Indian Religions - Renaissance and Renewal - Anna S. King

Indian Religions - Renaissance and Renewal - Anna S. King

Faculties, Breaths and Offices: Some Vedic and Sâ›khya Notions of the Body and Personality

Indian Religions - Renaissance and Renewal - Anna S. King

Dermot Killingley

Description

The Veda and Sâmkhya both include the analysis of personality among their concerns, and groups of five, or pentads, feature in both. The pentad of speech, breath, sight, hearing, mind is frequent in the Veda, together with many variants; sometimes these are referred to as breaths (prâša), a term which can also refer to the orifices of the body. This pentad includes two of Sâmkhya’s five sense faculties and one of its five action faculties, and some of the variants include further items from the Sâmkhya lists. This chapter gives examples of these variants, comparing them with each other and with Sâmkhya, and tracing their development.

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Citation

Killingley, Dermot. Faculties, Breaths and Offices: Some Vedic and Sâ›khya Notions of the Body and Personality. Indian Religions - Renaissance and Renewal. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 73-108 Mar 2007. ISBN 9781845531690. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=21449. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.21449. Mar 2007

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