Sukshma-Sharira

The subtle body — the nineteen-part apparatus of mind, senses, and vital forces that survives the physical body and transmigrates.

Overview

When Krishna, in 02-13-15, speaks of the embodied one moving from this body into another, what moves is not the atman (which goes nowhere) and not the physical body (which is discarded). What moves is the sukshma-sharira — the subtle body — carrying the impressions and tendencies of a lifetime into the next one.

Swami Sarvapriyananda enumerates its nineteen components:

• 5 sense organs (powers of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching) — not the physical eyes and ears
• 5 motor organs (powers of speech, grasping, locomotion, excretion, reproduction)
• 5 pranas — the vital forces
• 4 antahkarana — manas, buddhi, chitta, ahamkara

At death, the sukshma-sharira “curls up” into a blankness like deep sleep and then, on receiving a new body, unfolds again — but only part of its stored samskaras become active in any given life, depending on karma and environment. This is why prodigies exist, and why the general knowledge of a past life is not available to the newborn child, but tendencies, desires, and proclivities are.

The three sheaths of the subtle body. The sukshma-sharira is also described through the pancha-kosha model as comprising three sheaths:

• pranamaya-kosha — the vital sheath (housing prana)
• manomaya-kosha — the mental sheath (housing manas and chitta)
• vijnanamaya-kosha — the intellect sheath (housing buddhi)

These three together are what distinguishes a living name-and-form from an inert one. A rock has sat (it is) but no subtle body; a person has sat and a subtle body, through which reflected consciousness manifests as first-person awareness.

Related concepts

• sthula-sharira — the gross body, which the subtle body leaves behind
• anatman — the category to which the subtle body belongs
• antahkarana — the four-fold inner instrument at its core
• samskara — the impressions the subtle body carries
• jiva — atman + subtle body = the transmigrating individual

In the Gita

• 02-13-15 — transmigration of the embodied one

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 4 [08:22]: The mind also outlasts the death of the body; it is the subtle body that transmigrates, taking samskaras and vasanas to the next life.
• Ep. 4 [09:00]: Nineteen components — 5 + 5 + 5 + 4.
• Ep. 4 [19:26]: Tendencies and proclivities are what normally get expressed in the next life; specific knowledge generally does not.
• Ep. 6 [73:08]: Subtle body constitutes pranamaya-kosha, manomaya-kosha, vijnanamaya-kosha. Its presence (especially prana) is what distinguishes living from non-living.
• Ep. 6 [76:15]: Physical body borrows only sat; subtle body borrows sat and chit (as chidabhasa). This is why minds appear aware while rocks do not.