Living Landscapes: Meditations on the Five Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas

In Living Landscapes, Christopher Key Chapple looks at the world of ritual as enacted in three faiths of India. He begins with an exploration of the relationship between the body and the world as found in the cosmological cartography of Samkhya philosophy, which highlights the interplay between consciousness (purusa) and activity (prakrti), a process that gives rise to earth, water, fire, air, and space. He then turns to the progressive explication of these five great elements in Buddhism, Jainism, Advaita, Tantra, and Hatha Yoga, and includes translations from the Vedas and the Puranas of Hinduism, the Buddhist and Jain Sutras, and select animal fables from early Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Chapple also describes his own pilgrimages to the Great Stupa at Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado, the five elemental temples (pancamahabhuta mandir) in south India, and the Jaina cosmology complex in Hastinapur. An appendix with practical instructions that integrate Yoga postures with meditative reflections on the five elements is included.