leland with The Serpent PowerSir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon)
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The Serpent Power gives Anahata only a point location at the heart; the arms and hands are a modern Western chakra attribution, following on from the Theosophical and later crystal healing literature this correspondence set draws from.
The circulatory system is a modern Western chakra attribution to Anahata, following on from the Theosophical and later crystal healing literature this correspondence set draws from rather than the classical Sanskrit text.
The Serpent Power gives Anahata only a point location at the heart; the chest and breast are a modern Western chakra attribution, following on from the Theosophical and later crystal healing literature this correspondence set draws from.
A centre kundalini is described as passing through and piercing as it rises through the central channel.
Yam, Mantras Named as the seed syllable of the Heart chakra.
Attested In
One of the six centres described in the Shat-chakra-nirupana, the classical source for the system.
Belongs to Tradition
The centre belongs to the chakra system, which the atlas catalogues as a discipline in its own right.
Depicted In
Heart chakra, one of the seven the deck's own description confirms it is keyed to.
Derived from This
Human Design's Heart/Ego/Will centre borrows the name of the heart chakra from the Vedic chakra system that fed into Human Design's synthesis, but shares little else with it: the centre's meaning in Human Design, willpower and ego identity, is not the traditional chakra's own association with love and compassion. The connection is a naming choice rather than a doctrinal or practical inheritance, and that the borrowing is nominal rather than substantive is not itself in dispute.
Disciplines That Use This
The centres stones are most often placed against in this practice.
Originates in Language
Source Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.) Related To
The seven chakras are the centers kundalini is said to rise through and activate. Chakra cosmology is shared across Hindu tantra and hatha-derived Kundalini Yoga.
Source Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.) The description of this centre that reached the West comes from his Shat-chakra-nirupana of 1577, translated by Woodroffe in 1919. He did not originate the scheme, which is older and was never single. The version the modern world uses is his.
The chakra system is a tantric cosmological scheme central to tantric ritual and visualization. Chakra cosmology developed within, and remains central to, Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions.
Sources
1. The Serpent Power
Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon), Ganesh & Co, 1919on Anahata as the seat of the unstruck sound, anahata nadaView the Source 1. The Serpent Power
Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon), Ganesh & Co, 1919Sat-Cakra-Nirupana, verses on AnahataView the Source 2. Roots of Yoga
James Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.), Penguin Classics, 2017ch. 5, The Yogic BodyView the Source 3. Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan
Kurt Leland, Ibis Press, 2016on Leadbeater
4. The Origins of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century
Geoffrey Samuel, Cambridge University Press, 2008on the regional traditions of tantric practice
Nuclear Evolution: Discovery of the Rainbow Body
Christopher Hills, University of the Trees Press, 1977the rainbow spectrum applied to the seven centres
The Chakras
Charles Webster Leadbeater, Theosophical Publishing House, 1927the colour assignments of 1927View the Source Essays About This Entity (3 essays)
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