Sreenath Nair-Restoration of Breath. Consciousness and Performance. (Consciousness Literature & The Arts) (2007)

Restoration of Breath
Consciousness
&
Liter ture
the Arts 09
General Editor:
Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe
Editorial Board:
Anna Bonshek, Per Brask, John Danvers,
William S. Haney II, Amy Ione,
Michael Mangan, Arthur Versluis,
Christopher Webster, Ralph Yarrow
Restoration of Breath
Consciousness and
Performance
Sreenath Nair
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007

Cover Design: Aart Jan Bergshoeff
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-2306-2
ISSN: 1573-2193
©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007
Printed in the Netherlands
To
Prof. K. Ayyappa Paniker
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction 7
Chapter One 11
The Location of Breath
1.1 Theatricality and Performativity 11

1.2 Performance Categories of Performativity 15
1.2.1 Definition 16
1.2.2 Enacted Performativity 19
1.2.3 Reception and Performativity 20
1.3. Critical Categories of Performativity 25
1.3.1 Foucault and Event 26
1.3.2 Deleuze and Repetition 28
1.3.3 Derrida and Différance 31
1.3.4 Artaud and Breath 34
1.4 Being and/or Breathing: Heidegger and Irigaray 43
Summary 45
Chapter Two
In Search of Breath 51
2.1 Aristotle and Breath 52
2.1.1 Breath is a Body 54
2.1.2 Breath and Soul 55
2.1.3 Breath and Emotion 57
2.2 Tao and Breath 58
2.2.1 Ch’i Meridians 60
2.2.2 Ch’i Kung and Breath 61
2.3 Breath and the Sanskrit Tradition 63
2.3.1 Space and Time in SƗmkhya 65
2.3.2 Breath and SƗmkhya 67
2.3.3 Breath and the Upanishads 69
2.4 Breath in Yoga and Ayurveda 78
2.4.1 The Sangitaratnakara and the Genesis of the Human 80
Embodiment
A. The Metaphysical Viewpoint 81
B. The Physiological Viewpoint 82
C. The Psychophysical Viewpoint 83
2.4.2 The Siva Svarodaya Shastra and the Yogic Technique 87
of Breathing
A. Nostrils: Structure and Modes 88
B. Nostrils and the Solar System 90
C. Techniques to Check Nostril Modes 92
D. Techniques to Change Nostril Modes 93
E. Practicing Svara-Udaya 100
2.5 Breath and the Siddha Tradition 101
2.5.1 Texts and Authorship 102
A. The Body in the Marmasastra 104
B. Marma and the Body 111
2.5.2 Agastiya’s Cave 112
2.5.3 Siddha Vidya 113
Summary 114
Chapter Three 119

Breath: Training and Performance
3.1 Breath in Eastern Actor Training 122
3.1.1 Breath and the Natyasastra 123
3.1.2 Breath and Rasa 125
3.1.3 Svara-vayu: A Lost Tradition of Breath 129
3.1.4 Noh in Contemporary Actor Training 135
3.2 Breath in Western Actor Training 137
3.2.1 Jacques Copeau 137
3.2.2 Stanislavski: Breath and Sub-text 138
3.2.3 Grotowski and Breath 139
3.2.4 Jacques Lecoq 142
3.2.5 Recent Views 143
3.2.6 Breath is Meaning: Voice Training 148
3.2.7 Exclusion of Breath 149
Summary 151
Chapter Four 154
Breath and Consciousness
4.1 Consciousness: Early Views 154
4.2 Consciousness: Recent Views 156
4.3 Time and Consciousness 165
4.3.1 Repetition and Consciousness 165
4.4 Breath and Consciousness 171
4.4.1 Breathing and Being: A New Philosophy 171
4.4.2 Breath and Representation: Artaud’s Divine Theatre 172
4.4.3 KƗla: Time and Beyond through Breath 176
4.5 Restoration of Breath 179
4.6 Performing Breath: Santa Rasa 185
Summary 188
Conclusion 193
Bibliography 196
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, who supervised

this research, and Guru Rajendra Siddha Yogi, who shared some
valuable material and practical insights on Siddha Yoga meditation
and Restoration of Breath, for their comments, observations and
directions throughout in the development of this work, which inform
several arguments in the thesis. I should thank Prof. Ralph Yarrow
and Prof. David Ian Rabey for their thoughts and comments on the
manuscript that helped me with some important modifications during
this publication. Special thanks also must be recorded for the
Department of Theatre, Film and Television studies for funding my
studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. I remember Prof.
Ioan Williams, Head of the Department and Margaret Williams with
gratitude for their interest and support to this research. I should also
thank the members of staff in the Hugh Owen Library of the
University of Wales Aberystwyth, the British Library in London and
the admin staff in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television
Studies at the University of Wales Aberystwyth. Many thanks also to
Professor Michael Earley and Dr Diane Dubois of the School of
Performing Arts, University of Lincoln, for arranging my teaching
timetables such as to allow me the time to complete research for this
thesis. I must give thanks to Arya Madhavan, my wife, for being so
helpful, artistically and emotionally, during the entire process of the
study: my observations on Kudiyattam in this book are largely
informed by her.
Introduction
Breath is the flow of air between life and death. Breathing is an
involuntary action that functions as the basis of all human activities,
intellectual, artistic, emotional and physical. Breathing is the first
autonomous individual action that brings life into being and the end of
breathing is the definitive sign of disappearance. This book is an
investigation of the dynamics of breath within the context of theatre. It
explores the epistemological, psycho-physical and consciousness-
related implications of breath for Western and Eastern acting and actor
training, in four main chapters.
The first chapter explores theatre as a form of performativity and

locates this type of performativity in the performer’s body. On the
basis of a definition of the terms and concepts of performativity and
theatricality, I introduce the ways in which important thinkers of the
20th century, such as Heidegger, Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida and
Irigaray made use of their respective understandings of the concept of
performativity to develop their philosophies, especially the ways they
suggest humans create meaning. In the course of the chapter I seek to
demonstrate to what extent these thinkers consider performativity as
an aspect of the body, and to what extent they consider breath as an
important aspect of individual being.
Having established, in principle, the relevance of the body for

performance, the relevance of breath for the body and thus the
relevance of breath for performance in the first chapter, the second
chapter proceeds to investigate traditional Western and Eastern
knowledge and practice related to breath. Aristotle’s On Breath, for
instance, investigates the physiological and metaphysical functioning
of breath in the body while examining pre-existent views of the ways
in which breath has been conceived of and debated in the Greek
natural philosophical tradition since Diogenes and Democritus.
Aristotle elaborates these initial observations of the functioning of
breath in the body further in his metaphysical speculations, arguing
that the Soul and emotions are interconnected with the dynamics of
breath. Ch’i is breath in the Chinese tradition. It is the air that we
breathe in order to sustain vitality and energy in the body. According
to the explanations provided by the T’ai Ch’i system, Ch’i operates
8 Introduction
the bipolar dynamics of Yin and Yang: what we breathe in is Yin and
what we breathe out is Yang. Ch’i can exist without form and it can
also exist in the form of a thought or action, the spiritual or material.
The non-material states are pure energy, which is Yang, whereas the
physical and material states are affiliated to Yin. According to the
doctrines of Tao philosophy, establishing a natural cyclic equilibrium
of these two forces is the strongest basis of good physical and mental
health.
Breath is prana in Sanskrit. The theoretical and practical aspects of

the term are discussed systematically and elaborately in various
systems of knowledge in the Sanskrit tradition as a material
phenomenon, which explains in depth our understanding of the
conditions of linguistic meaning, visibility, appearance, human
actions, voice and higher levels of consciousness. The integration of
time and space is discussed extensively in SƗmkhya and Yoga in
relation to breath, vitality and the cosmology of the body. According
to SƗmkhya, the body’s vital operations are performed by five forms
of breaths called: prana, apana, samana, udana and vyana. These
forms of breath are different modifications of the element of air,
which incites the entire functioning of the system by bringing all the
internal and external organs into action. Yoga proposes various
techniques related to checking and changing of breathing in relation to
allowing air flow predominantly through the left or right nostril for the
purpose of changing the body’s psycho-physical conditions. In several
Upanishads we can see breath described in practical terms to
experience higher states of consciousness. In the Sangitaratnakara, a
text by Sarangadeva, the Brahmarantra is explained as the cerebral
aperture, which is crucial to breath-related techniques in terms of
exploring the dormant psychophysical energy levels of the body ( I: II:
153c-155b). Agastiya’s Marmasastra further explains and clarifies the
bodily location, nature and functioning of the potential energy source
of the body in more physiological terms. The South Indian Siva
tradition and Siddha Veda offer a breath-related technique called
Restoration of Breath, a system of twenty-four patterns of breathing
by which the respiration can be completely internalised: the
internalisation of breathing, in turn, alters individual consciousness.
Introduction 9
The focus of Chapter three is the question of what, if any, of the

aspects and dimensions of breath, explored in Chapter two, have been
used in actor training both in the East and in the West, past and
present. The chapter is divided into two major sections in which
traditional Eastern and contemporary Western actor training will be
discussed in terms of how breath has been integrated into practice. In
the Eastern section I am mainly focusing on Keralan performance
traditions, with particular emphasis on Kudiyattam, the Sanskrit
theatre of India, mainly because I am familiar with this tradition and
also have access to the material available locally. Kudiyattam is a
highly stylised theatrical form with a strong emphasis on many years
of systematic and complex training. Other areas of discussion in the
same section will draw on the Natyasastra, the theatre manual
describing the Indian concept of training and performance, with
special emphasis on the concept of rasa. Rasa is best understood as
the aesthetic delight experienced by the audience as the result of a
theatrical event. In the section on contemporary Western actor training
I shall focus mainly on the 20th century. Artaud does not create a
practical training method, but in his writings we see accounts of some
systems based on breath. I will refer to these as they become relevant
in my discussions of the role breath plays in the theory and practice of
Copeau, Stanislavski, Grotowski and Lecoq. I shall also look at some
recent approaches like John Martin’s intercultural training, Phillip
Zarrilli’s training method based on Kalarippayattu and Susanna
Bloch’s Alba Emoting.
The first three chapters of the book demonstrate the relevance of

the breath for the body and of the body for performance (Chapter
one), explore the ways breath has been understood across the history
of ideas in West and East (Chapter two) and to what extent the
available knowledge about breath has been used in the contexts of
acting and actor training (Chapter three). Chapter four focuses in
depth on a phenomenon that will have emerged, albeit implicitly,
across the first three chapters: the body and breath cannot be
understood without reference to consciousness. The relationship
between embodied breath and consciousness is therefore at the centre
of Chapter four. I provide information about contemporary
consciousness studies and within that general context I compare a
number of relevant specific models of consciousness that together
10 Introduction
serve the purpose of explaining the relationship between

consciousness and breath. The book ends with a conclusion, in which
I summarize my findings.
Chapter One
The Location of Breath
The intention of this chapter is to locate breath in the current

discussions of performativity. Where is breath located and how does it
function as the fundamental source of the production and reception of
meaning and theatrical expression? Starting from these questions, this
chapter explores the current discussions of theatricality and
performativity, demonstrating how these concepts provide the context
for interrelations between body, breath and meaning.
1.1 Theatricality and Performativity
The idea of theatricality has been identified with both the Greek
idea of mimesis and the Latin concept of theatrum mundi. 1 Similarly,
Sanskrit poetics in general and the Rasa theory in particular offer
detailed descriptions of the concept and application of theatricality in
performance as well as in literature and other arts. In the Greek
classical tradition, according to Postlewait and Davis, the term
theatricality has been used as mimesis “…to describe the gap between
reality and its representation.” 2 It has also been used to describe a
different mode of perception by which the everyday reality is
exceeded by its representation. It means that the mimetic
representation transforms individual consciousness from the daily to
extra-daily. For Plato, mimesis attempts to evoke the “factual” or real
world but cannot capture it because “the real” is not located in “the
visual and tangible conditions” 3 of the material world. Hence, theatre
produces illusive mimesis that is “twice-removed” from the true or
pure realm of the real. This “mimetic product” posits an empirical link
between the perceiver and what is being represented, but this relation
is always simply a “rhetoric feat” of similarity, never “sameness.” 4
Thus, Plato disapproves of theatrical mimesis because the theatre may
imitate life, but like a metaphor, the re-presentation is always removed
from the real. Plato’s argument has proved to be a strong foundation
for the further development of antitheatrical attitudes in Western
thought.
12 The Location of Breath
The concept of lila proposed by the Vedanta school of Indian

philosophy implies a different idea of theatricality. According to
Sankara, the notable proponent of the Vedanta school, the relation
between the manifest world and the immaterial unmanifest Brahman
operates through a ‘playfulness’ called lila. Lila refers to a process of
the emergence of the physical world from the unmanifest that exists
within the flow of time. Sankara explains lila in terms of the concept
of maya. In the BrahmasǌtrabhƗsya, Sankara asserts that maya
consists of two qualities: creative power and illusion. 5 Our perception
of the world and the knowledge that we derive from this perception
are the results of these two qualities: each perception is coloured by
imagination and memory that together create the appearance of the
world. Therefore, the appearance of the world is unreal (avidya), in
the sense that it is always in the process of transformation; our notion
or impression, even our experience of the world's permanency,
according to Sankara, is created by our false impressions and
ignorance of the ‘real’ dynamics of microcosmic functioning. This
process is called lila. “Creation” of any sort is essentially a “lila”, a
“free and a spontaneous play” by means of which the unmanifest
(Brahman) is revealed and conceived through a process of infinite
existence. Lila refers to theatricality, in a more subtle and complex
manner, as playfulness and as the process of making and pursuing
meaning out of a process in which forms emerge and submerge in the
flow of time.
From current discussion of theatricality, we can derive,

at least, two distinct uses of the term:
1. The fundamental characteristics of the production

and reception of meaning of any event in the widest
philosophical sense.
2. The essential performance qualities of any dramatic

performance at any time or place, which is largely
applicable to the communicative nature of art and
literature.
The Location of Breath 13
Contemporary philosophers and theatre critics have employed the

term in both ways to explain the functioning of the communicative
nature embedded in human discourse.
Willmar Sauter argues that the term theatrical is widely used to

describe a variety of situations and behaviours that often have nothing
to do with theatre. For instance, graduation ceremonies, dancing,
funerals and a politician’s speech might be described as theatrical. 6
Sauter shows the use of the term in a performance situation saying that
the concept of theatricality was developed as a modernist alternative
to realism, and has been presented and debated in cultural, linguistic
fields of study. As a critical concept, the term “…meant to represent
the essential or possible characteristics of theatre as an art form and as
a cultural phenomenon.” 7 This approach offers critical tools to analyse
the essential nature of making meaning within a performance,
investigating how performance elements like movement, action,
words, lines, objects, body and signs create emotional and cognitive
experiences. As Roland Barthes noted, theatricality “…is theatre-
minus-text, it is a density of signs and sensations built up on stage
starting from the written argument.” 8 Barthes locates theatricality in
the fields of signs and codes of a performance. Scholars like Anne
Ubersfeld criticised that Barthes is limiting the divergent
communicative nature of performance when he insists on the idea that
each stage performance has “three domains of referentialization: the
dramatic text, itself (reflexive), and the natural world” 9 carrying
emotive, connotative, referential, metalinguistic and poetic functions.
Erika Fisher-Lichte edited a range of articles in Theatre Research

International aiming to clarify some classical and even more
contemporary discussions on the concept of theatricality:
Theatricality may be defined as a particular mode of using signs or as

a particular kind of semiotic process in which particular signs (human
beings and objects of their environment) are employed as signs of
signs—by their producers, or their recipients. Thus a shift of the
dominance within the semiotic function determines when theatricality
appears. When the semiotic function of using signs as signs of signs in
a behavioural, situational, or communication process is perceived and
received as dominant, the behaviour, situational, or communication
process may be regarded as theatrical. Moreover, since this shift of the
dominant is not an objective given but depends on certain pragmatic
conditions, “theatricality,” in the end, appears to be no more than a

floating signifier in an endless communication process. This is to say
that the term theatricality necessarily remains defuse; as a concept, it
becomes indistinct, if not void. 10
Her emphasis is on a process of communication between presence

and its perception. Here, theatricality is not only a pragmatic
configuration of the conditions of cognition but relates to “floating
signifiers” in the process of communication, which do not have any
definite meaning until they are perceived by an onlooker. The
meaning of theatricality, therefore, is closely associated with
perception of the presence of things including the physical acts that
shape an event. Thus, theatricality is a process of communication.
Conceptualising theatricality as a process of communication,

Fisher-Lichte uses the term performativity in contrast to theatricality
as a much larger concept. Critics like Carlson (1990; 1996), Kirby
(1982; 1987) and Marranca (1977) insist that since the term
theatricality, from a semiotic point of view, is understood as “a
relation between sign and reference”, it falls into the critical legacy of
structuralist interpretations; whereas performativity as a concept
“disrupts” and “denies” those relations that invite deconstructionist
notions: 11 performativity as a concept, rather than asserting a specific
hermeneutic meaning between sign and reference, indicates the ways
in which a particular meaning is derived through its perception. Post-
structuralist theories have emphasised the processes of reading and
reception in order to locate the production of meaning rather than
depending on any given interpretive meaning. The implications of
these theories in a theatrical situation focus on audience reception in
its communication as a major reflective element that produces
meaning. From this perspective, theatricality and performativity are
not opposing concepts. As Josette Féral suggests, performativity is
one of the elements of theatricality. 12 Any spectacle, she argues, is an
interplay of both performativity and theatricality. This interplay can be
identified in every aspect of theatre, ranging from the paradox of
acting— that puts the actor’s body into a state of ambiguity between
representation and the ‘real’, the ‘profound duality of body in
performance’— to the ‘spectator’s act of recognition’. Furthermore,
this interplay is the play of ambivalences of everyday space versus
representational space and reality versus fiction. Borrowing the idea of
spatial overlap from Sauter, Féral insists that the nature of theatricality
is an interplay between the work on stage and its reception by the
audience. For both Sauter and Féral, the definition of theatricality
encompasses all of the performing arts, including dance, opera,
performance art and theatre. Therefore, both theatricality and
performativity are not opposing terms but closely interconnected
concepts.
In the following sections, I use the word performativity, rather

than theatricality, in order to address the larger meaning of the
concept. Performativity is a concept that intends to explain the nature
and function of the production and the reception of meaning in a
theoretical as well as in a theatrical situation. The following sections
of this chapter will closely look at the specific categories of
performativity, in order to investigate the implications of psycho-
physical elements involved in the performative process. This analysis
is important to this chapter because the link between breath and
performativity can be established only on the basis of these psycho-
physical categories.
1.2 Performance Categories of Performativity
The concepts and categories of performativity, particularly in a

theatrical situation, have been discussed by a range of scholars from a
variety of theoretical positions across the disciplines of social and
cultural anthropology, linguistics, semiotics and phenomenology in
order to formulate the notion of performativity as a critical term.
The concept of performativity is widely used in contemporary

theoretical discourse, ranging, in various contexts, from philosophy
via performance to linguistics and gender studies. Jacques Derrida and
Judith Butler use the term as a complex process of citations through
which identity is constructed iteratively, in the sense that meaning and
identity are produced through a constant interplay between the reader
and the act of reading. Foucault uses performativity as a field of
discourse out of which the meaning of the individual self is
formulated and controlled by various invisible power relations in
history. Paul de Man’s demonstration of deconstruction in reading is
based on performativity as a textual strategy, “a radical estrangement
between the meaning and the performance of any text.” 13 In Austin,

the relation between speech and act operates on the level of the
interrelations between act and identity. Peggy Phelan refers to
Austin’s linguistic performativity as an important tool to understand
the temporal dimension of performance, which only exists in the
present. 14 As Phelan puts it:
Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented or otherwise

participate in the circulation of representations of representation: once
it does so, it becomes something other than performance. 15
In this sense, performance occurs over a time that cannot be

repeated. A performance can be repeated, but each repetition will be
“different” from the previous one. For Phelan, this temporal
realization of a theatrical situation’s presentability is a performance’s
inherent performative quality. Thus performativity, as explained by
Phelan, is a temporal act taking place in the ‘here’ and ‘now’ between
the performer and the spectator, which cannot be reproduced or
preserved. Richard Schechner, from a performance studies point of
view argues that performativity, in a broader sense, is performance
itself: the elements which constitute an event of performance such as
any construction of social reality including gender and race, the
restored behaviour quality of performances and the complex
relationship of performance to its audience, all share common features
with how the term is understood critically in other systems of
knowledge. 16 The following is the brief review of those categories
summarized and extended by Sauter based on the existing definitions
of the term. 17
1.2.1 Definition
Conferring a metaphoric meaning onto the notion of

performativity, according to Erving Goffman, is one of the most
popular ways of understanding the term: theatre is a metaphor of
social behaviour. In this view, a theatrical performance as an event is
metaphorically framed and hence, “how people enter the stage of life,
how they approach the footlights to be exposed to the public, what
they do behind the wings…” are the major concerns of this analysis.
Anthropologist Victor Turner and philosopher Bruce Wilshire share
similar views and have studied various other dimensions of the same
concept in order to develop the idea of performativity as a critical

term. 18 The limitation, according to Sauter, to this metaphorical
approach is that most of these scholars have taken traditional domestic
drama enacted in a naturalistic style on an American Broadway stage
or in a BBC family series as the model for their analysis; in this sense,
they have not either problematized nor investigated performativity in a
broader and thus in its true sense. Rather, they reduced the notion of
performativity to something that is pretended, which has to be
analysed anthropologically between the two concepts of social drama
and everyday life. Richard Schechner and Eugenio Barba are the
major theoretical contributors of the anthropological approaches in
Western academia and theatre scholarship. Despite Sauter’s criticism,
anthropological approaches of Schechner and Barba seem to have
some significant contributions to contemporary performance research.
Their approaches initially mobilise a terminological and
methodological exploration in the area of academic studies of
performance. Secondly, anthropological approaches to performance
initiated a multicultural practice of research and performance in the
contemporary theatrical scene.
The second definition of performativity is descriptive. It is mainly

derived from the writings of Barthes, George Fuchs, Patrice Pavis and
Hans-Thies Lehmann. Within this definition performativity is not
what the text represents on the stage but rather it is the mise-en-scène,
the result of the combination of the various other theatrical activities
and signs, the theatrical configuration of the text that is mostly dealt
with by the director. This approach borrowed theoretical assumptions
from semiology and reception theory in order to clarify the symbolic
nature of theatre communication. For instance, when Fischer-Lichte
says that performativity is a “particular mode of using signs” 19 and
therefore, theatrical signs are always signs of signs, she conforms to
the descriptive notion of performativity from a semiotic point of view.
The third definition of performativity is binary; its key proposition

is to establish strong aesthetic positions against naturalism in order to
rescue the foundational characteristics of theatre related to the body,
image and sounds that mark a significant departure from the most
common traditional understanding of theatre as a verbal narrative.
Starting from the works of the Russian Avant-garde in the early
twentieth century, the conventional role assigned to theatre as a place

where ‘reality’ is depicted is questioned by critics who have new ideas
about and approaches to production. As a result, serious enquiries
about the nature of performativity have been initiated and those
enquiries have led to the radical proposition that rather than being
loyal to ‘reality’, theatre should become a ‘reality’ of its own. This
view has in turn brought about stylistic experiments in relation to
production. Edward Gordon Craig and Antonin Artaud, according to
Sauter, share the legacy of this idea of performativity.
The fourth category of performativity Sauter discusses is epochal:

to convey the idea of performativity as a cultural concept. According
to this view, performativity is a very difficult and complex
phenomenon because each epoch develops different ideas on what
theatre is, depending on the relevant cultural and historical situations.
Sauter is sceptical about his fourth category: “if the concepts of
theatricality change from epoch to epoch and from culture to culture,
there might nevertheless be a common axis along which the
definitions and concepts travel.” 20 He argues that performativity can
be regarded
1. as part of the performance on stage

2. as a specific style of theatrical presentation and
3. as a mode of perception.
He emphasises the “necessity of the physical presence of both the

performer and the spectator as a prerequisite of theatricality.” 21 In
other words, no matter how we define the concepts or critical terms
theatricality in the specific context of the theatre, or indeed
performativity in the wider sense, they mainly consist of the
interactive or self- reflexive processes of the production of meaning as
a conscious “otherness” between the performance and its spectators.
The awareness of having any kind of meaning is always related to the
physical presence of bodies and other animate and inanimate objects
in time and space. Thus the idea is that each physical presence is
marked by our subjective reflections of various kinds and therefore,
human cognitive and emotional processes are mediated by these two
phenomenal factors: physical presence of the object and subjective
reflections of it. In this sense, performativity as an interactive process
between presence and perception constitutes the basic configuration of

consciousness and meaning.
1.2.2 Enacted Performativity
Physical enactment is another key aspect to performativity. Sauter

classifies theatrical actions that form the basis of performativity as
follows 22 :
1. Exhibitory actions: physical presence showing the individual

presence without doing any particular actions. These actions
also include subsequent mental conditions but those are not
expressed.
2. Encoded actions: the actions that suggest expressive

meanings. They encompass gestures and postures mediated
by movements that are underpinned by individual, cultural
and aesthetic conditions. Movements are partly conditioned
by ‘natural’ behaviours and partly by cultural patterns; it is
difficult to distinguish involuntary movements from
consciously expressive gestures. Encoded actions are
intended to signify something which is beyond the directly
perceived appearance of those actions.
3. Embodied actions: Exhibitory and encoded actions do not

necessarily suggest a symbolic level, which is inherited in
embodied actions. Embodied actions are actions in which the
performer chooses to convey consciously something beyond
what he/she does. From a performance point of view,
embodied actions are pretended ones –the fictive dimension
of a performance.
Sauter’s primary concern in this classification of the physical

enactment is to reemphasise the role of the body in the production of
meaning.
1.2.3 Reception and Performativity
Audience reception is considered as a key theatrical category of

performativity and Sauter offers a classification of four categories of
audience reception in the context of theatre performance:
1) reflections of prior experiences

2) emotional reactions
3) cognitive reactions and
4) value judgements. 23
Cognitive processes take place and intermingle with emotions in a

theatrical situation. Information transmitted from a performance is
received and processed intellectually, on the one hand and on the other
hand, each moment of cognition stimulates subsequent emotions. The
interaction between these two modes of reactions—the intuitive and
emotional, and the cognitive—in the spectator’s mind are vital
elements that produce a theatrical event.
From a spectator’s point of view, prior experiences produce

expectations, preferences and prejudices in the process of perception
of a theatrical event. They have a strong impact on both the cognitive
and the emotional reactions during and after the performance. Value
judgement is another important factor that co-exists with prior
experiences and finally shapes the feeling and opinion of the actuality
of a theatrical experience. In fact, prior experience and value
judgement are the elements of perceptual reactions that figurate
audience’s direct responses to the performance through the multiple
channels of reception.
Cognition and emotions are the major components of an

audience’s response to a performance. In a performance, the
spectator’s emotional process starts with a stimulus from the stage that
they, consciously or unconsciously, analyse, compare to their own
experiences and the perceived experiences of others, evaluate and
finally transform into an adequate feeling or a cognitive action
through aesthetic responses. 24 In addition to this, the perception of a
stage performance causes:
1. automatic responses that are gradually processed into

cognitive knowledge.
2. persistent feelings, which remain active during an entire
performance. 25
Theatrical experience, then, is the interplay between emotional

and intellectual responses while confronting a set of encoded
theatrical actions on stage. It is transferred through physical actions
and received by the spectators against the background of their life
experiences. The spectator realises the fact that the actions presented
on stage are pretended ones because those actions are the actions of
the others, the actors and the fictive characters. The performance also
makes the spectator aware of the fact that the actions are of a different
kind, suggesting something symbolically, which are open to
interpretation on both emotional and intellectual levels. The bodies in
performance are biological bodies placed in praxis. At the same time
those bodies are the bodies of the ‘others’. Performance is a physical
‘reality’, which can be defined empirically. At the same time, there is
an inherent subjective element in this process of reception that
transforms all the materiality related to a performance into fictional
terms.
According to Sauter’s classification, there are three modes of

audience re-actions parallel to his own three classifications of
theatrical actions, which are: sensory, related to exhibitory actions;
artistic, related to encoded actions; and symbolic, related to embodied
actions. 26 The sensory level of reception indicates the initial
perception of a stage personality whereas the artistic level relates
more to the aesthetic dimensions of a theatre presentation. The
symbolic is the fictional level, which, according to Sauter, goes
beyond the level of any methodological understandings of cultural
empiricism. On a symbolic level, theatre communication indicates
various other possibilities of subjective interaction of spectators with
the physical elements of performance through extra-theatrical and
intra-theatrical scales,”: the understanding of expressive means either
comes from outside the performance… [from a prior subjective
experience] or comes from within the theatre and its own
conventions.” 27 Theatrical experience is not limited either to physical
appearance or to subjective reflections, but it comprises both.
Performativity, as a concept, refers to this ‘play of ambivalence’

between the objective world and its subsequent subjective reflections.
Performativity is the inherent nature of a process that operates in
between the objective world of theatricality and its reflexive act of
perception in order to create meaning and consciousness. Both the
material world of theatricality and its reflexive meaning as perception
are largely influenced and defined by cultural and historical factors.
Our understanding of space, time and the objective world is

related to the perceptual faculties of our body and its inherent libidinal
energy that mobilises movement and intentional actions. This
movement eventually leads to pleasure and other experiences of
various kinds. Therefore, the cognitive and emotional experiences in
and of a performance are mediated by perception: performance of any
kind consists of its double: praxis and perception, the physical aspect
of the performance including enactment and the spectators' subjective
reception. Hence, the theatrical experience can be said to be an act of
perception in praxis. Ittelson offers a clear distinction of this
functional aspect of the act of perception with reference to two other
phenomenological approaches. 28 The stimulus-response approach
attempts to define perception in terms of observable characteristics of
the stimulus and the response. These two approaches grow out of two
different philosophical ways of thinking. The first mode is that of the
‘idealists’ who concentrate on the thoughts and feelings of their own
experience, while the second represents the ‘realists’ who are
concerned only with the observable objects and events of the external
world. Eventually, the first view culminates in that of the solipsist,
who believes that there is nothing outside of his/her own inner
experience, the latter view in that of the behaviourist who believes that
there is nothing inside of his. As Ittelson puts it:
The functional definition tries to bridge the gap between these

divergent views by specifying the perceptual process in terms of the
relationship of that particular process to the total life functioning of
the individual. A functional approach is by its very nature future
oriented and goal-directed. 29
According to Ittelson’s classification, the functional definition

puts the actor as well as the spectator into a ‘real’ life-like situation
and considers him as he actually appears in concrete living. Therefore,
it is clear that the individual acts in any situation in terms of the ways
he perceives the situation. Perception, then, becomes a crucial process
intimately involved in the effective psycho-physical functioning of the
individual in the spatio-temporality of the objective world. This
functional approach towards the phenomenology of perception is
useful to understand the ways in which performativity operates in a
theatrical situation through multiple channels of transmission.
Indian aesthetic theory offers a different understanding of the

performative importance of audience reception. The key concept in
the Indian aesthetic theory presented in the Natyasastra is rasa, which
is understood as the performer’s as well as the spectator’s aesthetic
experience. The concept is phrased in the Natyasastra in the form of a
sutra, a short statement that is vibhava-anubhava-vyabhicharibhava-
samyogat rasa-nishpattih (NS, 109). Meyer-Dinkgräfe provides the
following rendering, based on Ghosh’s translation: “Rasa is produced
(rasa-nishpattih) from a combination (samyogat) of determinants
(vibhava), consequence (anubhava), and transitory mental states
(vyabhicharibhava).” 30 According to the critical legacy of Sanskrit
poetics, vibhava is again classified into two: the alambana vibhava
and the udhipana vibhava, the character-performer and the situation or
the given circumstances. For example, in the context of erotic
sentiment (Sringara rasa), the lovers are the alambana vibhava,
which literally means the base or reasons for determinants, the
observable aspects of perception; and the fragrance of flowers and
garlands, ornaments, senses of objects, going to a garden and enjoying
there, seeing and hearing the beloved and playing with her/him are the
udhipana vibhava, which literally means the stimulants of
determinants, the stimulus aspects of perception. Consequents
(anubhava) are defined as means of histrionic representation.
In the above example, clever movements of eyes, glances, soft and

delicate movements of the limbs and sweet words and the like are the
functional aspects of perception. Vyabhicahri bhavas are explained as
thirty-three transitory mental states like intoxication, anxiety, envy,
depression, dreaming etc… that are the experience of rasa as the
result of these levels of perception. This phenomenological approach
of the rasa theory to the nature of theatrical experience is firmly based
on the following assumptions:
1. Acts of perception always present themselves through

concrete individuals dealing with concrete situations. They
also can be studied in terms of transactions in which they can
be observed.
2. Perceiving is done by a particular person from his own

position in space and time and his own combination of
experiences and needs. It is a field of personal behaviours.
3. Since the act of perception is interposed by the personal

behaviours, each act of perception attributes certain aspects of
personal experience to an environment, which we may believe
exists independent of experience. It is a characteristic
perception of externalisation.
To summarise both the findings of this section, we can say that the
interaction between the performer’s actions and the spectator’s
reactions is characterized by three interactive levels of theatrical
communication: sensory, artistic and symbolic. These levels can only
be activated through the process of performance and only this process
facilitates performativity. According to Sauter, performativity is
something that takes place between actions and reactions. He
disagrees with Fischer-Lichte on her key argument that ‘the use of
signs’ designates theatricality. Nor does he think that theatricality is a
specific ‘mode of perception’ as Burns uses the term. Rather he
focuses on both perspectives as “…both actions which become signs
and reactions through which these signs are perceived in a special
way.” 31 Therefore, the question of performativity as a communicative
process, for Sauter, is a process of various actions taking place
between the performer’s exhibitory, encoded and embodied actions
and the emotional and intellectual reactions of the spectator. For
Sauter performativity consists in psycho-physical movements taking
place in between the presented actions and their perception in a
performance situation. Sauter’s emphasises the psycho-physical bases
of the role of performativity as an interactive process between
representation (performance) and its perception (audience reception).
The embodied actions as well as the act of perception are activities
related to the actor's and the spectator's physical bodies. The following
conclusions can be derived from this section:
1. Theatricality and performativity are terms that refer to the

communicative process within textual and performance
situations.
2. Meanings, emotional as well intellectual, are produced

through a performative interaction between signs and their
reception.
3. Performativity is psycho-physical because the body as the

embodiment of psycho-physical elements is the base for all
our cognitive and emotional experiences.
If performativity includes embodied psycho-physicality in terms

of the production and reception of meaning, what is the role of breath
within it? I shall argue that theoretical explanations of performativity
have more or less ignored the role of breath in understanding
performativity. In the course of the thesis I aim to show the relevance
of breath for performance, thus closing the currently existing gap. The
following section in the chapter will first of all establish the
epistemological link between breath and performativity.
1.3 Critical Categories of Performativity
The emphasis of performativity is a relatively recent phase of

philosophical thinking in contemporary critical theory and
scholarship, initiated by the post-war French thinkers through
structural linguistics, phenomenology and psychoanalysis. This
theoretical advancement constituted a rereading of the philosophical
and aesthetic status of the classical notions of mimesis initially
delineated by Plato and Aristotle, a concept developed further
throughout in the history of philosophy. In the context of the role of
performativity, I will look at the most recent phase of critical thinking
considering the works from Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and
Jacques Derrida. Artaud is equally important in this context, though he
is not qualified as a philosopher as the other three. However, Artaud
remains as the source of a radical thinking that is relevant not only to
theatre practice but also to contemporary philosophy and this is the
reason why Derrida paid homage to Artaud’s life and works. Artaud is
significantly important to this chapter because we can see Artaud
establishing epistemological links between breath and performativity,

in his monumental book, Theatre and its Double. The following
sections demonstrate how performativity has been discussed in recent
critical thinking.
1.3.1 Foucault and Event
In a short discussion of Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition,

Foucault examines three major methodologies of the recent past that
attempt to conceptualize or define the nature of event: neopositivism,
phenomenology, and the philosophy of history. 32 According to
Foucault, neopositivism failed to grasp the distinctive level of the
event because of its logical error that confuses the perception of an
event with a state of things: for neopositivism, an event is a material
process attached explicitly to physicalism. Phenomenology
reconsidered the idea of event in terms of meaning. For
phenomenology, the world is a primary signification structured around
the self indicating in advance where the event might occur. Foucault
argues that phenomenology is “the grammar of the first person” and
“the metaphysics of consciousness” 33 in which the meaning never
coincides with an event. The event does not exist in phenomenology:
rather it appears as the signifiers of meaning and therefore, what exists
in phenomenology is only the self as a reflection of the world: world
exists through the self. Finally, in the philosophy of history, the event
is “enclosed” in a “cyclical pattern of time” 34 : it treats the present as
framed by the past and future: “the present is a former future where its
form was prepared and the past, which will occur in the future.” 35 This
pattern of time always preserves “the identity of its content,” 36 which
means that the present exists in a “logic of essence” 37 that links
present to past through memory and to future through concepts as a
knowledge regained for the future. Thus, the philosophy of history
proposes a cyclical concept of time and therefore Foucault suggests
that this time is static and unable to grasp an event.
Foucault considered event not as a concept but strictly as a

temporal force existing in the present time, which cannot be controlled
or determined by any methods of programmes. An event cannot be
defined when it occurs in the present time. The event can only be
narrated after its occurrence, which certainly determines the
specificity and uniqueness as well as the linguistic iterability of the

event. As Paul Patton suggests, “events are incorporeal
transformations which are expressed in language but attributed to
bodies and state of affairs… It does not simply represent the world but
intervenes in it.” 38 An event, therefore, is an active process that takes
place in the structural dimension of space and temporality. As
Foucault conceived it, event as an irreducible temporal force
disorients the notion of “pure” present. By reading Deleuze, Foucault
formulates his thoughts successfully, which help us to understand the
nature of event. Commenting on Deleuze’s intellectual contribution to
the history of Western thought, Foucault argues that what Deleuze
offers to resolve this methodological error is not a phenomenology of
signification based on the subject, but rather a thought of “the present
infinitive.” 39 The latter is not the rising up of the conceptual future in
a past essence, but, a moment of being continuously in the present
time. As Deleuze explains it:
Just as the present measures the temporal realization of the event—the

event in turn…has no present. It rather retreats and advances in two
directions at once, being the perpetual object of a double question:
what is going to happen? What has just happened? The agonizing
aspect of the pure event is that it is always and at the same time
something which has just happened and something about to
happen…the living present happens and brings about the event. But
the event nonetheless retains an eternal truth…The event is that no
one ever dies, but has always just died or is always going to
die…Each event is the smallest time…because it is divided into
proximate past and immediate future…But it is also the longest
time…because it is endlessly subdivided. 40
Deleuze’s analysis of an event as an endless seriality of

occurrences brought new dimensions of thought into the post-
phenomenological strands in Western philosophy. This temporal
dimension of an event as “present infinitive” is the potential ground
for performativity. What both Foucault and Deleuze speak about is
the irreducible temporality of performativity. Event is the smallest
unit of time, which is taking place in time. This, in fact, is the act or
the performance, or an occurrence on which the whole concept of
performativity is built. It is also the smallest unit of knowledge or
sense of being. In other words, cognition or the sense of being is the
results of the process of this occurrence in time; that is performativity.
Let us look at this aspect in detail as to how Deleuze formulates this
idea of performativity in connection with theatre as a major core of

this intellectual activity.
1.3.2 Deleuze and Repetition
Deleuze’s concept of repetition is the modernist revision of

mimesis. With the thinkers of modernity, mimesis turns into repetition
as a temporal dimension of representation and reality. Martin
Heidegger, for instance, when discussing Platonic mimesis, insists that
the idea is directed towards truth but based on the distance from it.
This means that mimesis is based on the idea that artists cannot
reproduce truth as similarity. According to Heidegger, to associate
mimesis with “primitive” imitation is a wrong reading, rather, for him,
it is a question of “doing after: production that comes afterwards. The
mimesis is in its essence situated and defined through distance.” 41
Following Heidegger, Hans Georg Gadamer also suggests mimesis as
a “productive relation to knowledge and truth”; as he argues that
“recognition” is the closest word that characterizes “a mimetical sense
of knowledge.” 42 Both Heidegger and Gadamer suggest that mimesis
is productive rather than imitative. This definition of mimesis refers to
a temporal dimension, which is closer to the concept of repetition that
many of the modern thinkers like Nietzsche and Freud used.
Therefore, the modern notion of mimesis is always “the meeting-place
of two opposing but connected ways of thinking, acting and making:
similarity and difference.” 43
According to Deleuze, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche introduce the

concept of movement in philosophy. They are the ones who put
metaphysics into motion, into action, which means that they redefined
cogito in terms of time, a new representation of movement. Cogito
ergo sum, or I think, therefore I am, is a canonical formulation about
individual self consciousness by which Descartes explains the basic
nature of the process of knowing. As he explained, the cogito
proposes that I exist in so far as I am a thinking thing, whatever that
turns out to be. Descartes thus establishes the supremacy of the
ontological nature of the thinking subject. 44 In Descartes, the
existence of the body is subjected to doubts due to the existence of
thoughts. Cognition, therefore, is a binary split between the body and
mind. Descartes, in this sense, rejects the fundamental interlocking
dynamics between the body and mind operating on the temporal level
of human existence. In its classical definition, representation is
explained as mediation between perception and meaning, but for
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, representation works only in temporality,
in movement, which are capable of affecting the mind outside of all
representation. This very idea of representation as movement is close
to theatre because performance as a world of signification is based on
animation. As Deleuze suggests:
Something completely new begins with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.

They no longer reflect on the theatre in the Hegelian manner. Neither
do they set up a philosophical theatre. They invent an incredible
equivalent of theatre within philosophy, thereby founding
simultaneously this theatre of the future and a new philosophy. 45
Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche share the same philosophical

views of movement in cogito, and it is because of the same reason
they object to Hegel’s allegedly false notion of movement, arguing
that Hegel does not go beyond the notion of false movement, the
“abstract logical movement of mediation.” 46 Deleuze argues that
Hegel remains in the world of “the reflected element of
representation” between “the singular and the universal” only on the
ground of an idea. 47 In order to clarify the historicity of the concept,
Deleuze argues that Marx’s criticism of Hegel originated from the
same philosophical point of view. In other words, while considering
history as a constant process, Marx incorporates this dynamics of
movement at the centre of his thoughts. He believes that the events
that change the world are always based on certain movements of
dialectic inherent within the formation of history and hence there will
be always a possibility of changes in the material conditions
organized by specific historical moments. No human condition is
static but constantly in motion, because in any historical situation the
productive forces are always in action or in motion with each other.
For Deleuze, this Marxian view of history is nothing but a theatrical
idea and therefore, closer to repetition except for Marx’s focus on
binary opposition. In the sense, Marx believes that history is made
from the dialectics of conflicts between working force and the capital
force. Deleuze does not believe that the productive forces are always
in opposition in history because there are other ways in which power
operates through various performative practices, which include the

linguistic, the cultural and the epistemological.
Deleuze argues that repetition as a movement is not an abstract

idea but the movement that is essentially supported by the physical
and psychic movements involved in the process of the production and
reception of meaning. Repetition is not the representation of an ideal
reality but the movement of physis and psyche exists constantly in
time in the form of an occurrence. Deleuze further explains the links
between theatre and repetition, establishing the physical and psychic
kinesis working throughout in a performance. In his argument he
refers to “the signs and masks through which the actor plays a role
which plays other roles.” 48 Deleuze is referring to the multiple
possibilities of reception of a performance in which repetition, as a
movement, brings the ‘play’ of theatrical signs: bodies, signs and
various patterns of forms and colours repeat in a performance. Here,
Deleuze emphasises the point that the production of meaning in a
performance situation, fundamentally, derives from the kinesis of
performance, not from any concept. He rejects the idea of the theatre
as representation:
The theatre of repetition is opposed to the theatre of representation,

just as movement is opposed to the concept and to representation
which refers it back to the concept. 49
Representation is conceptual and repetition is psycho-physical,

embedded in movement in time and space. As he further explains:
In the theatre of repetition, we experience pure forces, dynamic lines

in space which act without intermediary upon the spirit, and think it
directly with nature and history, with a language which speaks before
words, with gestures which develop before organized bodies, with
masks before faces, with spectres and phantoms before characters—
the whole apparatus of repetition as a ‘terrible power’. 50
While analysing the temporal dimension of meaning and

consciousness within various philosophical systems of thought,
Deleuze identified two recurring infinite elements that operate in the
process of making sense of the world: 1) remembering and
recognition and 2) memory and self-consciousness. According to
Deleuze, memory is a temporal activity travelling back and forth
between the appearance of an object and the re-cognition of its

meaning. The links between a concept and its object are established
by the dynamics of this double aspect, memory and self-
consciousness. This relation is what is called ‘representation’ in a
philosophical context. The very act of the movement of relating a
concept to its object consists of similarity and difference at the same
time, because in each repetition the object is perceived differently. In
another sense, the comprehension of a concept always relates to the
similarity of its object but at the same time the object is perceived
differently. This means, each moment of understanding is the
movement of repetition of physis and psyche in the world of
difference infinitely repeated in time. As Deleuze explains the
phenomenon, “repetition, thus appears as difference without a
concept, repetition which escapes indefinitely continued conceptual
difference.” 51 It is the power of physical and psychic movement, the
pure force repeating in time and space. According to Deleuze, theatre
takes place fundamentally through repetition. To sum up, Deleuze’s
repetition is the psycho-physical movement that occurs in time and
space as lived experience.
1.3.3 Derrida and Différance
Derrida’s différance refers to a kind of temporal concept similar to

repetition in relation to representation and meaning. As he explains
the term in Margins of Philosophy, it is “neither a word not a concept”
rather, it is temporization of consciousness. 52 As we have seen in the
section Foucault and Event, the phenomenological understanding of
consciousness/meaning is closely associated with the “presentation of
the being-present,” which means that the object is revealed through
the presence of the self; without the presence of this self the world
hardly exists outside of individual consciousness. Derrida believes
that this notion of self as the centre of meaning, however, is the
methodological error found in Husserl’s phenomenology. This is the
reason why Derrida’s thought is known as the declaration of the end
of phenomenology and hence, his methodology is known as the
decentralization of thoughts as deconstruction. While engaged in this
phenomenological deconstruction, Derrida has formulated his own
phenomenological base by finding Heidegger at his starting point. The
importance of the idea of time in Heidegger’s philosophical writings is
what attracts Derrida. In Heidegger’s philosophical project, we could

see time as an “interpretation of time as horizon for an understanding
of Being,” 53 which means that the question of Being can be answered
only in terms of time; and this time is movement according to
Heidegger in his phenomenological “destruction” of the philosophical
history of ontology. Therefore, Being in Heidegger, as Melberg quotes
from his original German edition of Sein und Zeit, is the enigmatic
movement of time, and this is the movement that makes being present
in time. Being is always as present as it is concealed, always
appearing and always in the act of withdrawing. Heidegger defines
Being as presence as “what is being grasped in its Being as presence,
for instance, is understood in relation to a definite mode of time, the
present. The present time and the presence of time.” 54 Being, for
Heidegger, is a play of presence and absence in time “with its
permanent movement” and the forward direction—into
“nothingness”—of the movement. He also explains this inevitable
movement forward to “nothingness” by using another term
Wiederholung, which literally means repetition. Heidegger uses two
more terms while explaining the nature of Being as an enigmatic
movement forward: Entschlossenheit (resoluteness) and Augenblick
(instant). As Melberg translates Heidegger’s words, in “resoluteness
(Entschlossenheit) the present is not only brought back from diversion
in what is close and cared for, but will be held in the future and in
having been.” 55 The idea derived from this explanation of the
movement of time, as Melberg paraphrases it, is the floating or the
sequential time which is concentrated into an “instant” that
reformulates or repeats the possibilities of the past and transports them
into future. We see now that Heidegger’s Wiederholung and Deleuze’s
repetition are similar concepts establishing the idea that individual
consciousness in terms of reception and meaning is a temporal
phenomenon embedded in physical as well as psychic movement.
Derrida’s différance could be viewed as the development of

Heideggerian Being but at the same time differs on various levels. As
Derrida suggests, différance is both spatial difference and temporal
displacement, which means that the meaning of the sign is revealed
only within the “repetitive structure” of language and the “presence-
of-the-present” is derived from repetition, and not the reverse. This is
again the temporization of meaning that Derrida calls iterability.
Iterability derives, according to Derrida’s etymological speculation,

not only from the Latin iter (again) but also from itara, the other in
Sanskrit. 56 It denotes “alterability in the singularity of the event,”
which means that a sign, in its being, always draws attention to its
double meaning that includes difference: the thing is neither what it
had been in the past nor what it would be in the future; rather it is
what it is. The activity of the spatial and temporal displacement of a
sign contains or conceals what is not present in it, which means, the
displacement conceals the past within the presence in the form of
absence: it is not the same. In this sense, each presence contains its
“other”: the invisible existence in the past. This is what Derrida calls
trace and language as a sign is a trace on which the ‘real’ is absent.
Therefore, reading, for Derrida, is an infinite repetition of signs within
the structure of repetition that never fixes meaning but extends it in
time by incorporating another occurrence of sign in space and in time.
Hence, according to Derrida, consciousness and meaning are not a
thing but an endless repetition of identification and difference in space
and time in which each moment in an event carries the previous
moment as trace inscribed in the presence as absence. This is the
“dialectic of repetition”, the endless process of deconstructing the
“presence” and for Derrida, this act is the act of “tracing of
différances” and “the concept of play keeps itself beyond its
opposition, announcing, on the eve of philosophy and beyond it, the
unity of chance and necessity in calculations without end.” 57 Derrida
admits the fact that the concepts of temporization and displacement
are already explained by Nietzsche and Freud as “active” movements
in metaphysics as well as in psychoanalysis as the function of thought
and unconscious. 58 This brief demonstration of Derrida’s
philosophical ideas suggests that what he has explained through his
various philosophical terms is referring to the performativity of
meaning in a linguistic context. Derrida also brought performance into
philosophy by defining temporal occurrences and the reader/onlooker
as the perceptive self in order to deconstruct any fixed notions of
meaning. This is the very nature of theatricality as meaning only
emerges and submerges in the mind of the spectators through a
constant play of signifiers including the body and its movements
submitted to perception.
Derrida also made some reflections on theatre practice when he

commemorated Artaud and it is highly essential to look at Artaud’s
idea of performativity in order to trace the epistemological ground
between breath and performativity. Both Artaud and Derrida are
interested in philosophy and theatre in their own ways. While Artaud
attempts to explore the metaphysics in theatre, Derrida’s intention was
to perform philosophy through his play of the act of deconstruction. In
the following section, I analyse briefly both approaches, the
theatricality of philosophy and the philosophy of theatricality in order
trace the whole argument offered in this chapter for further discussion.
1.3.4 Artaud and Breath
Artaud rejects representation in theatre in order to investigate the

‘real’ nature of the art. While doing this, he was, in fact, challenging
the fundamental assumptions of mimesis, the imitative concepts of
aesthetics developed in Western metaphysics since Plato and
Aristotle. Artaud asks provocative questions related to body, gestures,
movement, voice and breath, the entire physicality of body that has
the potential of creating a theatrical meaning of its own, to re-establish
a different poetry of “flesh” and “blood” which he called cruelty. To a
large extent, Artaud’s language, particularly the way he uses it to
clarify his ideas and thoughts, is metaphorical and this is the major
difficulty in understanding his theses. I do not want argue either that
Artaud eventually ends up with the conflict between “madness” and
“reason” without making much sense in what he has been discussing;
or celebrating the idea of Derridian “closure” repeatedly in terms of
representation, writing and meaning. Instead, my intention in this
section is to investigate: 1) the conceptual ground of Artaud’s
rejection of representation 2) the nature of performativity that Artaud
proposed and finally, 3) the role of breath in his theatre aesthetics.
Artaud points out that cruelty must not be taken in its literary
sense of “merciless bloodshed, pointless and gratuitous pursuit of
physical pain.” 59 Rather, it is “the aspect of our own existence,”
whose existence is not defined by a particular historical time; rather,
time in a current philosophical sense. Thus, Artaud is very clear in
using this term as an image that is entwined with the very condition of
being, which has always “been there”: cruelty is neither an invention
nor an “adjunct” of his thoughts. For Artaud, cruelty is a “hungering

after life” and the “restless necessity” in the Gnostic sense of vortex,
the “inescapability” of Being without which life could not continue.
Artaud’s views suggest the enigma of the presence of time as an
never-ending movement in which the Self is revealed through acts by
being at the edge of its motion. Artaud clarifies the link between
consciousness, time and human act further, indicating that life is a
constant process through which the meaning of Being is produced.
There is no cruelty without consciousness, without the application of

consciousness, for the latter gives practicing any act in life a blood red
tinge, its cruel over tones, since it is understood that being alive
always means the death of someone else. 60
This enigma of being-in-present in time is characteristic of

philosophical concepts developed by Nietzsche, Heidegger, Deleuze
and Derrida, as discussed in earlier sections of this chapter. Artaud
distinctively separates cruelty as consciousness and the application of
it as acts, through which the sense of Being is established. Hence,
cruelty, for Artaud, is the temporisation of meaning/consciousness and
theatre; it is the living example of this philosophical view. Theatre for
Artaud is based on the magic act which obeys this inescapability of
being-in-present that permits “constant creation” in time and space.
Artaud called this the desire that makes theatre possible, the desire for
always being-in-present. This desire is the psycho-physical urge to be
in the present, to be in consciousness: the underlying energy to all the
emotional and cognitive processes. The failure of theatre, according to
Artaud, is forgetting this desire, this temporal dimension that creates
movement, gestures, sounds and other physical appearances relating to
the body. This temporal and physical force is, in fact, beyond the
structure of language and also the most important element that plays
as “the transcendent aspect of the plot”: without this physical force in
time as presence, the plot will not transcend into experience. This
temporal perspective provides a firm philosophical ground for Artaud
to reject representation in theatre. It is very clear in this brief analysis
why Artaud surpasses representation and reinforces the body in his
theatre; it is simply because he rediscovered the ancient strength of
Oriental theatre as the non-representational enactment of the
physicality of the body constantly destined to be at the edge of time.
Therefore, theatre is a continuous process and a vibrant movement in
space and time that cannot be preserved or regained; for that reason.
Artaud called it the magical act. It is magical because it is movement
which cannot be captured in frozen time. It is also the fact that each
moment in time is endlessly transformational: the present transforms
into another present, not into future.
Artaud called this structure of time the “cosmic strictness” and the
“relentless necessity.” Both Artaud’s philosophical ground and his
views on the nature of theatricality could be understood by these
temporal sequences, which is a common trend with many philosophers
and critics of theatricality in recent history that we have been looking
at in this chapter. Artaud’s theatricality is not the frozen time of
representation but an active time of repetition of the body in the
present time. Repetition here is used not in its literal sense but in its
philosophical sense, as either an event or a movement that is not
repeatable in the same way twice. Derrida might argue in this context
that each moment in the past is inscribed in the present as trace and
that therefore there is no closure of space in which the traces could be
re-presented, which means that one has no space outside
representation and therefore it continues. Derrida argues that
representation is time itself in the form of repetition and each presence
in time refers to its existence in the past, the history of the presence
that belongs to some another point of time in the past, from which
there is no way of escaping. This Derridian rereading of Artaud
remains as one of the most important intellectual debates of our time
on and around the issues of representation, reality and consciousness.
The question Derrida asks still remains unresolved by both Artaud and
Derrida, as their unfinished projects, and my task here is to look at
Artaud’s views on representation in the light of Derrida’s rejoinder to
make sure that Artaud has not been misread by Derrida.
Derrida, in his careful reading of Artaud, agrees that “the theatre

of cruelty is not a representation”: it is “life” itself to the extent to
which it is “unrepresentable”. According to Artaud’s words, “art is not
the imitation of life, but life is the imitation of a transcendental
principle which art puts us into communication with once again.” 61
Derrida further clarifies Artaud’s intention of resisting representation
in the name of the body, arguing that the stage certainly “will no
longer represent”, since it will not operate as the “sensory illustration
of a text already written.” Artaud believes that the “stage will no

longer operate as the repetition of the present” in the sense of re-
presenting an already existing event. Derrida identifies two key
concepts shaping Artaud’s entire arguments: 1) repetition and 2) pure
presence. In order to analyse Artaud’s notions of repetition and pure
presence, first of all Derrida clarifies Artaud’s view on representation
by saying that representation for Artaud is not the “surface of
spectacle displayed for spectators”. Rather what Artaud meant is the
“representation that signifies an experience which produces its own
space” 62 .Artaud’s representation is not re-presentation of a text or of
an event that existed beforehand. It is the presence of visual objects
that produce their own experience without any addition of an event or
a text that pre-exists. Derrida argues that Artaud declared a “closure of
representation” by prophesying an “original representation” which is a
“pure presence” of experience. This Artaudian visible representation
is directed against the “speech which eludes sight.” Derrida is very
clear about Artaud’s intentions when he says Artaud will not perform
any written text. This means that each speech in the theatre space
should take a different function of “physical share” which cannot be
“captured and written down” in the language of words. In Artaud’s
words, language functions in theatre as hieroglyphic writing in which
“phonetic elements are coordinated to visual, pictorial and plastic
elements.” Derrida offers two arguments in terms of his reading of
Artaud:
1. Derrida does not disagree with most of Artaud’s ideas about

the language of the stage. Instead, he disagrees when Artaud
argues for a “pure presence” in theatre. Derrida considers
“pure presence” a conceptual error on Artaud’s part. As
Derrida clarifies, Artaud wanted to erase repetition: he wants
theatre to be in its “first time” of original movements, gestures
and sounds without repeating it in the “second time” in order
to make any meaning of its own. Rather he wants theatre to be
the spectacle of experience of its own. Derrida argues that
without repetition there is no identity, and “truth” can always
be repeated “Repetition gathers and maintains the past-present
as truth” through which identity is generated. What Derrida
argues here is that human cognition operates by mediating the
faculty of memory and the temporal phenomenon of repetition
without which there will not be any sense either to the world
or to the Self. In this sense, Derrida suggests that while
prophesying a spectacle of the “first time” Artaud envisaged a
closed space outside of representation which also declares the
Death of meaning.
2. Artaud consumes a pure presence, which means that Artaud

does not want to preserve and maintain present as the
manifestation of memory to be conscious of its presence.
Rather, what he wants to do with theatre is Being with the
pure différance, the difference which does not repeat. Derrida
says that this pure différance is a reduced space of nowhere.
‘Pure’ is something which cannot be repeated and there will
not be a meaning without a repetition. This is Derrida’s
criticism of Artaud: he declares the closure of representation
by conceiving a ‘place’ outside the signifying process. As I
shall demonstrate in Chapter four, here Derrida is addressing
the issues of higher levels of consciousness by using the
vocabulary from a different philosophical tradition.
What Derrida wants to say about the limitation of Artaud’s theatre

is that it does not restore the past and infuses it into present moment
as a trace: it does not restore meaning or human behavioural patterns
to re-cognize them as a repetition. Therefore, theatre of cruelty, for
Derrida is the “art of difference” without “reserve” and without
“return”. It is a theatre “without history.” Artaud wants to “repeat the
proximity of origin” but only once. He also wants to save the “purity
of a presence” without repetition.
Derrida’s project focuses on a linguistic and historical context in

which the signs play and repeat endlessly within the structure in order
to make the sense of the presence of meaning possible. In contrast,
Artaud rejects any kind of linguistic and historic structure of repetition
particularly in theatre, arguing that “theatre is passionate overflowing,
a frightful transfer of forces from body to body.” 63 This transfer of
time for Artaud does not seek a recognizable structure to repeat; rather
it rests in motion, in time with gestures. In this sense, Artaud suggests
a place outside the linguistic and historic time where the repetition
repeats itself without reference and within the infinite. Derrida argues
that there is no ‘place’ outside the linguistic and historic time and the
place Artaud was suggesting is the playing space “of the world as
play” and this play of life is artistic. At this point Derrida refers to two
kinds of repetitions: 1) the repetition that indicates a movement back
and forth and 2) the repetition that repeats itself as original without
reference, which begins with its own representation. Derrida suggests
that Artaud proposed a repetition without reference. Derrida’s first
category, repetition with movement refers to linguistic and historic
time whereas repetition without reference is a state ‘beyond’ the
linguistic and historic levels of meaning. As Derrida says, Artaud
suggests the existence of a higher level of consciousness in
performance by referring to a kind of repetition which repeats itself as
original. In this repetition without reference, representation continues
but not on historic or linguistic levels. The question left unanswered
by Derrida is what the nature of that non-referential representation is
and how a person can be aware of the existence of that level of non-
historic and non-linguistic consciousness.
Derrida also did not address Artaud’s views on breathing that he

encountered with Balinese rituals. Artaud seems to have answers to
both questions: actors' breathing and the non-referential repetition are
interconnected, particularly with his view of theatre as the “frightful
transfer of forces from body to body”. Artaud refers to the functioning
of different patterns of breathing helping to transfer the psycho-
physical forces from body to body. Artaud combines these patterns of
breathing and the actor’s consciousness considering a different kind of
performative working internally within the body.
Artaud, finding himself in the grey area of representation and the

physical body, argued that meaning is brought about by our
conceptual relations to objects, and whenever we intend to question
this “object relationship” between meaning and form the result will be
a total “chaos”. What Artaud proposed is an “active language” for
theatre, active in terms of exploring the actor’s physical body and
anarchic in terms of rejecting the psycho-linguistic representation,
where “the usual limits of feeling and words are transcended.” 64 A
theatrical performance is always this altered meaning for Artaud,
which he called active metaphysics, “the metaphysics [of body] out of
language” that exists in relation to “time and movement.” According
to Artaud, theatre by its nature and definition is “destined to

represent” but this does not mean that theatre could only represent
human psychological conditions. For him, the true spirit of theatre
allows understanding and experiencing “the known or unknown fields
of consciousness,” 65 Artaud suggests breath as the new means for his
new theatre in order to explore the “overflowing” of the “frightful
transfer of forces” from body to body and from body to its unknown
fields of consciousness. In different terms, Joseph R. Roach articulates
the same idea by arguing that “beyond his rejection of literary texts,
which supposedly doom the theatre to derivation, Artaud rooted his
version of the paradox in the actor’s breathing.” 66
No emotion is possible without a bodily localization

corresponding to it. All human emotions are physically connected to
the movements of the body. Human emotions, in this sense, are the
result of complex movements linking both psychological and physical
movements in the body. No movement is possible without its parallel
breathing and therefore, each movement and each emotion of the body
is theoretically interconnected.
While explaining a specific example, Cabbalistic theory and the

practice of breathing, Artaud further asserts that “every mental
movement, every feeling, every leap in human affectivity has an
appropriate breath.” 67 Artaud insists that the actor should depend on
“the whetted edge of his breathing.” However, this language remains
vague and does not help us to understand fully the ‘real’ nature of the
dynamics of breath in terms of physical force, emotion and its visual
representation. Artaud, therefore, explains nothing of this natural
property of the body, breath, except giving some vague ideas relating
to different patterns of breathing, rhythm and sounds. However, he
argues often strongly and clearly that the dynamics of breath is the
power of the body and it can easily create memorable effects on
thoughts and feelings including exploring the unknown fields of
consciousness.
The following insights can be derived from the above sections

evaluating performance and epistemological categories of
performativity:
1. In the context of theatrical performance, performativity is a

cognitive and emotional movement taking place in between
the presented actions and their perception. The embodied
actions as well as the act of perception are activities relating
to the body and therefore, the body as an embodiment of
psycho-physical elements in time and space functions as the
basis of performativity. This means that both the embodied
actions and the act of perception are the movements in time
and space and therefore, performativity is a temporal element
that operates within a performance situation between action
and its reactions.
2. In the contexts of linguistics and philosophy, performativity is

a conceptual movement involving temporisation of the field of
the unconscious in terms of presence and its memory of the
past. This means that the process of being aware of one’s own
being is a process in time where the self is positioned among
other objects of signification. Thinkers like Nietzsche,
Heidegger, Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida intend to make
sense of this temporal element of meaning/consciousness
from their own disciplines by using performance concepts and
ideas.
3. Heidegger’s Wiederholung, Deleuze’s repetition, Foucault’s

event and Derrida’s différance are epistemological concepts
introducing the element of time in the production and
reception of meaning. They all are referring to performativity
by using different terms.
4. Artaud, through his idea of performativity, suggests a kind of

‘repetition without reference’ which he further connects with
consciousness and actor’s breathing.
5. Performativity, therefore, is explained in both the

performance as well as in the epistemological categories as a
psycho-physical movement involved in the production and
reception of meaning.
All these views of performativity share a common idea that the

appearance and disappearance of signs, objects and the body in time
and space, mediated by perception, are the elements from which
meaning emerges. Performativity, in all cases, is the dynamics of a
psycho-physical movement which links past-present into a context of
meaning that appears as a structure of signification. Performativity
thus is a play between the Self and the structure of signification
mediated by time that eventually leads towards identification; but this
identification is never stabilized because of the passage of time: one
cannot perceive an object similarly the second time around simply
because the act of perception as well as the object of perception are
temporal and that means, ever-changing. This process generates
history for each appearance in space through the mediation of
memory: it is a never-ending process and there is no space outside of
this chain of signification. In short, performativity, in its nature and
function, is this process of the production and reception of linguistic,
aesthetic, social and philosophical representation of meanings.
Artaud accepts that representation is inevitable in theatre, but he

intends to go beyond its chain of significations. Performativity, for
him, is a temporal element of physical movement that reinforces the
theatrical performance by the dynamics of breath. This means that
Artaud’s performativity is not related to the innermost characteristics
of representation. For instance, when Deleuze classifies theatre as
theatre of representation and theatre of repetition, he introduces
movement to mimesis by arguing that the theatre of repetition is the
temporal dimension of representation whereas the classical notion of
representation is pictorial without movement. This means that even in
Deleuze’s repetition, the representational element is predominantly
active. Only in the case of Artaud can we see the rejection of
representation and the rediscovery of the “magic of breathing” in
terms of an active poetics of theatre. When most of the thinkers of
Artaud’s time introduce movement in philosophy and poetics as
repetition Artaud did separate repetition from re-presentation by
conceiving a different notion of performativity, which is physical and
non-conceptual. Inspired by a brief encounter with Balinese rituals
and performance traditions, myths and beliefs, Artaud formulates a
new means by which an actor can experience higher levels of
consciousness. This new means, for Artaud, is breath. In order to
establish the epistemological links between breath and consciousness,

I will look at specific aspects of breath presented in the current
philosophical thinking of Heidegger, Derrida and Irigaray.
1.4 Being and/or Breathing: Heidegger and Irigaray
Heidegger considered the issues of Being as the most specialized

epistemological and metaphysical problem to be resolved: “why are
there essents rather than nothing?” 68 The question why there is
anything rather than nothing, for Heidegger is the first of all questions
because it is the fundamental issue relating to our sense of Being. It is
the fundamental issue because there is a passage of time in between
the things there and Being. In An Introduction to Metaphysics, while
explaining the fundamental nature of individual consciousness in
relation to time and presence, Heidegger asks this question:
And what is the temporal extension of human life amid all the millions
of years? Scarcely a move of the second hand, a breath.
Was Heidegger aware of the role of breathing? Was he aware of

the fact that breath functions as the physical base of the
epistemological understanding of Being? Furthermore, this instance
could be a metaphorical example of another truth: that the presence of
Heidegger’s thinking is activated and reinforced by an invisible other,
his breathing. However, Heidegger says that breath is the “temporal
extension” of our being and we ourselves “happen to belong” on this
edge, the edge of breathing. If breath is considered as the temporal
extension of being, is there a ‘Being’ without breathing? Luce
Irigaray, in response to Heidegger’s “forgetting of being,” asks this
fundamental question in her seminal book, The Forgetting of Air in
Martin Heidegger as her fundamental rereading of Western
metaphysics. In this, she offers a reassessment of Air, arguing that it is
an all-persistent circulation of the material and the transcendental. In
his essay, The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, Heidegger
asks some key questions in relation to his investigation of the proper
matter for thinking by asking “in what circle are we here, and truly
with no way out?” 69 That circle, for Heidegger is the circle of
signifiers. Irigaray’s rereading of Heidegger starts from this question
and she asserts that there is also an unthinkable element within this
circle of signifiers, the circle of Air. As she puts it: “of what [is] this
is? Of air.” 70
Irigaray is skeptical about the entire formulation of the Western

philosophical framework developed over centuries centred on and
around the act of thinking, stating that “no wonder philosophy dies-
without air.” 71 She criticises the philosophers of Being, including
Heidegger, of the void that they have created “by using up the air for
telling without ever telling of air itself,” 72 For Irigaray, this is the
chasm at the origin of their thought: “Can man live elsewhere than in
air,”? Irigaray suggests that no habitation is possible neither in fire
nor in water nor in the earth without air. The element of air is
irreducibly constitutive to the human faculty of perception and the
knowledge to re-cognize it. Air is always there, although we tend to
forget it. It is an unrecognized “place of all presence and absence” and
“no presence is possible without air”. Irigaray talks about breath
specifically, and for her, air is breath and the place of no breath is the
place of disappearance. It plays between presence and absence,
between life and death, between significations and their perception
and between representation and its experience. This imperceptible
materiality of air is the “forgotten material mediation of the logos.”
Irigaray suggests that the air element is the mediation of all reflections
including perception, language, thoughts, imagination and the faculty
of action. In the particular context of signification and meaning,
Irigaray asserts that air is the invisible other, which is irreducible and
without which there is no movement between perception and
cognition. We are in a space that is already occupied by air: two
things cannot take place in the same place elsewhere other than the
place of air.
Air is manifested as breath and for Irigaray, breath is a

philosophical proposition against man’s philosophy of “Being as the
Being of forgetting” and as she suggests, the philosophy of breathing
is the philosophy of living, a feminine act of “remembering.” This
philosophy is the philosophy of the other: the breath as the other of
Being. Breath is the very act that links past-present and breathing is
the present infinitive in which “future [turns down into] present”.
Breathing is the passage of time and the producer of consciousness.
Irigaray seems to be taking breath into the core of her philosophical

thinking by saying that:
Breathing corresponds to the first autonomous gesture of the living

human being. To come into the world supposes inhaling and exhaling
by oneself. In the uterus, we receive oxygen through the mother’s
blood. We are not yet autonomous, not yet born. 73
Irigaray links breath to consciousness through the idea of

autonomous entity of individual being. Breath for her is fundamental
to all human activities including birth and death, and thoughts and
actions. Further more, breathing in conscious for Irigaray, means
taking care of one’s life. Inspired by the classical texts of Yoga,
Irigaray says “we are divided between two breaths, the natural breath
and the cultural breath…” 74 The natural breath is the corporeal
breathing and the cultural breath is the breathing, which is cultivated
that is the spiritual breathing. As Irigaray further says, “…becoming
spiritual means transforming our elemental vital breath little by little
into a more subtle breath” 75 transcending corporeal breath into
spiritual breath. Irigaray seems to be referring to a practice of
breathing, based on Yoga, by saying that breath combines human
consciousness and physical body. But, it is not clear from her writings
that what kind of practice does she referring to. However, the
equation of breathing is Being is clearly established in Irigaray as air
is the form of “inspiration” manifests in exercising the physical
movements of the body, including perception and its re-cognition.
Irigaray locates breath epistemologically in performativity.
Summary
To conclude, this chapter intends to identify the epistemological

location of breath in a wider context of performativity as a process of
perception and meaning. While investigating the nature of
performativity in the contexts of theatrical performance as well as
critical theory, the following points can be summarized:
1. Performativity is a temporal concept explaining the nature of

the production and reception of meaning by incorporating
body, signs, language and the field of human sub-conscious as
its basic elements.
2. Performativity, from a theatrical performance perspective, is a

process linking physical performance and its reception into
meaning and emotional experience.
3. In a critical discourse, performativity is again explained as an

epistemological process linking past-present through a
psycho-physical movement of repetition within the field of
significations in order to produce meaning, history and
consciousness.
4. The presence of the body as the presence and its perception

are the basis for the functioning of performativity in various
linguistic, cultural and social contexts.
5. Performativity, for Artaud, is the dynamics of actor’s

breathing, linking consciousness and the physical body in a
performance. Ritual elements of performance and breathing
patterns form the basis of Artaud’s theatricality.
6. Irigaray’s idea of performativity is located in breath in the

following manner:
a. Air is the fundamental element and the only place

where all the mental and physical activities of human
beings are taking place.
b. It is the invisible other that produces meaning and
forms of representations of poetry and thoughts.
c. Without the materiality of air, there is no
representation of thought or art and there is no
exercising of physical movements, perception and
therefore, no cognition.
The flow of breath is the flow of presence and absence and

therefore, the flow of breath is the flow of meaning. Breathing is a
movement that connects physical and mental activities together and
therefore, it is a movement of action, meaning and experience. The
flow of breath is the passage of time that brings words, movements of
the body, human actions and thoughts into contact with each other in
its place. Breath also reinforces the fields of known and unknown
levels of consciousness. As breath is physically located in the body, it
is also located, epistemologically, in the functioning of performativity
as a process of production and reception of meaning. In other words,
as I propose in the chapter, the materiality of breath is located as an
essential element in the process of meaning and consciousness within
the structure of significations. This physical material, breath, located
epistemologically in performativity also suggests the transformational
borders between known and unknown fields of consciousness (I will
look at this aspect in the fourth Chapter in details). Therefore, breath
is bio-theatricality and the invisible Other that reinforce meaning into
performativity. In the following chapter, I investigate how breath is
understood, explained and practiced in the traditional cultures,
searching for a working methodology and system of knowledge useful
to contemporary theatre practice and consciousness studies.
Notes
1
Tracy C Davis and Thomas Postlewait, ed. Theatricality, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), pp. 2-39.
2
Ibid., p. 6.
3
Ibid., pp. 4 -7.
4
King, ct. in Ibid., p. 5.
5
Sara Grant, Sankaracarya’s Concept of Relation, (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1999), p. 19.
6
Willmar Sauter, The Theatrical Event: Dynamics of Performance and Perception,
(Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000), pp. 50-3.
7
Ibid., p. 50.
8
Roland Barthes, ct. in Tracy C Davis and Thomas Postlewait, ed. Theatricality,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 23.
9
Ibid., p. 24.
10
Erika Fischer-Lichte, “ Theatricality”, in Theatre Research International (TRI)
20.2. 1997: pp. 218-60.
11
Tracy C Davis and Thomas Postlewait, ed. Theatricality, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), p. 27.
12
Josette Féral, ct. in. Ibid., p. 27.
13
Paul de Man, Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche,
Rilke and Proust (New Haven, 1979) p. 298.
14
Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: the Politics of Performance, (London & New York:
Routledge, 1993), pp. 146-49.
15
Ibid., p. 146.
16
Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction, (London & New York:
Routledge, 2002), p. 110.
17
(Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000), p. 56.
18
Marvin Carlson, Theatre Research International, (TRI) 20.2. 1996: pp. 100-120.
19
Erika Fischer-Lichte, “Theatricality”, in Theatre Research International 20.2. 1997:
pp. 218-260.
20
Ibid., p. 52
21
Ibid., p. 52.
22
Ibid., pp. 54-6.
23
Willmar Sauter, “Who Is Who and What Is What? Introductory Notes,” in
Advances in Reception and Audience Research, vol.2, pp. 5-16.
24
Nicola Frijda, cited in Willmar Sauter, The Theatrical Event: Dynamics of
Performance and Perception, (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000), p. 58.
25
Ibid., p. 59.
26
Ibid., p. 63.
27
Ibid,. pp. 62-3.
28
William H. Ittelson, Visual Space Perception, (New York: Springer Publishing
Company, 1960), pp. 5-6.
29
Ibid., p. 6.
30
Daniel Meyer Dinkgräfe, (1999) ‘Consciousness and the Concept of Rasa’,
Performing Arts Journal, vol.1, part 4, pp. 103-115.
31
(Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000), p. 70.
32
Michel Foucault, “Theatrum Philosophicum”, in Timothy Murray, ed. Mimesis,
Masochism and Mime: The Politics of Theatricality in Contemporary French
Thought, (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 1997) pp. 222-223.
33
Ibid., p. 223.
34
Ibid., p. 223.
35
Ibid., p. 223.
36
Ibid., p. 223.
37
Ibid., p. 223.
38
Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 27-8.
39
Michael Foucault, “Theatrum Philosophicum” c.f. Timothy Murray, (ed). Mimesis,
Masochism and Mime: The politics of Theatricality in Contemporary French Thought,
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), p. 222.
40
Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, tr. Mark Lester, with Charles Stivale, ed.
Constantin V. Boundas, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 63.
41
Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche (Pfullingen: Neste, 1961), vol. p. 215, ct. in Arne
Melberg, Theories of Mimesis, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp.
3-4.
42
Ibid., p. 4.
43
Ibid., p. 1.
44
<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/#4> (consulted March 12,
2005).
45
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, (London& New York: Continuum,
2001), p. 8.
46
Ibid., p. 8
47
Ibid., p. 10.
48
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, (London& New York: Continuum,
2001), p. 10.
49
Ibid., p. 10.
50
Ibid., p. 10.
51
Ibid., p. 13.
52
Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, tr. Alan Bass, (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 3-9.
53
Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1986) ct. in Arne Melberg,
Theories of Mimesis, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),pp. 154-59.
54
Ibid., p. 155.
55
Ibid., p. 157.
56
Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context” in Margins of Philosophy, tr. Alan
Bass, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 315.
57
Jacques Derrida, “Différance” in Margins of Philosophy, tr. Alan Bass, (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 7.
58
See for more details on this in Ibid., pp. 18-22.
59
Claude Schumacher with Brian Singleton, (ed.) Artaud on Theatre, (London:
Methuen, 2001), p. 119. I follow this edition only for one letter which is missing
Victor Corti’s English translation of Theatre and Its Double (1970). But, I largely
follow Victor Corti because the original text is more or less unedited in Corti where as
in Schumacher and Singleton, many crucial portions have been omitted. For instance,
in their 2001 edition, Artaud’s classification of various patterns of breathing is
missing (p. 141), which is more important to this thesis.
60
Ibid., p. 80.
61
Jacques Derrida, “The Theatre of Cruelty and the Closure of Representation” in
Timothy Murray, ed. Mimesis, Masochism and Mime: The Politics of Theatricality in
Contemporary French Thought, (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 1997), p. 42.
62
Ibid., p. 46.
63
Ibid., p. 59.
64
Antonin Artaud, Theatre and Its Double, tr. Victor Corti, (London: Calder &
Boyars, 1970), p. 30.
65
Ibid., p. 35.
66
Joseph R. Roach, The Player’s Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting, (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 223.
67
Ibid., p. 89.
68
Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, tr. Ralph Manheim, (New
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), p. 1. The word essents stands for existence or
things that are, which according to the translator, is coined by himself because the
original German word Dasein refers to an every day meaning of ‘existence’. But,
when Heidegger uses this word in his philosophical writings, he splits the word as Da-
sein, meaning being-there. So, according to the translator’s opinion, essents is the
most nearest word in English that expresses the very meaning. In my view, there is a
time element in between the split words of Da-sein in Heidegger which is not at a
concern of the translator. However, I use this word essent since I follow this edition.
69
Martin Heidegger, “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking” in Basic
Writings, tr. David Farrell Krell, (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), p. 449.
70
Luce Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, tr. Mary Beth Mader, (London: Athlone Press,
1999), p. 5.
71
Ibid., p. 5.
72
Ibid., p. 7.
73
Luce Irigaray, Between East and West, (New York: Columbia University Press,
2002), p. 73
74
Ibid., p. 75.
75
Ibid., p. 76.
Chapter Two
In Search of Breath
Breath is located in the body and serves as the basis of
theatricality in everyday life, through combining speech, action and
thoughts in relation to an explicit level of meaning. The psycho-
physicality of human embodiment is activated through the act of
breathing. Breath as the fundamental source of energy to all human
actions, reactions, emotions and speech, is an inseparable element in
the nature of human embodiment. The movement of the breath is the
movement of the body and the flow of breath is the flow of language
and therefore, meaning. All the body’s physical, mental and linguistic
activities are deeply interconnected with the dynamics of breath in the
body. Many of the cultural, religious, mythical and philosophical
traditions of the world possess, in one way or another, some forms of
knowledge related to the importance of breathing. Aristotle’s On
Breath, for instance, investigates the physiological and metaphysical
functioning of breath in the body while examining pre-existent views
of the ways in which breath has been conceived of and debated in the
Greek natural philosophical tradition since Diogenes and Democritus.
Aristotle elaborates these initial observations of the functioning of
breath in the body further in his metaphysical speculations, arguing
that the Soul and emotions are interconnected with the dynamics of
breath.
The linguistic derivations of breath-related words in various

languages suggest different understandings of the implications of the
concepts and practices of breath. The word spirit, for instance, comes
from the Latin word spiritus, which literally means breath. Although
the Sanskrit word prana and the Tamil word uyir continue to have
multiple levels of meaning, the initial meaning of the word prana in
Sanskrit is soul. There are several other words in Sanskrit derived
from prana that refer to some forms of breath-related practice or
activity, such as pranakarmani which means the functions of life
breath, pranam which means the air that acts outwardly, pranavayu
which means the vital air that moves in the chest, and pranapanu,
which refers to air moving up and down. Similarly, in the Tamil
language, the word uyir refers to meanings such as soul, ascendant,
one of the vital airs, wind, voice and spoken sound. The word uyir-ttal
52 In Search of Breath
in Tamil literally means “to regain consciousness”. The breath-related

words in Sanskrit and Tamil imply the existence of specific practices
and philosophies related to breath. The South Indian Shiva tradition, a
sub-category of Tamil, for instance, offers a systematic approach to
breathing through various systems of practice like Siddha Yoga,
martial arts and medicine, which are interconnected with each other in
terms of their specific references to breath.
2.1. Aristotle and Breath
Some pre-Aristotelian natural philosophers of Greece, including

Diogenes and Democritus had dealt with respiration and some of them
had offered no explanations at all. Others had discussed it without
much insight and without sufficient experience of the facts. Aristotle,
therefore, began to address questions related to respiration in Prava
Naturalia. The book includes two treatises on breath: On Respiration
and On Breath. 1
In today’s Aristotle scholarship, the authorship of these treatises is

under question. Hett’s views on this debate as follows: First, the writer
of the treatises confuses the reader’s understanding of natural human
respiration by mentioning a ‘connatural breathing’. It is not clear in
the treatises whether the writer is here referring to some pattern or
technique of breathing in human respiration known only to him.
According to Hett, the writer never explains clearly what he
understands by this ‘connatural breathing’, but obviously it is not the
same thing as ordinary breath. The second argument is that the writer
makes constant use of the word ‘air-duct’ in On Breath, which applies
primarily to windpipe (481 a 22, b 13 & 484 a 14). 2 As Hett argues,
the writer uses the word with no reference to any ‘duct’ again in On
Breath, which apparently refers to the arteries. 3 The treatises, On
Breath and On Respiration, thus lack the consistency and clarity
characteristic of texts where Aristotle’s authorship is not in dispute.
The texts do, however, establish physiological links between air

and nutriment by saying that “the veins and air ducts…are probably
the vehicles of nutriment.” 4 These veins and air ducts are connected
with the intestines and the belly. Similarly, the texts demonstrate the
link between emotions and breath when discussing pulsation. In this
sense, the writer’s understanding of the physiological and

psychological functioning of breath in the body is worth considering.
Rather than addressing the historical questions of authorship here, I
would like to assume the text is by Aristotle, if only for the sake of
convenience, and summarise the key concepts illustrated by Aristotle
on breath and its relation to the human body and consciousness.
Bearing in mind the criticisms that Aristotle made obvious mistakes in
understanding human physiology and its system of breathing, I am
still interested in looking at whether he makes some sense in his
attempt to establish the link between breath, consciousness and
emotion in the human embodiment.
In his discussion of breath, Aristotle is concerned with two

questions: why some living creatures are long-lived and others short-
lived. He also raises the questions of whether the length of a life-span
is necessarily related to the state of the human organism’s health, and
what the element common to natural objects is that renders them open
to be easily destroyed. The latter question derives from Aristotle’s
observation that knowledge, health and disease have their own
peculiar form of destruction. For instance, learning and recollection
destroy ignorance, whereas forgetfulness and error destroy
knowledge. Furthermore, knowledge can be destroyed even when the
human organism that contains them is not destroyed. However, when
the structure of the natural object, the human organism, is destroyed,
the knowledge or health that is in them are also destroyed. As a result
of these insights, Aristotle was interested in examining the inner truths
of the combinations of the natural elements in the human organism. In
his ontology of being and destruction it would be impossible for
anything that has no opposite to be destroyed. In other words, only
opposites are destroyed, for everything which possesses matter must
have an opposite in some sense. Ultimately, then, every form of matter
is destroyed by its environment through a process of movement in
which the form is either being created or destroyed. For instance, the
lesser flame is consumed by the greater flame because the
nourishment, the smoke, is exhausted rapidly by the greater. Aristotle
compares all kinds of growth and destruction with movement saying
that “everything is in a state of movement, and is being either
generated or destroyed.” 5 The longevity of creatures, in this context, is
a dynamic efficacy belonging to both space and time, mediated by
movement. Aristotle developed this concept of spatio-temporal

movement further in relation to air, drawing on observable facts, for
example, that the dead body is cold and dry whereas the living body is
moist and warm. From this observation he concluded that the matter
of which all things are composed consists of hot and cold, dry and
moist. Thus, the difference between the cold and dry dead body and
the warm and moist living body, according to Aristotle, is that one
contains the air element that the other does not contain. I will further
develop this theme of the inter-connectedness of breath, movement
and time in Chapter Four in relation to the Siddha Yoga mode of
physical philosophy and the extended levels of consciousness known
as Savikalpa Samadhi and Nirvikalpa Samadhi, because, according to
Siddha Yoga, breath as a movement indicates time and further links
the body and consciousness. The following sections will briefly
illustrate Aristotle’s key themes on breath.
2.1.1 Breath is a Body
In a close observation of the functioning of breath, Aristotle says

that nutriment is the element which animates the body and therefore
we have to consider the nature and source of nutriment in terms of
breath. Nutrition may occur in two ways: by respiration and by
digestion of food. Breath is a nutriment to the body in the same way
that food is. For Aristotle, breath thus has a material nature, just as
food has. Aristotle clearly specifies the distinct but related functions in
the body of breath / air and food: breath / air is the agent that produces
activity by employing the digestive faculty that in turn causes growth
and nourishment. Going into detail about the functions of breath,
understood as “the purest substance of the body,” 6 within the overall
functioning of the body, Aristotle argues that breathing serves the
purpose of refrigeration: by drawing cool air in, heat is cooled down.
There are three distinct movements of breath: respiration, pulsation
and the action upon food. The movements of pulsation and respiration
are perceptible to a certain extent, whereas “the movement that affects
nutriment is almost theoretical, but, in so far as it can be determined
from its result, it is a matter of perception” (On Breath, IV:497).
Aristotle argues that nutritive movement is the result of respiration
and that this movement will not be uniform throughout the body.
Pulsation is relatively distinct from the other two. The cause of
pulsation is “the trapping of the air within” (On Breath, IV: 497); it is
primary and has its own origin, which is found initially in the heart
and from here it is communicated to the other organs. At this point
Aristotle clearly describes pulsation as the “…animal’s underlying
essence, which is realized in activity” (On Breath, IV: 497). The word
‘animal’ refers to all breathing animals including humans. Aristotle’s
attempt here is to establish the link between bodily activities and
pulsation as an underlying essence of animal activity, and therefore,
he takes his argument further into the discussion of the origin of
pulsation.
Of the three functions of breath in the body, pulsation and

respiration are prior in origin and pulsation in turn is prior to
respiration. As Aristotle explains the mechanism, respiration starts as
soon as the embryo is released from the womb “and ingestion and
nutrition belong to it both during and after its formation, but pulsation
begins at the very outset, while the heart is forming, as can be
observed in eggs. So that pulsation is prior in origin, and resembles an
activity, and not an interception of breath, except in so far as this
contributes to its activity” (On Breath, IV: 499). Aristotle argues that
pulsation is the first movement or the first act of animation that is
perceptible and the foremost indication of life in the embryo, even
before the first breath takes place in the human organism. Breath, for
Aristotle, contributes to the growth and animation of the human body
through the physical activity of respiration. The terms breath and
respiration need clarification here, though the distinction is not clear
in Aristotle: breath is the substance and respiration is the process in
which the substance nourishes the organism. Aristotle’s observation of
breath as the underlying essence of human activity is crucial to the
major argument in the thesis that says that breath as a voluntary
human action influences states and levels of consciousness.
2.1.2 Breath and Soul
In relation to the idea of pulsation as underlying animal activity,

Aristotle further examines the connection between breathing and
pulsation in relation to the psychological conditions of the mind.
Following his own earlier observation of pulsation as “the trapping of
the air within [the body] Aristotle asks another question why breath
gets attracted and trapped perpetually within, for no apparent external

reasons. The perpetually repeating cycles of inhalation and exhalation,
for Aristotle, seem to be the trapping of air within the body. Aristotle
describes the origin of breath as having its source from within, either
as a “function of the soul” or “soul itself or else some mixture of
bodies which by their means cause this attraction” (On Breath, IV:
497). While thus linking breath and pulsation, Aristotle further asserts
that breathing is a pulsation which is the primary act and ‘the
underlying essence of animals’. This means that, for Aristotle,
pulsation, breath and soul are the fundamental principles interlinking
the physical and the psychological experience of the body because
movement and sensation are the two matching qualities through which
the soul operates in the body (On the Soul: I. II: 29). 7 As he puts it:
Those then who have interpreted the soul in terms of motion have
regarded the soul as most capable of producing movement. But those
who have referred it to cognition and perception regard the soul as the
first beginning of all things- (On the Soul; I. II: 23).
Aristotle acknowledges that all the physical, physiological and

intellectual faculties in a human organism are profound
demonstrations of the interconnections between breath and its
subsequent movements in the body. While considering movement,
sensation and incorporeality as the three attributes of the soul,
Aristotle places breath at the centre of his philosophical thinking as
the basis of the formation of the soul: “breath is the purest substance
of the body” (On Breath, I.II: 489). For Aristotle, the soul on the one
hand represents the idea of human embodiment, which is the physical
basis of all the human experiences of mind and body. On the other
hand, the soul is explained as the appearance of breath in the body
which causes the functioning of movement, sensation and mind. These
views together elucidate the role of breath in understanding the nature
of all the psycho-physical activities of human existence. Aristotle’s
this view of the psychological implications of breath further supports
my arguments in the thesis establishing the links between breath and
emotion.
2.1.3 Breath and Emotion
The link between breath and emotion (using the term

synonymously, for the purposes of my argument, with affections and
feelings) is clearly established in Aristotle when he discusses the
possible entangling of pulsation and emotions. Irregularities in
pulsation will occur “during conditions of fear, expectations and
conflict” (On Breath, IV.V:499). Aristotle argues that in most cases,
none of the emotions, whether active or passive, can exist apart from
the body and this also applies to emotions like anger, courage, desire
and sensation. Therefore:
Probably all the affections of the soul are associated with the body—
anger, gentleness, fear, pity, courage and joy, as well as loving and
hating; for when they appear the body is also affected. (On the Soul,
I.I: 15).
There are times when no irritation or fear is expressed although

the provocations are strong and obvious. Similarly, small and obscure
effects produce movement when the body is disposed to anger and
when the person is in an angry mood. Interestingly, sometimes
humans show all the symptoms of fear without any cause of fear being
present. Hence, for Aristotle, emotions and “affections of the soul are
formulae expressed in matter” (On the Soul, I.I: 15) and these must be
defined as the movements of the body or of a part or faculty of the
body. Considering the value of the argument that Aristotle establishes
in terms of breath and its psycho-physical movements, it is obvious
that each physical movement and each mental reflection must have a
corresponding movement of breath in the body, linking physical
activities and mental experiences together. For Aristotle, breath is the
pure substance of the body that activates the process of respiration,
and all the psycho-physical movements including emotions and
physical animations are the results of the dynamics of breath in the
body. As we could see, Aristotle’s position regarding the interrelations
between soul and the body is essentially dualist, which considers body
and mind as two separate entities. But, it is also interesting to see the
importance that Aristotle has given to breathing suggesting that breath
is the key element that links mind and the body. Aristotle’s idea of the
soul, in this sense, is a metaphorical concept explaining the
significance of the dynamics of breathing within the psycho-
physicality of human existence. Aristotle’s this view on breath is

significantly important to my thesis because this psycho-physical
foundation of breath as an autonomous human activity provides
ground to my further arguments in Chapter four linking breath and
consciousness in the background of Saivite philosophy in general and
Siddha Yoga of South India in particular. In yogic philosophy, breath
is the essential element which is underlying the basic nature of
individual consciousness, and alterations on level of consciousness
have connections to alterations on patterns of breathing. So, according
to South Indian Siddha yoga, dualism in individual perception is a
state of consciousness, which can be altered through appropriate
alterations in daily breathing. In short, through the idea of the soul,
Aristotle demonstrates breath as an essential element underpinning
human consciousness. The same idea can be found in Siddha yoga, as
a fully developed philosophical view and practice based on breath
(See Chapter 4).
2.2 Tao and Breath
T’ai Ch’i Ch’uan is a Chinese martial arts form, perhaps the one
that is most well-known in the West today, often under its abbreviated
name T’ai Ch’i. The tradition has been ascribed to the thirteenth
century Taoist priest, Chang Sang Feng, who began training the
monks of Shaolin, situated upon the mountain of Wutang. Chang Sang
Feng and his Taoist priests encouraged the development of various
martial arts traditions in China. However, T’ai Ch’i flourished
between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in China. Known as a
system of self-defence, T’ai Ch’i opposes force by yielding and
defeats external force with internal force. Ch’i is breath. It is the air
that we breathe in order to sustain vitality and energy in the body.
According to the explanations provided by the T’ai Ch’i system, Ch’i
operates the bipolar dynamics of Yin and Yang: what we breathe in is
Yin and what we breathe out is Yang. As Paul Wildish, a senior
martial arts practitioner of T’ai Ch’i in the UK, puts it: “this bipolarity
is the constant of the inner alchemy schema and is present in each
aspect of the functions and movement of Ch’i.” 8 Ch’i is said to be the
primary energetic force from which the basic substance of all life and
matter is formed, and it is activated through the interaction of Yin and
Yang. As Wildish further explains these principles, Ch’i, as the basic
substance, can exist without form and it can also exist in the form of a
thought or action, the spiritual or material. The non-material states are
pure energy, which is Yang, whereas the physical and material states
are affiliated to Yin. According to the doctrines of Tao philosophy,
establishing a natural cyclic equilibrium of these two forces is the
strongest basis of good physical and mental health. In Taoist
cosmology, there are three powers that govern the flow of Ch’i, which
are Heaven, the Yang, Earth, the Yin, and Man, the Yin and Yang. The
nature of the bipolar dynamic of Ch’i is explained by the claim that
Yang Ch’i flows downward from Heaven, whereas Ying Ch’i follows
upward from Earth and in the zone of man, which lies between them,
these two flows meet and combine. The flow of these three elements
of air in the body is considered as the Three Treasures of Jing, Ch’i
and Shen: Jing is known as the essence, Ch’i is vital energy and Shen
is the spirit. Jing, Ch’i and Shen are further considered as the
fundamental essences of body, breath and mind; maintaining their
relative strength and balance will result in the longevity and health of
the human being.
Wildish points out that according to Tao philosophy and Chinese

medicine, Jing, Ch’i and Shen are located at three elixir fields in the
body. Jing, the primordial essence, is positioned in the lower elixir
field, below the navel, and is associated with human sexual glands.
Ch’i is located in the middle elixir field around the solar plexus and is
linked to the adrenal glands. Shen, or spirit, is centred in the head and
is related to the pituitary and pineal glands. As Wildish states, “the
internal alchemy of Taoism transforms essence into energy, energy
into spirit and sprit into the vital qualities of the universe, the
mysterious resonance of power, compassion and wisdom.” 9 Taoists
believe that all creation is subject to the rule of the five elements of
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water and these elements each have a
season and a time of day when their influence is stronger in the body
than that of the others. This five element theory is employed in Tao-
based Chinese medicine as a principle to counteract imbalances by
using the forces of one element to support or counteract the forces of
or more of the other elements in order to restore the equilibrium of the
body. These five elements of the body, and sensations and emotions,
are closely connected to Ch’i and its flow in the meridian lines in the
body.
2.2.1 Ch’i Meridians
Ch’i circulates all over the body along the meridian lines. A
meridian line is understood as a pathway of energy that forms a close
relationship with all the organs and the flow of blood in the body.
Wildish explains that in the context of the nature and function of
meridians, Ch’i is the energetic Yang force that moves blood around
the body; blood is understood as the material form of Ch’i, nourishing
the organs where Ch’i is generated. “As Ch’i moves the blood, the
blood moves Ch’i.” 10 This follows the principles of Yin and Yang in
which each contains the element of the other. When the flow of Ch’i is
blocked in the body, the affected organs will malfunction due to the
slowing down of the blood flow. Thus, the approach of Tao-based
Chinese medicine is applied as an intervention to unblock the
meridian flow in the body.
There are twelve main meridians in the body: the Yang meridians
are located on the back and the outside surface of the limbs, and the
Yin meridians are located on the inner surface of the limbs and the
front of the body. Ch’i flows downward through the Yang channels
and upward through the Yin channels as opposing forces, maintaining
balance in the body. In addition to these twelve meridians, there are
eight other meridian channels running deeper beneath the surface of
the body and these are known as the reservoirs of Ch’i that cross the
twelve primary meridians at several locations in the body. These
deeper circulating channels, according to Tao-based Chinese
medicine, are the most important meridians in the body and are
divided into two groups: the Governing Vessels and the Directing
Vessels. These Vessels are located directly on the front and rear of the
body. As Wildish explains, the Governing Vessels regulate all the
Yang channels in the body while it runs up the spine from the bottom
to the head, whereas the Directing Vessels regulate all the Yin
channels while it runs up the front of the body over the stomach and
chest to the throat and mouth. The flow of Ch’i all over the meridian
channels maintains the overall health and the chemical balance of the
body through the circulation of blood and other body fluids. Thus the
most important aspect of Tao-based Chinese medical practice is the
power of Ch’i or the breath.
2.2.2 Ch’i Kung and Breath
Ch’i Kung is a breath-related practice through which the two

aspects of Ch’i, the Yang and Yin, are cultivated and maintained in the
body by finding a proper harmony in human respiration. The term
Ch’i Kung is used to describe a category of exercises, techniques and
styles of the body and its energy dynamics. The origin of Ch’i Kung
goes back to the practices of the shamans and ancient Taoist monks.
So, T’ai-Ch’i and Ch’i Kung are two schools of practice based on
breath developed from Tao-Buddhism. There are two forms available
in this system of practice - still practice and moving practice; both
conform to the dynamic of Yang and Yin in the body. Moving forms
are those that involve the external exercise and movement of the body
while keeping the mind still. Still forms encourage cultivating the
internal movement of breath while keeping the body still. Both are
practices of meditation and seek to co-ordinate breathing and bodily
movements in rhythmic harmony. Still forms include meditation
positions such as sitting on a chair, cross legged in the lotus-position
and standing, while the moving forms encompass a broad range of
exercises and movement techniques whose origin dates back to
ancient Taoist monks. In both forms, still and moving, the practitioner
is asked always to maintain the position of the spine in central
alignment with the head in order to stimulate the flow of Ch’i from the
lower abdomen to the head and vice versa.
In the description of both the still and the moving practices of

Ch’i Kung found in Wildish, breath is the unifying element. The aim
of these practices is to unblock the flow of Ch’i by co-ordinating
movement and breath and stillness and breath. According to Wildish,
Ch’i Kung offers techniques to strengthen the full capacity of the
lungs and control and modulate breath in order to maximize energy;
this is also the objective of Indian Yoga. All Ch’i Kung breathing
exercises aim to increase the capacity of breath and conserve vital
energy through the depth and frequency of inhalation and exhalation.
The two most familiar breathing methods used in Ch’i Kung are:
natural abdominal breathing and reverse abdominal breathing. Wildish
describes them as follows: 11
1. Natural Abdominal Breathing: this technique involves

drawing air slowly and evenly in through the nostrils to the
bottom of the lungs while the diaphragm is pressed downward
to expand the abdomen. As the practitioner breathes out
slowly, the abdomen is relaxed and drawn in. Between each
cycle the body is relaxed and allowed to recover its natural
posture.
2. Reverse Abdominal Breathing: this technique, as its name

implies, is the opposite of the natural abdominal method. In
this cycle, instead of expanding the stomach on inhalation, it
is contracted and relaxed on exhalation.
Both these abdominal breathing methods stimulate and massage

organs and glands and convert the diaphragm into a second heart,
assisting circulation and the efficiency of the lungs. Other Ch’i Kung
breathing techniques described by Wildish include vibratory sounds
using the syllable ‘ah’ or mantras similar to Yoga. These resonating
sounds vibrate in different zones of the body, thus enhancing the
energy levels in those zones by strengthening Ch’i. Like Indian Yoga,
Ch’i Kung identifies a centre in the body, which is located two inches
below the navel in the lower elixir field. This point, in almost all the
medical, spiritual and martial arts traditions of the East, represents the
centre of the body’s vital energy. This centre is also the centre of
gravity of the body. This centre, which is called SwƗtistƗna in Indian
trantric and yogic tradition is also said to be the focal point where all
the psycho-physical forces in the body are integrated and stored.
Hence, breathing and movement techniques described in Ch’i Kung,
Yoga and other similar practices are aimed at exploring the concealed
form of energy within the body. Chinese martial and spiritual
traditions are, historically, in many ways indebted to various Indian
systems like Tantra, Yoga and martial arts. Unlike the Chinese
systems, many of the Indian traditions like, Agastiya’s Marma
Therapy and South Indian Siddha Yoga, still seem to be unfamiliar to
the world, in particular the West, mainly because of their antiquity and
the degree of confidentiality maintained among their practitioners.
Further to Aristotle, this section shows how breath has been developed
as a systematic practice in Chinese traditions of martial arts and
physiotherapy. The following observations can be listed as the

summary of this section:
1. Breath is central to religion, philosophy, medicine and martial

arts of China. T’ai Ch’i, as an example, shows a systematic
physical approach, which is informed by breathing.
2. They are attempts to locate individual and cosmic links by

establishing the connection between the body, breathing,
physical animation and higher level of consciousness.
3. Breath is systematically employed in Ch’i Kung and other

similar physical techniques like Indian Tantra and Yoga
aiming to explore the psycho-physical energy level of the
body. This fundamental approach to breath in relation to the
psycho-physical energy level of the body is the basic method
found in many systems of actor training available in some of
the traditional performance forms like Kathakali, Kudiyattam
and Noh.
4. The approach to theatricality, therefore, in these traditions are

informed by the ways in which breath is used in terms of the
physical, psychological and consciousness levels of the
actor’s art. I will look at this aspect in Chapter 3, in the
context of Kudiyattam and Sanskrit tradition (sections 3.1,
3.1.1, 3.1.2 & 3.1. 3) and Noh in contemporary actor training
(section 3.1.4.).
The insights gained from this section pave the way to allow a
deeper understanding of how breath has been understood, presented
and practiced in various Indian traditions of philosophy, spirituality
and other physical practices like medicine and physiotherapy.
2.3 Breath and the Sanskrit Tradition
The concept of Prana, breath, is not only central to Indian

philosophical thinking but also acts as a fundamental source to form
the basis of various practices like medicine, martial arts and
performance. The theoretical and practical aspects of Prana are
discussed systematically and elaborately in various systems of

knowledge in the Sanskrit tradition as a material phenomenon, which
explains in depth our understanding of the conditions of linguistic
meaning, visibility, appearance, human actions, voice and altered
levels of consciousness. The SƗmkhya philosophical system, which is
considered as one of the major influences in post-Vedic Indian
thought and which is also constantly referred to in different stages of
Sanskrit literature, deserves special attention in this context.
Concerning the systematic implications of the SƗmkhya doctrine of the
“accumulation theory” of derivation, 12 the subtle sound element
(ĞabdatanmƗtra) generates the gross element of ƗkƗĞa, space; the
subtle touch element (sparĞatanmƗtra), combined with the subtle
sound element, generates the gross element of vƗyu, air. Prana is the
dynamic force of air present in the body as a vital force, which
motivates human respiration. Akasa, space, includes vƗyu, air. There
are two kinds of space according to SƗmkhya: the universal outer
space and the inner space of consciousness. According to Wilhelm
Halbfass, the ChƗndogya Upanishad, (VIII, 1, 3) states: “As far as this
world – space (ayam – akasah) extends, so far extends the space
within the inner “heart” (antarhrdaya – ƗkƗsah).” 13 The word ‘heart’
here does not carry any anatomical meaning as the hollow muscular
organ that pumps the blood throughout the body. Rather, the word
suggests a spatial dimension in human consciousness. The ‘heart’ as
an abode or seat of consciousness in the body is a well recognised idea
proposed by some schools of thought of Indian philosophy. As it is
suggested in the Upanisad, within these two spaces are contained both
heaven and earth, both fire and wind, both sun and moon, lighting and
stars, both that which is available to somebody in this world and that
which is not – all that is contained in it (sarvam tad asmin
samƗhitam). In the same Upanishad, the hymnic teaching of SƗndilya
says that the self is “of the nature of space” (ƗkƗsƗtman). As Halbfass
further explains, the correlation and concordance between external
space and the inner openness of the “heart” and their ultimate merging
and identity remains a significant theme in Indian thought, especially
in Saivism 14 . Surendranath Dasgupta further elucidates the ‘inner’ and
‘outer’ spatial relationship in Saiva philosophical traditions: in the
philosophy of Abhinavagupta, which incorporates the Saivite
traditions of Kashmir, the term prakƗsƗ stands for the primeval and
transcendent ubiquity of the “space” of consciousness. In Srikantha’s
Saivite commentary on the Brahmasǌtra, we hear about cidƗkƗsa, the

ƗkƗsa of awareness, the power and potential of consciousness
(cicchakti) which underlies and pervades the entire universe. 15 The
element of air does not have an independent status of existence in
Indian philosophical systems: air, by its origin, is correlated to space
and time. Despite the difference between the schools and approaches,
the interconnection between vayu, air, and akasa, space, is one of the
most important underlying concepts in almost all the aesthetic and
philosophical traditions in India. Ayam ƗkƗsa is the extended world
outside and Antarhrdaya ƗkƗsa is the inner space of consciousness;
the air element in the form of breath in the body connects these two
spaces. The basic epistemological assumptions of SƗmkhya, Yoga and
other systems of thought presented in the Saiva tradition, are firmly
based on the correlation between breath and the ‘inner space’ of
consciousness. Similarly, Abhinavagupta’s interpretation of rasa
clarifies the existence of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ spaces in terms of the
experience of rasa as an extension of Srikantha’s Saivite concept of
cidƗkƗsa, the inner space of self awareness. Breath as the temporal
element of the body connecting the inner and outer levels of
consciousness is the key underlying idea presented in the Saivite
philosophy. A further investigation, therefore, is required to establish
the links between breath and consciousness, which will be the major
focus of Chapter four.
2.3.1 Space and Time in SƗmkhya
Time, as presented in SƗmkhya epistemology, is a series of

successive moments. A moment, for instance, is the smallest limit of
duration, called ksana, which is the time taken by an atom in its
motion of leaving its former position in space to reaching another
point. This uninterrupted flow of moments constitutes the order of
successive ‘appearances’ in space and time. Pulinbihari Chakravarti
further explains this SƗmkhya view: our understanding of the world or
the ‘real’ is based upon this ‘smallest unit of infinite duration’ of
moments. 16 Previous and succeeding moments have no independent
existence. Rather, what follows is the continuation of the previous
moment. Hence, what exists in the present is only the present moment
because two moments cannot co-exist. Present time, in this sense, is a
time-sequence in which the previous moment is included. According
to Chakravarti, this “is one of the fundamental doctrines of SƗmkhya

that a manifest entity undergoes changes in every succeeding
moment.” 17 Past and future are considered as two variations of the
ever-changing entity of the present moment. This spatio-temporal
relationship is the basic underlying principle activating the cosmic
structure, and, according to Yoga Bhashya (III. 53), the Yogins of
superior power perceive the same cosmic motion within their body.
Yukti-dipika, another classical text of SƗmkhya, further clarifies the
link between the cosmos and the body in terms of time. As the
universe owes its origin to time and flows continuously as an active
process, the same cosmic rhythm can be found within the body, in the
beating of the pulse and the solar and lunar circles of breathing. 18
Yoga classifies human respiration into two categories of sun and
moon, and the analogy of the cosmic body is elaborately discussed in
various classical texts which I will refer to in the following sections.
The beating of the pulse is the most primordial movement of the body
before the first inhalation of breath and hence, from the viewpoints of
SƗmkhya and Yoga, pulsation and the flow of breath are the
substratum of the human body which indicate the passage of time. In
Sanskrit, KƗla refers to time. Ahirbudhnya SamhitƗ (51.42), a further
ancient text of SƗmkhya, regarded kƗla, time, as one of the aspects of
Ğakti, energy; Devala, in the MahƗbhƗsya (xii. 275. 5), in his brief
exposition of the eminence of time, acknowledged the previous view
by extending the idea that time plays an important role in the
emergence of the cosmos. 19 SƗmkhya and Yoga thus regarded energy
and time as the most important aspects of supreme power located in
the body.
Time and energy are, therefore, the causes of integration and

disintegration of the entire cosmic structure, and are inseparable from
each other. Yoga, in practice, subsumes this philosophical idea of the
integration of time and energy as the ‘union’ of prakrti (nature) and
purusa (self) mediated by breath. All the breath-related practices
found in different traditions of Yoga are in effect techniques of
exploring the potential energy level of the body by manipulating the
temporal dimensions through various nostril operations. The idea of
space is presented as a relative mechanism in SƗmkhya and Yoga
because space is conceived in relation to time. SƗmkhya-Sutra (II. 12)
makes it clear that both time and space are the products of ether. 20
SƗmkhya and Yoga further provide examples of how epistemological

understanding of the links between time, space and consciousness is
practiced in the spiritual tradition of Yoga by combining the psycho-
physical levels of the body. The following section will demonstrate
how the physicality of breath is understood in SƗmkhya.
2.3.2 Breath and SƗmkhya
The integration of time and space is discussed extensively in

SƗmkhya and Yoga in relation to breath, vitality and the cosmology of
the body. The characteristic features of human embodiment lie in its
capacity to perform the internal and external vital operations of the
body, including its neurological functions. According to SƗmkhya, the
body’s vital operations are performed by five forms of breath called:
prana, apana, samana, udana and vyana. These forms of breath are
different modifications of the element of air, which incites the entire
functioning of the system by bringing all the internal and external
organs into action. This view is expressed by VƗcaspati, in his Tattva-
vaiĞƗradƯ (Y.S. III) and substantiated by Sankara, the renowned
exponent of the Vedanta school, in his commentary on Brahma-sǌtra
(Y. S. 34). 21 These five vital forms of breath and their functions in the
body are elaborately discussed in various texts of SƗmkhya and Yoga
as follows:
1. Prana is located in the chest and extends up to the mouth and

the nose through which air is drawn in and then expelled from
the lungs. This breath is associated with the respiratory system
and the living human body is the physical manifestation of
prana.
2. Apana’s sphere is down from the navel to the soles of the feet.
It is associated with the excretory system of the body and
concerned with the removal of waste. It also carries the foetus
downward and, to a certain extent, helps the delivery of the
child. This breath is said to be stronger than prana because it
drags prana downward with the intention of limiting its scope.
3. Samana is situated between prana and apana and its sphere of

activity extends down from the chest to the navel. Samana is
`tronger than the other two forms of breath because it attempts

to keep a proper balance between the pressures of the drawing
in of prana and the drawing out of apana. The psychological
function of this form of breath is the feeling of pleasure, pain
and other emotions. This breath is predominantly activated
when a person is involved in group activities and
performance.
4. Udana is located in the fore-part of the nose and extends its

sphere up to the head. Udana carries chyle and other fat
droplets upward. It is also connected with the arterial
pulsations of the body. Udana is regarded as the most
important form of breath in yogic terms because it drags the
spirit from the lower level to the upper level. The natural flow
of this form of breath is always obstructed by the activities of
speech, verse and other compositions, through the opening of
the mouth. The natural tendency of Udana is always to
subdue other forms of breath by dragging them upward. Any
feeling of superiority that a person may have is due to the
external manifestation of this breath. The superiority of
Udana to other forms of breath can be illustrated by the
posture which a man takes up whenever he draws the sword
from its sheath. This form of breath will be most active in the
practice of martial arts.
5. Vyana is diffused throughout the system by circulating blood

and other fluids evenly all over the body. This form of breath
is also associated with the nervous system. Any acute feeling
of inseparable connection or strong union between individuals
arises as the result of the external manifestation of this form
of breath. As long as this form of breath penetrates and
functions properly within the system, all other forms of breath
work in perfect harmony with the body. But whenever Vyana
ceases to function properly, the result will be the gradual
collapse of the entire system.
In SƗmkhya literature, the functions of these five forms of breath

together with the sensory organs, the motor organs and the
psychological conditions of the mind are conceptualised together as
prƗnƗstak, the eight constituents of vitality. Since a particular form of

breath is related to specific organs of the body, there are systems
described in Yoga, Ayurveda, the medical practice developed in the
Sanskrit tradition, and the Marmasutra, the medical practice based on
vital points in the body called marmas developed in Tamil tradition, of
South India to explain the indications of the collapse of the system and
death by examining the condition of breath and its physical effects on
the body. The Indian system of reading pulsation, called Nadisastra,
prescribed in Ayurveda, offers a more subtle understanding of the
functioning of breath in the body, outlining all the merits and demerits
of the system. More information can be found in the Marmasutra of
South India but, unfortunately, due to its restricted practice and the
unfamiliarity of the language in which the manuals are composed, a
large domain of knowledge is either not understood properly or has
disappeared from today’s practice. The classifications of different
physiological forms of breath in this section show the existence of a
systematic knowledge produced by SƗmkhya. In the following section,
I will look at how Upanishads have incorporated breath-related
knowledge and practice.
2.3.3 Breath and the Upanishads
Vedas (1500 BC) and Upanishads (800-400 BC) are the sacred
texts composed in Sanskrit, which are regarded as the voluminous
containers of theological and philosophical literature and various other
forms of knowledge and practices across the disciplines, ranging from
human physiology to astronomy, from the art of warfare to highly
sophisticated philosophical thinking. The Vedas, which are four in
number—Rik, Sama, Yajur and Atharva—are mainly composed of
hymns, instructions regarding rites, ceremonies and rules about the
ways in which they should be conducted. The Upanishads are
concerned with the highest aspects of several systems of knowledge.
The word Upanishad literally means “sitting near”, which conveys the
idea of learning lessons in close proximity to the teacher. The word
also means “secret teaching” because the purpose of an Upanishad is
to disclose and explain the highly complex nature of ideas presented
in various philosophical traditions, including Vedas. In this sense,
Upanishads demonstrate the essence of Indian philosophical teachings
and practices. As Sankara, the seventh century commentator of the
Vedanta school suggests, Upanishads hold the knowledge of

Brahman—the knowledge that destroys the bonds of ignorance and
leads to the highest goal of freedom. 22 This is ‘knowledge’ in a
different sense that it is the unmediated and direct awareness, which
engages with the unmanifested potentiality rather than linguistic and
historical levels of meaning. How many Upanishads were written is
unknown but one hundred and eight have been preserved. Of the one
hundred and eight Upanishads, sixteen were recognised by Sankara as
authentic and he wrote elaborate commentaries on ten of these from
the perspective of Advaita Vedanta. Upanishads are also called
Vedanta, which literally means the “end of Vedas”. The name
suggests the idea that the growth of the philosophical thinking
presented in Vedas came to its zenith in the Upanishads. My intention
in this section is to read selected relevant Upanishads in order to
understand the ways in which breath is deciphered and debated in the
terms of their philosophical and spiritual enquiry. This section will
also demonstrate some breath-related practice described in the
Upanishads, which will further contribute to my arguments, in the
following sections, that the key focus of Indian spirituality is based on
the psycho-physical implications of breath.
The cosmic vision presented in the Upanishads suggests the

existence of Brahman, which is best understood, according to its
various interpretations, as the unmanifest field of potential energy
from which the existence of material forms emerged. The process of
this emergence of the material universe of forms, names and sounds is
the origin of the emergence of individual consciousness. Hence, the
existence of the origin of an unmanifest level of consciousness is the
most frequently articulated and debated epistemological question in
Indian thought and surrounds the philosophical discourse of the
Upanishads. The basic Upanishadic assumption is that the multitude
of things and events are but different manifestations of the same
ultimate ‘reality’ and this reality is called Brahman. This ultimate
reality is understood as the inner essence of all things, which is
infinite and beyond all concepts. It can neither be comprehended by
the intellect nor can it be described in words. It is “beginningless,
supreme: beyond what is and beyond what is not” (Bhagavad Gita: 4:
42). According to the Chandogya Upanishad, all creations emerge
from Brahman; atman, the individual self is also the manifestation of
this ultimate reality: “that is reality. That is atman. That art thou.”
(6.9.4). Fritjof Capra, evaluating this Upanishadic view in terms of
modern astrophysics, concludes, in his terms, that the Hindu cosmic
vision is based on the assumption that the existence of the entire
universe depends on the play (Lila) of dynamic forces. 23 Capra argues
further that the physical manifestation of the world is an illusion
(maya) because it is ever-changing, based on the ultimate reality of
Brahman: everything changes except Brahman. This entire motion of
never-ending transformation involved in the existence of the universe
is called Karma. Karma means action and “it is the active principle of
the play in which everything is dynamically connected with
everything else: the total universe in action.” 24 The Bhagavad Gita
explains Karma as ‘the force of creation’ from which everything has
life. The dynamic link between time and action is further explained in
the Bhagavad Gita:
All actions take place in time by the interrelating of the forces of

nature, but the man lost in selfish delusion thinks that he himself is the
actor (8.3)
These fundamental views of Indian philosophy are, according to

Capra, highly intellectual and philosophical and without any mythical
content. This intellectual and philosophical element of time in terms of
the ‘force of creation’ has been brought down, by Indian spiritual
tradition, from its cosmic level to the level of human psychology.
Understanding how each object in this universe is connected to others
in this ultimate flow of ever-changing time is considered as the finest
form of knowledge which the individual can achieve, according to
Indian religious philosophies.
Ralph Yarrow, in the context of theatre studies, explains the term

Brahman as “the unmoving source of movement, the potential which
gives rise to all forms and forming,” 25 which is the deepest level of
reality. As he goes on, “Brahman is accessible as awareness, by
merging the individual consciousness with it” 26 and the world is the
play of forms. Quoting from Fritjof Capra, Yarrow further argues that
both modern quantum physicists and Eastern mystics view the
material world as a vibrating movement of rhythmic patterns, which is
defined by nuclear structures: the universe is not static but a constant
dynamic stability between opposing forces. Similarly, Daniel Meyer
Dinkgräfe, in the context of a study of consciousness in the

approaches of Indian acting, proposes Brahman as “a field of the
absolute …the source of all possible qualities of manifestation,” 27
which is infinite and beyond space and time. However, this absolute is
dynamic and includes opposing movements of qualities within itself,
which interact with each other. The interaction of these opposing
qualities is “responsible for the expression of Brahman into all aspects
of creation as we experience, observe, know and discover it…all
aspects of theatre, too, have their origin in this field of Brahman.” 28
Yarrow’s and Meyer-Dinkgräfe’s views are supported by
contemporary consciousness studies, as well as by the Advaita
Vedanta philosophy of Sankara as commented on by Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi.
What is Brahman and what is its nature? What are the ways in
which one can experience it? These are the questions often asked in
the Upanishads. In several Upanishads, questions about the existence
of Brahman are asked directly in the form of a request, enquiring
whether there is an existing system or a method or a practice which
can be used in order to understand and experience it properly. The
references in the Upanishads to a particular method seem to be
directed towards some practice related to breath. Hence, breath and
Brahman are interconnected in the Upanishads: the level of pre-
expressive Brahman can be experienced through specific breath-
related practices. The Mandukya Upanishad explains the nature of
Brahman as the all pervading source, which is invisible, immortal and
subtle, and which gives birth to the universe (I: 6). Forms emerge
from Brahman, from its ever-expanding movement, and forms also
submerge within it in the due course of the same movement, like a
spider spreading out and folding up its web from its belly (I: 7&8).
The physical manifestation of Brahman is thus illustrated in the
Mandukya Upanishad as the entire universe including earth, animals,
birds, plants, human beings and prana and apana, the two forms of
breath, emerge from it (II. 7-10). This Brahman is the underlying
dynamic force of the universe, which moves in the micro-structure of
anu, the atom. The explanations of Brahman in the Mandukya
Upanishad further clarify that this is the same principle that moves as
the dynamics of the body. As the Mandukya Upanishad puts it,
Brahman stays in the body (III. 7). The existence of Brahman in the
body is experienced through a specific practice of meditation. One

might ask further questions related to the explanation of Brahman,
such as: if it stays in the body, exactly where does it stay? What is its
nature and through which practices can one realise Brahman? As the
questions are addressed in the further sections of the Mandukya
Upanishad, the most underlying dynamic force of the body cannot be
understood through words or sight. The animation of the body and the
emergence of the mind are the physical manifestations of Brahman
which uses five vital forms of breath as its tools (III. 9). Perception
and emotions are functions of the mind and the result of the bodily
operations of the five vital forms of breath provides the knowledge of
the potential energy level in the body. Hence, breath is the most
effective tool, according to the Mandukya Upanishad, for controlling
the activities of the mind (perception and emotion) in order to
understand the unmanifest level of potential energy in the body (III. 9-
10). As the Mandukya Upanishad suggests, the source of potential
energy in the body is associated with a gland, which is located in a
specific zone. The location is described in the Mandukya Upanishad
as the point inside the head where all the nerves in the body terminate,
or the point inside the head from which the whole psycho-physical
system is controlled (II. 6). This place is the seat of Brahman and,
according to various Upanishadic sources, the only way to understand
the level of Brahman is to do meditation through the sounds of AUM.
Let us look at this idea more closely as it is presented in the

Mandukya Upanishad, in order to bring more clarity to it. Firstly, the
Mandukya Upanishad says that Brahman is the unmanifest potential
energy from which the universe emerges through a bi-polar
movement. The second assumption is that this is the same source
which is manifest in the body as perception and emotions, using five
vital forms of breath as its tool. Thirdly, the Mandukya Upanishad
says that Brahman is located in the inside of the head at a junction
where all the nerves meet together, and, through the practice of
meditating with AUM, one can reach the level of Brahman. All these
ideas are recurrent themes discussed in several Upanishads and in
various other texts of Yoga and Marma therapy. The location of
Brahman in the body, the junction of nerves inside the head and the
practice of AUM, all need to be looked at in more detail in order to
identify a system based on breath.
The letters A-U-M are the symbolic representation of the

primordial power which is operating constantly in the cosmic
structure. This primordial cosmic power is the potential energy created
by the two cosmic principles of Nada and Bindu. Sir John Woodroffe
explains, in the Garland of Letters, that Nada and Bindu are the
material cause of the universe established in the form of movement
and stillness. 29 Nada literally means the seminal sound, which
functions as the basis of all forms of words, which is the first going
forth of a massive force of movement. Bindu literally means a dot or a
point, which is the unmanifest potential energy—the infinitude—from
which the force of Nada emerges out of a subtle micro-cosmic
explosion. Hence, the universe is created from Bindu, the unmanifest
energy, through the movement of Nada, the seminal sound, as the
result of a micro-cosmic explosion. The letters A-U-M thus represent
the cosmic principles of movement, form and energy illustrated as
creative building, destructive disintegration and the holding of these
two opposing forces in equilibrium. According to Woodroffe, the
ideas presented in modern Western science as anabolism and
catabolism in biochemistry, and as ‘matter’ as a relatively stable form
of energy in physics, both explicate the same principles. 30 In the
Dhyanabindu Upanishad, we see this cosmic principle of A-U-M
further explained in terms of the body by saying that the body is a
well-ordered cosmos manifested through the dynamic operation of
Bindu and Nada (I: 1-9) in which Brahman is settled. In this
Upanishad A-U-M are not only the three characteristic sounds of the
primordial energy principle but also the three distinctive nostril
operations through which the source energy of the physical
manifestation is understood.
As the Dhyanabindu Upanishad further explains this in the

context of pranayama, the drawing in of the air through the left
nostril, called puraka, is the creative building and the exhalation of the
air through the right nostril, called recaka, is the destructive
disintegration; whereas, kumbhaka, the holding of the air in between
these two bi-polar movements, holds the equilibrium of the body (I:
18-21). Several methods of pranayama are described in this
Upanishad as means through which the fundamental energy principle
of the cosmo-body is exposed. The Brahmavidya Upanishad suggests
that the bodily locations of each syllable of A-U-M are successively
‘A’, situated two inches below the navel, ‘U’, in the middle of the
chest and ‘M’, located further up in the mouth behind the uvula.
Hence, the practice of A-U-M suggests a particular breath-related
practice. The Nada is the flow of air and the Bindu is the unmanifest
energy in the body. Individual consciousness emerges due to the bi-
polar movements of breath taking place in the body and there is no
sense of consciousness before the movement of breath, the Nada,
takes place in the body. Bindu is explained in the Mandukya
Upanishad as Brahman, the unmanifest potential energy from which
the universe emerges through a bi-polar movement. The most
important information we gain from the Mandukya Upanishad in the
context of our discussion is that breath causes the emergence of
individual consciousness.
In the Taittiriya Upanishad, we see a clear picture of the bodily

location of the potential energy source (Brahman or Purusha): it is
described as located inside the mouth at the back, and even inside and
further up from the soft palate called uvula (VI: 1-2). As the
Upanishad further explains, there is a place called Brahmarantra,
where a Nadi called Sushumna, comes from the bottom of the spine to
join with other important nerves. When a person takes her/his last
breath, unlike in normal breathing, the breath is pulled upward and
terminates finally inside the Brahmarantra and diffuses there with
great joy (VI: 2). One who does not know about the path leading up
towards Brahmarantra, and one who does not know the ways in
which breathing can be directed towards Brahmarantra, might
struggle to reach the place of endless joy (VI: 2). Thus the Taittiriya
Upanishad suggests that we should learn the practice in order to
understand, experience and make use of the unmanifest potential
energy in the body located in the Brahmarantra. In the
Sangitaratnakara, a text by Sarangadeva, the Brahmarantra is
explained as the cerebral aperture, which is crucial to breath-related
techniques in terms of exploring the dormant vital energy of the body
( I: II: 153c-155b). Agastiya’s Marmasastra further explains and
clarifies the bodily location, nature and functioning of the potential
energy source of the body in more physiological terms, which will be
discussed in the following sections. There are several sections in the
Taittiriya Upanishad which clearly uphold the connection between
breath and the vital energy source of the body by saying that breath is
the most important tool of practice to explore the potential energy

concealed within the body (B.V: VI.1).
Looking at some of the breath-related instructions

presented in the Upanishads, the Swetasvatara Upanishad
illustrates a breath-related practice as:
An intelligent man shall practice while keeping the body erect and
then bringing the head, chest and throat parallel to it. There shall not
be any thoughts or emotions; there shall only be a pure force of vital
energy circulating in the body, which would enable you to control
thousands of horses drawing a chariot; and there shall be an
undisturbed mind in harmony with the body. When you feel like
coming back, respire through your nostrils. (II. 8-9).
Similarly, in the Brahmavidya Upanishad, we see another clear

demonstration of the practice as:
The position of Brahma is located in the body at a distance of 12

angula from the tip of the nose. This is the place where the Yogins
always belong. That is the place where the flow of breath defuses and
disappears. Once you know how to bring your breath there, you can
bring your mind there; once you bring your mind there, there is only
joy without a comparison: you do not see even if you look at things
and you do not feel anything even if your mind moves on to things.
This is a secret. (I: 45).
This Upanishad lists ten forms of breath by adding five more vital
forms of breath to the existing five proposed in SƗmkhya: they are
nagam, kurmam, krikaram, devadettam and dhananjayam. The
functions and bodily locations of these forms of breath are not
mentioned anywhere in the Upanishads to which I refer in this
chapter. Such further explanations related to the latter five forms of
breath can be found, however, in the seminal texts of South Indian
Siddha philosophy, like the Thirumantiram and the Marmasastra. I
will discuss about these texts in details in the following sections. The
Brahmavidya Upanishad also mentions Vajrakumbhaka Sadhana as
one of the most important breath practices through which the
practitioner can enter into the area of Brahmarantra, said to be the
secret place of the highest form of joy and the source of potential
energy.
Accounts of breath-related practices are widely available in

several Upanishads like Aitareya, Swetasvatara, Brahmavidya,
Subala, Kshurika, Nadabindu, the Dhyanabindu and Yogatatva and
rather than demonstrating all the descriptions in detail, the scope of
this section is limited to bringing together key ideas of breath-related
practice described in them. In all these Upanishads, there is a
similarity in the usage of words when the practice is described:
penetration of breath, upward direction, diffusing of breath,
disappearance of breath, stillness, submergence into. All these terms
are movement-related words and suggest the existence of a clearly
defined practice.
As we see in this section, the fundamental enquiry in Indian

philosophy and spiritual practice, as it is presented in the Upanishads,
justifies the implications of breath being at the centre of its thinking
and practice. Breath is the bi-polar movement of temporality identical
to cosmic motion in which the physical universe emerges from the
potential field of unmanifest energy called Brahman. Breath is the
creator of individual consciousness. This basic assumption, proposed
by various yogic traditions suggests that the levels of individual
consciousness can be controlled through the manipulation of breath.
All breath-related practices use time as a basic tool in altering the
levels of consciousness as well as to explore the vital energy of the
body. Upanishads contain specific breath-related practices but it is
very difficult to understand these systems because they are not in
practice nowadays. The South Indian Siddha tradition is thus
important in this context to help decipher the Upanishadic knowledge
related to the philosophy and practice of breath. The Upanishads
establish links between micro-cosmic and macro-cosmic by
describing air as the movement of the ‘force of creation’, connecting
elements of the emergence of cosmic world. Similarly, the
Upanishads link the body and consciousness by using breath as a
temporal force through which Brahman, the timeless infinitude, is
experienced. The Upanishads thus offer descriptions of various
breath-related practices as means of realizing the level of
consciousness beyond time (Brahman). However, those descriptions
of practice hardly explain the system and therefore, I desire to extend
my investigations into other physical approaches like Yoga and
Ayurveda aiming to identify some practice related to the descriptions

that I gathered theoretically.
2.4 Breath in Yoga and Ayurveda
The word Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj, which means
‘to direct’, but the meaning commonly understood is union or
communion. The Latin jungere, jugum and the French joug also have
the same meaning. Yoga is the fourth of the six systems of Indian
philosophy—the others are Nyaya, Vaisheshika, SƗmkhya, Karma
Mimansa and Vedanta. Further to this classification, the core of Indian
philosophy is based on “four interdependent concepts of ‘kinetic
ideas’ such as karma, mƗya, Brahman and Yoga.” 31 The law of karma
is the law of universal causality, which connects man with the cosmos
and condemns him to transmigrate indefinitely. The dynamic process
that creates and maintains the cosmos is the principle of illusion,
which is mƗya because stability is an illusion of ignorance (avidyƗ)
within the eternal motion and growth of the universe: things are in the
flux of an ever-changing state. The concept of Brahman is absolute
reality which is unmanifest and out of which the cosmic illusion and
karma, causality, emerge. This state of Brahman is unconditioned and
indestructible. Finally, Yoga is the means to understand the
interdependency of all other ‘kinetic ideas.’ Generally speaking, the
word Yoga serves to designate certain techniques and methods of
practice relating to body, mind and breath, which ultimately lead to a
state of liberation from universal causalities and cosmic illusion,
through understanding the all pervading ‘kinetic principle’ located in
the body. According to Eliade, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are:
The result of an enormous effort not only to bring together and

classify a series of ascetic practices and contemplative formulas …but
also to validate them from a theoretical point of view by establishing
their bases, justifying them, and incorporating them into a
philosophy. 32
The main object of Yoga practice is ekƗgratƗ, which is explained

by Patanjali as a process of psycho-physical attention towards an
object or an idea or a thought or the infinity obtained by integrating
the psycho-physical faculties. 33 The practice of concentration tends to
control two mental activities: the sense activity (indriya) and the
activity of the sub-conscious (samskƗra). Control means the ability to

intervene at will and directly in order to enhance the bio-mental
activities. This kind of concentration can be achieved through
numerous exercises and techniques in which physicality plays a
crucial role. One cannot, for instance, obtain concentration if the body
is in an uncomfortable posture or if the respiration is disorganised or
unrhythmic. Hence, according to Patanjali, yogic techniques involve
several classifications such as: 1. restraints (yama), 2. disciplines
(niyama), 3. bodily attitudes and postures (asanas), 4. rhythmic
respiration (pranayama), 5. emancipation of sensory activity from the
domain of exterior objects (pratyahara), 6. concentration (dharana),
7. yogic meditation (dhyana), 8. samadhi. These are called the eight
limbs of Yoga and each section of practice has specific psycho-
physical purposes that are discussed at length in various classic texts.
As Iyengar explains, 34 the first of these limbs is concerned with
disciplines relating to the maintenance of ethical and social values and
the second is concerned with the rules of conduct that apply to
individual disciplines concerning health and cleanliness. The third
limb of Yoga, the physical postures, brings mental and physical
strength to the body. Pranayama, the fourth limb, is concerned with
various methods in which breath is manipulated and controlled in the
body in order to strengthen the nervous system and cultivate vital
energy. The fifth stage of Yoga is to bring the mental activities under
control by controlling the respiration of breath. Dharana, the sixth
stage is obtaining a perfect state of concentration in psycho-physical
activities and the seventh stage is concerned with meditation in which
various physical and breath-related techniques are employed in order
to explore the unknown capacities of body and mind. Finally, the state
of Samadhi is said to create contact with the potential source energy
located in the cosmology of the body.
All these eight limbs are the major focus of discussion in all the
available systems of Yoga and aim to explain the nature of the psycho-
physicality of human embodiment. To mention a few examples in
relation to breath, according to Yogi Ramacharaka, 35 human
respiration takes place in the four following ways: 1. high breathing,
2. mid breathing, 3. low breathing, and 4. complete breathing. High
breathing, also referred to as clavicular breathing, uses only the upper
part of the chest and lungs; in mid breathing, also referred to as rib
breathing or intercostal breathing, the diaphragm is pushed upward

and the abdomen drawn in. Low breathing, also known as abdominal
or diaphragmatic breathing, achieves a healthy system in breathing by
bringing the diaphragm into use. Diaphragmatic breathing is
mentioned in all the yogic systems as an important approach to
respiration. This is also called ‘bellows breathing.’ As Dhirendra
Brahmachari suggests, this system of breathing is deep and rapid with
a sharp and quick intake and outlet of breath, which accompanies the
kind of noise which a pair of bellows would make operated. 36 Iyengar
extensively describes over 200 Yoga postures and fourteen different
techniques of breathing exercises which he developed from various
classical texts like the Hatayoga-Pradipika, the Gheranda-Samhita
and the Yogachudamani Upanishad. The following sections are
illustrations of the knowledge of breath available in Yoga, presented in
two seminal texts, the Sangitaratnakara by Sarangadeva and the Siva
Svarodaya Shastra. Both the texts were written in Sanskrit. The
Sangitaratnakara is the classical text on music written by
Sarangadeva. While explaining the genesis of human embodiment as
the instrument of music, Sarangadeva offers a coherent illustration of
the links between the body and breath. The Siva Svarodaya Shastra is
another classical text on Yoga, whose author is unknown, and the
original text is hardly available (I have seen neither the original text
nor the translation of it. Rather, I use a text written on the basis of the
original Sanskrit text). I choose these two texts because of the quality
and the coherence of information they provide. Furthermore, the
Sangitaratnakara comprises Ayurveda’s medical assumptions about
the human body and breath whereas the Siva Svarodaya Shastra
consists of tantric and yogic practices related to breath: all these
strands are practice-based and therefore, highly useful to the
investigations of this thesis.
2.4.1 The Sangitaratnakara and the Genesis of the Human

Embodiment
The Sangitaratnakara is a monumental work on the science of

musical art composed by Sarangadeva, the king of Kashmir and a
renowned scholar in Sanskrit, whose period is dated back to 12 A.D.
The elaborate description of the human embodiment, derived from
Ayurveda and Yoga, presented in this text in the context of music, is
one of the most fascinating elements of the Sangitaratnakara.

According to the synoptical view of Sarangadeva, Nada, the primary
cause of the phenomenal world, is the basis of the art of music. The
Nada is twofold: the produced (Ahata) and the unproduced (Anahata).
The former is an object of sense perception whereas the latter is a
matter of the experience of Yoga. Sarangadeva considered music as
the perceptual manifestation of Nada produced by the body (II: A: ii).
The human body is the mediator in this process of making the
unmanifest Nada into the perceptual form of music. Sarangadeva’s
views on the physical body can be classified into three categories:
metaphysical, physiological and psychophysical.
A. The Metaphysical Viewpoint
Sarangadeva’s metaphysical view considers the human body as

the physical manifestation of a universal substance and Nada as the
very basis of all manifest life. As he further explains the link between
Nada and the phenomenal world, “Nada manifests letters (of
alphabets); letters constitute words, and words make a sentence; so,
the entire business of life is carried on through language” (II: A: i).
Jiva, the individual being is the derivation of Brahman, the timeless
‘cosmic reality’, through the process of creation. The process of
creation is based on maya, illusion, because all physical
manifestations are subject to specific modes of perceptual time and
space. The perception of a specific mode of time and space is relative
in the wider context of universal space and time and therefore,
physical manifestations naturally occupy a limited space and time.
This specific perception of a limited sense of space and time is
characteristic to individual perception and individual consciousness, in
this sense, is limited to a perceptual mode of space and time. The
illusion of creation is mediated through karma, action. Governed by
the laws of action (karma), virtuous as well as evil, productive of
pleasure and of pain, the individual self experiences life through a
physical body. The phenomenon is essentially transitory, comes into
being, continues for a certain time and returns to its source. This
source, which is the substratum of the ephemeral world, is beyond
time, and eternal. Hence, the phenomenon of the world is created out
of the measurelessness of eternity and is dissolved back into it. This is
the eternal play of the laws of karma (action), according to

Sarangadeva, which continues eternally (II: B: iv).
According to the metaphysical basis of reality elucidated by

Sarangadeva, the phenomenal world is created through five basic
elements called mahabhuta: the first of these elements is akasa, which
is the objective reality that is the substratum of sound perceived by the
ear; vayu denotes the element through which the perception of touch
takes place; tejas is the element that is responsible for the perception
of colour; jala is the element that is responsible for the perception of
taste; prthivi, finally, is the element that produces the perception of
odour. The physical universe is created by these basic elements on the
basis of five types of perception and the embodied self is, therefore,
closely connected to this universal principle.
B. The Physiological Viewpoint
This viewpoint allows an elaborate account of human physiology and

the major topics Sarangadeva discusses from this perspective include:
the development of the embryo; the birth of the child; the physical
development of the body, including the formation of memory and the
development of intellect; the functions of breath in the body; the
constitution and the organs of the body; skins and membranes; tissues
and receptacles; states of consciousness; the nine canals and the
bones; their number and types; muscles; the number of arteries and
veins; the number of major and minor vessels of vital essence; the
vital parts of the body; the number of hairs on the body; and the
measure of fluids in the human body. Starting from describing the
various stages through which the embryo develops during the entire
period of pregnancy, Sarangadeva conducts a useful comparative
study of the monumental works of Indian medicine and surgery
written by Caraka and Susruta. Since most of these detailed
descriptions of human physiology are irrelevant to my thesis, I intend
to give only a brief account of the way in which Sarangadeva
considers breath in the context of human physiology.
Sarangadeva discusses the role of breath in human embodiment in

terms of the faculty of perception. Motion, for instance, is derived
from air and there are five types of motion: upwards, downwards,
contraction, linear movement and expansion. Sarangadeva also

mentions ten modifications of air as breath and explains their different
functions in the body. These ten forms of breath and their various
functions in the body are commonly mentioned in several other texts
of Yoga, the Marmasastra and the Upanishads. According to the
theories of Ayurveda, sense perception takes place because of the fact
that the senses as well as sense-objects are basically made out of the
same material and hence there is a correlation between them. I would
like to emphasise at this point that the Sangitaratnakara carefully
establishes the connection between breath and motion. Both
movement and breath are derived from air and both are temporal
aspects that depend on each other. Each movement of the body
contains a parallel movement of breath in the body and in reverse the
movement of breath in the body animates the body. Both are
interdependent elements functioning with crucial roles in the body.
The formation of human consciousness and feelings are deeply
interconnected to the temporality and movement of the body and
mind. I highlight the connection of breath and motion established by
Sarangadeva because the major discussion in the following chapters
focus on temporality and nostril modes, which I have been developing
from the beginning of this thesis. Sarangadeva further considers breath
as a crucial element in explaining the physiological viewpoint of the
body.
C. The Psychophysical Viewpoint
The Sangitaratnakara, while explaining the psychophysical view

point of breath describes Cakras, the basic information derived from
Yoga. Several schools of Yoga and Tantra propose six psychophysical
centres in the body. These centres are said to be the centres of energy
and consciousness and there are also systems of practice, suggested by
yogic and tantric practices to cultivate enormous psychic and spiritual
strength through manipulating those centres. The aim of Yoga is to
train the mind to concentrate upon and penetrate all these six
psychophysical centres to attain complete mastery over the
psychophysicality of the human embodiment. This aim is individual
liberation of consciousness from the limited senses of mind and
matter. Whereas other texts describe six such Cakras, the
Sangitaratnakara proposes ten. Those ten Cakras are: Adhara Cakra,
Svadhisthana Cakra, Manipuraka Cakra, Anahata Cakra, Visuddhi

Cakra, Lalana Cakra, Ajna Cakra, Manas Cakra, Soma Cakra and
Sahasrapatra Cakra.
The basic concept of Cakra suggests kinetic energy situated in the

body, which can be aroused and properly cultivated throughout the
body. This kinetic energy is said to be the vital energy, called
kundalini in yogic terms. Kundalini is said to be asleep or in a static
mood, in the form of a coiled snake, at the base Cakra, Adhara Cakra,
which is also called muladhara Cakra, located in between the anus
and the genitals. As Shringy and Sharma elucidate, when this
slumbering energy is awakened, it rushes through the spinal cord to
the next highest Cakra at very high speed, and the practitioner is
expected to experience a different, heightened level of energy and
consciousness. 37 According to various tantric and yogic systems, there
are two ways in which the kinetic energy or kundalini can be aroused:
through sounds and through breath. The approach employing sounds
is called Mantra-sadhana, whereas the approach employing breath is
called Pranayama. These approaches are based on two fundamental
kinetic principles which are sound and movement, and the whole idea
behind the concept of kundalini is that the energy can be produced
within the body through sound and movements.
The word Mantra literally means ‘calls forth’, which also suggests
the meaning of ‘liberation through mental processes.’ 38 Man of
Mantra comes from the first syllable of manana, the Sanskrit word for
thinking and tra comes from trana meaning liberation from the
bondage of the phenomenal world. Hence, the word Mantra suggests
the idea of a transition of consciousness from daily to extra-daily. A
Mantra is composed of letters and these letters are arranged in a
specific sequence of sounds of which the letters are the representative
signs. Each Mantra is intoned in a particular way according to the
letters and the rhythm and resonates in the body by vibrating in each
zone of the body related to the respective letter of the alphabet. The
Mantra in this way is the sound-body. In the theory accompanying a
specific tantric practice called Nyasa, the physical human body is
divided into 51 zones including Cakras that correspond to the 51
Sanskrit letters of vowels and consonants. The aim of Mantra is to
stimulate the body’s energy centres or Cakras by vibrating and
combining one with another. For example, the significance of the

syllable aham, if it forms part of a Mantra, is that it is composed of
the letters a + ha with a connecting sound m, linking three major
zones in the body. These zones are the muladhara, the base Cakra;
anahata, the Cakra located on the chest; and ajna, the Cakra situated
in the middle of the eyebrows. Hence, the word aham combines three
bodily zones, and three Cakras through the resonance of the
reinforcement and prolongation of sounds. Each Mantra consists of a
pattern of breathing, though the reverberation of sound is more
important in Mantra in terms of the energy levels of the body. Ham +
sa, another Mantra suggests the breathing process consisting of
inspiration and expiration: sa refers to inspiration and ham refers to
expiration, but this expiration is rather known as internalisation (See
Chapter four). Generating the sound energy by rendering letters and
then transforming the energy into physical energy by reverberation at
bodily zones is the underlying principle of Mantra-sadhana in terms
of the vital energy of the body. Mantras always affect the Cakras.
However, in the context of my research I have not been able to
establish in detail the connection between Cakras and Mantras.
Pranayama is another approach of enlivening Cakras. Described

in Yoga, the Sangitaratnakara suggests a breath-related practice:
Mounted upon the vital breath, the self conscious-entity through the
Sushumna keeps on ascending to the cerebral aperture and descending
back moving like a right rope dancer. 39
The description of this breath-related practice shows

Sarangadeva’s familiarity with Yoga. The term Sushumna, technically
refers to Yoga’s understanding of the existence of a middle path in
human breathing. Sushumna, according to Yoga is the central most
Nadi (tubular vessel) that proceeds from the end of the spinal column
and opens into the cerebral aperture. The dormant creative energy,
when awakened, rises up along this Nadi. The Sangitaratnakara
incorporates ayurvedic, yogic and tantric knowledge and practice in
explaining the different functions of breath in the body. However, the
Sangitaratnakara does not provide any detailed description of the
practices that are mentioned in the text though there are descriptions
of breath-related practices borrowed from other disciplines. So, at this
stage, it is highly important to the thesis to look at the Siva Svarodaya
Shastra, which explains the subtle and complex functioning of breath

in the body. In this section, the Sangitaratnakara defines ten Cakras
as the psycho-physical centres of the body and further says that
Cakras can be enlivened through two processes: Mantra sadhana and
Pranayama. The information provided in this section regarding
Cakras, Mantras and the three predominant Nadis of breathing can be
red as metaphors suggesting some complex psycho-physical dynamics
within the body. Cakras are known as the physical locations of the
body, where potential psycho-physical energy is situated. Several
classical texts of yoga, music and Ayurveda, including Upanishads
and Sangitaratnakara, suggest two practical approaches to explore the
potential psycho-physical energy source within the body: vibrations of
sounds through mantras and specific systems of breathing as subtle
internal movements. According to these systems of knowledge, the
forces and patterns of voiced sounds and breathing, like any other
physical approach, vibrate and penetrate the physical energy centres of
the body and generate a heightened psycho-physical energy level
within the body. Similarly, nadis are explained in Marmatherapy as
the tubular vessel, through which the prana, the life force, flows, and
the physiological functions of nadis are further explained in the texts
with incredible details (See the following section, 2.5.1, for further
details). Nadis are similar to Chinese meridians, in this sense.
However, the interconnections between the energy centres, sounds and
breathing need to be verified on the pragmatic level of physiology as
well as the psychological and consciousness levels of experience
through further research. Since, this line of enquiry does not seem to
have some direct and immediate impact into my thesis, in the
following section I will look at the yogic tradition, presented in the
Siva Svarodaya Shastra to figure out the practical base of breath
aiming to understand the techniques by which the vital energy can be
enlivened. The purpose of including some of the following sections
like breath and astrology is only to show how breath has been
incorporated into various systems of Shaivite practice though some of
the claims seem to be highly unverifiable.
2.4.2. The Siva Svarodaya Shastra and the Yogic Techniques of

Breathing
In the case of the Siva Svarodaya Shastra, both the author of the
text and the period in which the text was composed are unknown. The
text was originally written in Sanskrit and translations of the full text
are available only in a couple of the regional languages in India. What
is mostly available for English readers are books either written on a
few aspects of the original texts or mentioning the existence of the
original text in Sanskrit. My interviews with several people who are
either researchers or practitioners of Yoga revealed that many of them
have not seen the Siva Svarodaya Shastra but all of them have heard
about the inaccessible existence of the text. In this section, I use two
recent publications based on the Siva Svarodaya Shastra written by
Harish Johari and Swami Sivapriyananda to illustrate the basic
principles of this school of Yoga. The word svara literally means
sound but in the context of breath it means the sound of breath. The
word udaya means rise and hence svara-udaya means the rise of
breath. As Sivapriyananda clarifies further, this is not a method of
breath control but rather ‘a way of using normal respiration to
harmonise the forces of life with the pattern of breathing’ 40 The
technique of svara-udaya is based on the observable fact, which was
frequently overlooked for centuries in Yoga, that we normally breathe
freely through only one nostril at a time. The human respiratory
system changes intermittently from one nostril to another, roughly
every one and half hours and there is a qualitative difference between
the breath in each persistent changeover. The breath that flows from
the left nostril is cool, soothing, passive and feminine in nature,
whereas the breath that flows from the right nostril is warm,
energizing, active and masculine. According to the svara-udaya
system, the left nostril is connected to the moon and the right nostril is
connected to the sun; hence the change that takes place in nostril
operations is said to be due to the movement of the solar and lunar
cycles. The following sections provide information about the svara-
udaya system of breathing.
A. Nostrils: Structure and Modes
The svara-udaya technique of breathing is known as the science

of nasal breath, which deals with the relationship between the nasal
breath and the subtle nerves of the body. The technique also operates
within the understanding of respiration between lunar and solar cycles
and the basic gross elements of the body. 41 As Johari explains the
svara-udaya teachings further, the nose is the only organ which
continuously interacts with external physical conditions. The rate of
our breathing quickly responds to the changes in our physical and
mental conditions. In anger, for example, breathing becomes fast,
whereas in sleep it becomes slow and regular. An average human
organism breathes one inhalation and one exhalation thirteen to fifteen
times a minute, which means that an average human being breathes
21,000 to 21,600 times in a twenty-four-hour cycle. According to the
Siva Svarodaya Shastra, the life span of a human organism is
measured not in years but in number of forms of breath. At the rate of
fifteen breaths per minute, a human life is comprised of a total of
946,080,000 breaths which is a full 120 years. To compare this with
the number of breaths in other animals: a hare breathes 55 times per
minute, an ape 30 times, a cat 24 times, a dog 15-18 times, a horse 8-
12 times and a tortoise only 3 times a minute. The whole knowledge
of breath and its various practices in the Siva Svarodaya Shastra is
based on the assumption that since breath is deeply connected to the
entire psychophysical system of the human organism, the methods of
understanding through controlling and manipulating respiration will
eventually create remarkable alterations in the levels of emotion and
consciousness, including the psychophysical qualities of life.
Through a network of sensory nerves in the nose, the nostrils are

connected to subtle nerves or Nadis. These Nadis, according to Johari,
are of two kinds:
1. Conduits of pranic force—pranavaha Nadi.

2. Conduits of psychic energy—manovaha Nadi
Some of the most important Nadis carry both pranic energy,

flowing as electromagnetic currents, and psychic energy, flowing as
feeling, vibrations or frequencies, at the same time. There are fourteen
important Nadis, the tubular vessels, that carry both kinds of energy
and three out of fourteen are of vital importance according to Johari.
These three Nadis, which are called Ida, Pingala and Sushumna, are
connected to the limbic system. From a medical perspective, Ida
influences the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland, activating the
growth of hormones and the anabolic process. Pingala influences the
thalamus and hypothalamus. The Sushumna is concerned with the
corpus callosum and the cerebellum. When it bifurcates in the brain
stem, one branch of the Sushumna goes to the corpus callosum, while
the other, known as the posterior sushumna, passes through the
cerebellum to the cerebral cortex and terminates in the corpus
callosum. Here it joins with the other branch known as the anterior
sushumna. This point of termination is called the fontanelle, the ‘soft
spot’ in an infant’s skull that hardens after three to six months. These
three Nadis, through their connection with the endocrine glands,
influence the entire body chemistry and the chemical nature of the
human organism. The sushumna Nadi is the only nerve that directly
pierces all the Cakras or the physical centres of the subtle body. These
centres are connected with the internal organs through sympathetic
and parasympathetic nerves, which are connected to the autonomic
nervous system working through the spinal column. The sushumna is
thus connected with the network of sympathetic and parasympathetic
nerves and the autonomic nervous system through its connection to
the Cakras and its passage through the spinal column. Although the
three Nadis meet at the same place in the pelvic plexus, they originate
from different parts of the base of the spine. According to the Siva
Svarodaya Shastra, all three of these Nadis can be activated and
controlled through breath in order to control the chemical balance and
the energy level of the body. The Siva Svarodaya Shastra explains the
Nadis as follows: 42
Ida: This Nadi originates at the base of the spine and works as
the left channel. It flows on the left side of the spinal column
and terminates in the left nostril by branching into fine
capillaries. This Nadi becomes active when breathing is
carried out by the left nostril. In yogic terms, this nostril is
known as feminine or maternal and it is connected with right
hemisphere, making it emotional and magnetic in nature.
Because of its dominance during the ascending cycle of the
moon, it is called lunar. The breath flowing through the left

nostril is called Ida or moon breath.
Pingala: This Nadi originates at the base of the spine and acts
as the right channel. It is situated on the right side of the
spinal column and terminates in the right nostril by branching
into fine capillaries. During the operation of the right nostril,
this Nadi becomes active. It is connected with solar currents
and its energy is considered to be masculine. The right nostril
is connected with the left cerebral hemisphere, making it
verbal and rational in nature. Because it is dominant during
the descending cycle of the moon, it is called solar. The breath
flowing through the right nostril is called Pingala or sun
breath.
Sushumna: This Nadi originates at the base of the spine and is

situated between the Ida and Pingala. It is also known as the
central canal and its energy flows through the interior of the
spinal column. It pierces the palate at the base of the skull and
terminates at the top of the skull, at the soft spot. When air
flows in both nostrils equally, the sushumna Nadi becomes
active. It is fiery in nature. This Nadi usually works at dawn
or dusk automatically, and also for short intervals when the
transition from one nostril to the other nostril takes place. It is
also said that all human beings breathe through both nostrils
just before death, when sushumna becomes active.
These are the three modes of human respiration according to the

Siva Svarodaya Shastra and the pranayama, the breathing techniques,
in all yogic traditions are connected to different combinations of these
three modes.
B. Nostrils and the Solar System
Each nostril mode is connected to lunar cycles and the Siva

Svarodaya Shastra extensively documents the relationship. In the
following discussion I follow Johari’s descriptions in order to explain
this complicated breath calendar. 43 The lunar cycle influences the
fluids in the body and creates identifiable effects in the emotional
levels of the body. Nostrils are directly connected to the cycles of the
moon and during the ascending and descending cycles, the left and the
right nostrils are alternatively dominant. In the ascending moon cycle,
the left nostril operates for nine days, on lunar dates 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 13,
14 and 15. In the same cycle, the right nostril operates for six days, on
lunar dates 4, 5, 6, 10, 11 and 12. In the descending moon cycle, the
right nostril likewise operates for nine days, on lunar dates 1, 2, 3, 7,
8, 9, 13, 14 and 15. In the same cycle, the left nostril operates for six
days, on lunar dates 4, 5, 6, 10, 11 and 12. The right nostril operates
for nine days and the left for six days. To describe these operations
more clearly:
1. The right nostril is associated with the solar planets: the Sun,
Mars and Saturn. On the day corresponding to these planets -
Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday - the right nostril works for
one hour, starting ninety minutes before sunrise. Half an hour
before sunrise it changes and the nostril of the day takes over.
When the right nostril is also the nostril of the day, flow of
breath through this nostril on these three days is auspicious.
2. The left nostril is associated with the lunar planets: the Moon,
Mercury, Jupiter and Venus. On the days corresponding to
these planets - Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday -
the left nostril works for one hour, starting ninety minutes
before sunrise. Half an hour before sunrise the nostril of the
day takes over. When the left nostril is also the nostril of the
day, flow of breath through this nostril on these four days is
auspicious.
3. The Sushumna Nadi is active when both nostrils function

together. It automatically operates very briefly at dawn and
dusk, when the nostril connected with the planet stops and the
nostril of the day takes over. This Nadi is said not to be
influenced by either the ascending or the descending cycles of
the moon.
The same nostril that starts the day one hour before the sunrise
also ends with the day at sunset. Day and night and the rise and setting
of the Sun and Moon take place constantly in the human organism as a
result of the constant interplay of left and right nostril modes. The
entire chemical balance of the body is maintained through this
constant interplay between nostril operations; the Siva Svarodaya
Shastra claims that by changing nostril modes intentionally one can
alter the level of consciousness and emotion by changing the chemical
balance in the body. This needs to be researched properly in the
contexts of both yogic knowledge and modern medicine in order to
explore more connections between respiration and the body. To
highlight a point for further discussion in the context of my argument
in this thesis, these left and right nostril modes indicate the passage of
time, whereas the middle path of Sushumna breathing does not
suggest any time: it is timeless, or beyond the ordinary sense of time.
C. Techniques to Check Nostril Modes:
The Moon changes bi-monthly creating two cycles:
1. Ascending cycle, from new moon to full moon, when the

moon is gradually increasing in size and influence.
2. Descending cycle, from full moon to new, when the moon is
gradually decreasing in size and effect.
Hence, the Siva Svarodaya Shastra suggests specific methods by

means of which the nostril operations can be checked bi-monthly. The
following are the two ways of checking nostril operations suggested
by the Siva Svarodaya Shastra. 44
1. In the morning following the full moon, the descending moon

cycle starts. The right nostril should operate for three
consecutive days at dawn.
2. In the morning following the new moon, the ascending moon

cycle starts at dawn and the left nostril should operate for
three consecutive days.
The body maintains its natural, healthy rhythm if the nostrils are
working properly. If the correct nostril is not working, there will be a
change in the body chemistry and this alteration can lead to both
physiological and psychological problems within the next two weeks.
According to the Svara-udaya system, it is therefore important to

check and correct the problem at the outset and there are techniques
available to activate the correct mode intentionally at any moment of
time. The following are considered the correct modes of operation
while checking the breath:
1. Right following the night of the full moon

2. Left following the night of the new moon
The nostril should be checked around dawn before getting out the
bed and in the case of incorrect nostril dominance, the person should
not get out of bed until it is brought back to its correct mode relating
to the lunar cycle. It is also suggested that one should wait
approximately ten to thirty minutes after the sun rises to change the
nostril operation intentionally.
D. Techniques to Change Nostril Modes
The methods of changing the nostril modes are discussed in detail

in the Siva Svarodaya Shastra, along with the ways of identifying the
dominant nostril mode and suggestions regarding under what
circumstances the nostril modes can be changed. The following are
the three ways to identify the dominating nostril:
1. The dominant nostril will have an undisturbed flow of breath.

Press one nostril and check which nostril is congested.
2. Breathe out quickly several times in a row without plugging

both nostrils and you can feel a cool sensation in the dominant
nostril.
3. Breathe out on a piece of glass or a mirror. The residual

vapour will deposit on the side of the operating nostril.
When the middle path is dominant, you will feel either that both
of your nostrils are free or that both are congested. The flow of breath
will be even through both nostrils when the middle path dominates.
The Siva Svarodaya Shastra suggests the three following methods to
change the dominating nostrils whenever it is necessary (Johari: 1989,

p.18):
1. Press the operating nostril gently with the thumb and breathe
forcefully through the congested nostril.
2. Lie down on the side of the operating nostril. That is to say,

lie down on the right side when the right nostril is operating
and vice versa. Place a small cushion under the armpit bearing
the weight to stimulate the nerve on that side. The nostril flow
will change to the other side within a few minutes. And also
note that when the person is healthy the nostril changes
quickly but in case of chemical imbalance in the body it will
take longer to change the nostril mode. If the person is ill, it
will take an hour and more to change the operating nostril.
3. Sit in a comfortable posture and turn the gaze towards the

congested nostril. This practice will be effective if combined
with the first method.
Swami Sivapriyananda describes an ancient method which yogis

traditionally use to change the operating nostril. 45 This method
involves the use of the ‘Y’ shaped crutch-like instrument called the
Yoga-dandu. Place this instrument under the armpit of the operating
nostril and lean over and press it between the chest and the arm. The
flow of the breath will change to the other side of the nostril within
about 10 to 15 minutes with this course of action. This method is used
by Yogins. Swami Sivapriyananda mentions the existence of a fifth,
method; however, he does not describe it because one can learn this
most delicate method only from a Guru who knows it and is willing to
share it. I would say that what is known to the world at the moment in
this context is very little and very general information about breath,
compared to what is hidden amongst people who come from the yogic
lineage.
Johari offers a brief description of when and under what

circumstances the operating modes can be changed, according to the
Siva Svarodaya Shastra:
1. If one feels disturbed, shows signs of illness, experiences an

unusual taste in the mouth or a lack of energy.
2. If the right or left nostril operates for more than two or three
hours in succession.
3. If the Moon nostril operates at the time the Sun nostril should
normally be operating or vice versa.
4. If you want to do any activity related to the left and right

nostrils when the middle path operates. Meditation and
relaxation are the activities suggested when the middle path is
in operation. (See the tables below)
Table 1. Qualities associated with the nostrils
Left Nostril Right Nostril

Days: Monday, Wednesday, Days: Sunday, Thursday and
Thursday and Friday Saturday.
Cycle: Ascending Moon cycle Cycle: Descending Moon cycle.
Influential levels: ̅ Ahead, left Influential levels: ̅ Behind, right
and above and below
Nature: Magnetic, feminine, Nature: Electrical, masculine,
lunar, alkaline Solar, acidic.
Suitable for: Peaceful activities, Suitable for: Difficult activities
Duration: One to two hours Duration: One to two hours.
Connected with: Right Connected with: Left hemisphere
hemisphere of the brain; left side of the brain; right side of the
of the body. body.
Dominant: Morning, following Dominant: Morning following
new moon night. full moon night.
Sanskrit name: Ida Sanskrit name:Pingala
Body Chemistry: Mucus Body Chemistry: Bile dominated
dominated
* Anyone positioned in these directions in relation to your body becomes subject to

the influence of this nostril. In such a situation, gaining favours from the person or
influencing his or her thoughts becomes easy (Johari: 1989, p. 26).
Table 2. Activities associated with the nostrils*
Left Nostril Right Nostril

1. Stable business, requiring no 1. Unstable business, requiring
movement. movement.
2. Long term activities 2. Temporary activities or jobs

that can be accomplished quickly.
3. Journey to a far-off place. 3. Journey to a near place
4. Collection of ornaments 4. Return journey
5. Collecting food grains and 5. Studying or teaching martial

necessities of life arts.
6. Beginning of study (Regular 6. Studying hard skills and
school education) destructive sciences
7. Playing musical instrument 7. Writing manuscripts
8. Singing 8. Practice of Shastras
9. Learning to dance 9. Practice of Tantra (secret

science)
10. Construction of hermitage, 10. Destruction of country (war)

temple
11. Planting, gardening 11. Chopping wood, lighting a

fire.
12. Building walls, swimming 12. Cutting gems and jewels,

pools, ponds sculpting, carpentry
13. Giving charity, lending 13. Accepting charity, borrowing

money
14. Marriage, birth of baby 14. Prostitution, sexual

indulgence (for male only)
15. Purchasing clothes, 15. Selling cattle

ornaments, and land
16. Performing rituals for 16. Committing crimes, corrupt

pacification, appeasement, and practices
attaining worldly prosperity
17. Friendship, meeting relatives 17. Eradicating, poisoning, or

subduing enemies
18. Making efforts to establish 18. Hunting, killing, holding a

peace sword
19. Preparing divine medicines or 19. Practicing medicine

chemicals, practice of alchemy
20. Treatment of diseases, 20. Fighting, duelling, wrestling,

therapy boxing
21. Worshiping of the Guru 21. Seeing a king, meeting and

addressing officials
22. Entering a newly constructed 22. Driving a vehicle

house, village, town, new country
23. Thinking about a relative’s ill 23. Having a discussion or debate

health
24. Being initiated into a spiritual 24. Climbing a mountain

order, practicing disciplines
25. Addressing one’s master 25. Evoking and mastering evil

spirits, pacifying poison
26. Service 26. Ordering, giving commands
27. Performing auspicious acts 27. Gambling

28. Starting a new colony order 28. Swimming across a torrential

or community river
29. Opening a bank account 29. Worshipping evil spirits,

mastering Mantra of power,
vigour and bravery
30. Knowledge of past, present 30. knowledge of unseen and
and future unheard things
31. Curing fever 31. Purification by vomiting,

enema, throat cleansing, water
purification of the lower intestinal
tract, sinus cleansing, Hatha Yoga
exercises, Kapal-Bhati
32. Applying sandal-wood paste 32. Using drugs and poisons
to the fore head
33. Tying a four-legged animal 33. Taming or riding a four-

legged animal
34. Taking a new vow 34. Drinking liquor
35. Drinkingnon-alcoholic 35. Eating and defecating

beverages
36. Urinating 36. Bathing
37. Meditating 37. Captivating members of the

opposite sex
(for male only)
38. Expressing anger
39. Producing works of
illumination
40. Working with accounts,
counting preparing ledgers
* Note: The information given in table 2 is very ancient. Although it attempts to span
the entire panorama of human activities and behaviour, we can expand upon these
lists by observing how modern-day activities fit into the specialised functions of the
twin hemispheres (Johari: 1989, p. 27-28).
The Siva Svarodaya Shastra strongly suggests undertaking

activities, either during the day or night, which are suitable to the
dominant nostril. According to Ayurveda, Sushumna dominance is
only meant for calming the system and preparing it for a change in
nostrils. It is also said that all plans made during the middle path mode
fail—activities started remain incomplete, vows made at this time will
be broken and charity becomes useless. Only meditation and other
unworldly things are recommended when the middle path operates.
The basic rule regarding the Siva Svarodaya Shastra is that a

harmony should always be kept between the warm, sun breath flowing
through the right nostril, and the cool breath of the left lunar nostril.
To give a few examples:
1. During the bright half of the lunar month the Moon rules the
night. Therefore, the effects of the Sun are at its minimum. To
harmonise this imbalance, it is necessary and advantageous to
block the left nostril and allow only the right channel to flow
all night.
2. Throughout the dark half of the month, the Moon’s influence

is absent. During this period it is auspicious to block the Sun
channel and let the Moon nostril flow all night.
3. If at any time, and especially when walking or exercising, one

feels that the body temperature is suddenly increasing or one
feels very tired, block the Sun channel and let the breath flow
through the Moon nostril until the tiredness or the heat has
gone.
All that has been mentioned here is only a tiny portion of the vast
descriptions available in various texts of Yoga relating to human
nostril operations. My intention in recording at least some of that
information is to show how breath is conceived, developed and
categorised in terms of different human activities and knowledge.
Breath-related knowledge, in my limited reading during the course of
this research, seems to be a systematically developed category capable
of defining the whole physiological, psychological and spiritual range
of human life. Nevertheless, how far the physiological descriptions of
the functioning of breath found in this section may be compatible or

contradictory in the context of contemporary medicine require further
research exploring the ancient medical knowledge against the
evidence. Interestingly, the descriptions found in Marmatherapy on
the growth of the foetus match very well with the meticulous scientific
analysis of modern embryology (See section 2.5.1.A. below). Unlike
Ayurveda, Marmatherapy as a system of medical practice is almost
unknown to the scholarship and experimental research of
contemporary medicine firstly because of the antiquity and
exclusiveness of the practice. The second reason for this is that no
single authentic text of this traditional medical practice has neither
been found nor been translated: this system of knowledge is
pronounced in palm leaf manuscripts and exclusively practiced by few
traditional families in Southern Travancore. I am aware of the fact that
the physiology of breathing found within the traditional metaphoric
medical language needs to be balanced against evidence brought out
through contemporary medical research, which is not the focus of the
thesis. So, in the following section, I will look at some practical
approaches to breathing which is central to the line of investigation
carried out in this study.
E. Practicing Svara-Udaya
Siva Svarodaya Shastra systematically explains the physiological,

psychological and spiritual connections between the body and breath.
It also suggests a practice known as Soham Sadhana, the practice of
So-ham. The human respiratory system functions in a bi-polar act of
inspiration and expiration. The air driven out of the lungs makes the
sound ham whereas the inhaled air produces the sound sah. These two
sounds together make the Sanskrit word hamsah, which literally
means goose, which is a synonym for the ‘Supreme Spirit’. The ham
sound symbolises the male creative principle of consciousness and is
known as the seed-sound of Shiva, the unified consciousness. The sah
sound represents the female creative principle of energy and is the
seed-sound of Sakti, the individual self activated by the flow of
breath. When the word hamsa is reversed, it spells soham in Sanskrit.
The word soham is made of the following vowels and consonants: s+
o + h+ a+ m. When the consonants ‘s’ and ‘h’ are taken away from the
word, what remains is ‘OM’ which is known as the base sound
involved in the first motion of universal creation: all the articulated

sounds emerge from this seed sound. Soham is created through the act
of inspiration and expiration which always remains with a person
during all states of consciousness.
The practice of this breathing is described as follows: sit in any

comfortable posture, with eyes either closed or open, as convenient.
Then breathe in slowly and try to hear the ‘so’ sound. If you do not
hear any sound in the beginning, try to imagine it. While breathing out
the ‘ham’ sound can also be heard, imagined or mentally repeated.
Care should be taken to see that the breathing is continuous and the
‘soham’ is not broken up like a verbal articulation. Do it continuously
with a break after 15 to 20 minutes until the sound becomes natural
and spontaneous. When the rhythm becomes natural one might feel
that the breath has stopped but, according to the direction suggested
by the text, this is a good sign to show that the practice has become
fruitful. According to the Siva Svarodaya Shastra, the ‘soham’ is
essential to higher levels of human consciousness. The practice of
svara udaya, also called soham breathing, as described above, is
essential to experiencing higher levels of consciousness. The only
system I have found, in my research that provides a clear
understanding of the proper practice described as soham is that of the
South Indian Siddha tradition. I will therefore discuss this approach in
the following section.
2.5 Breath and the Siddha Tradition
Shivaism, as a philosophical system, is the oldest systematic

thought and practice of Indian spirituality and has persisted since the
pre-historic time of the archaeological finds of the phallic symbol of
the Shiva of the Indus valley civilization. It is thus pre-Vedic and the
key elements of Shaivite thought can be found in various strands of
Indian philosophy, aesthetics and religion, like Vedas and Upanishads
and leading all the way to Buddhism. 46 This is because as a
philosophical system, Shivaism spread to all the parts of India and
also crossed the frontiers of the country to several regions in central
Asia. Central to Shivaism is the worship of Shiva, either in the form of
a phallic symbol, which represents the idea of the universal and
eternal nature of the manifestation of the self, or in the form of various
poses, the epitome of which is the Dancing NatarƗj. Shiva the dancer
is the most popular and elegant, representing the cosmic dance of
Shiva while witnessing the dissolution of the universe and its fusion in
him. On the other hand, it is rather an iconic representation of a deeper
Indian cosmic vision, which also considers the performative nature of
cognition in terms of time, space and movement. My intention in this
section is to demonstrate the key concepts and practices of a breath-
related tradition in South India, an offshoot of the Indian Saivite
tradition.
This particular tradition is said to have been established by
eighteen Siddhas, enlightened beings, in the Tamil language whose
origin can be dated back to between 3000 BC and 100 AD. It is,
therefore, difficult to calculate the exact period in which the texts were
written. The South Indian Siddha tradition is part of a larger, pan-
Indian tantric-Yoga movement that spread throughout South Asia,
from Sri Lanka in the South to Tibet in the North, between the seventh
and eleventh centuries. The most significant aspect of the South
Indian Siddha tradition lies in its consideration of the human body as
the locus of philosophical discourse. Medical treatises as well as
spiritual treatises in the Siddha tradition thus share one basic
understanding of the crucial relationship between body, breath and
consciousness. Siddha Yoga is a non-sectarian spiritual tradition that
incorporates various body-related disciplines like martial arts,
physiotherapy, Yoga and tantric rituals, as part of its whole structure
of practice. According to Douglas Renfrew Brooks, Siddha Yoga
cannot be reduced to a canon of textual or oral resources, or a fixed set
of religious teachings but it is based on certain practices related to
breathing. 47 The distinctive element that makes Siddha Yoga different
from other schools of Yoga is its focus on breath-related practice.
Hence, rather than repeating Siddha Yoga’s theoretical understanding
of the relation between the body, breath and consciousness, I intend to
explain the spectrum of its practice.
2.5.1 Texts and Authorship
Three major texts represent almost the entire South Indian Siddha
school of thought. Those three seminal texts are: 1) The MarmasƗstra
SamƗhƗram 48 of the sage Agastiya 2) the Thirumandiram 49 of Siddhar
Thirumoolar and 3) Siddha Veda 50 of Swami Sivananda
Paramahamsa. Among these three seminal texts, Siddha Veda is a

comparatively later publication and the author is the founder of Siddha
Samaja, the foundation for Siddha Yogins. The authorship and period
of the other two are uncertain because of the antiquity of the texts. The
knowledge of Marma 51 is part of Siddha physiotherapy, a medical
branch initiated by the sage Agastiya, which is different from
Ayurveda. Marma means the secret points of the body and Sastra
means manual. The Marmasastra, therefore, is to be considered as a
practice-based knowledge of the secret Marma points of the body.
These points are known as secret points because striking on Marma
points will bring serious damage to the body, but this knowledge is
mainly used to cure the neuro-physical disorders. There are 108 secret
points in the body. The Marmasastra comprises elaborate descriptions
of anatomy including the number, types, structure and functions of
bones, nerves and muscles along with references to internal organs
like the heart and intestines. Much of the information that this ancient
medical system offers to the world matches information available in
modern medical science, and several other areas covered in the
Marmasastra are still unknown to modern medicine. The
Marmasastra also provides a discussion of the ten kinds of breath and
their psycho-physical functions. In a wider context, the Marmasastra
discusses precisely the interactions between body and breath and their
further implications in the formation of human consciousness.
The Thirumandiram is known as a classical text on the

philosophical discourse of the Siddha tradition. The text is an esoteric
masterpiece of 3000 verses and explains the characteristics of yogic
practice based on some exclusive breathing systems. Only in the
recent past has this work been made available to the English reading
public. The whole treatise is divided into nine books and each book is
known as Tantras. Siddhar Thirumoolar, the author of the
Thirumandiram illustrates various functions of breath in the body and
further explains different breath-related practices used to achieve
Samadhi, the highest state of human consciousness, according to Yoga
philosophy. The intention of Shivananda Paramahamsa in writing
Siddha Veda was to explain the secrets of Siddha Yoga’s particular
breathing practices by making them simple and available to laymen
who are not able to comprehend them properly because of the
confusing and metaphoric language of the classical texts like the
Thirumandiram. In fact, the Marmasastra and the Thirumandiram

share several features in terms of terminology and concepts because
medical terms are being used to explain spiritual practices and vice
versa.
Like various other ancient Indian texts, the authorship of the

Marmasastra is unclear and the period in which it was written is also
debatable. The sage Agastiya is accountable for the compilation of the
treatise. Many of the palm leaf manuscripts of the Marmasastra give
evidence of the existence of the sage Agastiya as the author because
they normally carry the inscription of his name towards the end of the
text. He is known as one of the eighteen Siddha Yogins in the Sanga
period in Tamil literature between B.C.3000 and A.D.100.
Tholkappiyam, the oldest available text in the Tamil language, which
is dated between B.C.1000 and B.C.300, refers to Sage Agastiya as
one who lives in the mountains of the Southern range. This clearly
gives some idea about his period as it is before Tholkappiyam was
written. It is also important to note that, in a later period, exactly the
same reference to Agastiya could be found in the epic Ramayana,
which was written in approximately B.C.400. Considering this limited
textual evidence we can assume that the Marmasastra was written
somewhere between B.C.3000 and B.C.1000, which might perhaps be
concurrent with Vedic literature or even before the existence of Rig
Veda if the calculations are historically accurate. But there are
problems in accurately locating the period of these ancient texts
because of their pre-historic origins. In contrast, the period of the
Thirumandiram is exactly calculated between 5 A.D and 6 A.D
though there is nothing much left as far as the biographical details of
the author are concerned, except a few references that are found in
other ancient literary works in Tamil. The following section will
discuss the Marmasastra’s understanding of the human embodiment
and the breath’s crucial role in it.
A. The Body in the Marmasastra
The Marmasastra viewed the human body as a manifest

phenomenon. In order to explain the genesis of human embodiment,
Agastiya, the author of the Marmasastra, begins with the unmanifest,
the timeless reality, from which the physicality of individual existence
becomes manifest. The body as the physical manifestation of various

natural principles and qualities is further analysed in detail in terms of
the anatomical structure of the body. In this way, considering the
human body as the material manifestation of ‘pure existence’, the
Marmasastra proposes an important idea about the body—that it is the
only available medium to experience and understand ‘timeless reality’
since the body is part of that pure universal substance. Agastiya, in
this context, clearly says that the presence of breath in the body is the
way in which ‘timeless reality’ can be grasped, and hence the
Marmasastra provides further clarifications about the inter-dynamic
relationship between the body and breath. On the whole the
Marmasastra includes meticulous descriptions about the
metaphysical, physiological and psychophysical viewpoints of the
body.
The process of the genesis of the human body in the therapeutic

discourse of the Marmasastra is presented through twenty five verses
of the invocatory preamble in the form of a small book called
Brahmanila Sutram. 52 These verses include the metaphysical view of
the body, the ethics of a Marma practitioner and the origin and
elementary components of body. The jiva, the embodiment, is created
out of Brahman, the unmanifest. The Marmasastra explains this
metaphysical origin by using two terms: para and apara. The first is
known as the underlying potential energy of the manifest world,
whereas the second is explained as the individual knowing self or the
manifest. The origin involves a split—that of the essential nature of
the individual taking shape from the essential source of all
manifestations. All manifestations, including individual beings, have a
form of identity and this identity is limited in the sense that it is
manifested from the unlimited unmanifest. Thus the individual being
is placed in a definite time and space through this manifestation and
separated from its awareness of the totality of being, the substratum of
individual existence. Hence, individual existence is part of a whole
and thus the relationship between the manifest individual and the
unmanifest, unconditioned and timeless reality is that of identity and
difference. Agastiya says that the ignorance of a universal totality
relating to individual existence is inherited in the genesis of the body
(M.S:I: I: 1-4). 53 This ignorance causes duality between the knowing
self (jiva) and the timeless reality, the substratum of the universe. The
knowing individual self, the jiva, is activated through PrƗna, the life
force, through nostril operations. Breath causes the emergence of the
knowing self. It also functions as the reason for the unawareness of
the relations between unconditioned universal reality and individual
existence. Agastiya further explains that through the union of para
and apara, the union of jiva and brahman, the union of breath and
consciousness, the fundamental ignorance involved in the nature of
individual being can be eliminated (M.S: I: II: 1-4). 54 Agastiya
suggests a breath-related practice in order to eliminate this ignorance
and to achieve that state of human consciousness that is known as the
highest state of Samadhi in various Shaivite traditions. It is also
known as the unified state according to the Vedanta model of
consciousness.
There are four recurrent images in the Marmasastra about the

human body: the landscape, the tree, the house and the cosmos. The
body as landscape contains thousands and thousands of rivers in the
form of blood vessels that spring from the pool of the heart, where the
eternal tree is planted with plentiful roots of nerves spreading deeply
all over the body whose trunk is the spine that carries the immortal
flower of the thousand-petalled lotus on the top (M.S: 1:4). 55 The
name of the tree is sushumna, the vital nerve running through inside
the vertebral column starting from the bottom of the spine and
terminating in the brain. The other two major nerves, called Ida and
Pingala, follow sushumna, running from the same source at the
bottom of the spine on the exterior through both sides of the spine.
These three major nerves are called three Nadis, the vital channels of
the subtle body, which are connected to nostril operations.
According to the view of MarmasƗstra, the body emerges out of

the primary natural elements like earth, water, fire, ether and air. The
body is again divided into the three zones of Sun, Moon and Fire.
Each zone is connected to the system of breathing and the left and
right nostrils of the body. For instance, the left nostril is the Moon
zone, which is connected to the left Nadi called Ida, and the right
nostril is the Sun zone, which is connected to the right Nadi called
Pingala. The fire zone of the body is related to the Nadi called
Sushumna. This Nadi runs inside the spine and is connected to the
middle of the nasal cycle. This middle nostril path is crucial to yogic
techniques of breathing because several intricate and exclusive

techniques of breathing are connected to this middle path. As I
mentioned in my discussion of the Siva Svarodaya Shastra, according
to the Marmasastra, a healthy body normally breaths 21,600 times
within 24 hours and natural breathing changes from left to right and
right to left perpetually and intermittently in its course during the 24
hours. In each changeover from left to right and right to left, breath
flows through both nostrils. This particular nostril operation is called
the middle path. I will discuss the importance of this middle path
breathing in the following sections. The Marmasastra and Siva
Svarodaya Shastra share similar understandings of the nature and
inner dynamics of breath in the body. We see that breath has been
incorporated in various disciplines from classical Indian music to
Ayurveda, Marma, Upanishads, SƗmkhya and Yoga. Breath is perhaps
the one underlying common element to all these disciplines.
The metaphoric image of the body as cosmos is connected to the

three distinctive modes of nostril operations: the left, the right and the
middle. The left nostril is metaphorically considered as the Moon
where as the right is known as the Sun. Human respiration consists of
the constant interplay or the changeover between left and right
nostrils, and the Marmasastra metaphorically emphasises that the Sun
and the Moon rise and set several times in the cosmologic orbits in the
body ( M.S: 1:5). 56 This nasal cycle of the rise and fall of Sun and
Moon indicates the passage of time in the body and in our
consciousness. All the daily activities of the body and all the daily
senses of our consciousness are interconnected to the temporal aspects
of left and right nostril modes. The middle path suggests a timeless
sense of consciousness which I will discuss in the fourth chapter, in
terms of breath and consciousness. Another metaphoric image of the
body as the house is connected to the structural pattern of the subtle
body. In the Marmasastra, the body is divided vertically from the
bottom of the spine to the crown of the head into six sections and each
of these sections contains one vital energy centre, which is known as
the psychophysical centre of the body. These psychophysical body
centres are called Cakras and both Yoga as well as tantric traditions
provide knowledge about the existence of these centres in the body.
As we saw in the earlier sections of the Sangitaratnakara of
Sarangadeva, the Cakras function as the centres of consciousness at
various planes situated between the anus and the crown at the top of
the head. Concentration on and control of one or many of these
centres bestows enormous psychophysical powers. According to most
of the yogic systems, the aim of practising Yoga is to train the mind to
concentrate upon and penetrate through all these centres in order to
achieve a complete mastery over the physical and the psychic body.
The aim is also said to be to attain freedom from the limited
perception of mind and matter. However, this structure of the
psychophysical body has nine doors according to the Marmasastra:
two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two inner throats and one mouth. In
this house lives the person who records each perception, sound, smell,
touch and experience and there also lives another person on a higher
level who witnesses the person who is recording all the accounts.
Even from this initial observation, the body, mind and the
consciousness of human embodiment, as illustrated by the
Marmasastra are inseparably interconnected and the role of breath
connecting all these physiological, psychological and metaphysical
elements is clearly established in its therapeutic discourse. The
Marmasastra shows the body as a labyrinth: the labyrinth of breath.
Both in MarmasƗstra and in the Thirumandiram the origin and

growth of the foetus is explained elaborately and, in the seventh
Tantra of the Thirumandiram, Thirumoolar states that life span, death
and diseases, intelligence and the overall health and well-being of the
human organism will be defined by the nature of their sexual
copulation and the quality and positions of their breathing (7:20:1079-
80). 57 The movement and dynamism of male breath is the only force
that brings the seminal fluid to the interiority of the womb. In
MarmasƗstra, the growth of the foetus is calculated on a weekly basis
as is the case with modern medical embryology. According to
MarmasƗstra, fertilization occurs in a flower-like region within the
internal system where the female and the male gametes fuse; the
pictorial illustration of the ampullary region of the uterine tube in
modern embryology shows the ampulla region as having the shape of
a flower. Even more similarities between MarmasƗstra and modern
embryology could be traced through this comparison. The growth of
the foetus is given in detail in MarmasƗstra. The first nine days are
described day by day. On the first day the size of the foetus is a small
grain of mustard seed and on the fourth day it becomes the size of a
coriander seed and finally, on the seventh day, the size of a small
lemon (MS: IV:12-13). 58 Interestingly, the movement of the male
sperm is mentioned in MarmasƗstra in relation to the entrance of a
certain length of breath in the uterus.
As MarmasƗstra describes the process, breath is incorporated at

the very earliest stage of fertilization and helps the formation of foetus
(MS: IV: 12). 59 In this sense, MarmasƗstra proposes the
internalization of breath in the foetus at an early stage of its formation.
It also clearly says that miscarriage can take place as a result of
improper initiation of breath. As Agastiya goes on, in the first week
the natural elements like fire and water split apart and form into
adequate combinations and in the second week the basic form of the
foetus changes from spherical to oval. According to the language of
MarmasƗstra, the foetus will take the shape of a plantain flower.
Followed by this, the neck forms in the second week roughly
separating the body from the head and consequently in the third and
fourth weeks the head figures distinctively. The body is shaped like a
spoon in the fifth week including the formation of legs, hands and the
fingers. The 72,000 nerves emerge and spread all over the body in the
sixth and the seventh weeks. In the eighth week pulsation begins and
thus movement takes place. This is the time when the foetus consumes
liquid food through the umbilical cord and the body grows further as a
result of this. Finally, Agastiya says, in the ninth week, the crown of
the head is covered with soft layer of bone and skin and this is
followed by the activating of the brain and the bodily senses.
According to Agastiya, the covering of this soft layer of bone over the
crown and the emergence of intelligence in the body are related. The
emergence of the intelligence and the bodily senses, according to
Agastiya, prevents it from knowing the origin (MS:4:13,14,15). 60 For
Agastiya, the growth of the foetus is complete by the ninth week and
he does not say anything about the further growth from there onwards.
In my comparative reading of both MarmasƗstra and modern
embryology, I can see several similarities between these two medical
traditions in terms of the origin of the human body. Agastiya says that
the genesis of the body and the ‘internalisation of breath’ in the foetus
are inseparable and hence he draws the following conclusions (MS: I:
3-10) 61 :
1. The body is the manifestation of the primordial energy

mediated by breath.
2. The quality and the mode of operation of the male and female
breath determine the health and destiny of the foetus.
3. The internalised breath activates in the pre-born body, which

flows out through the nostrils during birth and hence the baby
breathes in, which is the first autonomous individual act.
4. The act of breathing creates individual consciousness and the
most important knowledge to learn from the teacher is to
internalize the breath in order to experience turiya. The term
turiya refers to alteration of consciousness which goes beyond
the daily consciousness.
From another perspective, Thirumoolar explains the role of breath

further in the formation and growth of the foetus since the pattern and
direction of the breathing of the male and female participants in the
sexual act define the destiny of the human body. The length of the
breath at the time when the orgasm occurs defines the life span of the
child. If it is 5 vara, 62 the life span will be 100 years, whereas if it is
reduced to 4 Vara, the life span will be 80 years: one who knows the
path of true Yoga can control destiny(TM:2:271). Moreover, the male
child will be born if the operating nostril is right at the time of sexual
copulation and a female child if it is left. There will be twin children if
Apana, one among the ten forms of breath in the body, dominates.
(TM: 2: 274 - 5). 63
Both MarmasƗstra and the Thirumandiram share the

understanding of the relation between the body, breath and
consciousness. According to both these systems, there is a split
involved in the origin. Nostril operation through birth creates this split
between individual consciousness and the non-dual state of unified
consciousness. Therefore, the unified state of consciousness can be
regained only through internalising individual respiration. Both
Agastiya and Thirumoolar suggest that internalisation of breathing is a
technique through which the breath can be brought back to its natural
location. According to Thirumoolar, the act of internalising respiration
initially evokes vital psychophysical energy in the body and then an
extended system of practice will enable the individual to attain the

sense of a unified state of consciousness, Samadhi (II Tantra: 203).
Agastiya further clarifies the existence of a cave-like place inside the
human skull and says that the act of the internalisation of breath
involves the careful utilisation of this cave. In the Marmasastra, this
place is known as the “cave of colours”. In my understanding, the
Siddha system of breathing techniques is based on two ideas: 1)
Agastiya’s cave 2) the internalisation of breath. I will explain these
ideas further in the following sections.
B. Marma and the Body
What is Marma? How many Marma points are there in the body?
What are their effects in the body? As Agastiya explains, marmas are
the junctions, knots and ends of Nadis where prana, the life force, is
present. Any serious pressure or blow at these points will seriously
affect the life span of the system (MS:II: 30). 64 MarmasƗstra offers
treatments and medicines for any fatal afflictions of the body through
a systematic practice relating to the Marma points. Marma points are
categorised into two sections:
1) 12 most fatal points. If hit in specific ways, death will

be immediate.
2) 96 fatal points. If hit, death will not be immediate but

the impact will create various disorders in the system.
MarmasƗstra elaborately discusses the locations of Marma points

in the body including the directions and measures to locate those
places properly. The thilasakala, for instance, is an important Marma
is located by the side of the upper portion of the eyes, exactly ½ an
inch (nellida) down from the centre of the eyebrows (MS: II: 40). 65
Agastiya further explains the ways of attacking the Marma point as
well as treating the body once a Marma point has been hit. Kaimanan
Karunakaran Vaidyar lists the names of all the 108 Marma points and
further describes the physical signs that appear when any one of them
has been hit, and the way to treat the effects. 66 To give an example,
Malar Marma can be applied in the following manner in a fight: block
the enemy’s right hand blow by your left hand while taking a martial
position, keeping your left leg in front, and then use your stretched
and focused right palm to hit the Marma spot. The pressure should be
calculated properly in order to create the full effect that is possible in
relation to this particular Marma point. The middle finger of the right
palm is pushed one inch (ira) inside on the Marma spot and then
dragged downwards with appropriate pressure. This is the proper
direction of attack on that Marma. Both the hands and the legs of the
enemy will be paralysed as a result of hitting this particular Marma in
this particular way.
Though Agastiya explains the treatment elaborately, he requests

again and again that no one should attack on this Marma in order to
destroy the body. It is very important to note that Agastiya explains all
the marmas for eliminating the physical disorders of the body through
treatment, but not for damaging the body. According to Agastiya, only
a mature person has the right to know and practice this secret
knowledge of the body. He should also have the quality of a yogi who
can control the emotions and worldly desires (MS: I: 2). 67 Each
Marma point is the location in the body where breath stays and any
form of blow on those points will create disorder in the function of
breath in the body. Hence, Marma is the physical point of the
dynamics of breath functioning in the body.
2.5.2 Agastiya’s Cave
Agastiya explains the existence of a cave situated at the base of

the palate region behind the uvula when he demonstrates a breath-
related practice in the context of the unified state of consciousness.
This centre is the most important region in the body in both Siddha
Yoga in general and the Marmasastra in particular. According to
Agastiya, breath has to be retained concealed in this cave in order to
attain the highest level of human consciousness. Perception and
experiences of the body will change when the breath is concealed in
this cave. As Agastiya explains the method, breath has to be pushed
through the middle path at the time when both ‘doors open’. Here, the
doors indicate both left and right nostrils and when both the left and
the right nostrils are open that is the middle path. Pushing the breath
towards the cave through the middle path is thus the practice
suggested by Agastiya to internalise breathing. Breathing at this stage
will be through ul-mulam, the single internal nostril leading to the

panchavarna-guha, the cave of five colours (MS: II: 211-219). 68 The
Marmasastra does not provide any further explanation of the five
colours in relation to the cave. Nevertheless, the description of the
breath-related practice presented in the Marmasastra is the core
practice of the South Indian Siva tradition which is preserved in
Siddha Yoga as Siddha Vidya.
2.5.3 Siddha Vidya
Yoga is understood as the union of two forces and several

interpretations of it explain these forces differently as individual self
and higher levels of consciousness, mind and higher levels of
consciousness and so on but Siddha Yoga clearly says that the union is
the union of two forms of breath: prana and apana. The practice
suggested by the Marmasastra clearly focuses on this idea of the
union of the bi-polar movement of breath. This Siddha practice is
further explained in the Thirumandiram as: the union is the fusion of
Sun and Moon into one at the upper portion of the nostrils beyond the
uvula. 69 The Sun and Moon here suggest the right and left nostril
modes and the practitioner is requested to wake up early in the
morning at dawn and then practice the internalisation through the
middle path while combining Sun and Moon, the two operating
nostrils, into one. Swami Sivananda Paramahamsa further explains the
practice as the union of the bi-polar movement of breathing. As he
elucidates it, prana is the breath that stays in and apana is the breath
that flows out. And the Siddha Vidya is the knowledge of combining
the apana with prana without allowing the apana to flow out. Siddha
Vidya, in this sense, redirects the outward flow into the proper internal
channels (See Chapter four). 70 A further special instruction is given by
Paramahamsa: breath needs to be prolonged and directed upwards in
this process as a bellows emits a stream of air used for blowing air
into a fire.
In my field research in Kerala, I have identified twenty-four

patterns of sequential breathing known as Gati, which literally means
directions. This system offers twenty-four patterns of breath directions
consisting mostly of the sounds of birds and animals, which vibrate in
different parts of the body. Out of these twenty-four patterns, eighteen

are to do with a convenient sitting position and the remaining six are
to do with bodily movements. All twenty-four patterns are intended to
create very high energy levels in the body. Both Siddha Vidya and
Gati are breath-related practices clearly understood and practised by
people who belong to Siddha lineage.
Summary
Several concepts on and approaches to breath illustrated in this

Chapter clearly show the importance of the dynamics of breath in the
entire psychophysical existence of the human organism. Breath is the
basic substance of the physical body, which activates all its physical
functions. Mind is something which is realised in the body and hence
all mental movements have corresponding breathing patterns. As we
have seen, several traditions, Aristotle, Tao, SƗmkhya, the
Upanishads, Yoga, Ayurveda, Classical music, the Marmasastra and
the Siddha Veda, consider and establish the connection between breath
and consciousness and there are systems available to alter the sense of
consciousness through specific practices related to breathing. Soham
and Siddha Vidya are the most reliable practices available in this
context. The following are the ideas derived from this Chapter:
1. Breath is considered as the most important physical,

psychological and spiritual category in Indian traditions in
general and in the South Indian Siddha tradition, in particular.
2. Breath-related methods exist in Yoga to explore the dynamics

of breath in the body in order to enhance the psycho-physical
energy level.
3. The Siva Svarodaya Shastra, the Sangitaratnakara, the

Marmasastra and the Siddha Veda refer to three modes of
nostril operations, which are left, right and the middle path.
These texts also suggest that left and right path breathing
relate to a conventional sense of time whereas the middle path
suggests a shift in the daily sense of time in the direction of an
altered state of consciousness.
4. Practices like Soham and Siddha Vidya show the implications

of the middle path breathing in terms of altered states of
consciousness gained through systematic practice.
5. The link between the nostril operations and the shift of the
sense of time is the most important idea derived from this
chapter because both the philosophy and practice of the
nostrils similarly indicate the element of temporality involved
in nostril operations.
The emphasis on the middle path breathing in terms of

temporality, emotion and consciousness will be discussed further in
the following chapters. What middle path breathing is and how it is
connected to a shift in our daily sense of time, and how temporality
relates to our meaning and consciousness are the questions this thesis
is going to address in the following Chapters. In the next chapter I
intend to look at the implications of breath on theatre training and
performance, both traditional and modern, and Eastern and Western.
Notes
1
Aristotle, Aristotle on the Soul: Prava Naturalia, On breath, tr: Hett. W.S, (London:
William Heinemann Ltd & Harvard University Press, 1936), pp. 484-517.
2
Ibid., p. 484.
3
Ibid., p. 485.
4
Ibid., p. 503.
5
Ibid., p. 401.
6
Ibid., p. 489.
7
Ibid., p. 29.
8
Paul Wildish., The Book of Ch’i, ( Boston: Journey Editions, 2000), p. 22 .
9
Ibid., p. 23.
10
Ibid., p. 24.
11
Ibid., p. 32-33.
12
Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, (ed.), SƗmkhya: A Dualist
Tradition in Indian Philosophy, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 51.
13
Wilhelm Halbfass, “Space or Matter: The Concept of AkƗsa in Indian Thought”,
Rabindranath Tagore Lecture, Centre for Philosophy and Foundations of Science,
New Delhi, 1999.
14
See footnote 45 below for further details on Saivism.
15
Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 5 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1955), 81.
16
Pulinbihari Chakravarti, Origin and Development of the SƗmkhya System of
Thought, (London: Luzac & Co, Ltd, 1975) p. 255.
17
Ibid., p. 256.
18
Ibid., p. 256.
19
Ibid., p. 120.
20
Ibid., p. 257.
21
See for details. Ibid., p. 265-66. The enumeration of the five breaths seems to be
different in South Indian Siddha tradition because Agastiya and Thirumular listed ten
breaths instead of five.
22
Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, The Upanishads: Breath of the
Eternal, (California: Vedanta Press, 1971) p. xvii.
23
Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, (London: Fontana/Collins, 1981) p. 93-96.
24
Ibid., p. 95.
25
Ralph Yarrow, Indian Theatre: Theatre of Origin, Theatre of Freedom, (London:
Curzon, 2001), p. 9-10.
26
Ibid., p. 9-10.
27
Daniel Meyer Dinkgräfe, Approaches to Acting: Past and Present, (London & New
York: Continuum, 2001), p. 95.
28
Ibid., p. 95.
29
Sir John Woodroffe, The Garland of Letters, (Madras: Ganesh & Co, 2001), p. 228
30
Ibid., p. 232.
31
Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, (tr. Willard R. Trask), (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 3.
32
Ibid., p. 7.
33
Ibid., p. 47.
34
B.S.K Iyengar, Light on Yoga, (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2000) p. 37.
35
Yogi Ramacharaka, Science of Breath, (London: Fowler, 1960) p. 28-32.
36
Dhirendra Brahmachari, Yogic Suksma Vyayama, (New Delhi: Dhirendra Yoga
Publications, 1956), p. xxii.
37
R. K. Shringy and Prem Lata Sharma, Sangitaratnakara of Sarngadeva, (tr.) vol. 1,
( New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1991), p. 85-6.
38
See for details. Sir John Woodroffe, The Garland of Letters, (Madras: Genesh & co,
2001), p. 276.
39
R. K. Shringy and Prem Lata Sharma, Sangitaratnakara of Sarngadeva, (tr.) vol. 1,
(New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1991), p. 99.
40
Swami Sivapriyananda, Secret Power of Tantrik Breathing, ( New Delhi: Abhinav
Publications, 1996) p. 3.
41
Harish Johari, Breath, Mind and Consciousness,(Rochester & Vermont: Destiny
Books, 1989), p. 2-3.
42
Ibid., p. 11-15.
43
Ibid., p. 14-16.
44
Ibid., p. 17.
45
Swami Sivapriyananda, Secret Power of Tantrik Breathing, (New Delhi: Abhinav
Publications, 1996) p. 24.
46
In An outline of history of Saiva Philosophy, Kanti Chandra Pandey briefly
discusses the deep and extensive influence of Shivaism to various other philosophical
and religious systems. As he points out, in Rigveda, there are verses, which refer to
Rudra, another name of Shiva. In SƗmaveda, there are also hymns addressed to
Rudra. Whereas in Yajurveda, the name of Rudra is mentioned among other names of
the Gods in the Section XVI of the VƗjasaneya SamhitƗ and in the Taittiriya SamhitƗ
of Yajurveda section IV, 5. In the Atharvaveda, for instance, there are many
collections of hymns worshipping Shiva mainly in VI, XI and XV sections and
therefore, K.C. Pandey argues that Shivaism as a philosophical system has deeply
influenced Vedic and post-Vedic systems of thought and spiritual practice though it
never shows an unbroken continuity in the Indian religio-philosophic traditions.
Buddha refers to Shivaism in his own way as Shiva VijjƗ, which is later on interpreted
as Bhǌta VijjƗ, or exorcism by BuddhaghoɁa a 5th A. D commentator of Buddhism
(K.C. Pandey, 1999: 1-3). K.C. Pandey illustrates briefly the debates between
Buddhism and monistic Shivaism of Kashmir while explaining Abhinavagupta’s
refutation of Buddha’s negation of the unified Subject proposed by Shaivite School.
Buddha does not admit the existence of any kind of permanent subject, individual or
universal but being for Buddha is rather a series of momentary being. UtpalƗcƗrya and
Abhinavagupta reassess this Buddhist notion of momentary being against the
philosophical background of non-dualist Shivaism as the synthesis of experience is
not possible on the basis of Buddha’s views of momentariness of subject. Besides
underpinning the most predominant limitation in Buddhist epistemology in terms of
cognition and the objective relationship of the knower, monistic Shaivite School
explores the epistemic basis of Shiva metaphysics while explaining the foundational
inter relations of memory and differentiation in cognition (K.C. Pandey, 1999: 195-
206)
47
Douglas Renfrew Brooks, Meditation Revolution: A History and Theology of the
Siddha Yoga Lineage, (ed.), (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000), p. xxiv.
48
KanjiramKulam K. Kochukrishnan Nadar, Marmasastra SamƗhƗram, Deshabhi-
vardhini Publishing House, Trivandrum: 1968.
49
Thiruvallam Bhaskaran Nair, Thirumandiram Moovariram (Mal.), Kerala Vidya
Peth, Trivandrum: 1976.
50
Swami Shivananda Paramahamsar, Siddha Veda (Mal), Siddha Samagam,
Vadakara (Kerala): 1922.
51
My understanding of this secret system of knowledge related to the secret points of
the body is largely derived initially from my own family tradition through the practice
of martial arts, physiotherapy. Secondly, it derives from textual sources. Apparently,
the information about this knowledge has mainly resided in palm leaf manuscripts and
preserved by individual families who are traditionally authorised to practice. Most of
these families are situated in the extreme Southern regions of old Travancore, which
is a district, called Kanyakumari, of Tamil Nadu. I myself posess couple of palm leaf
manuscripts as part of my family tradition.
52
KanjiramKulam K. Kochukrishnan Nadar, Marmasastra SamƗhƗram, (Trivandrum:
Deshabhivardhini Publishing House, 1968), p. 1-4.
53
Ibid., p.1-4.
54
Ibid., p. 1-4.
55
Ibid., p. 4.
56
Ibid., p. 4 –5.
57
Thiruvallam Balakrishnan Nair, Thirumantram Moovayiram, (Trivandrum:
Vijnana-bhavan Printers, 1976), p. 219. A translation of Thirumantiram appeared in
Malayam, the regional language of Kerala and I use this edition for my references.
58
Deshabhivardhini Publishing House, 1968), p. 148.
59
Ibid., p. 148.
60
Ibid., pp. 148-149.
61
Ibid., p. 4 -6.
62
It is an ancient unit of measure, which is no longer in use.
63
Vijnanabhavan Printers, 1976) p. 76.
64
65
Ibid., p. 22.
66
Kaimanam Karunakaran Vaidyar, Marmasastra Patangal, (Trivandrum: Published
by the author, 2002), p. 49.
67
68
Ibid., p. 51-52.
69
Vijnanabhavan Printers, 1976) p. 181.
70
Swami Shivananda Paramahamsar, Siddha Veda (Mal), Siddha Samagam,
Vadakara (Kerala): 1922. p. 95.
Chapter Three
Breath: Training and Performance
Meyer-Dinkgräfe investigates the world-wide origins of

acting to assert that the origin of acting is “concerned with
fundamental characteristics of human nature”: myth and ritual,
storytelling, imitation and a gift for fantasy, 1 which are mainly found
TPD DPT
in pre-modern traditions of performance across the world.

Storytelling, for instance, is an ancient art of narrating “an event, real
or imagined, presented by a narrator” who takes various roles in the
story as and when it is required. According to Meyer-Dinkgräfe,
theatre has developed from storytelling: individual members of a
group shared impersonation of the story’s characters. Similarly, rituals
are used to indicate the glory of supernatural powers or local heroes.
Rituals often include some form of music, dance, speech, masks and
costumes, as does theatre. Meyer-Dinkgräfe emphasises that though
societies abandon their rituals in the course of their social
development, the stories, myths and rituals remain as part of the
worldwide origin of theatre. The Vedic rituals described in the
Natyasastra and the two mythical stories of Japanese theatre, the first
actor Umihiko and the Sun-goddess, clearly show the validity of the
argument that the worldwide origin of theatre has a strong ritual base.2 TPD DPT
The Natyasastra and the Japanese mythical stories, according to

Meyer-Dinkgräfe, offer the preliminary information that actors need
to be “immensely skilled, suggesting a demanding training”. 3 TPD DPT
Actor training has a long tradition in Eastern forms of theatre,

whereas in the West that tradition is comparatively shorter. In the
introduction to her anthology of essays on 20th century actor training,
P P
Hodge offers an extensive account of a range of concepts and practical

models proposed by the most well-known Western actor trainers,
many of which are indebted to Eastern models of actor training. Noh
theatre, which dates back to fifteenth century Japan and Kathakali, the
dance theatre of South India, which evolved around the same period,
for instance, have systematic methods of training the actor’s psycho-
physicality. Western approaches to training, though they developed
properly as a systematic canon only as late as the twentieth century,
nevertheless provide a rich spectrum of meaningful concepts,
assumptions and ideas and practice. Konstantin Stanislavsky,
120 Breath: Training and Performance
Vsevolod Meyerhold, Michael Chekhov and Jacques Copeau are

considered the early pioneers among twentieth century actor trainers
in the West. A further list of director/actor trainers in Western Europe
and Northern America vividly shows the richness of the tradition:
Bertolt Brecht, Joan Littlewood, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and
Joseph Chaikin, Jacques Lecoq, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook and
Eugenio Barba. All of them have remarkably influenced the
development of Western theatre by addressing issues relating to the
actor’s mind/body dynamics, the actor-spectator relationship and
spatial and temporal dimensions relating to the body and theatrical
experience. The investigations put forward by all of these practitioners
were based on understanding and training the fundamental psycho-
physical elements involved in the actor’s art. As a result of this, a
variety of terms and concepts have developed throughout the century,
which clearly indicate the practitioners’ intention or approach to
theatre in general and acting in particular: Artaud’s cruelty, Brook’s
total and holy theatres, Grotowski’s translumination, and Barba’s
presence are only the most important examples. According to Hodge,
the widening influence of objective scientific research at the turn of
the 19th to the 20th century, particularly the psychological exploration
P P P P
of the subconscious mind, and the growing awareness of the rigorous

training in Eastern traditions are the two major sources of inspiration
to Western actor training (Hodge 2000, 2).
Hodge identifies two aspects essential to actor training in the

West: availability of performance material mostly from the East
through intercultural exchanges, and the explosion of knowledge,
particularly the systematic methods of psychoanalysis and
anthropological theories. While investigating the ancient roots of actor
training Meyer-Dinkgräfe suggests three key elements fundamental to
Eastern training: religious in function, ritual in practice and spiritual in
purpose. Western training is embedded more into an analytical and
intercultural tradition whereas the focus of the Eastern training is more
ritualistic and spiritual in nature. Meyer-Dinkgräfe’s views require
further exploration in the context of contemporary actor training
investigating how spiritual and ritual aspects are important in training
the mind and the body of the actor, and how they work as a method.
Citing from Meyer-Dinkgräfe, “Meyerhold placed much emphasis on
the actor’s physical training and discipline” by developing a set of
Breath: Training and Performance 121
psychophysical exercises called biomechanics. Biomechanics

incorporated elements of acrobatics and gymnastics including some
more complex exercises like études which enable the actor to be more
responsive to the sequences of his action, in the sense that each turn,
halt and lean back is crucially important to make the action ‘throwing
the stone’ more convincing. Grotowski developed a training method
that enables his actors to reach that state of mind he called
translumination, which according to him is something “achieving a
state of sacred theatre, in which spontaneity and discipline co-exist
and mutually reinforce each other”. 4 For Brook, actor training initially
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implies physical training leading to a body that is “open, responsive,

and unified in all its responses”, and secondly, training the emotions,
leading to the actor’s “capacity to feel”. For Barba, “training is a
process of self-definition, a process of self-discipline”, and therefore,
“training is outwardly physical”.
This chapter analyses how breath has been integrated in training

and performance of traditional Eastern as well as the contemporary
Western theatres. The chapter is divided into two major sections in
which traditional Eastern and contemporary Western actor training
will be discussed in terms of how breath has been integrated into
practice. In the Eastern section I am mainly focusing on Keralan
performance traditions, with particular emphasis on Kudiyattam, the
Sanskrit theatre of India, mainly because I am familiar with this
tradition and also have access to the material available locally.
Kudiyattam is a highly stylised theatrical form with a strong emphasis
on many years of systematic and complex training methods. Other
areas of discussion in the same section will draw on the Natyasastra,
the theatre manual describing the Indian concept of training and
performance, with special emphasis on the concept of rasa. Rasa is
the delight or bliss experienced by the audience as the result of a
theatrical event. It emerges from the interaction between stage and
audience. The Natyasastra describes eight rasas (later commentaries
add a ninth) and provides detailed instructions as to how the actor can
achieve the experience of any one rasa in the spectator.
In the section on contemporary Western actor training I shall

focus mainly on the 20th century. Artaud does not create a practical
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training method, but we see accounts of some systems based on breath

in his writings. I will refer to these as they become relevant in my

discussions of the role breath plays in the theory and practice of
Copeau, Stanislavski, Grotowski and Lecoq. I shall also look at some
recent approaches like John Martin’s intercultural training, Phillip
Zarrilli’s training method based on Kalarippayattu and Susanna
Bloch’s Alba Emoting, demonstrating how the understanding of
breath has changed in the 21st century. Two further sub-sections will
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deal with the relation of breath and voice in the work of Cecily Berry
and Catherine Fitzmaurice, and theoretical understanding of breath
presented by Malekin, Yarrow and Meyer-Dinkgräfe in their various
critical writings that consider breath as a potential ingredient in actor
training in the context of consciousness in training and performance.
3.1 Breath in Eastern Actor Training
In this section of chapter three I want to explore to what extent the

knowledge available in the Indian disciplines and texts of Yoga,
Ayurveda and the Marmasastra, has been incorporated in the practices
of actor training. In particular, in the context of the thesis, I am
interested in the extent to which the knowledge about breath found in
these Indian disciplines and texts forms part of actor training. In this
discussion I focus on performance traditions of Kerala, for two
reasons. Firstly, as I am from Kerala, I am most familiar with the
performance traditions of that region of India. Secondly the
performance tradition in Kerala is inter-disciplinary in nature in the
sense that it combines knowledge and practice from traditions such as
martial arts, medicine and meditation. The repertoire of performance
in Kerala has been developed through centuries of careful
experiments, renovations and restorations informed by other systems
of knowledge. 5 The tradition of martial arts is not merely “holding
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weapons and engaging in combats” rather it represents “a composite

culture incorporating elements from the whole range of people’s
social, religious, artistic and cultural life”. 6 Several martial arts
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traditions in Kerala including Kalarippayattu have a legendary origin

and influenced deeply the development of Kathakali and other
performance forms. Similarly, traditional medical knowledge of
Ayurveda and the Marmasastra, is also incorporated in performance in
many ways; as a result, most of the performance forms in Kerala show
a meticulous knowledge of the human body in terms of anatomy,
movements and also the ways in which the body is prepared and
nourished through systematic approaches. The physical training
methods are equally informed by these native medical systems as are
the performances themselves. One aspect of training is regular oil
massage as prescribed in Ayurveda. The oil is prepared using a
selection of herbs combined depending on the physical nature of the
actor’s body.
As far as breathing techniques are concerned, they are vital to

acting and therefore central to actor training. In Kudiyattam, for
example, the expression of the nine rasas is each associated with a
specific breathing pattern. Kudiyattam is the performance form that I
am going to look at in the following sections because breath in terms
of training and performance are much more evident in Kudiyattam
than in any other performance forms in Kerala.
3.1.1 Breath and the Natyasastra
Bharata incorporates almost all the systems of knowledge,

including Ayurveda and Vastu, architecture, available at his time in the
Natyasastra at various points to enhance and elaborate the theory and
practice of theatre. The medical knowledge of Ayurveda is
incorporated in the physical training section of the Natyasastra
suggesting various herbal medicines to prepare the oil for massaging
the actors. KƗmasǌtra, the knowledge of sex, has been brought into
discussion when Bharata explains the types of heroines as to how they
appear and what their emotional temperaments and characteristic
behavioural features are. Similarly, the second chapter of the
Natyasastra elaborately discusses architectural principles in the
context of building playhouses of different sizes and shapes. In
chapters eleven, twelve and thirteen, Bharata explains various styles
and patterns of postures which clearly take their origin in Yoga. The
Natyasastra thus offers an interdisciplinary methodology to
understand, analyse and practice theatre.
In this interdisciplinary context, breath is mentioned in the

Natyasastra in Chapter eight when Bharata discusses various nostril
movements in relation to facial acting, the acting of emotions. He
explains six types of nostril movements as nata, manta, vikrista,
sochwasa, vikunita and swabhaviki. Shrinking the nose is nata,

stability without movement is manta, expansion is vikrista, inhalation
is sochwasa, distortion is vikunita, and the normal state is swabhaviki.
Bharata provides examples of how each nostril mode or movement is
to be used in acting emotions: actors are to show nata (shrinking of
the nose) when they need to show crying silently, or being deep in
thoughts and in a sorrowful state of mind. The experience of strong
unpleasant smells, anger and fear will be shown by vikrista
(expansion), whereas pleasant smells and all the emotions expressed
through sigh will be followed by sochwasa (inhalation). When actors
need to show jealousy they will use vikunita (distorted). All other
emotions are supported by swabhaviki (the normal state) (NS. 8: 123-
128). Bharata thus establishes the link between nostrils (and
indirectly, therefore, breath) and emotions. A further reference to
breath in the Natyasastra follows in the section on movement training
in chapter eleven. Here, Bharata says that the proper habit of eating
healthy food and the proper ways of physical training are the basis of
strengthening prana, the breath, without which the actor’s work would
not accomplish perfection (siddhi) (NS.e 11: 85). There are no further
details in the Natyasastra exploring the training of breath. These two
examples, however, suggest that Bharata was aware of the importance
of breath in acting.
Bharata’s incorporation of yogic methodology and breath in the

Natyasastra can be understood further by looking at the definitions of
rasa, and Yoga in relation to the rasa sutra in the Natyasastra, the
verse explaining the meaning of rasa: Vibhava- anubhava-
vyabhicaribhava-samyogad rasa-nispattih. Rasa emerges through the
union (samyogad) of the three elements that constitute theatre:
specific situations in the play (vibhava), expressed by the actor’s body
(anubhava) and the actor’s mental states (vyabhicaribhava). Meyer-
Dinkgräfe’s reassessment of these terms leads to the conclusion that
the aim of both Yoga and rasa is to access the inaccessible and an
extended level of extra-daily experience through working with
physical and mental properties involved in daily life. Breath has been
identified as an element of transformation in both practices (Yoga, see
Chapter two and rasa according to the Natyasastra).
3.1.2 Breath and Rasa
The Natyasastra establishes the links between breath and acting to

achieve the experience of rasa in the audience theoretically.
Kudiyattam offers practical methods of training breath. Kudiyattam is
the only surviving Sanskrit theatre tradition restored in the temple
theatres of Kerala, and so far there are no studies adequately showing
what elements Kudiyattam carries forward from Sanskrit tradition and
what elements have been incorporated from local traditions. Perhaps it
might be both and therefore, it is difficult to isolate the original source
of the breath-related practice found in Kudiyattam. Studying these
practices of breath in Kudiyattam allows us to draw parallels between
meditation techniques and acting techniques that are integrated into
the performance structure of Kudiyattam.
The style of acting in Kudiyattam is very much dependent on the

expressivity of the actor’s eyes and the twenty-one movement patterns
of the eyes. Breath in turn is central to eye training. As Mani Madhava
Chakyar, the legendary master performer explains, eye training is
carried out by sitting crossed-legged, applying ghee to the eyelids,
massaging the eyes by stretching them sideways and pushing the
upper eyelids as much as possible with the fingers. 7 Chakyar explains
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the role of breath in eye training as follows:
When the student gets rather well trained in these movements, the rest
of the eye training involving breath (vayu) in the pupil of the eyes
depends entirely on the skill and practice of the teacher. While doing
this complicated ‘vayu exercises’ special care should be taken to avoid
squint-eye. The training should make the student bring 3 vayus in his
[her] eyes. Only after the completion of this training does the actor
become capable of expressing adequate rasa in his [her] acting. 8 TPD DPT
Here, Chakyar describes a specific technique of applying breath to

the eyes. The training of Kudiyattam will be completed only after the
successful learning of this specific technique of bringing the breath to
the eyes. According to Chakyar, the rasa can only be expressed
adequately by bringing breath to the eyes, which means that breath is
a vital element in rasa acting. 9 Another master teacher of Kudiyattam,
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P.K.Narayanan Nambiar confirms these observations by adding that

the subtle and complex acting techniques in Kudiyattam very much
rely upon breath because unless the actor applies vayu in the eyes
when the mountain Himalaya is shown, the actor’s mere imagination
of the mountain would leave it devoid of any ‘greatness’. 10 The word
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‘greatness’ here suggests the convincing projection of the imaginary

objects; the size of an ordinary mountain and the size of Himalaya are
different and according to Nambiar, this difference could only be
shown through the application of the appropriate amount of vayu,
breath. The movement patterns of the eyes and other physical
movements might be the same in an ordinary mountain and the
Himalaya but the breath applied to each situation will be substantially
different. This is a very subtle element in the acting of Kudiyattam and
according to my observations the actor creates various spatial
distinctions, through the twenty-one patterns of eye movements such
as horizontal, vertical and diagonal while showing the mountain.
Following the eye movements in this acting, we sometimes feel the
length and shortness of time as well as the depth and heights of the
space throughout in the performance, wherever it is necessary,
according to the narrative of the mountain Himalaya. The audience
can clearly distinguish when the actor looks at the void in the sky and
the solid surface in the earth and as the practice is understood at
present, the application of breath to the eyes is the key technique
involved in this acting.
Usha Nangyar of Iringalakkuda, an actress of the Ammannur

School demonstrated and explained the use of breath in rasa acting. 11 TPD DPT
For her, the approach to breath in Kudiyattam acting is neither

systematically classified nor theorised in accordance with the
traditional scholarship as well as practice. Thus, there is nothing
written on it; rather, knowledge is handed down from generation to
generation through gurus or heads of schools in each respective style.
There is no system of teaching only nine rasas separately because
traditionally rasa acting is taught along with the text while blocking
the scenes and therefore, it is obvious that the application of breath in
each rasa is also taught by the guru as and when it appears in the play.
According to Usha the guru will instruct the disciple as to how to
breathe and where the breath has to be taken in showing some
particular rasa and then it is the duty of the pupil to nourish it through
128 own effort and hard work. I record the application of breath in
each rasa as suggested by Usha Nangyar as follows:
1. Erotic: Taking breath down from the lower abdomen and

pushing it slowly and gradually up until it reaches at the
middle centre of the head.
2. Marvellous: Taking breath down from the lower abdomen and

pushing it rapidly and constantly up until it flows through the
nostrils. Holding the breath, after a while, with no movements
can also be part of expressing this rasa.
3. Comic: Taking it from the lower abdomen and bringing it to

the middle of the chest and shaking it while the outer flow
breaks constantly.
4. Pathetic: Taking it from the lower tip of the vertebral column

(muladhara) and pushing it up slowly until it reaches the
middle of the chest and then compressing it without an up-
and-down movement. When this breath is taken from the
bottom make sure that you feel a slight sensation at the
bottom tip and the same with the neck when you compress it
in the chest. These sensations indicate the proper directions of
breath.
5. Furious: Taking the breath from the lower abdomen and

bringing it up until it reaches the neck, then compressing it
vigorously in the throat, and exhaling through eyes. An
exercise is suggested to achieve this breathing pattern, which
consists in compressing breath in the throat and exhaling
through the eyes.
6. Heroic: Taking breath exactly from the back of the belly

button, pushing it strongly up forward until it reaches the top
back of the shoulder bones and then holding it firmly and
compressing it all over the back side.
7. Odious: Taking it from the lower abdomen and pushing it

through both nostrils strongly and rapidly. Two exercises are
suggested to achieve this pattern: 1. shrinking the whole face
while pushing the entire breath out from inside, which is the
pattern of breathing in this rasa 2. Expanding the whole face
while inhaling slowly and gently, which is the pattern of

breathing for the odious rasa.
8. Terrible: Taking breath from the lower tip of the vertebral

column, pushing it firmly and strongly up until it reaches the
throat area and then compressing it down.
9. Santa 12 : Taking breath from the lower tip of the vertebral

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column and slowly pushing it up until it reaches the crown of

the head while withdrawing your eyes from the sight and ears
from hearing. An exercise is suggested to achieve this pattern
of breathing, which is looking at a closer distance and then at
a longer distance while pushing the eyes out and pulling them
in with the help of breath.
The breathing patterns described for each rasa are different from
one another and each one operates by using specific body regions. We
can see a general pattern emerging out of this practice: breath is taken
mostly either from the lower abdomen or from the lower tip of the
vertebral column, and then arrested, compressed and released through
different body regions depending on the nature of the rasa. Nangyar
adds that breath does not have an independent status in acting: rather
it always goes alongside emotions. In other words, breath naturally
moves along with emotions and knowing the basic source and
movements of breathing will give the performer perfect control over
the emotions: specific emotions can be highlighted through
controlling and redirecting breath. This process requires hard working
and long-term creative involvement. Regarding the movement of
breath in each rasa, Nangyar uses yogic metaphors to explain the
movement of breath starting from the lower tip of the vertebral
column and terminating in the crown of the head. While Nangyar
provides such detailed descriptions of the links between emotions and
breathing, which she learnt from her guru, she does not know
anything about the origins or development of this technique. I will
address the missing link, the relation between performance and
meditation techniques, particularly, yogic methods, in Chapter four.
3.1.3 Svara-Vayu: A Lost Tradition of Breath
Usha Nangyar learned the technique of Svara-vayu from Guru

Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, the master performer not only of the
Iringalakkuda style but of the whole of Kudiyattam. Chakyar
underwent training with Guru Kunjunny Tampuran, the King of
Kodungalloor. 13 Tampuran was well versed in Sanskrit, as well as
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Ayurveda, Yoga, Jyothish (astrology), music and the Natyasastra.

Ammannur explains the training of breath that he underwent with
Tampuran:
My training under him usually began at 3.p.m. Focussing the eyes on

a near object and then on a distant object and the eye exercises
(netrabhinaya) related to them was the first lesson. Then came the
expression of the nine rasas. The basic emotions (sthayibhava)
corresponding to each rasa had to be clearly grasped first. The
breathing has to be regulated in a special way to produce each of these
rasas on the face. The rasa-bhava becomes clearer and more
expressive when it is accompanied by the right method of breath
control. This was Tampuran’s style of acting emptions. In
rasabhinaya, the actor must know when to accentuate the rasa and
when to mitigate it to suit the context. This requires long and steady
practice of the method called svara-vayu. 14
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Ammannur confirms the existence of a breath-related training

method in the acting of rasa in Kudiyattam through a method known
as svara-vayu. 15 The word svara means the resonant voice in music
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and vayu means breath; therefore, svara-vayu is a method in which

the basics of music is brought into acting through breath or breathing
in accordance with the notes of music. This method goes back to the
Natyasastra where Bharata explains seven basic musical notes in
relation to rasa in Chapter nineteen while elaborating the delivery of
lines in a play. Bharata lists the seven svaras as follows: shadja,
rishabha, gandhara, madhyama, panchama, dhaivata and nishada
(NS. 19: 40). The Natyasastra further emphasises the application of
these svaras in accordance with the appropriate production and
distribution of rasa, and Bharata offers some examples showing
which svara is adequate in producing which rasa:
1. Hasya and Shringara: madhyama and panchama
2. Veeram, raudram and atbhutam: shadja and rishabha

3. Karuman: gandhara and nishada
4. Bibhalsa and bhayanaka: dhaivata (NS. 19: 40)
Bharata does not elaborate further about how each svara is

connected to each rasa and how to explore this connection between
music and rasa. However, eminent Kathakali performer Tekkinkattil
Ramunni Nair, dedicated a whole chapter in his 1955 book
Natyarcana to expaining the methodology. 16 While interpreting
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Bharata’s views on rasa and svara, Nair explains the svara-vayu

technique. Bhava is the un-manifest base of rasa and only the proper
application of svara-vayu brings the accurate expression of rasa:
without this application of vayu, bhava would not turn into rasa, and
the actor would not seem present on the stage. Vayu, in this sense, is
the basis of manifested rasa mediating between basic bhava and the
expressed rasa. The application of svara- vayu can be divided into
two stages:
1. Application of breath along with spoken words, which is

the stylised rendering of Sanskrit verses, composed
according to the musical notes mentioned above, in the
case of classical performance like Kudiyattam. Here, the
application of each svara to its appropriate rasa, as
suggested by Bharata, is more direct and simple.
2. Application of breath to the eyes to produce rasa in a

dramatic situation through silent moments without
words.
Svara-vayu is said to be the life force of rasa acting, which is

practiced in Kudiyattam and Kathakali, the performance traditions of
Kerala and the King of Kodungalloor is supposed to be the originator
of this technique. What is the practice of svara-vayu and how can a
particular pattern of breathing be associated with the expression of a
particular rasa? T. K. Rammunni Nair explains the practical
methodology on three levels: according to the svara-vayu system, the
actor has to understand the following aspects before applying breath
to acting:
Stage I
1. The details of the basic emotion (bhava) of the character in

general as well as in the context of particular situations in the
play.
2. The actions and reactions through gestures and movements

planned for the character (anubhava).
3. The eye movements in relation to the proposed rasa (which is

more important in classical forms like Kudiyattam because
rasa is enacted predominantly through eyes).
4. All the subtle transitory mental states of the character running

along with basic emotions and their actions and reactions.
Stage II
Then the actor should carefully choose adequate svaras

appropriate for the rasas intending to show the character she is
playing. This applies to both verbal and non-verbal acting and the
actor should identify svaras in connection with rasas considering the
character, situations, play, and all the details of the actions, reactions
and the transitory mental states.
Stage III
The third stage will be identifying specific breathing patterns

associated with the selected svaras. Once the breathing pattern is
identified, the actor should reproduce these physical patterns
consciously in acting, specifically with thoughts, emotional changes
and physical movements in acting. This approach brings the
expression of proper rasa. This is the way svara-vayu is explained in
relation to rasa acting in Kudiyattam. No Kudiyattam scholar in
Kerala knows whether it is a Sanskrit tradition or an aspect of local
knowledge incorporated in the performance later on. Perhaps that
historical question is irrelevant in this context because the technique
that is mentioned in the Natyasastra can be found as a living
performance tradition in Kerala. In my acquaintance and knowledge

of academic and performance practice, I have never come across such
a practical interpretation of the Natyasastra shedding new light on
rasa and breath. This is one example of how Keralan performance
tradition is significant because the rich repertoire of performance
forms and the Sanskrit scholarship brought by the Namboothiris
(Brahmins) have integrated in a more highly sophisticated and
imaginative manner than in any other regions of India. Therefore, the
performance tradition as well as the knowledge system related to it is
developed intricately by incorporating several other systems available
in both regional languages and Sanskrit. This historical significance of
Keralan performance tradition is suggested by Abhinavagupta. In his
Abhinavabharathi he suggests that his rasa interpretation of the
Natyasastra was written down in response to questions raised by
actors from Kerala. In addition, the palm leaf manuscripts of the
entire plays of Bhasa, the most renowned of the Sanskrit playwrights,
have been discovered in Kerala; Kudiyattam, the oldest existing
theatre form in the world has been performed continuously in the
theatres built inside temples throughout Kerala. Svara-vayu has to be
added to this list as a unique method developed in Kerala by
incorporating elements of the Natyasastra, Yoga, Kudiyattam and
music.
Although svara-vayu is explained by T.K Ramunni Nair, the only

person who has direct contact to this method is Ammannur, the
legendary performer of Kudiyattam. His performances obviously give
proof to the application of breath. I asked him about svara-vayu in a
personal interview (July 2003). He responded that music was the key
methodological base for the King of Kodungalloor to develop svara-
vayu but “I was not a musician, he did not teach me this method”, and
then he explained a slightly different approach to svara-vayu:
When a man dies a natural death, that death is preceded by the

operation of the three vayus (climacteric breathing), chinnan, mahan
and urdhan. If an actor can operate these three vayus accurately in
their proper order and strength he can enact death very well. He taught
me this method of imitating death. As a result of learning this
abhinaya, I was able to elaborate in the acting of death when I was
playing the role of Bali (the monkey King in Ramayana) in
Balivadham Kudiyattam. 17TPD DPT
This account clearly shows the integration of Yoga and Ayurveda

in rasa acting because the types of human breathing, like chinnan,
mahan and urdhan are systematically categorized and explained in
these systems of knowledge. As Ammannur also said, he observed
closely the death of his mother, giving particular attention to her final
breathing to study this further in a real situation. Only on the basis of
this experience was he confident in using the method learned from the
King of Kodungalloor because he could see that this method was
based in real life. It is a very interesting and important observation
firstly because the actor of a highly stylised theatrical form like
Kudiyattam seems to be using a very naturalistic methodological
approach to acting which we might expect from Stanislavski.
Secondly, what Ammannur further contributes to this knowledge
system is to add a practical base to T. K. Ramunni Nair’s theoretical
explanation of the methodology of svara-vayu. However, Ammannur
does not seem to know the svara-vayu system as it is explained by T.
K. Ramunni Nair because of his lack of knowledge in music. Thus we
can conclude that there was a system in Kerala practiced by the actors
in the classical forms of theatre like Kudiyattam and Kathakali. The
knowledge of this system did not transfer properly to the next
generation of actors. What Ammannur knows is not the svara-vayu, as
he said, but something he developed on his own particularly to
perform the death of the Monkey King. Usha Nangyar was trained by
Ammannur, but the knowledge is again only partly transferred
because the death of the Monkey King is only enacted by male actors
and therefore, there is no chance for Nangyar to learn that technique.
I still remember watching Ammannur performing the death of the

monkey King sixteen years back in a traditional playhouse
(Kuthambalam) in Trichur when I was an undergraduate student of
theatre. I never knew that death can be performed for so long and with
such incredible detail. He created a particular audible rhythm through
his breathing along with his acting that mesmerised the audience for
not less than one and half to two hours. This might be one of the
wonders in the world of acting that an actor can hold the attention of
the audience for hours by sitting and acting death. It is unfortunate,
then, that no one has been trained by him to perform this character as
he does and this knowledge will vanish forever when this 85-year-old
actor is no more. The point that I am trying to make here is that what
we know at present in Kudiyattam under the name of svara-vayu is a

limited understanding of a larger knowledge developed by a dedicated
researcher, the King of Kodungalloor, by using several systems of
knowledge and practice like medicine, music and spirituality along
with the Natyasastra. Neither of Ammannur’s disciples nor the Guru
himself seems to understand svara-vayu in its full depth as it is
described by T. K. Ramunni Nair. As G. Venu, the Kathakali
performer and the researcher of Kudiyattam, puts it:
Tampuran could not find in any of his disciples the desired

combination of musician and actor...that must be the reason why he
did not pass on the svara-vayu technique to any one. 18
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So, in the final analysis, the following conclusions

can be drawn:
1. Breath is mentioned in the Natyasastra in several

occasions but it is explained mostly in relation to
music and rasa. But the practice of this is
unknown.
2. A practical approach based on Bharata called

svara-vayu has been developed by Kunjunni
Tampuran, the King of Kodungalloor and
practiced by the actors of Kudiyattam and
Kathakali. The method seems to be
interdisciplinary as it incorporates knowledge
from medicine, meditation and music.
3. The system has not been transferred accurately to

the next generation of actors but it is partly
understood by Ammannur Madhava Chakyar of
Iringalakkuda who learned some breathing
techniques from the King of Kodungalloor but
not svara-vayu because of the lack of his
knowledge in music.
The svara-vayu method is lost forever. The key associations

established in this method between performance and yogic practice and
between breath and rasa acting are vital to my thesis. Therefore I wish
to relate an incident which might suggest some deeper influence that a

Siddha Yogi made in the life and thoughts of Kunjunni Tampuran, the
King of Kodungalloor. The most important contribution of Tampuran
to acting in Kudiyattam was his deep exploration of santa rasa,
proposing that all other rasas emerge and submerge in santa because it
is neutral (See Chapter four). Guru Ammannur recalls the story of a
Siddha Yogi that Tampuran used to tell his disciples. Tampuran
happened to meet the Yogi, sitting in profound meditation and
Tampuran had said that he had seen the perfection of santa rasa on that
ascetic’s serene countenance. 19 Tampuran himself was said to be a
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Yogi and had profound knowledge in the practice of Yoga: so the

Siddha Yogi and some unknown practice of breathing might have
inspired the King of Kodungalloor to devise svara-vayu to establish the
practical links between santa rasa and yogic meditation.
A contemporary observation serves as confirmation of this

assumption: in Usha Nangyar’s demonstration of santa rasa I noticed
that she does not breathe during her acting. She does not recognise
that she is not breathing, and she does not feel any discomfort because
of it. Her breathless state during her acting of santa rasa seems to be
similar to Siddha Yoga breathing called Restoration of Breath, which I
am going to discuss in the following chapter. Finally, Kudiyattam
exemplifies evidence that a systematic practice of breath in acting
existed in the classical performance traditions in Kerala, informed by
Bharata as well as Siddha Yoga of South India, but the tradition is
irrecoverably lost.
3.1.4. Noh in Contemporary Actor Training
In Japanese culture, the traditional knowledge of breathing has

been employed to train actors. Yoshi Oida suggests techniques derived
from Noh training: 20
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1. Stand or sit comfortably with your back straight, breathe in

slowly through the nose, breathe out through the mouth, but as
you breathe out imagine that the air passes out through the
pores of the skin.
2. To develop this further, imagine that the air enters the body
through the navel and exits through the pores.
3. Concentrate your breathing in the hara, the area just below

your navel, and imagine that the air is entering your body
through the feet, then it travels to the hara. Exhale, and
visualise the breath leaving the body through the tan-den, the
core point of the hara, about three centimetres below the
navel.
4. When you breathe in, imagine that you are saying ‘aaaah’ and
that when you breathe out you use the sound ‘aawm’ (or
‘ohm’). You can reverse the sounds, ‘aaaah’ on the out-breath,
and ‘aawm’ as you inhale.
5. Use a real voiced sound on the out-breath, using these various

combinations. For example, breathe in with imaginary ‘aawm’
through the navel, and out with the real sound ‘aaah’ through
the navel.
6. Breathe in through the left nostril and out through the right.
Then reverse the process. This can be done by pressing your
finger against the opposite nostril in order to hold it shut.
Oida suggests more breathing exercises that are derived from Noh
drama and T’ai Ch’i in which breathing is explored through
imagination, use of the voiced sounds and specific bodily zones. He
used these techniques to train the actors in Brook’s production of The
Mahabharata. In my analysis, the use of left and right nostril
breathing, the voiced sound, the exploration of bodily zones like the
navel region all are similar to the practice proposed by Yoga. In his
book, The Invisible Actor, Oida has included these breathing
techniques in the section of speaking by giving much emphasis on
voice training. The knowledge of the East on breath, and Eastern
breathing practice, found in several forms of spiritual and physical
traditions such as meditation, martial arts, and performance have
served as sources of reference and inspiration for contemporary
Western actor training.
3.2 Breath in Western Actor Training
The investigation of the integration of breath in the Western

training is largely based on 20th century actor training including some
P P
recent trends developed in the 21st century. This is mainly because of

P P
two reasons: the ancient methods of training are not fully known and
actor training as a systematic discipline developed in Europe and
America in the 20th century.
P P
3.2.1 Jacques Copeau (1879-1949)
Jacques Copeau works between breath and text using ‘voluntary

control’ over an ‘involuntary’ nature of human breathing. Breathing,
for Copeau, “is an involuntary, essentially natural, life-sustaining
activity,” 21 which he called primum mobile; it is the basis of gestural
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sincerity and vocal concord. Breath controls everything and “a voice

which does not breathe becomes dull, collapses on itself and becomes
sad”. It is dragged along by the text, which ensures that “our
sensibility has the faculty to move in any direction”. In the context of
the actor’s presence Copeau says that “inadequate breathing creates
disorders... [and] vigorous breathing brings freedom”. His practical
examples in relation to breathing are related to exploring the text
through “tonality, postures and rhythm”. Breath controls everything,
for Copeau, and his approach tends towards identifying techniques of
using breath in delivering the text successfully and convincingly. As
Copeau explains this, “reading out loud requires perpetual tours de
force of breathing… [particularly], when a dramatic text demands
constant switching from one tone to another, from one movement to
another” In his system Copeau intends to develop a method of reading
the text by exploring actor’s physicality, the dynamics of the changing
attitudes of the range of tonality, posture and rhythm involved in the
text. Copeau’s ultimate intention was not just to create physical fitness
in the actor’s body but a physical training that would be integral to the
development of the actor as an instrument. When he says that the
actors should not ‘get wrapped up’ in the text, what he meant was a
physical culture helping the actors to unlock the text visually and
audibly. Copeau explained neutrality as “a point of departure of an
expression” a “state of repose, of calm of relaxation or decontraction,
of silence or simplicity.” Copeau does not establish any link between
breath and the actor’s neutral state of mind. As John Rudlin observes,
in today’s world, we are more informed by disciplines like Yoga and
T’ai Ch’i about how breath works in neutrality and relaxation by
exploring the dynamics between breathing and movement: Copeau’s
understanding of actor’s breathing, therefore, is elementary. 22
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3.2.2 Stanislavski: Breath and Sub-text
Stanislavski refers to the actor’s breathing when he explained the

concept of sub-text hidden beneath the words. The term describes
anything that the character feels or thinks or does, which cannot be put
into words. According to Stanislavski, actors communicate subtext
through the non-verbal communication of their body language,
intonations and pauses. As Sharon Marie Carnicke argues,
Stanislavski, under the influence of Yoga, thought about the actors’
non-verbal communication as the transmitting and receiving of rays of
energy, which are like “psychic radio waves.” 23 Stanislavski believed
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that in every exhalation we send rays out into the environment and
with every inhalation we receive energy back into our bodies. Non-
verbal communication, for Stanislavski, is the firm grounding for the
actor’s use of words as the element of communication. He believed
that non-verbal expression can be controlled through systematic
application of the rays of energy. He taught actors the ways to
recognise and manipulate the rays of energy in order to enhance their
non-verbal communication. The following are the exercises suggested
by Stanislavski (p.22):
1. Close your eyes, relax, and feel your breath moving through
your body. Visualise the breath as warm, yellow sunlight,
energising you. As you inhale, the light is travelling from the
top of your head down to your toes; as you exhale, reverse the
direction of the breath.
2. Close your eyes, relax, and feel your breath moving through
your body. As you inhale, breathe the energy in from the
surrounding room; as you exhale, send the energy back out
into the furthest corner.
3. Stand apart from the group, hands held with palms outward.
Radiate energy from your hands to someone else in the room.
Does anyone in the room feel a transmission?
4. Actors stand in a single file, one behind the other. The person
behind concentrates on a simple command (open the door, sit
down, shake my hand), then radiates it to the person in front,
who carries out the command.
Stanislavski works with silent moments and non-verbal

communication in order to link actors’ breathing into theatrical
communication, an approach which is crucial to enhance the actor’s
expressive quality rooted in her body-mind dynamics. Another
significance of Stanislavski’s understanding of the role of breathing in
actor training is that he establishes a link between the flow of breath
and the flow of energy into the theatrical communication through the
actor’s non-verbal physical work. Yoga forms the basis of
Stanislavski’s breath-related exercises and an analysis of those
exercises leads to the following conclusions:
1. Sub-text is conveyed through actor’s physicality by means of

non-verbal communication.
2. Breathing as the source of energy creates psychic radio waves

in the body, called rays of energy, which enable the actor to
communicate beyond the conventional modes of theatrical
expression, beyond the body. Stanislavski wanted to work
with actor on their psychic levels, aiming to enable them to
influence their fellow-actors on stage.
Rays of energy created through breathing link the psycho-physical

elements in the body and then move further onto a higher level of
communication between the actors, within a theatrical context,
focusing more on the psychic impulses than the physical body.
3.2.3 Grotowski and Breath
Grotowski refers to breath on several occasions, mainly in relation

to voice training, and at times in connection with Artaud. He does not
mention Stanislavski in terms of breath. Influenced by Yoga,

Grotowski believed that abdominal diaphragmatic breathing is the
perfect type of human respiration because this is the fundamental type
of breathing found with children, animals and people who are closer
to nature. 24 There is no single authentic type of breathing suitable for
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everyone, nor for all physical and psychic situations. As he puts it:
Breathing is a physiological reaction linked with specific

characteristics in each of us and which is dependent on situations, type
of effort, physical activities. It is the natural thing for most people,
when breathing freely, to use abdominal respiration. The number of
types of abdominal respiration, however, are unlimited…If the actor
tries artificially to impose on himself the perfect, objective abdominal
respiration, he blocks the natural process of respiration, even if his is
naturally of the diaphragmatic type. 25 TPD DPT
On another occasion he suggests that if the actor has enough air to

speak and sing, “why then create a problem by imposing on him a
different type of respiration?” 26 TPD DPT
Let us look at two examples quoted from Grotowski’s breathing

exercises, from his actor training (1959-1962) section in Towards a
Poor Theatre. 27 TPD DPT
1. “Method adopted from Hatha Yoga. The vertebral column

must be quite straight and for this it is necessary to lie on a
hard surface. Block one nostril with a finger and breathe in
through the other. When breathing out do the contrary:
blocked the nostril through which you breathed in before and
breathe out through the one which was blocked at the
beginning. The three phases succeed one another in the
following rhythm:
x Inspiration: 4 seconds
x Hold the breath 12 seconds
x Expiration 8 seconds”
2. “The method which follows, taken from Classical Chinese

theatre, is basically the most effective and can be used in any
position where as the previous one necessitates lying
down. 28 While standing, place the hands on the two lowest
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ribs. Inspiration must give an impression of beginning in the

very spot where the hands are placed (therefore pushing
them outwards) and, continuing through the thorax, produce
a sensation that the air column reaches right up to the head.
(This means that when breathing in the abdomen and lower
ribs dilate first, followed, in smooth succession by the chest).
The abdominal wall is then contracted while the ribs remain
expanded, thus forming a base for the air stored up and
preventing it from escaping with the first words uttered. The
abdominal wall (contracting inwards) pulls in the opposite
direction to the muscles which expand the lower ribs
(contracting outwards), keeping them thus for as long as
possible during expiration. Expiration takes place inversely:
from the head, through the thorax, to the spot where the
palms of the hands are placed. Care must be taken not to
compress the indrawn air too much and –as already
mentioned- the whole process must take place
smoothly…An exercise such as this is not intended to teach
respiration for respiration’s sake, but prepares for a
respiration that will “carry” the voice. It also teaches how to
establish a base (the abdominal wall) which, by contracting,
allows the easy and vigorous emission of the air and thus the
voice.”
Grotowski proposes that these breathing exercises help the actor

improve their voice power; therefore, at least two of the key elements
are missing in Grotowski’s understanding of the use of breath in actor
training:
1. Regarding the implications of breath in actor training,

Stanislavski and Artaud went beyond the level of voice
training, arguing that breath enhances subtle physical and
psychic expressions as well as a different level of energy and
individual consciousness in the actor. Stanislavski believed
that breath is the rays of energy through which the actor
enacts the subtext. Artaud’s comments on breathing suggest

an extended level of extra-daily consciousness, which the
actor can experience by employing specific breathing
patterns. In both views, breath is understood as the basic
source of actor’s energy that has direct implications for non-
verbal emotional acting. Grotowski does not seem to be
taking any insights from these views.
2. Though Grotowski adopted breathing techniques from

classical Indian and Chinese traditions, he paid no attention
to either the traditional Eastern philosophy of breathing or its
the proper practice
These examples suggest that Grotowski was little concerned with

breath and unaware of the importance and dynamics of breath in the
actor’s body-mind. Grotowski considered the actor’s body as a
medium that needs to be trained properly to break the usual habits of
using the body so as to enable it to represent deeper impulses of
psychic life. However, he never fully considered breath as something
which could be trained in order to help the actors either to achieve a
different level of understanding the function of the body and mind or
to feel them experiencing the emergence of a different level of energy
explored through breathing.
3.2.4 Jacques Lecoq
Jacques Lecoq identified equilibrium and respiration as the

extreme limits of all movements applicable to the actor’s performance.
In the context of movement techniques, Lecoq illustrated examples of
the application of breath in the actor’s varying attitudes: 29
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1. The farewell: in a standing position, I raise my arm to the

vertical to wave goodbye to someone.
2. If this movement is made while breathing in as the arm is

raised, and then breathing out as it falls back, the sense of a
positive farewell result.
3. If you do the opposite, raising the arm on the out breath, and
letting it fall as you breathe in, the dramatic state becomes a
negative: I do not want to say goodbye, but I am obliged to do
so.
4. Another possibility: breathe in, hold your breath, then do the

movement, and only breathe out once it is completed, which
gives rise to an emotionless salute.
5. Finally the opposite is also possible: breathe out, then do the

movement, and only breath in once it is completed, which also
gives rise to an emotion less state.
As Lecoq explains, this is one example of the nuances of breath

control applied to the nine attitudes; breath control has a profound
effect on the dramatic justifications, which are left with the students to
discover further for themselves. Lecoq’s observations on breath are
very important when we look at how breath works, deeply
interweaving with the actor’s bodily movements and emotional
attitudes. Lecoq’s methods evokes some distant associations to at least
two systems: rasa acting in Kudiyattam where nine emotions are acted
with the help of several patterns of controlling breath and some
ancient meditation techniques reinvented by Osho showing how daily
mental attitudes and activities are closely connected to the incoming
and outgoing breaths and how those emotional attitudes can be altered
and changed by bringing control over daily respiration. I will discuss
this meditation technique in the following section to clarify John
Martin’s observations about breath—Martin explains the links
between breath, physical actions and emotional attitudes with
reference to Lecoq’s techniques.
3.2.5 Recent Views
The role of breath in training and performance has been discussed

by a number of practitioners and academics in more recent times. John
Martin, in The Intercultural Performance Handbook 30 explains some
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of the breathing exercises he developed during his long years of

intercultural practice of training and performance. The most focused
areas of his training method are: centre of the body, breathing and eye
movements. Martin defines four basic states of breathing: Breathing

in, breathing out, breathing held in and breathing held out. Breathing
in or out are active breathing and breathing held in or out are passive
breathing. He further establishes the link between the energy level of
the body and breath: the weakest energy level is when breath is
passive, held out, the energy level is weak during active breathing in,
there is limited strength when the breath is passive, held in and the
highest level of energy is achieved during active breathing out. Martin
explains that “the active breathing-out allows you to repeat an action
time and time again.” 31 Laborious work like loading sacks and
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wielding a sledge-hammer would need this kind breathing. He further

relates these four ways of breathing to gestures and emotions:
1. Breathing in for welcoming and seeing someone arriving.
2. Breathing out for saying goodbye and sadness.
3. Held-in breath for expressing surprise and shock
4. Held-out breath to express powerlessness and depression.
These exercises are similar to Lecoq’s nine attitudes. Lecoq

suggests four combinations of breathing in relation to farewell, an
exercise establishing the links between breathing and emotions, which
has enormous impact on Martin’s breath work.
Martin, then, provides several exercises exploring breath in terms

of the actor’s body and emotion such as “states and energies within
breathing” and “breathing and gestures”; his understanding of breath
is physical and he attempts to bring in generalisations about breath
based on his intercultural observations. He does not, however, provide
explanations for those observed states or modes of breath. According
to the South Indian Siddha tradition, breath is deeper than physiology;
it is the pure substance of our being. As a Siddha Yogi once explained
a subtle aspect of breathing to me, 32 breath usually goes in and out
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naturally and there is a subtle gap in between the two: this gap is said
to be the centre because it is neutral, neither active nor passive—
potential and neutral. One gap occurs after the breath has come in and
before it goes out again, and another gap after the breath has gone out
and before it comes in again. The Siddha tradition proposes several

ways in which one can utilise the existence of the gap: opening it up to
direct experience leads to a considerable increase of energy. Similarly,
Chinese martial artists are trained to be always in that gap to enhance
their performance through exploring the vital neutral energy. This is
why complete breathing out gives an extraordinary sense of strength.
Yogis said to be in that state of complete neutrality are always without
any action, mental or physical. In Chapter four I will discuss this
further in terms of presence and the pre-expressive.
Martin’s observations about breath’s physical and emotional

implications in the body and mind prove to be appropriate in terms of
practice, arrived at by observation and a certain amount of trial and
error, but what is obviously missing is a knowledge system which can
explain the dynamics of breath involved in the psycho-physicality of
the actor. As I observed, this is what is lacking from the contemporary
Western understanding of breath: a philosophy and a practice to
explain the functioning of breath. Eastern training methods are firmly
grounded in this knowledge of breath developed through
interdisciplinary interactions between medicine, meditation, martial
arts and performance. Martin’s training method appears to be one of
the best examples of a contemporary intercultural training and theatre
practice, from a Western perspective, because this method actively
engages theatrical traditions in Asia and Africa in order to create a
highly imaginative and spontaneous workshop model.
Phillip Zarrilli’s training of Kalarippayattu and Nicolas Núñez’s

Anthropocosmic Theatre are the two other recent trends that have to
be mentioned here in terms of the practical research they have been
doing on breath. According to Zarrilli, the practice of Kalarippayattu
enables him to enter into a state of heightened awareness by
coordinating his body-mind and breath through the highly codified
movements of the Keralan martial arts form. 33 While comparing
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Kalarippayattu with another Chinese martial form T’ai Ch’i, Zarrilli

argues that proper breath control through inhalation and exhalation is
almost evident and parallel to the physical movements of the forms
and therefore, any physical exploration in these forms naturally
explores breath as well. He uses selective breathing exercises from
Yoga along with martial arts movement techniques to enhance the
capacity of controlling breath. What Zarrilli aims to achieve in his

research is to establish “the link between breath and the body-in-
motion”, which he considers the basis of the movement pattern of
both Kalarippayattu and T’ai Ch’i. 34 He also explains how a
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Kathakali performer is able to perform emotional states through facial

expressions by manipulating breath along with the movements of the
eyebrows and facial muscles. 35 Bringing in Artaud’s views of the
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existence of a breathing pattern parallel to physical and mental

movements, Zarrilli argues that breathing in the form of controlling
inhalation and exhalation is very much present in the rasa acting in
Kathakali: “throughout this process the breathing is deep and
connected through the entire body via the “root of the navel” (nƗbhi
mǌla), that is, it is not shallow chest breathing.” 36 Thus Zarrilli’s
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argument is about a deep abdominal breathing, which runs throughout

and controls the actor’s physical and emotional levels. I can draw two
key propositions from his research:
1. The links between breathing and movements are established

in the martial arts like Kalarippayattu and T’ai Ch’i through
controlling breath through inhalation and exhalation.
2. Breathing in the form of controlling inhalation and exhalation

is very much present in the rasa acting in Kathakali.
Zarrilli’s understanding of the ways in which breath works in

Kalarippayattu, T’ai Ch’I and Kathakali seems to be accurate in the
sense that all these forms, one way or other, integrate breath
controlling along side with physical movements and emotional
expressions. A deep abdominal breathing is also characteristic to the
physical nature of all the forms he mentioned in his research. But,
there is a lack of a philosophical system or a concept or a practical
method to explain the dynamics of breath involved in the actor’s
body.
Nicolas Núñez points out that the tools of breathing, movement,

participation and vibration are the firm basis of Anthropocosmic
theatre. “The deep breathing” and the “unity of consciousness” are the
two key elements that his theatre approach is aiming to achieve. 37 He TPD DPT
also mentions a certain type of breathing pattern, which is established

in his body. Apart from these few references of breathing, he does not
offer a training method or a theatre concept based on breath.
In their discussion of the actor’s pre-expressive level, Malekin and
Yarrow reinvestigate the role of breath in training and performance,
arguing theoretically that “breath is also a key factor” in
understanding the pre-expressive level of actor’s consciousness. 38 TPD DPT
Breathing exercises derived from Indian and Chinese yogic and

performance traditions enhance the actor’s capacity of breathing,
which eventually coordinates rhythm, movement and verse speaking
in training and performance:
“…we are not just talking about control, but about a centring of the
breath from the solar plexus area. The crucial factor is the ability to
return breath to utter stillness and channel its outflow from there. In
passing from the quietest level of breathing to the vital cessation of
breath characteristic of turiya, Samadhi, etc… 39 TPD DPT
The yogic concepts of turiya and samadhi refer to altered levels of

human consciousness and Malekin and Yarrow are linking that extra-
daily state into the actor’s pre-expressivity, describing that breath is
able to “expand the inner space” of the actor, and to create “a specific
shift in the physiology, which accompanies a different form of
awareness”. Although the understanding of the “centred breath” is
embedded in a number of performance traditions…”the practice is
currently often not fully understood…” 40 While discussing the nature
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of the ritual act Malekin argues that ritual is not a symbolic action, an
externalised signal of an intended meaning, but rather “it is
consecration and integration of external action within ultimate unity
in keeping with core meaning of ‘rite’…and this integration certainly
involves the quality of breath…” 41 From a similar point of view,
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Meyer Dinkgräfe investigates the spiritual links between acting and

yogic practice, proposing that in order to achieve the quality of sattva,
the higher level of individual consciousness, the body, mind and spirit
have to be united and Yoga suggests three approaches to achieve this
unity: physical exercises (asanas), breathing exercises (pranayama)
and meditation. 42 What we see in Malekin, Yarrow and Meyer
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Dinkgräfe is an important enquiry leading current performance

research into new dimensions of the actor’s consciousness, exploring
hidden depths of the phenomenon of theatrical expression and
meaning. As in ritual, if theatre integrates external actions, what kind
of stage language would result? (Malekin)? Are there any

physiological, psychological and consciousness-related links between
an actor, shaman and a Yogi (Yarrow)? Is acting a spiritual activity
parallel to the yogic practice that leads to yogic experience (Meyer-
Dinkgräfe) What would be the nature of a consciousness-related actor
training (Malekin, Yarrow, Meyer Dinkgräfe)? Those are crucial
questions they constantly revisit in their writings. All of them have a
clear theoretical understanding of the role of breath as a
transformational element operates between daily and extra-daily
levels of actor’s consciousness.
3.2.6 Breath is Meaning: Voice Training
The most popular version of the application of breath in

contemporary Western actor training is related to the vocal
development of the actor. According to Cicely Berry, “the voice is the
means by which you communicate with other people…and it is
through the speaking voice that you convey your precise thoughts and
feelings.” 43 As she further explains, breath is the initial impulse that
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strikes against the vocal cords in the larynx and makes them vibrate.
Sound waves resonate in the chest, the pharynx or hollow space above
the larynx in the mouth and nose and bones of the face, and the hollow
space in the head, the sinuses. In a chapter called Relaxation and
Breathing, 44 Berry suggests many exercises helping actors relax the
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body as well as strengthening the vocal cords to improve the strength

and flexibility of the voice. Another aspect of her approach suggests
developing the respiratory function by expanding the capacities of the
lungs and ribs. Catherine Fitzmaurice’s voice work is another notable
approach to breath and voice. Susana Bloch’s Alba Emoting
incorporates breathing in terms of providing a physical alternative to
emotion. Alba Emoting identifies six basic emotions as the source of
all other emotions. The methodological approach to Alba Emoting is
based on the three basic aspects of breathing, posture and facial
expression. 45 Six basic emotions, joy, anger, sadness, fear, eroticism
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and tenderness, 46 combine, according to Bloch to numerous further

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emotions. Each is defined by a specific breathing pattern which she

recommends actors to practice to create the corresponding emotion.
Bloch’s approach establishes links between emotions and specific
physical and facial postures. Breath, of course, plays a key role in this
psycho-physical approach. However, Alba Emoting as a practical

method of training does not explain the functioning of breath in the
actor’s body and mind as it explains the neuro-physiological level of
emotions. Therefore I do not think that a further investigation of these
methods, Alba Emoting and voice training, will add anything to the
direction of this thesis. The key intention of the thesis is to establish
the links between the body, emotions and consciousness of the actor
and therefore, the approaches mentioned in this section do not seem
helping the development of the basic thoughts and arguments of the
thesis.
3.2.7 Exclusion of Breath
Let us also look at few examples of how breath has been excluded
by major practitioners. The exclusion of breathing is very much
evident in Meyerhold and Joseph Chaikin. For instance, Shooting from
the Bow, one of the best known exercises in biomechanics is a series
of slow moving body stances including a careful use of various body
parts like arms, legs and spine followed by sequential pauses. What is
not mentioned in this exercise is actor’s breathing which runs parallel
to all the body movements and pauses mentioned through out in this
exercise. Joseph Chaikin’s Sound and Movement Exercise, as he
explains, is a series of movements aiming to “taking a sound and
movement out into the space and allowing its form to alter …until the
actor recognises or discovers some kind of associative connection
with it.” 47 There are at least two levels of associative connections at
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work in this exercise: between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ of the
actor, and between the body and the mind. According to Dorinda
Hulton, what is more important in this is “the flow between the
two,” 48 between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ and between the body and
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mind. But, in this whole exercise, Chaikin refers to breathing only

with sound saying that “beginning with the sound of the breath-
transforming into a hum- and then into a sung chord in which
harmonies and counter-rhythms might develop.” 49 Chaikin only
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considers breathing as the potential source of sound but nothing more

than that and not even the flow between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ is
mediated by breath. It seems that his approach is more conceptual
even working with the body of the actor, which is a characteristic
feature running throughout contemporary Western actor training.
Considering other leading figures in 20th century theatre training,

P P
Brecht’s approach does not seem concerned with the actor’s breathing.
Peter Brook is predominantly working with well-trained actors from
all over the world so, there is no need for Brook developing a training
method of his own. Neither Barba nor Richard Schechner seems to
have developed any breath-related training. Interestingly, in the entire
discussion of ‘presence’ and ‘pre-expressivity’, Barba does not
mention breath at any stages. This is perhaps the limitation of the
anthropological methodology he derived from comparing the physical
nature of performance around the world.
In this brief survey of the integration of breath related techniques

in the contemporary training and performance the following
observations can be charted:
1. Breath is understood in parallel to physical movements. This

insight is mainly drawn from Tai’Chi and Kalarippayattu.
2. Breath, in particular controlling and arresting of inhalations

and exhalations, is used as a tool through which the emotions
can be highlighted through. Such practice is inspired by
observation of Yoga.
3. The existence of some breathing techniques establishing the

links between breath and consciousness has been theoretically
understood but no proof of practice is available to support the
arguments. The theory has not led to the development of
practice.
Overall, while some theatre artists have referred to breath and

developed some exercises, on the basis of observation and subsequent
trial and error, there is no major concept or a method in 20th and 21st
P P P P
century actor training relating to meaningful use of breathing in the

context of training the actor’s body and mind.
Summary
What we see in Western 20th and 21st century actor training are
P P P P
efforts to understand the dynamics of breath and incorporating them

into systems of training. But due to the lack of any in-depth
knowledge of the dynamics of breath working in the actor’s body,
emotion and consciousness, no training method based on breath has
been developed systematically. Breath is still understood as an
effective tool to train the vocal discipline of the actor. In contrast,
traditional Eastern actor training shows evidence of the existence of
systematic breath-related training. However, most of those methods
have been lost irrecoverably, for example the svara-vayu technique.
The knowledge of breath-related techniques was kept in the closed
circle of family traditions, which made it near impossible for outsiders
to gain access to the knowledge and make use of it and record it. In
addition, the continuity once safeguarded in the family traditions was
broken. In Chapter Four I will explore how breath in its role for
performance is related to consciousness. The concept of
consciousness will be placed within the context of current debates in
consciousness studies. My angle on breath will be mainly with
reference to the technique of restoration of breath derived from the
Siddha Yoga tradition.
Notes
1
TPDaniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Approaches to Acting: Past and Present, London & New
PT
York: Continuum, 2001), p. 4.

2
TPIbid., p. 5.
PT
3
TPIbid., p. 7.
PT
4
TPIbid., p. 164.
PT
5
TPSuresh Awasthi, Performance Tradition in India, (New Delhi: National Book Trust,
PT
2001). p. 64.
6
TPIbid., p. 64.
PT
7
TPMani Madhava Chakyar, “The Training Methods of Kudiyattam”, in Sangeet Natak,
PT
(special issue), no. 111-114, p. 49.

8
TPIbid., p. 50.
PT
9
TPD. Appukuttan Nair, “Kudiyattam and Bhasa” in Sangeet Natak, (Special issue), no.
PT
111-114, p. 191.
10
TP Interview taken by myself in June 2003.
PT
11
TP Interview with the author, June 2003.
PT
12
TP Abhinavagupta, the 9th century commentator of the Natyasastra, introduced
PT P P
Santarasa as a state of neutral consciousness. It is said to be the natural state of mind

from which all the other emotions emerge.
13
TP Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, “My Training, My Gurus” in Sangeet Natak,
PT
(Special issue), no. 111-114, p. 141-146.

14
TP Ibid., p. 145-46.
PT
15
TP This Svara-vayu method in Kudiyattam does not have any direct connections to the
PT
breathing method I suggest in Chapter 2, the Siva Svarodaya Shastra.

16
TP T. K. Ramunni Nair, Natyarcana, (Calicut: P.K. Brothers, 1955), p. 90-96.
PT
17
TP Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, “My Training, My Gurus” in Sangeet Natak,
PT
(Special issue), no. 111-114, p. 146.

18
TP G. Venu, “Swaravayu: A Unique Method of Breath-Control”, in Sruti: Music &
PT
Dance Magazine, issue 125, Feb 1995, p. 45.

19
TP Ibid., p. 45.
PT
20
TP Yoshi, Oida, The Invisible Actor, (London: Methuen, 1997), p. 89-92.
PT
21
TP Alison Hodge, Twentieth Century Actor Training, (ed.), (London & New York:
PT

22
TP Ibid., p. 71.
PT
23
TP Ibid., p. 22.
PT
24
TP Jerzy Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre, (London: Methuen, 1991), p. 175.
PT
25
TP Ibid., p. 176.
PT
26
TP Ibid., p. 176
PT
27
TP Ibid., p. 117-18.
PT
28
TP See Grotowski’s comparison, which is elementary and can not expect from a
PT
serious researcher. It seems that he is familiar with some breathing exercises in Hatha
Yoga but not aware of the deeper understaning and practice of breath in Yoga. See
Chapter 2 for more details.
29
TP Jacques Lecoq, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre, (London: Methuen,
PT
2000)p. 76.
30
TP John Martin, The Intercultural Performance Handbook, (London: Routledge,
PT
2004), p. 19-27.
31
TP Ibid., p. 34.
PT
32
TP I gathered this information in my field research in Kerala from an Yogi whom I
PT
contacted for Siddha Yoga practice. His name is Rajendra Siddha Yogi who did not
allow me to talk more about him. As he said, Osho also mentioned it in one of his
speeches.
33
TP Phillip Zarrilli, “ On the Edge of A Breath, Looking”, in Phillip Zarrilli, (ed.),
PT
Acting (Re)Considered, (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 180.

34
TP Ibid., p. 190.
PT
35
TP Ibid., p. 191.
PT
36
TP Ibid., p. 191.
PT
37
TP Nicolas Núñez, Anthropocosmic Theatre,(Amsterdam: Harwood, 1996), p. 131.
PT
38
TP Peter Malekin & Ralph Yarrow, Consciousness, Literature and Theatre: Theory
PT
and Beyond, (London: Macmillan Press, 1997), p. 136.

39
TP Ibid., p. 136.
PT
40
TP Ibid., p. 136.
PT
41
TP Peter Malekin (1999), “Performance and Consciousness as Freedom”, in
PT
Performing Arts International, vol. 1, parts 4, p. 95.

42
TP Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Consciousness and the Act, (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1996),
PT
p. 154.
43
TP Cicely Berry, Voice and the Actor,(London: Virgin Books, 2000), p. 7
PT
44
TP Ibid., p. 18-42.
PT
45
TP <http://kh.bu.edu/artwithbraininmind-1/1736.html> (consulted July 12, 2007.
PT HTU UTH
46
TP Ibid., p. 76-77.
PT
47
TP Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Consciousness and the Actor, (Frankfurt: Peter Lang,
PT
1996). p. 160.
48
TP Alison Hodge, Twentieth Century Actor Training, (ed.), (London & New York:
PT

49
TP Ibid., p. 162.
PT
Chapter Four
Breath and Consciousness
Consciousness studies, as an academic discipline, includes a wide
range of theoretical investigations across the disciplines of
philosophy, neuroscience, cognitive science and psychology, physical
and biological sciences and computer science. The word
consciousness primarily refers to human beings aware of and
responsive to their surroundings. Consciousness, in this sense, implies
a human being that is conscious of something; the contents of
consciousness in turn are based on individual perception and action
that come with intuitions and feelings. Consciousness studies,
therefore, are engaged in a systematic analysis of essential functions
of the mind within the physicality of the body. In theatre, the inner
dynamics of production and reception of theatrical meaning and
experience are embedded in the mind/body of the actor. That is why
consciousness studies is relevant to theatre both in theory and in
practice. In recent years, systematic analysis of rituals and non-
Western performance forms has benefited from the application of
models of consciousness found in the Advaita Vedanta philosophy of
India. Vedic model of consciousness, proposed by Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi, for instance, confirms the existence of higher levels of
consciousness beyond the intellect and emotions. He also explained
the phenomenon of pure consciousness, a concept developed from
Advaita Vedanta philosophy. The following sections will offer more
information about it. The key intention of this chapter is to establish a
possible connection between breath, time and consciousness, aiming
to argue that the level of consciousness can be altered through
systematic application of intentional breathing.
4.1 Consciousness: Early Views
In The Discovery of the Mind, German classicist Bruno Snell

gives an account of the descriptions of the changes of human
personality over the centuries from Homer to Socrates. According to
Snell, Homer believed that “the psyche is the force which keeps the
human being alive 1 and when the psyche leaves the owner loses
consciousness. Homer further believed that consciousness is a force
which is separate from the body. Books VI and VII of Plato’s The
Breath and Consciousness 155
Republic illustrate Platos’ contribution to consciousness studies.

While discussing the relationship and properties of things, Plato
suggests the existence of ‘the eye of the mind’:
And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible
forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the
ideals which they resemble; not of the figures which they draw, but of
the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so on—the forms
which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections in
water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they are
really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen
with the eye of the mind? (Republic: vi)
Here, Plato establishes the idea of consciousness, metaphorically,

through introducing the notion of ‘the eye of the mind’ which is
capable of observing mental content arranged in geometrical forms.
He further explains the faculty of understanding “as being
intermediate between opinion and reason”. Plato, at this stage of his
argument, proposes the existence of a state of mind that observes the
human cognitive process of logical reasoning and arrives at
interpretive opinions, associated with the moments of our
understanding of objects and events. This level of mind is beyond
reason and opinion, it can also contemplate knowledge.
I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science
of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as
they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also
contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses: yet,
because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle,
those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher
reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them
they are cognizable by the higher reason (Republic: vi)
Here, Plato establishes the links between art and consciousness,

stating that art is contemplative like knowledge and being when the
mimetic element is added onto it. In his analogy of the cave, Plato
describes that experiences are copies of real things rather than the
things themselves: “…the shadows which he formerly saw are truer
than the objects which are now shown to him?" 2 Consciousness, for
Plato, is an intermediatory state of mind that operates between reason
and opinion and moves naturally beyond rationality of thoughts. As
Malekin and Yarrow suggest, “Plato is logically showing the point at
156 Breath and Consciousness
which logic collapses.” 3 They argue that these traditional models of

consciousness, proposed by Homer and Plato, are pre-spatial and pre-
temporal and the surface divisions of space-time do not apply to them.
Within the Platonic tradition, as they further explain, Plotinus
proposed three major modes of consciousness: 1. the everyday waking
level which includes “discursive thought and sequential sensory
perception”. 2. the noetic mode, which is “ontologically prior to
differentiated space and time”, in which “cognition is a direct uniting
with the object, and both subject and object constitute parts that
contain the whole” 3. “a merging into timeless infinitude” in which
“individual mind, ego, object worlds and subject-object cognition all
drop away.” 4 Plotinus asserts that the third one is the good one and
people should maintain that level of consciousness together with other
ordinary states like waking cognition and dreaming experience.
Malekin and Yarrow elaborately discuss Plotinus’s model of mind in
comparison with Indian and oriental models of consciousness, which
we will look at in the following section as a recent trend in
contemporary consciousness studies.
4.2 Consciousness: Recent Views
Recent explanations of consciousness fall into four broader

categories: 1) functionalism 2) dualism 3) eliminativism 4)
mysterianism. According to functionalism, the mental states that
create consciousness can essentially be defined as complex
interactions between different functional processes that are not limited
to a particular physical state or physical medium. They can be realized
in multiple ways including within non-biological systems like digital
computers. 5 Dualist theories of consciousness propose that
phenomenal experience occurs in a non-physical place. The ‘thinking’
(brain) is the non-physical place in Cartesian dualism whereas the
phenomenal world is the non-physical place in Reid’s natural dualism.
Property dualism asserts that mental properties emerge when matter is
organized in the appropriate way. Property dualism is a branch of
emergent materialism, which is the basis of scientific theories dealing
with emergent phenomena. 6 Eliminative materialism is the school of
thought that argues for an absolute version of materialism and
physicalism with respect to mental entities and mental vocabulary.
Eliminative materialists, therefore, believe that consciousness does not
exist and what is known as consciousness is the neurophysical

functioning of the body. Similarly, they argue that folk psychological
concepts such as belief, desire and intention do not have any
consistent neurological substrate. 7 The term mysterianism refers to a
philosophy that proposes that certain problems like consciousness will
never be explained and humans do not have the intellectual ability to
understand the problem of consciousness at a scientific level. This
position is also known as anti-constructive-naturalism. 8 Panpsychism
or panexperientialism is another theoretical model explaining the
nature of consciousness. According to this model, consciousness is
everywhere, an idea that seems consistent with Eastern metaphysical
principles and as a possible solution to an interpretation of quantum
physics. Capra, in The Tao Physics, observes the parallels between
Eastern metaphysics and quantum physics as follows:
Modern physics… pictures matter not at all as passive and inert, but as
being in a continuous dancing and vibrating motion whose rhythmic
patterns are determined by the molecular, atomic and nuclear
structures. This is also the way in which the Eastern mystics see the
material world. They all emphasise that the universe has to be grasped
dynamically, as it moves, vibrates and dances; the nature is not in a
static, but a dynamic equilibrium. (Capra, 1976, 205) 9
This view clarifies the kinetic base involved in the existence of

nature and the activities of perception and production of meanings,
which generate levels of individual consciousness. Capras’ view also
suggests that consciousness is a process, not a thing. As Jane Roberts
observes, consciousness fields produce consciousness particles that in
turn become matter and energy. The thought you think and the rock
you see, are patterns of consciousness. Consciousness is fundamental
pure subjectivity. 10
One of the recent trends in the studies of consciousness is

informed by Sanskrit tradition of India. As Malekin and Yarrow
observe, “It is the Vedic tradition of India that has produced the
systematic and formulated schematizations of growth in states of
consciousness”. 11 They discuss a model of consciousness found in the
Mandukya Upanishad explaining four levels of consciousness:
waking, dreaming, sleeping and Turiya. “Turiya is an underlying
unconditioned consciousness which appears limited when reflected
through the three contingent states of the individual mind.” 12
Gaudapada and Sankara, the major commentators of Advaita Vedanta

philosophy of India, consider Turiya as the deepest underlying reality
of the mind and the “Reality itself.” 13 Malekin and Yarrow further
explain Turiya as an eternal sense of experience:
Turiya is cloaked if the mind is dispersed by attachment to the worlds

of objects, but in itself Turiya is eternal, so that from the point of view
of the relative individual mind Turiya, once realised, permeates all the
relative states of walking, dreaming and sleeping; in other words,
unconditioned awareness accompanies and underlies all walking and
dreaming activity and lasts through what would ordinarily be the
blackness of deep sleep. 14
Turiya, the fourth level of consciousness, is understood and

explained as a higher level of consciousness alternating ‘stillness’
with the ‘activity’ of ordinary levels of consciousness. Turiya also
suggests a particular level of mind by which the ‘stillness’ is
maintained increasingly during and together with activities; this state
of mind is neutral and its experience is highly recommended by
various spiritual systems of practice in India as a quality state of
individual being because this ‘neutral consciousness’ will bring some
of the crucial strength and qualities which cannot be identified
otherwise in an ordinary level of consciousness. Most of India’s
meditation techniques and related yogic practices suggest the ways of
achieving this neutral consciousness called Turiya. This means that
yogic practice and meditation techniques are methods to achieve
Turiya or neutral consciousness through a spatial and temporal shift in
the ordinary level of consciousness.
The idea of a spatio-temporal shift in consciousness has succeeded

in achieving considerable importance in Malekin and Yarrow’s
writings. While re-reading Plotinian terms they propose a mode of
consciousness which is ‘eternal’ and also characterised by ‘unbounded
timelessness’. Malekin conducts a parallel reading between art and
spirituality arguing that “[a] trained Indian classical vocalist is a yogi,
trained from childhood to produce overtones in the voice conducive to
a settling of the mind even during intense enjoyment of the movement
of the music.” 15 Malekin argues further, in relation to the musician,
that “the production of the requisite register can only come from the
settled mind of the performer. The settlement is perfect when the outer
level of activity flows unimpeded while the inner level of mind

remains beyond movement or rest in boundless infinitude.” 16 This
level of consciousness is beyond subject-object boundaries, which is
the union (Yoga) of other levels of consciousness. As Malekin
suggests, both the artist/performer and the Yogi experience the same
level of consciousness that is beyond the time frame set by ordinary
activities in the waking and dreaming states. In India, great performers
and artist were traditionally regarded as saints. The iconic figure of the
dancing Shiva represents two ideas: Shiva the dancer and Shiva the
Yogi. In yogic terms, Shiva’s dancing represents the delight of
experiencing, of being within Turiya, the consciousness which is
timeless or beyond any ordinary sense of time. In the context of
theatre, the dancing represents the delight of rasa, an experience
which is essentially the same as the experience of Turiya. In the
Natyasastra, Bharata introduces a similar concept by saying that the
experience of theatre is similar to the experience of Brahman, the
infinitude in consciousness because the art of theatre has been created
by Brahma and Lord Shiva is the first actor. 17 Performance, for
Bharata, in this sense, is a means to access the inaccessible, the delight
of rasa, which is similar to experiencing Brahman. This means that
performance and meditation are two different psychophysical ways of
experiencing the same level of consciousness which exists beyond the
spatio-temporal dimensions of the waking and dreaming states of
consciousness. Malekin further explains this level of consciousness as
the “unbounded silence of infinitude” out of which patterns of sounds
and forms emerge in space and time: “form arises in sound and out of
this space and time are born.” 18 For Malekin, Turiya is a state of
“unbounded silence of infinitude” and therefore, performance of any
kind striving to achieve that level of consciousness is an act of
freedom because the actor breaks up subject-object boundaries and the
ordinary sense of time-space relations. Waking and dreaming
consciousness are bound by the (karmic) laws of cause and effect at
work in the material world. Finding a place outside of the material
world by breaking up the sequence of karmic repetition of events and
occurrences brings freedom (mukti) into individual consciousness. In
short, Turiya as an altered state of human consciousness, experienced
as “unbounded silence of infinitude” that exists beyond the ordinary
spatio-temporal relations. Malekin here clearly suggests that a crucial
shift is taking place, spatially and temporally, in consciousness when
we experience the alteration in consciousness that is Turiya. The

ordinary individual mode of consciousness, according to Malekin, can
be altered through ritual, music and chanting. In other words, rituals,
music and chanting can be considered as practical methods through
which the individual consciousness can be changed.
Yarrow’s concept of ‘neutral consciousness’ shares Malekin’s

argument about an alteration of individual consciousness through a
shift in spatio-temporality. As he asserts, “consciousness is not a static
phenomenon, but a historical process in time.” 19 Aesthetic experience
is “psychologically and physiologically mediated” and “art is what
happens to our bodies and minds—just as “matter” may be explicable
in terms of energy transformation also characteristic of
consciousness.” 20 Yarrow considers consciousness as a psycho-
physical quality which functions on various levels in individual
cognition. Neutrality becomes a state, distinct from other states of
consciousness, “where silence and activity co-exist”; it is the
“simplest state of awareness”, which “…might be thought of as a
psycho-physiological quantum mechanical state of Zero entropy like
superconductivity.” 21 Yarrow argues that this is not an abstract state
but “a fulcrum condition central to symbolic utterances of all kinds”;
the application of mask and movement in training explains the
physical condition of this level of consciousness in theatrical terms.
As he explains, the mask creates a ‘self’ and a ‘mirror self’ in the
actor and the actor perceives the ‘real-self’ and the ‘mirror-self’ as
separate, but connected. Seeing through a mask, in this sense, gives
the actor the possibility to achieve a witnessing quality of
consciousness by staying in the space between herself and her
projected masked self. As Yarrow puts it:
Understanding it in physical terms helps to clarify that we are not

talking about an abstract idea but a phenomenon which, because it is
the minimal point of activity, is accessible via any efficient means of
moving from states of mind and body where there is a more diverse
“scatter” of energy to those where it is more subtly compacted. 22
Two major assumptions can be derived here from in Yarrows’

investigations of consciousness: 1. Neutral consciousness is the place
where silence and activity co-exist 2. Neutral consciousness is an
altered state of consciousness, which is a psycho-physical condition of
the mind and the body. In addition to this, Yarrow further establishes
the links between quantum physics and consciousness, arguing that
altered consciousness suggests “a merging of one state …into a more
expanded version.” 23 Quantum theory recognizes that particles
manifest themselves as distinct quanta of energy at different
frequencies and there are non-localized waves, which themselves can
be derived from the “plenum” or vacuum state, which contains
potential energy. According to Yarrow, to apply this to consciousness
clearly suggests that a neutral or potential state of consciousness is
categorically parallel to non-localized waves emerging from the
vacuum, which is characteristically distinct from the already known
modes of consciousness modes like waking and dreaming. 24
Yarrow emphasizes a transcendent quality “reflecting in the

operation of consciousness which embraces and organizes all the
diverse parts or perspectives.” 25 He explains the links between
consciousness and space-time by looking at the process of reading: as
in the quantum view of physical reality, “characters and events can be
seen as processes in space-time rather than isolated phenomena…and
[It is possible to] view the text as a generative set of relations rather
than a closed phenomenon.” 26 Thus, consciousness is
transformational energy” operating within the basis of mind-body by
using space-time as transformational tools. This means that any
change taking place on the level of consciousness includes a
significant shift in the relations of space-time. Waking and dreaming,
in this sense, will have distinct space-time associations in our
experience and Turiya or neutral consciousness go beyond the level of
ordinary understanding of time. Malekin’s ‘timeless infinitude’ and
Yarrow’s ‘silence co-existing with activity’ suggest the implications
of the transformational characteristics of consciousness, which are
understood as “awareness of its own nature as potential”, a form of
energy united with matter as “energy-filled void.” 27 This is known as
unity consciousness in the Vedanta model of mind proposed in terms
of Vedic Science and Vedic Psychology by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi;
a comprehensive description of this model is available in Meyer-
Dinkgräfe (2005).
According to Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Vedic Psychology describes four

higher levels of human consciousness in addition to waking, dreaming
and sleeping. What Malekin and Yarrow describe in terms of Turiya

is thus further differentiated, as follows: 28
Pure Consciousness: It is the fourth state of human development

besides waking, dreaming and sleeping. As such it is the basis of more
expressed level of awareness defined as the “over all multilevel
functioning of consciousness.” 29 This is the level of “timeless
infinitude” (Malekin). Cosmic consciousness, a fifth state, in which
pure consciousness is experienced as co-existing with waking,
dreaming and sleeping. In this state of consciousness, pure
consciousness or the Self witnesses the activities of waking, dreaming
and sleeping. Meyer-Dinkgräfe offers a description of how this state
manifests in individual experience by quoting David W. Orme-
Johnson from the collected scientific research papers on the
Transcendental Meditation Programme:
Often during dreaming I am awake inside, in a very peaceful, blissful

state. Dreams come and go, thoughts about the dreams come and go,
but I remain in a deeply peaceful state, completely separate from the
dreams and the thoughts. My body is asleep and inert, breathing goes
on regularly and mechanically, and inside I am just aware that I am. 30
The next stage of development, according to Vedic Psychology is

refined cosmic consciousnesses. In cosmic consciousness, pure
consciousness is permanently experienced together with waking,
dreaming and sleeping. In refined cosmic consciousness, this level is
maintained along with “the maximum value of perception of the
environment... [and] perception and feeling reach their most sublime
level.” 31 The philosopher Fichte describes the experience of this level
of consciousness as follows:
…and the universe appears before my eyes clothed in a more glorious

form. The dead inert mass which only filled up space, has vanished:
and in its place there flows onward, with the rushing music of mighty
waves, an endless stream of life and power and action, which issues
from the original source of all life. 32
Unity consciousness is the ultimate level of human development

according to Vedic Psychology and in this state of consciousness “the
field of pure consciousness is directly perceived as located at every
point in creation” and therefore, every point in creation is raised to the
…status of pure consciousness. 33 The duality between ‘relative’ and

the ‘absolute’ in the perception of things in life does no longer exist in
this state of consciousness. The distinctions between knowledge,
knower and knowing will be united into an absolute sense of
awareness. As the Bhagadvad Gita describes unity consciousness:
“The Yogi who is united in identity with the all-pervading, infinite
consciousness, and see unity everywhere, beholds the Self present in
all beings, and all beings as assumed in the Self.” 34 Unity
consciousness, as the highest level of human consciousness, is
described in various Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and classical
Indian texts of Yoga including Yoga-Vasishta. Patanjali’s term
samadhi and Advaita Vedanta’s term Turiya refer to a state of
individual consciousness explained in unity consciousness.
Pure consciousness is the result of a distinct perception of space

and time. When the ordinary perception of time and space are
modified, what exists in the experience of an individual is the
“timeless” and “spaceless.” 35 Malekin and Yarrow share the idea of
going beyond ordinary space-time parameters in the experience of
individual consciousness by presenting concepts like “silence co-
exists with activity” and “timeless infinitude”. I can summarise, from
the writings of Malekin, Yarrow and Meyer-Dinkgräfe, as follows:
1. Altered states of consciousness exist in individual experience,

which are named and described differently under different
systems of thought. Hence, terms such as Samadhi and pure
consciousness refer to the same experience of consciousness.
The concept of Turiya also includes the concept of pure
consciousness, although not on its own, but in relation to, and
experienced together with, waking, dreaming and sleeping
(see 5 below).
2. This field of pure consciousness exists beyond the ordinary

perception of day-to-day time-space parameters.
3. Modification of space-time parameters can result in the

experience of “timeless infinitude”.
4. Pure consciousness is an undivided form of awareness in

which all forms of duality between subject and object, and
meaning and cognition submerge into a unity of self
awareness: nothing exists here except the existence of Self at
end.
5. Just as pure consciousness on its own is characterised by a

space-time configuration that is different from the space-time
configuration in waking, or dreaming or sleeping on their
own, the coexistence, in terms of Vedic Psychology, of
waking, dreaming and sleeping with pure consciousness in
cosmic, refined cosmic and unity consciousness, equally
represents different space-time configurations. Changes of
space-time configurations may serve to bring about the
experience of any of these higher states of consciousness.
In short, consciousness generally emerges in a phenomenological

relationship with different modalities and qualities of perception.
There is also a kind of consciousness which seems to operate
‘outside’ of this perceptual modalities as ‘witness’ to any
phinomenological situation. This level is nornally understood as
extended or altered level of consciousness. How far this extension of
consciousness is associated with a cessation of breath is the question
that I am going to address in the following sections. Cessation of
breath always underpinnes and conditions a retention or suspension of
psychophysiological activities. It is clear in the descriptions of the
above writers that individual consciousness can be modified by
modifying time space parameters. In the following sections I will look
at the scope and potential of human breathing investigationg how
changes in the modalities of breathing change the level of
consciousness. I will also suggest that breath is an effective tool to
modify individual perception of time-space in experiencing the
extended ‘witnessing’ level of consciousness. I will also look at
santarasa as an example of the implication of breath and
consciousness in performance.
4.3 Time and Consciousness
Consciousness can be understood as patterns of spatio-temporal

relations. Being conscious, in this sense, means that being
consciousness of something that exists in space and time. Cognition,
therefore, is a spatio-temporal activity extended to the present infinite.
Consciousness is thus a kinetic experience, and kinetic consciousness,
fundamentally, is a “stream of present” as Husserl would describe it.
The link between modalities of time, space and consciousness in
relation to cognition is the fundamental theme running across several
strands in contemporary philosophical thinking like phenomenology,
hermeneutics and deconstruction. What is fundamental to the process
of human cognition is the act of restoring of a ‘past’ time into a
‘present’ by using ‘memory’ as a tool. The moment which is past can
be memorised in order to cognate. Memory as an act of meaning
operates in the field of a subjective movement that goes back to the
recorded impressions of past events and comes forward to a present in
which what is carried forward is re-cognised. This essential nature of
the dynamics of human cognition operates in time, in the kinetic
modalities of time. Repetition, as a philosophical concept explains
this fundamental aspect of human consciousness. I will briefly explain
the concept here to establish links between time and consciousness,
which will also set the background of the discussion of breath in the
following sections.
4.3.1 Repetition and Consciousness
Repetition, as a movement-related philosophical view, is crucial

to literary and philosophical enquiries because the term explains the
nature of meaning and consciousness in terms of human cognitive
processes. Kierkegaard established the term repetition in 1843 in his
work Repetition: An Essay in Experimental Psychology as an
important philosophical category. Repetition and recollection are the
same movement but in opposite directions: what has been recollected
is repeated backwards, whereas the ‘real’ repetition is recollected
forwards. Repetition as a philosophical term influenced later
developments of the theories of meaning in Western philosophical
traditions, especially in the post-phenomenological strands including
hermeneutics and deconstruction. As Melberg explains, “the temporal
device of repetition is a paradoxical movement between past and

present…and time as a process of past into present.” 36 Repetition as a
textual device of reading refers to a kind of movement back and forth
that goes on between different parts of the text, between its irony and
its pathos, between two characters of the narration, between the
narrator and his/her object and between the text and its reader.
Melberg, in his attempt to examine the implications of repetition in
theories of representation extensively analysed the concept of
mimesis, discussed by Plato and Aristotle. Melberg argues that Plato
uses the word mimesis in a primarily visual context, as a visual image
related to imitation.
In the dialogue on creation, Timaeus, Plato has the title character

discuss the mimetic relation between image, imitation and time.
Timaeus states that the world we live in has been created in the
greatest similarities to the creator himself (29 E-30D). The metaphors
used in this philosophical debate on creation are particularly visual
and give the impression of the first creator as a kind of pictorial artist.
The analogy of the cave in the seventh book of the Republic is another
example that Plato’s philosophy is based on sight or has a visual
orientation. Melberg’s analysis of Platonic mimesis culminates with
the logical problems of time described by Timaeus when he says that
creation was made in relation to the principle of similarity. It was not
possible, says Timaeus, for the creator to make the image that is our
world eternal and constant; he adds that the world carries traces of its
constant origin as a “moving image of eternity” (37D) and what we
call time is nothing but an image (eikona) of eternity (37D). As a
visual proof, Timaeus gives the example of stars as the eternal
repetition of the same circuit: “this very world must be as similar as
possible to the absolute being that can be grasped by the mind and
imitating its eternal nature” (39 DE). Melberg considers these lines
remarkable because they are the only ones where Plato discusses time-
change-movement in terms of mimesis as he argues “mimesis here
becomes repetition.” 37
Mimesis is an equally important concept for Aristotle in his

Poetics. According to Gerald F. Else, Aristotle not only changes the
Platonic evolution of mimesis, but also changes the meaning of the
concept, when he says: “[it] ends up meaning almost the exact
opposite of what Plato had meant by it.” 38 Aristotle defines the new
function of mimesis with the concepts of mythos and praxis in the
sixth chapter of the Poetics as “an imitation of an action”. It is
primarily the mythos, the plot, which is the imitation of the action.
Mythos is the “structure of events” that Aristotle calls “the soul of the
tragic art” (50 a 38/39). Praxis is rather one event that is “serious,
complete and has bulk” (47b 25). In addition, in the seventh chapter
we get the famous definition of praxis as an action “which is complete
and a whole and has a certain magnitude”. It is an action, furthermore,
with “beginning, middle and end” (50b 24-27). Melberg provides a
concise summary of this argument as follows: 39
1. Aristotle’s mimesis is defined by mythos and praxis, which

bring the concept close to areas of time and action – in
contrast to Platonic mimesis which is closer to image,
imagination and imitation.
2. Mythos is a concept of order, which makes it possible to view

literary works as structured wholes.
3. Praxis refers to already structured events or chains of events,

which can be perceived as meaningful and answering a
purpose.
As Paul Ricoeur observes, mimesis appears to be a temporal

concept in Aristotle as the “lived temporal experience.” 40 In fact,
Ricoeur’s analysis of mimesis was a reply against its own illusionism
as well as against deconstructive criticism of the “closure of
representation”. Ricoeur intended to treat mimesis as a process, which
he calls mimesis 1, mimesis 2 and mimesis 3. Mimesis needs
something to imitate and here Ricoeur refers to Aristotle’s key
expression that the poem is the imitation of an action. Mimesis,
therefore, pre-supposes a generally accepted pre-conception of what
an action is; this action is then transplanted into a text and finally
realised by the reader. Here Ricoeur has given greater emphasis on the
act of reading as a process or a movement from ‘prefigured’ world to
‘transfigured’ world through ‘configured’ textual world. Unlike many
phenomenologists who relate mimesis to the visible world, Ricoeur
relates it to action and says that the phenomenal world is the world of
movement, time and change; imaginary mimetic activity is essentially

connected with repetition and therefore, time. Again in the words of
Ricoeur, “time becomes human time to the extent that it is organised
after the manner of a narrative: narrative, in turn, is meaningful to the
extent that it portrays the features of temporal experience.” 41 Hence,
repetition is an action, which gives certain consciousness, knowledge
and experience mediated by memory. Kierkegaard, the philosopher of
repetition says since we can not recover our lost beginning and cannot
survive beyond our inevitable end, the reenactment of life in literature
entails genuine repetition – a “repetition properly so called is
recollected forward.” 42 Every re-enactment, whether in literature or
performance is a repetition in order to make the inaccessible appear
through a multiple and complex operation of time, action and
memory. Both reading and performance are re-enactments of
situations in ‘real’ life, and repetition, as a critical term explains this
process of the nature of the production of meaning. Memory works as
a key tool in this process of repetition or re-enactment bringing time
and action together. Recollection, in this sense, is a temporal act
which brings actions, reactions and emotions into play. Repetition, in
this manner, establishes the links between time and consciousness;
consciousness is a temporal experience operating on the basis of a
subjective movement, which is going back to memory and forth to re-
cognition.
In both the writings of Derrida and Deleuze we see repetition as

an underpinning concept reinforcing a radical philosophical thinking
based on the temporal dialectics of presence and meaning that
deconstructed the ‘stigma of Western thinking’ since Plato. Derrida
describes the nature and function of meaning in terms of presence as
the structure of repetition. As he explains, the sign in general has its
own origin in repetition, in a “primordial structure of repetition”.
‘Presence’ derives from the constant perceptual re-occurrence of signs
and therefore, presence must be derived from repetition. Derrida
emphasises that the identification or the meaning of a particular sign is
derived from its re-appearance and therefore, mediated by and through
memory.
It is highly useful at this stage to look at Foucault’s observations

on repetition to understand the psycho-physical implications of the
term. While commenting on Deleuze’s intellectual contribution to the

history of Western thought, Foucault examines two aspects of the
nature of cognition: 43
1) the methodologies of the recent past that attempt to

conceptualise the nature of being
2) the nature of an event.
Foucault examines the nature of event and says that “event is not
a concept” but strictly a “temporal force” which only exists in the
present time. The occurrence of an event cannot be controlled or
defined by any methodological programmes. An event might occur
without our being able to define the nature or consequences of what is
taking place. An event can be narrated only after its occurrence. An
event therefore, is an active process that takes place in the structural
dimensions of space and temporality. In his reassessment of the
philosophical methodologies of the recent past, Foucault argues that
neither neo-positivism nor classical phenomenology can explain this
dynamics of temporalization involved in an event. According to
Foucault, Deleuze’s contribution to contemporary philosophy is a
methodology, a methodology which helps to understand the nature of
temporality involved in our understandings of meaning and
consciousness. This methodology is called repetition; it is a state of
always being in the “present infinitive”. So, each moment of being is
the being continuously in the present time.
An event is the smallest unit of time that is taking place in time. It

is also the smallest unit of knowledge or sense of being. In other
words, cognition or the sense of being is the result of the process of a
series of occurrences of body, language and thoughts in the present
time. Deleuze further argues that unlike representation, which is
conceptual, repetition is a psycho-physical phenomenon, embedded in
moments in the present time and space. Deleuze explained repetition
by identifying two recurring infinite elements that operate in the
process of making sense of the world:
1) Remembering and recognition

2) Memory and self-consciousness
Each moment of recognition is the movement of repetition of

physis and psyche, the pure force of the psycho-physical movement in
time and space.
Deleuze’s repetition however, represents a particular tradition of

philosophy and the continuation of the idea of the temporal notion of
philosophical thinking in the West presented by a group of
philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Freud, Marx
and Derrida. The temporal dimension of human existence is the most
fascinating perspective “chosen for the interpretation of being”
(Heidegger 1999, 206) by these philosophers. As Heidegger
elucidates, time as a basic concept and an essential ‘perspective
governing’ the conditions of being has “remained essentially
undeveloped” from the beginnings of Western philosophy until
Aristotle. Heidegger further explains time as “the actual moment” of
now: “past is the no-longer-now [and] future is the not-yet-now [and
therefore] being in the sense of already-thereness (presence) became
the perspective for the determination of time” (Heidegger 1999, 206).
Derrida admits the fact that the concepts of ‘temporalization’ and
‘displacement’ are already explained by Nietzsche and Freud as
“active” moments in metaphysics as well as in psychoanalysis as the
function of thought and unconscious. 44 According to Deleuze, the
turning point in Freud was a decisive moment in which he
incorporated time in his Beyond the Pleasure Principles as
phenomenon of repetition. 45 Time is everywhere: in language, in
reading and in all doing. Time is in consciousness and in our
knowledge of the world. The whole question of being and the entire
material existence of the world are clearly marked in this passage of
time. No time is no meaning and no being. The development of
critical theories in recent years, particularly the terms difference,
theatricality and performativity, is informed by this psycho-physical
movement in philosophical thinking known as repetition.
4.4 Breath and Consciousness
The previous section has demonstrated how time and

consciousness are interconnected and how the temporal stream of
consciousness reflects on cognitive processes in various forms of
representation including theatre practice. Breath flows parallel to the
temporal stream of consciousness, and breath, therefore, is the

physical counterpart of time realised in the human organism. No
breathing means no time and therefore, no being. As Irigaray asserts,
“To live-to breathe: to become-to change/alter” 46 and therefore,
breath, being the basis of human activity, is fundamental to human
cognition.
4.4.1 Breathing and Being: A New Philosophy
If the psychic impulses (memory and re-cognition) and their

physical motivations are considered as the repetitive nature of human
existence, is there anything in the psycho-physicality of the human
organism, which activates and reinforces the process of repetition?
Heidegger asks the same question in his Introduction to Metaphysics
as “what is the temporal extension of human life…” 47 and he makes a
crucial point in this context stating that breath, as a movement, is the
temporal extension of human life, which activates and reinforces the
psychic impulses of memory and re-cognition and its physical
motivations, in order to manifest our sense of Being in time. Breath is
time in this sense, and no presence and its re-cognition are possible
without the constant bi-polar movement of breathing. Breath is
present time and also the presence of time. What is being grasped in
the present time as presence is mediated by a definite mode of time
through nostril operations. This perpetual movement of respiration, as
the definite mode of present time, is the basis of the play of presence
and absence, meaning and void and memory and forgetfulness.
Irigaray goes further saying that if breath is considered as the

temporal extension of Being, there is no Being without breathing. Air
is always there, although we tend to forget it. It is an unrecognised
“place of all presence and absence” and “no presence is possible
without air.” 48 The place of no breath is the place of disappearance.
Air plays between presence and absence, between life and death,
between significations and their perception; and between
representation and its cognition. This imperceptible materiality of air
is the “forgotten material mediation of the logos.” 49 Irigaray suggests
that the air element is the mediation of all reflections including
perception, language, thoughts, imagination and the faculty of action.
In the particular context of signification and meaning, Irigaray asserts
that air is the invisible other, which is irreducible and without which
there is no movement between perception and cognition. The flow of
air is the passage of time, and therefore, the producer of
consciousness. The flow of air is the flow of the language, and
therefore, the producer of meaning.
Derrida, in Dissemination, goes beyond the perpetual repetition of

textual significations arguing that ‘air’ is the source of all appearance
and that it hovers between desire and fulfilment, perpetration and
remembrance. Air acts between fire and flames, and inside and
outside. No air is disappearance. Thus, “[a]ir means, this is-trying-to-
say that,” which means that being is always in the “present infinitive”,
and this obviously includes “the temporal extension of Being” and the
“temporality of consciousness”. Derrida extends this understanding of
the role of breath in Being by saying that “what is called ‘present’ is
described as represented….but [this representation] is filled with Air.”
What we see in both Derrida and Irigaray is the act of thinking, of
meaning, representation and consciousness, in terms of breathing.
Repetition is explained by Deleuze as a psycho-physical movement:
the psychic movement of recollection and re-cognition; and the
physical movement of fulfilment of desire. Both these movements are
based on the invisible existence and the dynamics of breath. Hence,
the constant repetition of the presence and our simultaneous
reflections on it as “Being” are manifested through the repetition of
breath. Here, I can see the emergence of a new philosophical thinking
in Derrida and Irigaray: the philosophy of breathing.
4.4.2 Breath and Representation: Artaud’s Divine Theatre
Artaud has discussed the role of breath in theatrical representation

linking breath into theatrical meaning and experience. Artaud’s
concept of cruelty emphasises the idea of a desire, the desire for
always being-in-present. This desire is the psycho-physical urge to be
in the present, to be in consciousness: the underlying energy to all the
emotional and cognitive processes. The failure of theatre, according to
Artaud, is forgetting this desire, this temporal dimension that creates
movement, gestures, sounds and other physical appearances relating to
the body. Therefore, theatre is a continuous process and a vibrant
movement in space and time that can not be preserved or regained.
Artaud called it the magical act. It is magical because it is movement

which cannot be captured in frozen time: the present transforms into
another present, not into future. Artaud’s theatre in this sense, “…is a
passionate overflowing, a frightful transfer of forces from body to
body” 50 and breath was a new means for Artaud’s theatre of exploring
the “overflowing” of the “frightful transfer of forces” from body to
body and from body to its unknown fields of consciousness. However,
Artaud left no clear proof of any system of practice though he asserts
that “every mental movement, every feeling, every leap in human
affectivity has an appropriate breath.” 51 However, breathing and
consciousness were the major issues that Artaud was trying to
articulate by saying that “breathing accompanies feeling and the actor
can penetrate this feeling.” 52 The key issue here is, knowing the
mechanisms of which breathing accompanies which feeling and
Artaud, therefore, provides a list of six main breathing combinations
between neuter, feminine and masculine, stating that emotions have a
strong base in various patterns of breathing. 53 Below are the six
combinations Artaud proposes:
Neuter – Masculine – Feminine

Neuter – Feminine – Masculine
Masculine – Neuter – Feminine
Feminine – Neuter – Masculine
Masculine – Feminine – Neuter
Feminine – Masculine – Neuter
What Artaud was trying to explain was what Yoga identifies as the
three pathways of human respiration, left, middle and right. These
three nostril modes are further categorised according to the qualities
that Artaud identifies as well: left – feminine, middle – neuter and
right – masculine. 54 Artaud proposes the existence of a seventh state
of breath, which is higher than the remaining six modes of breathing.
That seventh state unites “the revealed and the unrevealed through the
portals of a higher guna, the state of sattva.” 55 Guna means the quality
and Sattva suggests an extended level of experience, which is beyond
our daily senses of the world. Meyer-Dinkgräfe offers a clear
demonstration of these two terms from the perspective of Vedic
psychology:
The entire creation consists of the interplay of the three gunas (…)
born of prakriti or nature. The process of evolution is carried on by
these three gunas. Evolution means creation and its progressive
development, and at its basis lies activity. Activity needs rajo-guna to
create a spur, and it needs sato-guna and tamo-guna to uphold the
direction of the movement....For any process to continue, there have to
be steps in that process, and each stage, however small in time and
space, needs a force to maintain it and another force to develop it into
a new shape. 56
Tamo-guna leads to stagnation and sufferings and sattva-guna

refers to sat, the ‘eternal quality’ attached to pure consciousness.
According to Artaud breath acts as a point of transformation between
daily and extra-daily consciousness, between tamo-guna and sattva-
guna. As Artaud suggests, divine theatre can be discovered by “using
breathing’s hieroglyphics…” 57 Artaud’s concept of divine theatre
suggests that in theatrical communication the actors engage in
systematic breathing exercises to achieve a higher state of
consciousness—Artaud uses the term sattva in this context. Although
Artaud does not seem to have further developed his ideas in practice, I
can see close links between these ideas and Siddha Yoga. In both the
idea of the existence of extended levels of consciousness is
conceptualised as the result of a particular way or mode of breathing
that goes beyond the ordinary levels of nostril breathing. It is
internalised breathing, which is known as Gati in Siddha Yoga and I
will explain this in the following section under Restoration of Breath.
Similar to Stanislavski’s rays of energy 58 Artaud’s Divine Theatre

suggests strong indications of the integration of breath in acting, with
the aim of pushing the actor beyond the conventional psychological
framework of acting. Stanislavski and Artaud hold similar views on
breath:
1) Breath is the vital source of non-verbal physical
communication
2) Breath is the key dynamic element working between

daily and extra-daily consciousness by uniting the
revealed and the unrevealed into an extended level of
consciousness.
3) Breath, through a systematic practice, helps integrate

actor’s body and mind in such a way that they can
communicate through rays of energy in the form of
psychic radio waves.
According to Stanislavski’s concept of the ‘rays of energy’

breathing is the most effective tool in working with the consciousness
of the actor. Stanislavski’s and Artaud’s attempts of considering
breath as a powerful tool and bringing it into their theory and theatre
practice seem to be highly relevant to the current discussions of
theatre because they introduce consciousness-related training and
theory into theatre practice in the West. Stanislavski introduced breath
into a consciousness-related actor training by introducing ‘rays of
energy’ and Artaud further expanded the idea theoretically in order to
create a philosophical ground appropriate for the kind of theatre
practice he wished to introduce.
In the previous section, Irigaray, in a philosophical context, says

that the flow of air is the passage of time, and therefore, the producer
of consciousness; and the flow of air is the flow of language and
therefore, the producer of meaning. By asserting this Irigaray
introduces air as an epistemological category by which the production
of meaning and consciousness in language can be explained. In a
theatrical performance situation, Stanislavski and Artaud consider
breath as a potential source of non-verbal physical communication.
Unlike through language, for Stanislavski and Artaud, meaning and
consciousness in a performance situation is produced through non-
verbal psychophysical animations which is supported and reinforced
by the inner dynamics of actor’s breathing. Beckett’s Acts Without
Words, rasa acting and other physical mimetic movements found in
Kudiyattam and Kathakali can be analysed in this context. In a
following section, I will look at the implications of breath in
santarasa, analysing how breath works psychophysically in the
process of creating non-verbal theatrical meaning. However, breath is
conceived in both philosophy and theatre as the basis of all meaning
and consciousness experienced through language, visibility,
appearance, human actions and voice. In both philosophy and theatre,
breath is understood as the movement of temporality. It functions as
the basis of all the psycho-physical actions in the body that form the
basis of the fundamental phenomenon of being, which includes the act

of representation and all other discursive means of human
communication. In this section we have been looking at and
establishing possible links between time and consciousness, and
breath and consciousness presented both in philosophy and
performance. In the following section, we will look at the
philosophical and spiritual dimensions of breathing, presented in
Indian systems of thought and practice, linking breath into
consciousness and beyond.
4.4.3 KƗla: Time and Beyond through Breath
Indian thought has presented a wide range of concepts related to

time, movement and consciousness. The term Kala refers to time and
the non-dualistic school of Kashmir Saivism with its various
designations and sub-schools has placed special emphasis on the links
between breath and time. The Svacchanda Tantra defines time as
two-fold: solar and spiritual. 59 Time based on the movement of the
astral bodies is gross external time (Sthula), which is solar, and
spiritual time is subtle (suksma) and related to the movement of the
vital air in the body (prƗna). Abhinavagupta, the 9th century
commentator and exponent of Kashmir Saivism says in his
Tantraloka:
The whole experience of time (Kala) is established in the vital energy

of breath (prana). The vital energy depends on vibration (spanda),
vibration rests in the void, and the void in consciousness (cit).
Therefore, the whole universe is based on consciousness. 60
Abhinavagupta established the link between breath and

consciousness directly and profoundly as the fundamental concept of
Kashmir Saivism. Here consciousness means the absolute and
timeless consciousness, which evolves in the void. A subtle vibration
evolves from the void, which is the source of movement. Time is well
connected with movement here and the source of movement is found
in the rousing of consciousness as vibrative energy. Abhinavagupta
defines vibration (spandana) as the fundamental quality of the
emergence of the universe from which air and consciousness evolve.
Vibration is the subtle movement that causes all the physical
manifestations of motion or animation. Spanda is the subtle rise of
energy which then manifests as the vital air (prana). According to

Abhinavagupta, consciousness first evolves into vital energy or
breath: prƗksamvit prane parinatƗ. 61 This movement of the vital air is
the source of the expansion of time, according to Kashmir Saivism
and time is thus understood as the vibration of consciousness manifest
in breath. This understanding of breath is also applicable to
microcosmic manifestation, to the creation, maintenance and
dissolution of the universe:
Thus the creation and dissolution of the world are dependent on the
vital energy, which in its turn depends on consciousness, and pure
consciousness without an object is the…Supreme. 62
While investigating the relativity of time by describing the

experience of time in dream and in sleep, Abhinavagupta asserts that
in Samadhi there is correspondence between cosmic and microcosmic
time, between inbreath and outbreath, between sun and moon and
between creation and dissolution. Abhinavagupta devotes the sixth
chapter of his Tantraloka to the spiritual process called “the way of
Time”, kƗlƗdhvan, which incorporates the processes of breath with
units and divisions of time. The concept of ‘way’ (adhvan) refers to a
process in time as well as a practice on breath. At various points, in
the Tantraloka, Abhinavagupta alludes to the existence of a breath-
related practice in Kashmir Saivism by referring to ‘inbreath’ and
‘outbreath’, and ‘sun’ and ‘moon’. Bettina Bäumer further
demonstrates that in Abhinavagupta’s views on breath, time and
consciousness, time and breath are correlatives both in manifestation
and withdrawal. The process of “swallowing time” is a process of
controlling, observing and sublimating breath. The differentiation
between subject and object ceases only when time is thus
“swallowed” through breath. “The aim consists therefore, in
perceiving the entire temporal way (adhvan) in the appearance of one
breath…” 63 Abhinavagupta suggests that “the Yogi whose awareness
is sharpened by the practice of concentration is able to divide his out-
breath and in-breath (aran and apana), significantly called sun and
moon, into minute units, which are equated with periods of cosmic
time.” 64 Abhinavagupta suggests that the Yogi can combine his
outbreath and inbreath in one moment in his mouth. This act of the
integration of breath causes the disappearance of the outer flow of the
air through the nostrils. This is the act of internalising breathing and
the secret of the limiting and dispersing factor of breath is

interconnected in conjunction with the sense of time. The
disappearance of breath through internalisation is the disappearance of
time. The internalisation operates through a ‘gap’ located in between
outbreath and inbreath. In these ‘gaps’ time as movement ceases to
function. The gap between breaths is thus the gateway to experiencing
infinity. Abhinavagupta considered breath as an effective tool to
achieve this state beyond time because the individual sense of
ordinary time can be altered through altering one’s own breathing.
In the Tantraloka, Abhinavagupta describes the Kaladhvan or

“way of Time” thus:
The Yogi who practices this (voluntary) movement of breath devours

it. The gradual withdrawal of breath is the state of the absorption of
Time (kƗlasamkarsana) and when this happens, the one pure
consciousness shines in its fullness, due to the elimination of the
differentiation of knowledge. Thus, since no new movement of breath
arises, the differentiation of knowledge does not occur, which is
generated by the differentiation of time. Knowledge, in fact, is not
fragmented due to the differentiation of the knowable (objects), just
like one who is on top of a mountain (and who sees all things at one
glance), but rather due to the differentiation of time. In its subtle form
this is called the moment. The limit of its subtlety is knowledge,
which is precisely the moment (ksana). 65
When this movement of breath stands still, in this way, Time

itself ceases and at that moment pure consciousness shines forth
without duality in consciousness. We see similar descriptions of this
specific breath-related practice in various Upanishads described in
Chapter two. Abhinavagupta uses the yogic metaphors of sun and
moon for right and left nostril modes as well as for inbreath and
outbreath. There is no evidence of any practice of this kind to be
found in other spiritual traditions in India except Restoration of
Breath, a meditation technique proposed by the Siddha Yoga tradition
of South India.
4.5 Restoration of Breath
In this chapter, I have so far introduced, in the areas of

contemporary critical and philosophical thinking in the West, the links
between time and consciousness and their further interconnections
with breath. Considering breath as a category of meaning and

consciousness is an emerging area of interest and enquiry in the
Western philosophical thinking aiming to identify ‘Air’ as the place of
the birth of the phenomenon of Being experienced through language,
visibility, appearance, human actions and voice. Aristotle dedicated a
volume to breath exploring and enquiring into its presocratic roots.
For Heidegger, breath is “the temporal extension” of Being. Artaud’s
theatricality is non-representational, and is firmly rooted in the actor’s
breathing. Following these views and assumptions about breath,
leading figures in contemporary Western philosophical thinking, like
Jacques Derrida and Luce Irigaray investigate the phenomenon of
breath in order to explain the nature of human consciousness.
Derrida’s ‘Air’ is the source of the linguistic temporality of ever
present textual meanings, but Irigaray goes beyond this linguistic split
onto the level of “the origin of the autonomous existence”. By
considering breath as a new category of philosophical thinking, both
Derrida and Irigaray represent a crucial epistemological shift in the
West. However, what is missing in this fascinating philosophical
thinking is a system that explains the ways in which breath functions
in the psycho-physicality of human embodiment in order to
understand, consider and establish nostril operations as a category of
human cognition. The question I would like to ask here is this: are
there any systems of knowledge which offer substantial understanding
of the role of breath in the development of individual consciousness.
While there are numerous practises of meditation and Yoga that

have their origins in India, those relating specifically to using breath
as a tool for developing altered states of consciousness are rare. They
are kept hidden from the general public for ethical reasons: these
techniques are very powerful, with an immediate impact on the body
of anyone who practises them. The Siddha Yoga tradition is an
unusual combination of Saivite spirituality and the practical
knowledge of yogic breathing techniques of ancient India passed
down through a lineage of Siddhas. Siddha Yoga cannot be reduced to
a canon of textual or oral resources, or a fixed set of teachings, though
it certainly makes use of texts and teachings. It is purely a practice-
based approach, the practice based on breath. The word Siddha means
the one who attained siddhi, or extraordinary powers. Thus the word
Siddha means the person who has attained or accomplished these
powers. Siddha Yoga of South India offers a clear system through

which we can understand the dynamics of breath in the development
of altered states of consciousness. The method in question is called
Restoration of Breath.
The restoration of breath is a practice-related term. On one level,

it explains the ways in which certain performative qualities like
psycho-physical energy level, concentration, balance, neutrality and
focus could be achieved in the body through training. On another
level, it clarifies the existence of the higher states of human
consciousness experienced within the body. Both of these can be
explored through some specific modes of nostril operations and
through the internalisation of breathing. The restoration of breath is a
technique and a breath-related practice through which one can totally
internalize the respiratory function in order to explore physical and
mental presence in training and performance.
According to Siddha Yoga, the human respiratory system operates

through three paths: left, right and middle. The operating nostril
changes intermittently from left to right and right to left during any
period of twenty-four hours and in each persistent changeover breath
stays in the middle path. The interplay between these three paths of
breathing maintains the entire psycho-physical balance of the human
organism and therefore, understanding the ways in which breath is
controlled and manipulated within the system will offer a perfect
control over the whole psycho-physical system. Many of the crucial
physiological and psychological experiences of the body from sexual
orgasm to birth and death are profoundly interconnected with the
dynamics of breath.
The right nostril, being solar or heating in character increases

acidic secretions, whereas the left nostril, being lunar or cooling
increases alkaline secretions. Therefore, the nostril operations
automatically change according to the chemical level of the body in
order to maintain the psycho-physical balance. The nostrils influence
the body chemistry in different ways. Both the right and the left
nostrils are connected with the opposite sides of the cerebral
hemispheres and the olfactory lobe. Moreover, the nose is in direct
contact with the hypothalamus by its link with the olfactory lobe of
the brain. The hypothalamus regulates body temperature, which

influences the mental processes and emotional states. The
hypothalamus is a part of the limbic system and that part of the brain
associated with emotions and motivations. Nostrils, by means of the
process of respiration, are connected with neuromotor responses and
therefore, with the autonomic nervous system. These neuromotor
responses influence the hemispheres of the brain and activate their
chemical functions. Neurotransmitters are the brain’s chemical
messengers and they influence all body functions, including
temperature, blood pressure, hormone levels and regular circadian
rhythms. It is clear from this medical explanation that human
breathing is related to the entirety of psycho-physical being. Siddha
Yoga offers some specific techniques by which you can change the
nostril operations at any moment of time to maintain the energy level
of the day. One example of this follows: Sit in a comfortable position,
cross-legged and then hold your both toes in a specific sitting position
and pull your toes in both sides. You can open your both nostrils by
this technique. This nostril mode is called middle path. There is a
large hidden territory of knowledge and practice based on these nostril
operations. 66
This middle path is normally understood as the source of vital

energy and sometimes more than that. Middle path breathing occurs
naturally in the human body:
1) In the intermittent intervals between changeovers of the daily

breathing.
2) At a heightened point of the transformational experience of

the sexual act. (Breath is internalized in this act and
therefore, the body is more focused and vitally charged than
any other daily behaviour).
3) When a person is in deep sleep (the disappearance of the

notion of the self in sleep is associated with middle path
breathing).
4) As the last breath a person takes before death.

Human breathing will be centralised and mostly internalised when

there are intense experiences in life like sexual intercourse, deep sleep
and death. Restoration of breath, as a technique uses the middle path
breathing to internalise breathing intentionally to achieve Samadhi, a
state of pure consciousness. Middle path breathing as internalisation
goes beyond experiencing the daily mode of time. Middle path
breathing or sushumna in yogic terms, in this sense, destroys the
individual consciousness of daily modes of time while extending it
into timeless infinity. According to the Sangitaratnakara, the vital
breath moving through the left and right nostrils indicates the
movement of time, but the middle path breathing, the susumna,
destroys time (153 c-155b). 67 The disappearance of the normal
breathing through nostrils through internalisation and the
disappearance of time (kala), according to the Sangitaratnakara arise
from a particular use of breathing technique, which is the rise of
internalised breath from the lower tip of the vertebral column up to the
thousand-petalled cerebral aperture. As the text further says, “the
‘duality’ ceases and there is only oneness in consciousness… [in
which] time transcends in eternity.” 68 In my research, this technique
can only be explained through the Restoration of breath.
Restoration of breath is an approach to breath. It denotes a

particular system of breathing. It invokes an upward and downward
movement of breath within the internal channels without any outward
trace: the two other nostril modes, the left and the right are absent
when you re-store breath. There is a constant flow of air within the
internal system, but it is not perceptible to the sensory perceptions of
an observer. In this sense, you cannot feel and measure the outer flow
of the air when restoration of breath is in operation. Restoration of
breath is the sole base of the Siddha Yoga practice of meditation,
which is introduced by Swami Shivananda Paramhamsa. 69
Restoration of breath is part of twenty-four patterns of sequential

breathing known as Gati, which literally means directions. This
system offers twenty-four patterns of breath directions consisting
mostly of the sounds of birds and animals, which vibrate at different
parts of the body. Out of these twenty-four patterns, eighteen are to do
with a convenient sitting position and the remaining 6 are to do with
bodily movements. Both are intended to create very high energy levels
in the body. This breathing system is practised by people who belong

to the Siddha lineage. 70 Restoration of breath is said to be the practice
through which the state of Samadhi or pure consciousness is attained.
Let me explain the system through the following drawings. Each line
describes six distinct patterns of breathing. The directions of the
breath’s flow are marked by arrows. Here is the first line with the first
set of patterns.
Siddha Yoga prescribes that the first set of six patterns of

breathing is to be practised for one hour in the morning from 3am to
4am, with ten minutes for each pattern of breathing.
The second set of another six patterns is to be practiced between

12 noon to 1pm every day, also with 10 minutes for each pattern of
breath.
The third set also consists of 6 patterns of breathing, which is to

be practised from 7.30pm to 8.30 pm every day. The eighteen patterns of
breathing illustrated in the above three lines or sets are to be carried out
only in a sitting position.
The fourth and the final set also includes six patterns of breathing,
however, they can only be carried out along with movements. This is
called nadanam or the dance, also known as the dance of Shiva in
delight in which breathing co-exists with movements. According to
Guru Rajendra Siddha Yogi, this is a state of absolute ‘solitude’ with
the ‘delight’ of ‘dancing’ united in a single thread of awareness in
which the bodily activities are profoundly focused and breath is
properly internalised, which eventually alters level of consciousness.
Bharata’s idea of Shiva as the first dancer and Brahma as the creator
of the art of acting suggests the co-existence of meditation and
performance as aspects of a single awareness which is the unity of
consciousness. Nadanam, the dance, the fourth set, has to be practiced
at the end of each set of patterns from one to three at 4am, 1pm and
8.30pm. Siddha Yoga strongly suggests that the internalisation of
breathing through the restoration of breath is the fundamental
technique to achieve highest form of human consciousness.
How does the practice of restoration of breath affect body, mind

and consciousness? Body and mind are not two separate entities
according to Siddha Yoga. Rather, these are considered as material
elements presented in the body through respiration of breath. Breath is
the physical counterpart of mind. All sensory and motor functions of
the body are performed with the help of breath. Thus, breath is mind
in action: the movement of breath is the movement of the body as well
as that of the mind. The body is the basis of all experiences and the
mind is something which is experienced in the body. Similarly, our
knowledge of the world is experienced through the physical faculties
of perception and the psychological functions of memory and re-
cognition. Thus, breath links all psycho-physical functions of the
body. Restoration of breath as a technique of internalising breath
through the middle path is a way of understanding the existence of an
altered level of individual awareness in which the aspects of knowing,
knowledge and the knower are properly united.
Middle path breathing refers to a shift in time. The left and right
path breathing suggest a conventional pattern of human respiration
and a conventional sense of daily time. The middle path breathing,
however, creates a shift in our daily perception and experience of
time, through creating an infinite cosmic space and a different sense of
time within. The daily modes of consciousness can be altered through
middle path breathing by altering the mode of perceiving time.
Restoration of breath is a movement upward and downward through
the middle path which incorporates or unifies the other two modes,
left and right, to create a timeless sense of infinitude and a field of
vital energy within. This act of internalisation creates a shift in the
individual perception of ordinary time by incorporating left and right
nostril modes. In other words, the disappearance of left and right
nostril modes brings a crucial shift in the individual’s sense of time.

Restoration of breath offers a technique to abandon the normal
respiration using left and right nostrils. Breath is the physical
counterpart of time incorporated in individual consciousness, and any
shift taking place in the ordinary modes of breathing certainly will
change the field of consciousness. Restoration of breath in this sense
is a technical device invented to allow the practitioner to go beyond
ordinary space-time parameters to change the state of consciousness,
from daily to extra-daily, where extra-daily implies a higher state of
consciousness, as discussed at the beginning of this chapter.
4.6 Performing Breath: Santarasa
Abhinavagupta introduced santarasa, firstly, as an extension of

his philosophical enquiries in the field of theatre and secondly, as an
explanation of his spiritual practice, which is based on the Tantric
Saivism of Kashmir. Let us look at the concept and the consciousness
background of santarasa. According to the Samkhya theory of
pancham-kosha, the knowing self consists of five layers: annamaya
kosa (the gross anatomical base), pranamaya kosa (the breath base),
manomaya kosa (the emotive base), vijnanamaya kosa (the knowledge
base) and finally, the anandamaya kosa (the delight base). All sensory
perceptions, passive or active, filter through these various layers.
Knowledge is the source of ananda, the joy or delight, according to
the Indian theory of cognition; knowledge arising from experience has
the potential of altering the conditions of knowing the Self from the
narrow boundaries of the daily perceptual realities. Anandamayakosa,
the delight base, is regarded as the highest state of individual
consciousness and to enable an experience of this ananda, the delight,
is the purpose of both art and spirituality. Turiya and rasa, in this
sense, are regarded as the same experience of a higher state of
consciousness experienced through the practices of meditation or art.
The transformation of consciousness towards altered states

through perception and experience of the perceiver is the most focused
area of debate in Indian aesthetics. Abhinavagupta describes this
process by using a phrase sattva-udreka, which means the ‘arising of
sattva’- the arising of pure essence. 71 He explains it as a state of
equanimity beyond perception, emotion and knowledge, and further
explains it as an altered state of consciousness, which forms the basis

of his santa rasa, a state of pure experience beyond contemplation.
Being in this state is ananda and the ultimate goal of art, according to
Indian aesthetic views, is to bring this experience to the ‘beholders’.
In Sankara, the great seventh century commentator of Advaita
Vedanta, we see the philosophical implications of this concept
presented in two of his compositions called Saundaryalahari (The
Ecstasy of Beauty) and Anandalahari (The Ecstasy of Delight).
Anandalahari consists of forty-one verses discussing the issues of
intellect and spirit whereas Saundaryalahari describes aspects of
female beauty in detail through fifty-nine verses. While describing the
beauty of Tripurasundari, the female goddess of the Sakti cult,
Sankara transfigures the extreme physical beauty into devotion, an
equanimity of a different kind. Sankara evokes lust but the entire
focus is to bring the divine, and this is the basic idea from which
Abhinavagupta develops his theory on santa rasa.
Bharata mentions eight rasas in the Natyasastra as the erotic,

comic, pathetic, furious, heroic, terrible, odious and marvellous.
Abhinavagupta adds a ninth rasa.
Santa, which has sama for its sthayibhava, leads to moksha, arises
from vibhavs such as knowledge of the truth, detachment, purity of
mind etc. It should be acted out by the anubhava such as yama and
niyama, meditation on the Self, concentration of the mind on the self
(dharana), devotion (upasana), compassion towards all creatures, and
the wearing of religious paraphernalia (lingagrahana). …Santarasa
has been taught as a means to the highest happiness. It arises from a
desire to secure the liberation of the Self and leads to knowledge of
the truth. ..Santarasa is that state wherein one feels the same towards
all creatures, wherein there is no pain, no happiness, no hatred and no
envy. Santa is one’s natural state of mind (prakrti). Other emotions
such as love etc. are deformations of that original state. 72
This illustration of the nature of santarasa clearly establishes the

links between rasa, aesthetic delight, and pure consciousness. The
level of consciousness experienced in santarasa is equivalent to
Turiya or pure consciousness. Perhaps one difference might be that
the experience of rasa enabled for the spectator during a performance
is lost when the spectator returns to ordinary life after the
performance ends, whereas Turiya is permanent; repeated exposure to
the experience of rasa, however, should help develop higher states of

consciousness and, the eventually permanent experience of Turiya.
Sankara and Abhinavagupta emphasise a similar kind of a

higher state of consciousness as the goal of spiritual practice as well as
the practice of art. A parallel reading of Sankara and Abhinavagupta
in the context of Advaita philosophy and art will certainly offer new
insights into the issues of consciousness and rasa. According to
Sankara, the yogi combines the mundane and divine into samadhi, a
state of modified consciousness of non-dual existence. It is a state of
freedom from the bondages of temporal limitations of here and now.
As William M. Indich examines the Advaita model of consciousness,
two approaches, theoretical and practical, exist in understanding the
higher states of consciousness (Indich 2000, 65). The theoretical
approach shows the interiorization and unification of consciousness
and the practical approach suggests the methods to achieve that level
of experience. Advaita offers the theoretical understanding and Yoga
offers the practical methods. Sankara’s and Abhinavagupta’s
philosophies and aesthetic views combined these elements and
became one of the most developed traditions of thought in Indian
philosophy. According to this view, performance became a form of
meditation by exploring santarasa because santa as a rasa refers to a
neutral state of consciousness placed within the ‘gap’ between
inbreath and outbreath. In chapter 3, I described breath-related
training available in Kudiyattam with each rasa. In addition to the
material presented there, I checked the breathing of Usha Nangiyar
when she performs santarasa and it was evident that breath disappears
during her acting of santarasa as is the case with restoration of breath
technique in Siddha Yoga.
Summary
Consciousness can be understood as patterns of spatio-

temporal relations operating within the fields of human cognition
through individual perception and experience. Consciousness, in this
ordinary sense, is the awareness of the stream of events passing
through individual perception, which is embedded in spatio-temporal
parameters. The term repetition clearly establishes the fundamental
links between time and consciousness in the acts of reading including
literary and artistic representations. There are further levels of

individual consciousness that are presented by Plotinus as a merging
into timeless infinitude in which individual mind, ego, object worlds
and subject-object cognition all drop away. Advaita Vedanta
philosophy of India and various yogic traditions offer various models
of this higher level of individual development. In most of these fully
developed systems of thought, consciousness appears as the state of
awareness beyond the level of ordinary time. This state is explained as
the ‘timeless infinitude’ or a state in which ‘silence co-exists with
activity’. In Kashmir Saivism, breath, time and consciousness are
interconnected in the sense that breath is the physical counterpart of
time and by altering this flow of breath/time a ‘gap’ in the stream of
consciousness can be created, which is, largely, explained as the
timeless infinitude and the ‘outside’ of perception and meaning.
Siddha Yoga of South India, particularly, offers a practice called
Restoration of Breath through which this ‘gap’ can be identified as an
extension or alteration of daily consciousness. This ‘gap’ is located in
between inbreath and outbreath, and outbreath and inbreath.
Restoration of breath is a technique to identify and explore this ‘gap’
located in the physical flow of breath/time. Finally, Santarasa
produces a similar level of consciousness in performance and
practices of this can be found in Kudiyattam.
The chapter, therefore, suggests that performance and meditation

are two psychophysical techniques that alter individual consciousness
in different ways in order to experience the same level of
consciousness which exists beyond the ordinary spatio-temporal
dimensions of waking and dreaming states of consciousness. The
chapter, thus, concludes that breath being the physical counterpart of
time present in the body is an effective tool, initially, to explore actors
dormant energy level of the body and secondly, to alter the field of the
awareness of consciousness from daily to extra-daily. Cessation of
breath, on the contrary, creates pause in this flow of the endless
identification of signifiers. When breath stops time stops. When time
stops there is a ‘gap’ in the chain of the presence of signifiers that we
experience as daily. This ‘gap’ is a different perceptual modality,
which is neutral in Zero velocity. It accelerates without succession and
vibrates without movement. It is an alteration of consciousness, and
any alteration of consciousness, intentional or unintentional, causes
alteration in normal breathing. Breathing modes and patterns change

according to the emotional and physical activities that we carry out in
our daily life. This means that any intentional alteration of breathing,
on the other hand, can alter individual consciousness: Restoration of
Breath is a practical approach to this psychophysical experience of
consciousness in which time exists only in eternity and void beyond
memory and meaning.
Notes
1
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Consciousness_studies:_The_description_of_
consciousness> (consulted September 5, 2007)
2
Ibid., p. 1.
3
Peter Malekin and Ralph Yarrow, Consciousness, Literature and Theatre:
Theory and Beyond, (London: Macmillan, 1997) p. 34.
4
Peter Malekin, “ Performance and Consciousness as Freedom” in
Performing Arts International, vol.1, part, 4. p. 93-94.
5
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Consciousness_studies:_The_description_of_
consciousness> (consulted September 5, 2007)
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Ralph Yarrow, Indian Theatre: Theatre of Origin, Theatre of Freedom, (London:
Curzon, 2001), p. 5
10
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jane_Roberts> (consulted September 5, 2007).
11
Peter Malekin and Ralph Yarrow, Consciousness, Literature and Theatre:
Theory and Beyond, (London: Macmillan, 1997) p. 37.
12
Ibid., p. 38.
13
Ibid., p. 38.
14
Ibid., p. 38.
15
Peter Malekin, “Performance and Consciousness as Freedom” in Performing Arts
International, vol.1, part, 4. p. 97.
16
Ibid., p. 97.
17
K.P. Narayana Pisharoti, (tr.), Bharatamuniyude Natyasastram, vol.1, (Trichur:
Kerala Sahitya Akademi, 1987) p. 79. This edition of the book is only available in
Malayalam, the regional language of Kerala and I use this for my references for the
entire thesis. The author has translated the book directly from the various available
Sanskrit manuscripts to the regional language. Since the author can not read or write
English, he was not influenced by other editions translated in English. So, this edition
is an authentic version of The Natyasastra available in Sanskrit.
18
Peter Malekin, “Performance and Consciousness as Freedom” in Performing Arts
International, vol.1, part, 4. p. 98. What Malekin explains here is the concepts of
Nada and Bindu presented elaborately in various classical Indian texts of spirituality
and mysticism. Nada, the sound emerges from Bindu, the static infinitude, and space
and time are born out of this subtle exploration. See ch.2 for further details.
19
Ralph Yarrow, “Neutral Consciousness in the experience of Theatre” in Mosaic
(Summer 1986) p. 2.
20
Ibid., p. 3.
21
Ibid., p. 8.
22
Ibid., p. 8.
23
Ibid., p. 9.
24
Ibid., p. 9.
25
Ibid., p. 10.
26
Ibid., p. 11.
27
Ibid., p. 11.
28
Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Consciousness and The Actor, (Frankfurt: Peter Lang,
1996) p. 125-134.
29
Ibid., p. 127.
30
Alexander: 1986, p. 295, in Meyer-Dinkgräfe, 1996, p. 30
31
Alexander, 1989, p. 355, in Ibid., p. 30.
32
Ibid., p. 133.
33
Ibid., p. 133.
34
Quoted in Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Ibid., 1996, p. 133.
35
Ibid., p. 126.
36
Arne Melberg, Theories of Memesis, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), p. 141.
37
Ibid., p. 23.
38
Gerald F. Else, Plato and Aristotle on Poetry, (Chapel Hill: NC, 1986), p. 74.
39
Arne Melberg, Theories of Mimesis, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), p. 44-45.
40
Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, tr. K. McLaughlin & D. Pellaure, (Chicago
University Press, 1984), vol. 1, p. 31.
41
Ibid, p. 3.
42
Kierkegaard, Repetition: An Essay in Experimental Psychology, tr. Walter Lowrie,
(New York: Evanston & London: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 33.
43
Michael Foucault, “Theatrum Philosophicum” in Timothy Murray, (ed.) Mimesis,
Masochism and Mime: The Politics of Theatricality in Contemporary French
Thought, (Michigan University Press, 1997), p. 216-238.
44
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, ( London: Continuum, 2001), p. 8-16.
45
Ibid., p. 16.
46
Luce Irigaray, The forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger, (London: Athlone, 1999),
p. 164.
47
Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics,(tr.) Ralph Manheim, (New
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), p,4.
48
Luce Irigaray, The forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger, (London: Athlone, 1999),
p. 8-9
49
Ibid., p. 11.
50
Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, (London: Calder, 1989), p. 93.
51
Ibid., p. 89.
52
Ibid., p. 93.
53
Ibid., p. 92.
54
See Chapter two for further details.
55
Ibid., p. 92.
56
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, c.f. Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Consciousness and the
Actor, ( Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1996), p. 153
57
Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, (London: Calder, 1989), p. 95.
58
See Chapter three for more details.
59
Bettina Bäumer, “Sun, Consciousness and Time: The way of Time and the Timeless
in Kashmir Saivism” in Kapila Vatsyayan, ed. Concept of Time Ancient and Modern,
(New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 1996) p. 73-77.
60
Tantraloka: VII. 62-63
61
Ibid., p. 73.
62
TAI, VI. 179-180.
63
L. Silburn, Hymnes aux Kali, Paris, 1975, p. 50.
64
Bettina Bäumer, p. 75
65
Tantraloka: VII.21-25
66
See Chapter two for more details
67
K.R. Shringy and Prem Lata Sharma, (tr.), Sangitaratnakara of Sarngadevs, vol.1,
(New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1991), p. 102.
68
Ibid., p. 102.
69
See Chapter 2.5.3 for the detailed description of the practice
70
See Chapter two section 2.5 for more details.
71
Haresh V. Dehejia, Makarand Paranjape, (ed.) Saundarya: The Perception
and Practice of Beauty in India. New Delhi: Samvad India Foundation,
2003. p. 9.
72
quoted in Meyer-Dinkgräfe, 1996. p. 145.
Conclusion
The point of departure for my argument in this book was the desire
to explore the role of breath in relation to acting and actor training. I
identified the need for this discussion from the insight that while many
philosophers and theatre artists note the importance of the human body
for life in general and in the contexts of performativity, theatricality,
performance and theatre in particular, only very few note the relevance
of one particular aspect of the body: breath. Related to that insight is
my unique access, through my family, to specific aspects of Indian
traditional knowledge that are explicitly related to breath. In Chapter
one I demonstrated how the related concepts of performativity and
theatricality are bound to notions of embodiment, but predominantly
without reference to breath. The writings of Irigaray and Artaud are the
exceptions. Chapter one concluded that breath in relation to theatre
needs further attention. In Chapter two I described in detail how
selected and relevant schools of thought in the West and in the East
understand, describe and define breath. In Chapter three I analysed to
what extent, if at all, different Western and Eastern approaches to actor
training integrate breath-related techniques and how breath has been
excluded in the major system of actor training in contemporary theatre.
In Chapter four, I finally related techniques of breath to states and
levels of consciousness and discussed how breath related techniques in
the context of theatre can serve to develop altered states of
consciousness. Below I will now summarise my findings.
Restoration of Breath, as an ancient technique found in the South

Indian Siddha tradition, offers a clear and concrete understanding of
breath as the key material element in the body. As such, breath is a
transformative tool to extra-daily alterations in human consciousness. I
have discussed the importance of breath in relevant performance,
medical and spiritual schools and systems of traditional knowledge in
India: the Upanishads, Yoga, Tantra, Ayurveda and Marma medicine.
As a result of this discussion, breath is now understood as a psycho-
physical tool, which is capable to alter the individual consciousness
from daily to extra-daily. In the Tantraloka, for example,
Abhinavagupta establishes the link between breath and consciousness
by introducing the concept of KƗla, time. Traditional Indian
philosophical thinking thus establishes the role of breath: breath
194 Conclusion
represents the link between time and consciousness. Nostril modes

change according to the type of the mental state and emotional texture.
Similarly, the quality of individual awareness can also be changed by
employing specific breathing techniques. According to South Indian
Siddha tradition, these alterations of breathing are a vital source of
energy transformations in the body firstly because breath is the vital
substance of the body and therefore, vital physical energy can be
manipulated by exploring breath. Secondly, nostril modes are
connected to the individual’s consciousness in the context of time;
therefore, Siddha Yoga suggests systematic approaches to changing
nostril modes in order to access an extra-daily sense of consciousness
which is also named as samadhi or turiya, pure consciousness: this
level of consciousness is beyond the daily sense of time. In this lies the
significance of restoration of breath as a psycho-physical technique.
The complete internalization of breathing called restoration of breath
is further to the twenty-four patterns explained in Chapter Four, and a
careful application of this technique creates a state of absolute
coordination between mind and body by stepping out of the daily sense
of time. Restoration of Breath, in this sense, offers a closure, an
epistemological understanding and a practical approach, to the issues
of mind-body duality in the contemporary debate.
Abhinavagupta established the links between breath and pure

consciousness in Tantraloka as the highest state of spiritual
achievement. He refers to a term kƗlƗdhvan, which is a technique
through which pure consciousness can be experienced.
Abhinavagupta’s descriptions of the technique in Tantraloka do not
seem to be offering any clear idea about the practice. However, my
research shows that kƗlƗdhvan and restoration of breath are referring
to a similar practice of internalising breath. Another reason for this
conclusion is historical, in the sense that both the techniques,
kƗlƗdhvan and restoration of breath, come from the Siva spiritual
tradition. Abhinavagupta also introduced santarasa as the final state of
acting rasa in a performance situation. As we see in Chapter four,
Abhinavagupta explained santarasa as the rising of pure
consciousness. On the basis of Sankara’s Advaita Vedanta philosophy,
Abhinavagupta explains Santarasa as a state of equanimity beyond
perception, emotion and knowledge. Santarasa, in this sense, is an
altered state of pure experience beyond contemplation. I cannot find
Conclusion 195
any evidence that Abhinavagupta establishes a link between santarasa

and breath as he does with pure consciousness and breath. However,
Kudiyattam offers examples of the links between breath and santarasa.
I have provided a detailed description of how Kudiyattam incorporates
breathing techniques in training and performance in Chapter three: rasa
acting in Kudiyattam shows the systematic applications of breath in
acting. Breath is also applied to eye training in Kudiyattam. In this
context, I have also demonstrated the origins of Svara-vayu, a highly
important technique which incorporates breath in acting in Kudiyattam
which has been lost in the course of time in Indian music and Siddha
Veda traditions.
In this book I have not discussed the potential significance of

restoration of breath and the breath-related training methods of
Kudiyattam for future actor training. This is mainly because that
research requires practice-based laboratory work investigating
traditional material, restoration of breath and Kudiyattam, and their
effects in training the body-mind of a contemporary actor. This book is
only the beginning of a long-term research project that will establish a
new phase in contemporary actor training—consciousness-related actor
training.
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Websites:
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Restoration of Breath

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007

1.1 Theatricality and Performativity 11

Chapter Three 119

I would like to thank Dr. Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, who supervised

The first chapter explores theatre as a form of performativity and

Having established, in principle, the relevance of the body for

Breath is prana in Sanskrit. The theoretical and practical aspects of

The focus of Chapter three is the question of what, if any, of the

The first three chapters of the book demonstrate the relevance of

serve the purpose of explaining the relationship between

The intention of this chapter is to locate breath in the current

1.1 Theatricality and Performativity

The concept of lila proposed by the Vedanta school of Indian

From current discussion of theatricality, we can derive,

1. The fundamental characteristics of the production

2. The essential performance qualities of any dramatic

Contemporary philosophers and theatre critics have employed the

Willmar Sauter argues that the term theatrical is widely used to

Erika Fisher-Lichte edited a range of articles in Theatre Research

Theatricality may be defined as a particular mode of using signs or as

conditions, “theatricality,” in the end, appears to be no more than a

Her emphasis is on a process of communication between presence

Conceptualising theatricality as a process of communication,

In the following sections, I use the word performativity, rather

1.2 Performance Categories of Performativity

The concepts and categories of performativity, particularly in a

The concept of performativity is widely used in contemporary

between the meaning and the performance of any text.” 13 In Austin,

Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented or otherwise

In this sense, performance occurs over a time that cannot be

Conferring a metaphoric meaning onto the notion of

concept in order to develop the idea of performativity as a critical

The second definition of performativity is descriptive. It is mainly

The third definition of performativity is binary; its key proposition

twentieth century, the conventional role assigned to theatre as a place

The fourth category of performativity Sauter discusses is epochal:

1. as part of the performance on stage

He emphasises the “necessity of the physical presence of both the

between presence and perception constitutes the basic configuration of

1.2.2 Enacted Performativity

Physical enactment is another key aspect to performativity. Sauter

1. Exhibitory actions: physical presence showing the individual

2. Encoded actions: the actions that suggest expressive

3. Embodied actions: Exhibitory and encoded actions do not

Sauter’s primary concern in this classification of the physical

1.2.3 Reception and Performativity

Audience reception is considered as a key theatrical category of

1) reflections of prior experiences

Cognitive processes take place and intermingle with emotions in a

From a spectator’s point of view, prior experiences produce

Cognition and emotions are the major components of an

1. automatic responses that are gradually processed into

Theatrical experience, then, is the interplay between emotional

According to Sauter’s classification, there are three modes of

Performativity, as a concept, refers to this ‘play of ambivalence’

Our understanding of space, time and the objective world is

The functional definition tries to bridge the gap between these

According to Ittelson’s classification, the functional definition