kosha
कोश kośaA sheath or covering. The Taittiriya Upanishad describes the self as wrapped in five koshas, from the outer body of food inward to the sheath of bliss.
Where this term appears
- The Subtle Body: Nadis, Chakras, and Kundalini Yoga
It describes the self as five sheaths, the pancha kosha , nested one inside another like the layers of an onion.
- Atman and Brahman Essentials
It describes the pancha-kosha , the five sheaths, that wrap the self: the sheath made of food, then of breath, then of mind, then of understanding, and finally of bliss (Taittiriya 2).
- Who is Parvati? Deities
Out of the kosha , the sheath, the body of Parvati, another goddess steps: Ambika, glorified in the worlds as Kaushiki, "she of the sheath," and it is she who goes down to fight.
- Not This, Not This Treatise
There are five wrappings, five koshas , sheaths, each fitting inside the last like the cases of a nested set, and the teaching leads the student through them from the coarsest to the subtlest.
- The Taittiriya Upanishad: the ladder of selves, from food to bliss Treatise
The word kosha , sheath, by which most readers now know this doctrine, is a later Vedantic label; the Upanishad itself does not use it.
- The Map and the Mirage Treatise
The Taittiriya Upanishad describes the self as wrapped in five koshas : the sheath made of food, the sheath made of breath, the sheath made of mind, the sheath made of understanding, and the sheath made of blis…