pancha-mahabhuta
पञ्च महाभूत panca mahabhutaThe five great elements from which the physical world and the body are composed: earth (prithvi), water (ap), fire (agni/tejas), air (vayu) and space or ether (akasha). At death the body is understood to return to these five sources, a dissolution that cremation completes quickly.
Where this term appears
- What is Ayurveda? Essentials
Ayurveda, literally 'the knowledge of life', is India's classical system of medicine, set out in three great Sanskrit compendia: the Charaka Samhita, the Sushruta…
- Why do Hindus cremate their dead? Essentials
The body is built out of the pancha-mahabhuta , the five great elements: earth, water, fire, air, and akasha , space or ether.
- Bhuta Shuddhi: The Rite That Burns the Body to Ash Lineages
Bhuta shuddhi ('purification of the elements') is the preliminary tantric rite in which the worshipper mentally dissolves their own body, element by element, back…
- The body of the city Treatise
…cuits themselves onto the five gross elements the tradition calls the pancha-mahabhuta , ether and air and fire and water and earth, so that the rings of the pilgrimage become the elemental layers of a body and…
- The Mantra, At Architecture Treatise
…ree different consonants, anchored to three different elements of the pancha mahabhuta - three different lineage-doors into what every lineage holds to be exactly the same room.