Prāṇa Vāyus — Five Winds
Prāṇa Vāyus — Five Winds is a Hindu / Tantric — Haṭha Yoga & Āyurveda body system as transmitted through the lineage The five root winds (pañca-vāyu: prāṇa, apāna, samāna, udāna, vyāna) as enumerated in Praśna Upaniṣad III.5 and elaborated in the haṭha-yogic corpus (Śiva Saṃhitā; Haṭha Yoga Pradīpika commentarial tradition), read through Iyengar's Light on Prāṇāyāma for the body-seat localisation used here.. This page lists every point in the system with sourced placements and links to cross-tradition correspondences curated for The Body Spiritual.
Open in interactive explorerPrimary sources
- Praśna Upaniṣad — Earliest systematic enumeration of the five breaths and their functions: prāṇa arises from the self; apāna is set in the organs of excretion and generation; samāna equalises the offerings of breath and food and kindles the gastric fire; vyāna circulates through the hundred-and-one nāḍīs branching from the heart; udāna rises through one of them up to the crown, carrying the departing self to good worlds.
- Śiva Saṃhitā (transl. Srisa Chandra Vasu, 1884 (repr. Motilal Banarsidass)) — Haṭha-yoga source for the vāyu doctrine and their seats; ch. 3–4 discuss the winds and their regulation through prāṇāyāma.
- B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Prāṇāyāma (Allen & Unwin 1985) — Modern authoritative localisation of each vāyu's seat and direction of movement used for the body-projection here (prāṇa chest, apāna pelvis, samāna navel, udāna throat, vyāna whole-body).
Known lineage variants
- Enumeration varies by text: Praśna Upaniṣad gives five; later haṭha texts extend to ten (adding nāga, kūrma, kṛkara, devadatta, dhanañjaya). We render only the five root winds as the canonical minimal set.
- Seat localisation varies: some āyurvedic sources place prāṇa at the head/nose rather than chest, and udana's range extends to the limbs. We follow the Iyengar chest/throat seats as the most widely taught modern synthesis.
- Vyāna pervades the whole body and admits no single trajectory; the belt-circuit rendering across shoulders and hips is an explicitly illustrative choice (path_rendering smoothed_curve), not a textual path.
- Direction arrows (inward/upward for prāṇa, downward for apāna) are carried in the channel descriptions rather than drawn; the current renderer has no flow-arrow mode.
Cross-tradition overlaps
- Right hip ↔ Macrocosmic orbit (right) — hip lateral (coincident)
- Left hip ↔ Macrocosmic orbit (left) — hip lateral (coincident)
- Right hip ↔ Macrocosmic orbit (right) — hip lateral (coincident)
- Left hip ↔ Macrocosmic orbit (left) — hip lateral (coincident)
- Navel seat ↔ 42. navel (coincident)
- Lower-abdomen boundary ↔ 43. lower abdomen (distance 0.010)
- Right shoulder ↔ 9. right shoulder (distance 0.010)
- Left shoulder ↔ 27. left shoulder (distance 0.010)
Related systems
No other systems share this tradition label.
Points
- Breath entry (nostrils) — Upper terminus of prāṇa flow
- Heart seat — Seat of prāṇa-vāyu
- Throat seat — Seat of udāna-vāyu
- Crown outlet — Upper reach of udāna
- Xiphoid boundary — Lower bound of samāna's equalising range
- Navel seat — Seat of samāna-vāyu
- Lower-abdomen boundary — Lower bound of samāna's range
- Pubic boundary — Descent limit of apāna
- Pelvic-floor seat — Seat and outflow of apāna
- Right shoulder — Vāya-circuit corner
- Left shoulder — Vāya-circuit corner
- Right hip — Vāya-circuit corner
- Left hip — Vāya-circuit corner
Frequently asked
What is Breath entry (nostrils)?
Nasal entry region of the breath. Prāṇa-vāyu is traditionally described as governing inhalation from the nose to the heart/chest seat; the nostril landmark is absent from landmarks.json, so this anchor carries a wider uncertainty radius.
What is Heart seat?
The chest/heart seat of prāṇa-vāyu, whose motion is inward and upward — the intake and distribution of vital breath. Shared trajectory anchor of the prāṇa and udāna channels.
What is Throat seat?
The throat seat of udāna-vāyu, the upward-moving wind governing speech and expression. Shared trajectory anchor of the prāṇa and udāna channels.
What is Crown outlet?
Upper terminus of udāna's rise from the throat toward the crown in the upward-expressive movement classical sources assign to it.
What is Xiphoid boundary?
Upper boundary waypoint of samāna-vāyu's range. Samāna governs digestion, seated at the navel between heart and pelvic floor; its classical range is rendered as the short midline arc xiphoid → navel → lower abdomen.
What is Navel seat?
The navel seat of samāna-vāyu, the equalising wind of digestion, said to kindle the gastric fire at the centre between prāṇa above and apāna below.
What is Lower-abdomen boundary?
Lower boundary waypoint of samāna-vāyu's equalising range, midway between navel and pelvic floor.
What is Pubic boundary?
Boundary waypoint marking apāna's descent past the pubic arch toward the pelvic floor.
What is Pelvic-floor seat?
The pelvic-floor seat of apāna-vāyu, the downward-moving wind governing elimination and reproduction. Terminal anchor of the apāna channel.
What is Right shoulder?
Corner anchor of the vyāna belt-circuit. Vyāna pervades the whole body and has no single textual trajectory; the circuit is an explicitly illustrative rendering of that pervasiveness (see lineage_variants_known).
What is Left shoulder?
Corner anchor of the vyāna belt-circuit. Vyāna pervades the whole body and has no single textual trajectory; the circuit is an explicitly illustrative rendering of that pervasiveness (see lineage_variants_known).
What is Right hip?
Corner anchor of the vyāna belt-circuit. Vyāna pervades the whole body and has no single textual trajectory; the circuit is an explicitly illustrative rendering of that pervasiveness (see lineage_variants_known).
What is Left hip?
Corner anchor of the vyāna belt-circuit. Vyāna pervades the whole body and has no single textual trajectory; the circuit is an explicitly illustrative rendering of that pervasiveness (see lineage_variants_known).