Annamaya-kośa

Sheath made of food

The outermost sheath: the gross body built from anna (food). It is born of food, sustained by food, and at death returns to food — Taittirīya II.1 calls it the puruṣa shaped 'with the head, the right wing, the left wing, the trunk, and the tail' of an embodied bird. In the kośa schema it is the densest envelope, the field of metabolism and physical form, and the obvious anchor a contemplative begins from before discriminating the subtler four. It is real but not Self. The classical move (Vivekacūḍāmaṇi 154–164) is to recognise that the body changes, sleeps, ages, dies, and yet awareness of it persists; therefore the body is an object of knowing, not the knower.