Manipura: The Solar Plexus Chakra in Tantra, Yoga and History

Manipura (Sanskrit maṇipūra, "city of jewels") is the third of the six centres of the classical tantric chakra system, a ten-petalled lotus at the navel that belongs to the element fire. In the Ṣaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa (1577), as translated by John Woodroffe, it is a lotus the colour of dark rain-clouds containing a red triangle of fire, the seed syllable raṃ riding a ram, the god Rudra and the goddess Lākinī; its modern identity as the yellow "solar plexus chakra" of willpower and self-esteem is a twentieth-century Western development.

Name and Meaning of Manipura§

The name joins maṇi, "jewel" or "gem", with pūra, which can mean "city" or "filled". It is therefore rendered either "city of jewels" or "full of jewels", and commentators explain it by the brilliance of the lotus, which shines like a gem because of the fire within it. Many hatha and tantric texts use the plain name nābhi-cakra, "navel wheel", or the variant maṇipūraka.

In the standard six-centre series Manipura is the third counting upward, the centre of fire between the water of Svadhisthana below and the air of Anahata above.

Place in the Body: The Navel§

The Ṣaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa, the sixteenth-century work of the Bengali teacher Pūrṇānanda, places the lotus inside the central channel at the root of the navel, above Svadhisthana. The English name "solar plexus chakra" reflects a later attempt to match the chakras with nerve plexuses of Western anatomy, a correlation explored by Woodroffe and by the Indian physician Vasant Rele, whose The Mysterious Kundalini (1927) identified the chakras with plexuses of the nervous system. That matching was speculative then and remains so. The broader story is told in the history of the chakras.

Classical treatises describe concentration on the navel among the dhāraṇā exercises of yoga, and the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali (3.29 in the usual numbering) says that by focused meditation on the navel wheel the yogi gains knowledge of the body's arrangement, an early use of the word cakra for a point in the body. Later traditions surrounded such concentration with mantra, visualisation and the authority of a teacher. Practices that work with breath and abdominal locks were traditionally taught gradually and under guidance, and the hatha texts themselves warn that forcing the breath can cause illness.

The Lotus: Petals, Syllables and Bija§

Manipura has ten petals, described in the text as the colour of heavy, rain-laden clouds. On them stand ten letters, ḍaṃ, ḍhaṃ, ṇaṃ, taṃ, thaṃ, daṃ, dhaṃ, naṃ, paṃ and phaṃ, coloured like the blue lotus, each crowned with the nasal dot. The ten letters continue the sequence of the Sanskrit alphabet distributed across the six lotuses, which together carry all fifty sounds of the language.

Inside the lotus lies the triangular region of fire, shining like the rising sun, with three svastika marks on its outer sides, an ancient Indian sign of auspiciousness that long predates its twentieth-century misuse in Europe. The seed syllable (bīja) of fire is raṃ. In the visualisation it is red and seated on a ram, the animal mount of Agni, the Vedic god of fire. The triangle is the standard tantric diagram for fire, as the square stands for earth and the crescent for water in the two centres below.

Element, Deity and Shakti§

Fire (agni or tejas) is the third of the five elements. In Indian natural philosophy it is associated with heat, light, transformation and the sense of sight, and in the body with digestion: Ayurvedic and yogic texts speak of the "fire of the belly" (jaṭharāgni) that cooks and transforms food. The location of a fire centre at the navel thus matched an existing understanding of the body as well as the ritual logic of the elements.

The god of the lotus is Rudra, the ancient and fierce form of Śiva. The Ṣaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa pictures him in the lap of the fire syllable as an old god, vermilion in colour but whitened with sacred ash, three-eyed, his hands making the gestures that grant boons and dispel fear, and seated on a bull. After Brahmā the creator in Muladhara and Viṣṇu the preserver in Svadhisthana, Rudra completes the classical triad as the power of dissolution. His wider worship is described in Shaivism.

The goddess of the centre is Lākinī. She is dark-bodied, with three faces each bearing three eyes, and four arms: two hold the thunderbolt and the fiery weapon of Agni, while the other two make the gestures of boon-granting and fearlessness. She is dressed in yellow and adorned with ornaments. The text closes its description by praising the meditator on this lotus as gaining the power to destroy and create the world, with the goddess of speech and knowledge dwelling in his mouth, a conventional statement of the fruits (phala-śruti) of the practice.

In the bhūta-śuddhi ritual and in the account of Kuṇḍalinī's ascent, Manipura is the stage at which water is dissolved into fire, and fire is in turn offered upward into the air of the heart. The navel is also the seat of samāna, the breath that equalises and digests, one of the five vital winds discussed in the article on nadis, prana and the subtle body.

How the Texts Differ§

The navel is one of the few centres that almost every Indian and Tibetan system recognises, though they describe it very differently.

Buddhist tantra§

In the Buddhist Hevajra Tantra and the Tibetan practices derived from it, the navel holds the "emanation wheel" (nirmāṇa-cakra), commonly described with sixty-four channels or petals. It is the place where the inner fire of caṇḍālī (Tibetan gtum mo) is kindled and rises to melt the drop of nectar at the crown, the central technique of the Six Yogas of Nāropa. These practices are discussed in Vajrayana Buddhism.

Nath and hatha yoga lists§

Within hatha yoga, the navel region is closely linked with the kanda, the egg-shaped bulb from which, according to several texts, the channels of the body radiate, though the texts disagree about whether it lies below or at the navel. The Haṭhayogapradīpikā also pictures a sun at the navel and a moon at the palate: the moon drips nectar that the sun consumes, causing ageing and death, and certain inverted practices were meant to reverse that flow. The abdominal lift called uḍḍīyāna-bandha is associated with the same region.

The dantian of Chinese internal alchemy§

Outside India, Chinese internal alchemy places its principal "field of elixir", the lower dantian, just below the navel. The resemblance is often noted, but the dantian belongs to a separate Chinese system of thought with its own history and should not be treated as the same thing; see Taoist internal alchemy.

The Modern Western Layer§

Today's popular "solar plexus chakra" is yellow and is said to govern personal power, will, self-esteem, confidence and digestion. C. W. Leadbeater's The Chakras (1927) described a navel or solar-plexus centre of ten "spokes", which he associated with feelings and emotions. C. G. Jung, in his 1932 seminar, likewise read Manipura as the centre of fiery emotion and passion, the region below the diaphragm where people are driven by their desires before the heart opens.

As the article on chakras in the West explains, the yellow colour derives from the 1970s convention of mapping the rainbow onto the seven centres, which placed yellow third. Anodea Judith's books, from Wheels of Life (1987) onward, gave the centre its modern psychological job description: the "right to act", the development of will and autonomy in early childhood, and shame as its characteristic block. Popular systems assign it to the pancreas or adrenal glands and to particular crystals and foods, with considerable variation from author to author. None of this is found in the Sanskrit sources, and there is no scientific evidence that chakras exist as physical structures. The modern synthesis has its own history within the New Age movement and is best read as such.

Frequently asked questions§

What does Manipura mean?§

Maṇipūra means "city of jewels" or "full of jewels", from maṇi ("jewel") and pūra ("city" or "filled"). Commentators explain the name by the gem-like brilliance of the fire within the lotus.

What is the bija mantra of Manipura?§

The seed syllable is raṃ, the mantra of the fire element, visualised in a red triangle and seated on a ram. The ten petals carry the letters from ḍaṃ to phaṃ.

Is Manipura at the navel or the solar plexus?§

The Sanskrit texts place it at the navel and often call it the navel wheel. "Solar plexus" is a later English label based on efforts to match the chakras with nerve plexuses, and modern authors place it anywhere between the navel and the base of the sternum.

Is Manipura the same as the dantian?§

No. Both are centres in the abdomen, but the Chinese lower dantian belongs to Taoist internal alchemy and has a different history, function and vocabulary. The resemblance is a parallel, not an identity.

Sources and further reading§

• The Serpent Power — Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe), 1919
• The Mysterious Kundalini — Vasant G. Rele, 1927
• The Chakras — C. W. Leadbeater, 1927
• The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga — C. G. Jung, ed. Sonu Shamdasani, 1996
• Roots of Yoga — James Mallinson and Mark Singleton, 2017
• The Tantric Body: The Secret Tradition of Hindu Religion — Gavin Flood, 2006
• Tsongkhapa's Six Yogas of Naropa — Glenn H. Mullin (trans.), 1996
• Wheels of Life: A User's Guide to the Chakra System — Anodea Judith, 1987