Śivasaṃhitā 3.30

The body as spiritual barometer: the cihnāni (signs, bodily marks) that emerge from nāḍic purification are not subjective experiences but externally verifiable phenomena. The text introduces here an epistemology of yogic progress based on objective somatic evidence. The spiritual path has traffic signs that both practitioner and teacher can recognize without ambiguity.

Cihnāni (signs, indicators) derives from the root cih-, related to marking and signaling. Nāḍiśuddhi — a graphical variant of nāḍīśuddhi — is the cause; the signs are the visible effect. The promise that these practices destroy pāpa (negative action, dark karma) and duḥkha (suffering) situates somatic yoga within the broader soteriological horizon of the Śaiva text.

Medieval Śaiva tradition conceived accumulated karma as physical impurity in the nāḍīs, not merely abstract record in some cosmic ledger. Purifying the channels was literally purifying karma. This materialist view of the spiritual allows the Śivasaṃhitā to offer precise techniques with observable results, unlike the more contemplative systems that would come to dominate later yoga.