Brown’s article from 1919 is interesting, and it seems to be fairly well-researched, although it could perhaps be more careful and comprehensive. His conclusions are interesting as well, that in the Brahmanical context, prana and apana referred primarily to the thoracic and abdominal breath. There are also many interesting possible implications of these meanings in the context of yogic practice.
The much more recent article, however, is very reckless. I don’t understand how the author can make a leap from breath in the abdomen, to farting, and then leaping further to connect this with the Pali term anapana. Then he attributes the interpretation as in-breathing and out-breathing to colonialism and censorship. Was he really unaware of the ancient commentaries and translations that translated the terms straightforwardly as in-breathing and out-breathing (or sometimes reversed, as there were two interpretations in Indian Buddhism, which tells us that the terminology was already antiquated)?
In any case, perhaps there is a silver lining here in that by raising these sort of issues, people are more likely to reexamine the meanings of these terms, and the relationships between the Buddhist and Brahmanical traditions.
For example, was Brown correct about prana and apana? Also, what is the relationship between the Brahmanical pranapana, and the Buddhist anapana, and how did these terms come about? Do studies of the role of wind and breath in the Upanisads help us to understand the role of anapana in Buddhism, and why wind and breath are the subjects of meditation in the first place?
From what little I understand of the “yogic” traditions, I think it could be said that the prāna is centered in (or governed from, or it’s domain of control is) a region in the chest and that the apāna is centered in (or governed from, or it’s domain of control is) a region in the abdomen. The apāna is somehow associated with abdominal breath, but it’s definitely also associated with lower excretion in general (farting and pooping).
Admittedly, I’m more familiar with haṭha and tantra texts/theory than with the upaniśads, which would probably be more relevant. I just did some quick searching in the upaniśads and can’t find anything on the winds besides prāṇa meaning breath/life-force/energy. Interestingly, it seems in the early upaniśads the breath is the self, whereas in later upaniśads the self breathes the breath. The early concept seems especially relevant to the Buddhist practice of ānāpānasati, I’ve heard some teachers say that breath meditation is about identifying with the breath and dissociating from the physical meat-body. There is that problematic line in the Pāḷi sutta MN118 — “I say that this is a certain body among the bodies, namely, in-breathing and out-breathing”. Obviously, in Buddhist practice we wouldn’t want to reify anything as the self, but perhaps this is another instance of a spin on Brahmanical theory/methods.
Regarding thoracic and abdominal breathing, I think it can be said that in haṭha yoga at least one tries to keep the breath in the chest (uḍḍīyana bandha, the various kumbhakas (antar, bahya), etc). Have you studied much of the Daoist body practices? It seems there is more emphasis on abdominal breathing in the Chinese traditions, with concepts like the dan t’ien, perhaps this had an influence on Ch’an Buddhism?
There is quite a lot about prana in the Upanisads, but it’s not neatly organized in a way that makes it easy to parse, and sometimes English translations don’t make the terminology clear. But even in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, the oldest of the bunch, we can see:
[One] should practise but one activity. He should breathe in and breathe out, wishing, ‘May not the evil one, Death, get me.’ And the observance which he practises he should desire to fulfil to the end. Thereby he wins complete union with that divinity [i.e. Breath] and residence in the same world.
Here we see the concept of attaining complete union between the mind and breath, and thereby entering another world beyond this world. Additionally, there is a basic science of the breath and its channels:
Now when one falls asleep (susupta), when one knows nothing whatsoever, having crept out through the seventy-two thousand veins, called hita, which lead from the heart to the pericardium, one rests in the pericardium. Verily, as a youth or a great king or a great Brahman might rest when he has reached the summit of bliss, so in this one now rests.
There are many more references to prana in this upanisad, and many more in the later ones as well. Notably, the Prasna Upanisad is often cited as one that gives a detailed account of the five pranas of the body.
At least according to my readings, prana is special in the Upanisads because it is the closest to the Atman, and the closest thing to one’s own self. In the Upanisads, for example, there is a ceremony that is performed when a father is dying. In this ceremony, the father recites sacred formulas for transferring all of his positive attributes to his son. But in the case the father is too weak to go through all of these, he is instructed to simply pass on his prana to his son.
There are all sorts of possible connections here. To begin with, the Sarvastivadins did regard the navel as important, and did trace inhalation and exhalation through the body as part of their practice of anapana. This can be found in their own literature. They did not simply observe the tip of the nose.
In China, the Sarvastivadin theories of anapana deeply influenced the Tiantai meditation manuals, and both Sarvastivadin manuals and Tiantai manuals influenced Chan Buddhist meditation. To add to this, there were also Indian Buddhist theories of the development of the fetus and the origins of human life, such as the Sutra on Entering the Womb.
When these were translated into Chinese, the Daoists took it a step further and developed all sorts of theories about the vital breath. Of particular note here are theories about Embryonic Breathing. These were based on the gradual refinement of the vital breath until the body would have no need of breathing in or out through the mouth or nose. This could be compared with Kevala Kumbhaka of Yoga, or states of breath cessation in Sarvastivada dhyana traditions, or even what more modern teachers such as Nan Huai-Chin or Ajahn Chah have described. In some cases they even use practically the same descriptions.
To add to the complexity, it has been proposed that elements of the Mahasi method were derived from Japanese Zen meditation. Specifically, the focus on the abdomen, the strict alternation between walking and sitting, the emphasis on “bare awareness”, the practice of intensive retreats, and so on.
(This is possible because in the late 19th/early 20th century there was an emerging Asian cultural sphere, with magazines and newsletters disseminated that spoke of the new post-colonial Asia. Buddhism was the key unifying philosophy of the region, and Japan was the dominant social and technological power. So for sophisticated Burmese monks to adopt Japanese ideas in those days was not as far fetched as it seems today. Of course it may also be the case the modern Zen has drawn from the vipssana movement.)
If this is true, then the modern Burmese (and world) meditation of observing the belly has traveled by an extremely circuitous route!
2 This breath in here and that sun up there are exactly the same. This is warm,
and so is that. People call this sound (svara), and they call that shine (svara) and
shining back (pratyasvara). Therefore, one should venerate the High Chant as both
this here and that up there.
3 Now, then, one should venerate the High Chant as just the inter-breath. When
one breathes out, it is the out-breath; when one breathes in, it is the in-breath. And
the inter-breath is where the out-breath and the in-breath meet. The inter-breath is
the same as speech. One speaks, therefore, without breathing out or in.
4 Speech is the same as the Rg verse. One recites a Rg verse, therefore, without breathing out or
in. The Rg verse is the same as the Saman chant. One sings a Saman chant, there-
fore, without breathing out or in. The Saman chant is the same as the High Chant.
One sings the High Chant, therefore, without breathing out or in.
The Early Upanisads, Annotated Text and Translation, pp.173 to 175
Hume’s translation -
This [breath in the mouth] and that [sun] are alike. This is warm. That is warm. People designate this as sound (svara), that as sound (svara)1 and as the reflecting (pratyāsvara). Therefore, verily, one should reverence this and that as an Udgītha.
But one should also reverence the diffused breath (vyāna) as an Udgītha. When one breathes in—that is the in-breath (prāṇa). When one breathes out—that is the out-breath (apāna). The junction of the in-breath and the out-breath is the diffused breath. Speech is the diffused breath. Therefore one utters speech without in-breathing, without out-breathing.
The Ṛic is speech. Therefore one utters the Ṛic without in-breathing, without out-breathing. The Sāman is the Ṛic. Therefore one sings the Sāman without in-breathing, without out-breathing. The Udgītha is the Sāman. Therefore one chants the Udgītha without in-breathing, without out-breathing.
The Thirteen Principal Upanisads (1921)
Whatever other evidence Brown may have found to suggest that apāna = flatus, this interesting passage from the Chandogya suggests that in this passage, both prāṇa and apāna are breaths in the thoracic sense, since they are connected to speech/vāk mediated by their junction in the “inter-breath”/vyāna to articulate the Udgītha.
Nice, thanks for that. I suspect we’d find, if we looked closely, that the Brahmanical tradition is not entirely consistent. But here anyway it obviously means breathing.
Here I think it’s important to point out that Brown (writing nearly a century ago) makes no such claims about apana indicating flatus. His claims are more along the lines that prana and apana generally indicate what they are said to indicate in the Prasna Upanisad, in its description of the five pranas, rather than simply in-breath and out-breath.
The claim that apana is associated with flatulence and gas is only made by Eisel Mazar very recently, and was apparently never published in a peer-reviewed journal.
As in the article claiming the Buddha was bald, there is a tiny kernel of evidence or logic accompanied by huge, grandiose claims. This is a writer, for example, who wrote that the traditional descriptions of the Buddha were a freakish Mahayana invention. Writing an article on the physical attributes of the Buddha, he was apparently completely unaware of the existence of the 32 marks in the early Buddhist texts. Then again, maybe the MA / MN and DA / DN are also wild Mahayana inventions…
That’s just one description and function of apana in the yogic traditions. Prana and apana have broad functions within the body. They are not material things, or simple mechanical processes like breathing in, or farting. To get a broader sense of the meanings, it’s important to read across many passages and contexts, not just one or two.
Apana having some function in the abdomen, genitals, etc., is not controversial. Brown and the yogic traditions all agree with that idea, and it was well-established in scholarship before Brown as well.
That mainstream idea, however, is very different from what is claimed by Eisel Mazar, which is that apana is directly equivalent to flatulence, when he writes:
In plain English, what he calls “abdominal breath” is flatulence […]
Here, “he” is Brown, who was always careful to use the appropriately general term of “abdominal breath.” Brown did not consider apana to be the same as flatulence.
Reading through the comments I was waiting for a particular aspect that did not fully arise and I wonder if there is something to it: When I usually talk with people about the breath meditation I say something like “The breath is a nice neutral object, and it’s always there, it doesn’t have to be made up, plus it becomes more subtle so the accompanying concentration also has to grow stronger”. And now I wonder if it really was meant to be such a neutral object.
Because no matter which breath we take, for many contemporaries of the Buddha, breath was a divine manifestation, and at least the life force. Even the PTS dictionary translates apana also with ‘life’. So when the Buddha and his contemporaries meditated on breath wasn’t it much more a very special object, charged with relevance rather than what it is today, i.e. the process which provides oxygen to the red blood cells etc?
Oh, yes, I don’t think it was meant to be neutral; “gently positive” might be a better way of seeing it. The suttas, on the whole, have a fairly cool, subdued emotional tone, but they clearly present the breath in a positive light.
i’m afraid these days and in this culture we underestimate the significance of breath, after all together with nutrition it’s one of the two components without which we die very quickly
As I found it it is a rare variant of the council edition but I think sometimes ‘ānāpāṇassati’ exists? would it then come from pāṇa rather than apāna?
Or could it be that the distinction went mostly lost in the pali?
One of the “mind blown” moments for me while reading Venerable Sujato’s “A History of Mindfulness” was when he put breath (breathing) meditation in contrast with corpse (decomposing) meditation.
We contemplate both the principle of life — the fragile, delicate breath — and the principle of death — a decomposing corpse.
I had never considered these two meditations as complementary, a logical pair that point to one of the deepest questions (if not the deepest) — the question of ‘life and death’. I was reminded of a sign hanging at Zen Mountain Monastery:
