Nadis
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Origin 1000 to 1500
Varuni is one of the fourteen principal nadis of classical yogic physiology, named for Varuna, the Vedic deity of cosmic and oceanic order. The channel and the deity are not identified with one another in this corpus, and the Yoga Upanishads describe Varuni's course differently from most other nadis, as pervading rather than terminating at one fixed point.
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Origins
Origin Period Origin Period Origin PeriodNamed within Tantric literature from the eighth century CE, and given its classical systematisation in the hatha yoga corpus between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries CE. 1 Place of OriginThe Indian subcontinent. 1 Origin of the NameNadi is Sanskrit for a tube, pipe or channel, from a root meaning to flow. It is not the word for a nerve, and the channels of this physiology are not nerves; the nerve reading is a modern Western gloss. 1 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe channels of this physiology are widely presented in modern wellness and yoga material as an anatomical or neurological system. They are not: no channel corresponds to a nerve, a vessel or any identified structure, and the classical descriptions belong to a religious physiology worked with in practice rather than a claim about the body's neuroanatomy. 4 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe Shandilya Upanishad places Varuni between Yasasvini and Kuhu, and describes it as occurring in all directions, below and above the Kundalini, rather than giving it a single fixed terminus like the other nadis. 3 Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Originates in Language
Source Roots of YogaJames Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.) Sources
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