Śivasaṃhitā 2.17

The verse offers a precise and evocative image: the nāḍīs hold their openings (vaktra) directed downward (adhas) and are situated like the fine inner threads of a lotus flower (padmatantunibhāḥ). This is not decorative language. The lotus filament — gossamer-thin yet structurally integral — conveys both the delicacy and the functional necessity of these subtle channels within the body’s interior architecture.

Adhovaktrāḥ joins adhas (downward, below) with vaktra (mouth, opening). The downward orientation of the channel mouths carries doctrinal weight: the natural tendency of vital energy is to flow downward as apāna, and yogic practice aims to reverse or redirect this current. Padmatantu specifically denotes the internal fibrous threads of the lotus stalk, renowned in Sanskrit literature for their fineness and tensile strength.

The lotus comparison resonates beyond aesthetics. In Tāntric iconography, cakras are represented as lotuses whose petals hang downward before spiritual awakening and open upward afterward. By describing the nāḍīs as lotus filaments, the text situates them within the same symbolic field as the cakra system, suggesting that the subtle body’s channels and centers participate in a unified cosmological grammar of transformation.